DIE RECHNUNG - EISKALT SERVIERT - Peter Thomas - "Tip Not Included" (1966)

If you like movies that are ridiculously absurd as much as I do, then the whole series of Jerry Cotton movies is made to order for you! "Die Rechnung - Eiskalt Serviert" or as it was released in English, "Tip Not Included," is the fourth in the series, and is just as good as the rest!

Once again, the music in "Tip Not Included" was composed by the master of maestros, Peter Thomas! I'd like to see every TV show and movie that Peter has written the music for! I'm sure all 158 are worth the time just to hear whatever amazing score he came up with! The man is a true genius! Here's just a tantalizing and tasty morsel of what he came up with for this film! It's some of the theme, and the song from the club scene, I'm not exactly sure who is really singing!

As always, here's George Nader as F.B.I. agent Jerry Cotton! He's a mean, lean, investigating machine!

THIS.................................................. You get the shaft, but the tip's not included!

Back stage at the wrasslin' matches, a bunch of thugs with colorful names like Caruso and Happy hang out making plans, while Mary the moll does her nails!

I don't know why, but I find these two shots fascinating! I really think I was born to be an architect!

Depending on which version you're watching, Yvonne Monlaur is club torch singer named either Violet or Phyllis! Lovers of Hammer horror will recognize Yvonne from her roles in "The Brides Of Dracula," "Circus Of Horrors," and "The Terror Of The Tongs!"

Here's the plan! Explode the armored truck carrying the goods, and while masked in a cloud of smoke, transfer the stuff to an ambulance hidden in a truck and flee the scene unencumbered!

Time for Jerry to catch up with the gang at the Catch as Catch Can show at the Catcher Center!

Pretty odd, some 47 years later, the Exide battery corporation just filed for bankruptcy last month!

Birke Bruck as the steamy Mary was Doris in "Shock Treatment" and worked steadily right up until 2007 in TV and the movies! Her little shower scene was pretty hot for 1966, and you have to love the fact that she took a shower with her glasses on!

This was Horst ("Whiskey And Sofa," "Gorilla Gang") Tappert as Charles Anderson! Gee, and I thought he was the boss! Guess I was wrong!!

Ride 'em cowboy! Jerry hitches a ride on a helicopter to show off more of the green screen technology that was fundamental in the making of  most of the Jerry Cotton films! You can get all the Jerry Cotton movies on Amazon or directly from Sinister Cinema for a pittance! I can't think of a better way to waste your hard earned cash!

DAS INDISCHE TUCH (The Indian Scarf) - Peter Thomas - "This Is All Nonsense, This Is All Edgar Wallace" (1963)

Although Edgar Wallace is known mostly as a mystery writer, he does play one very, very important part in the big picture of what we know as 'Monster' movies, just because of the fact that "King Kong" was his idea!! Edgar didn't actually write the script because he died while working on it! It just doesn't get much bigger than that! Edgar was a very popular writer and his books took an even bigger upsurge in the 60's, through a series of German films that went from 1959 to 1971! This series of films also helped elevate him to the position of writer with the most books made into movies award!

In 1963 Rialto Films released "Das Indische Tuch" or "The Indian Scarf" directed by the crazy amazing Alfred Vohrer!!

The music is composed by the phenomenal Peter Thomas, whose career spans at least 50 years of brilliance, and includes a number of these Edgar Wallace films! This stuff still stands original to this day!! I did some searching for you, and I couldn't find any Edgar Wallace on Netflix, but there are a number of titles available at Amazon, just in case you need a fix!

This very opulent room really bugs me!!! It's got a stuffed horse, and a giant bust!! What's up with that crap?

This is a very interesting pairing that reminded me a lot of some people you see in the news these days. A rather portly, well-dressed, white haired gentleman, and a younger, decent looking woman with her hair up, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, but it's 45 years ago!! Wow!!

Here is Klaus Kinski in the role of Peter Ross. Klaus had been in 3 or 4 other Edgar Wallace flicks before this, and his career was really getting rolling, but he was already probably getting kinda krazy!

Leave it to the Germans to come up with a whole new take on the 'spying eyes looking through the portait concept!!'

We're going for the big Edgar Wallace one, two punch, so be sure and check back in tomorrow night for the opus "Zimmer 13," or "Room 13." It's a Musical Mystery Monsterpiece way out and beyond compare!!!!

SCHÜSSE AUS DEM GEIGENKASTEN - Peter Thomas - "The Violin Case Murders" (1965)

"Schüsse Aus Dem Geigenkasten" or "The Violin Case Murders" was the first in the series of Jerry Cotton films that started in 1965! For me, it's not the best of the bunch, because they were still figuring things out, but just like every other Jerry Cotton film, it's still a fun watch, no matter what!

The Jerry Cotton series were German films about American places and characters! Kind of like me writing stories about some guy in Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu, Comoros, or Vanuatu!!

Dungeon Super Hero Peter Thomas once again is the guy in charge of the music! Here's a small sample of what he came up with for this film! Besides being an amazing composer, Peter also developed and used on some of his soundtracks an instrument known as the "Thowiephon," an instrument not nearly as well known as it's cousin the Theremin, but just as cool!

"The Violin Case Murders" was also released as the catchy title "Operation Hurricane: Friday Noon," whatever the Hell that's supposed to mean!

Machine gun inside a violin case, hence "Violin Case Murders!" Pretty nifty, eh?

This is a sample of the end-product of an ancient device known as a typewriter! At one time it was as high tech as an 8 track tape player, and just a few steps forward from cave paintings!

The G Men, and the T men, and the Revenuers too, were lookin' for the place they were cookin' up the stew! Time to call Jerry Cotton out of training!

This, my friends, is a genuine Ford tail light!!

Hubba, Hubba, Happy Birthday to me!!

As in all Jerry Cotton films, green screen is used to the hilt! Sometimes hokey, and sometimes to perfection!

Just to show you how classy they are, the Violin Case gang works out of the local bowling alley! Now it's time for Jerry Cotton to try and infiltrate the gang!! This is an awesome shot of George Nader!!

Jerry takes on the persona of a drunk punk to get to the inside of the out crowd!

Next up on the hit list of people to rob is Grandpa Munster! He pisses off the robbers because he hoards all his jewels and doesn't even share the viewing of them with anyone!

Everything about this shot just absolutely screams 1965!!

This is another great shot of George Nader as Jerry Cotton!

Hey, if you're going to carry machine guns around in violin cases, it's a pretty good idea to at least have some sheet music with you as a cover!

It's going to take a lot more than a switchblade to get rid of Jerry Cotton! Remember this was only the first in the series, there were at least seven more to go!

DIE WEISSE SPINNE - Peter Thomas - "The White Spider" (1963)

Bug Kudos to Sinister Cinema for bringing out the series of Edgar Wallace films, "England's Master of Mystery & Horror" at a very reasonable price, and for including titles like "The White Spider" which even though it isn't an Edgar Wallace film, or English, it falls into the category of "And Others He Inspired" quite nicely!

No strangers to the strange world of Edgar Wallace, director Harold Reinl, and writer Egon Eis are able to spin this tale of a mad makeup artist as well as the master himself!! Harold Reinl also directed "Room 13" and the three best Jerry Cotton Movies! Mystery movies just don't get much better than this!!

A staple in German films of this era, Dieter Eppler shines like a bald diamond as the multi-faceted, and multi-faced Summerfield! Eye patch AND sunglasses at night, now that's a wild cat!! Summerfield is a very bad dude, and besides car crashes, he also has a penchant for cable and hangings!

Karin Dor as Muriel Irvine, the tortured widow left behind, made a successful transition from German to U.S. film, with her roles in Alfred Hitchcock's "Topaz" and Ian Fleming's James Bond vehicle, "You Only Live Twice."

Is the little white spider good luck or is it bad luck? Muriel's husband dies in a fiery car crash as he was leaving The Club, but what's really behind the whole thing?

The Germans have their own special ways of dealing with employees that they have a disagreement with!

Meet Horst Frank as Kiddie Phelips, one of the most devious henchmen you don't ever want to meet. He looks harmless enough, but he is a vicious killer! Last time we saw Horst was as crime boss Larry Link in the classic Jerry Cotton feature, "The Traps Snaps Shut At Midnight!"

The last, but definitely not least major player in "The White Spider" is yet another Dungeon iconoclast, Joachim Fuchsberger as just plain ole Ralph Hubbard!

Ralph is literally up to his ears in trouble as the smartass ex-con trying to help Muriel sort out all the problems after her husband's untimely demise!!

The music for "Die Weisse Spinne" was composed by one of the Dungeon's major musical heroes, and all around nice guy, the masestro Peter Thomas! Peter's work is always just one step above the rest, driven by boundless imagination and unpredictable jazzy scores. Besides everything else, he wrote the music for "Raumpatrouille" the German Space Patrol, The Jerry Cotton films, and a score of Edgar Wallace movies. Just a couple of titles we may have never mentioned before are "To Hell With School," "The Mysterious Magician," and "Face Of The Frog!"

Kiddie and Summerfield have a brief disagreement, and Summerfield quickly shows Kiddie who's the boss with one of his cable lasso tricks!

Ever want a cheap but very effective scary ass Halloween mask? Well, don't forget about the old silk stocking over the head routine, it always looks freaky!!

There's also a very mysterious force being emitted by the authorities, and even the local law enforcement can be subject to intense interrogation!

I can't count high enough, so I don't know exactly how many different personas Summerfield takes on during the course of the film, but I'm pretty sure it's more than Tony Randall in "7 Faces Of Dr. Lao!"

Here's even a couple more, let's hope he got paid salaries for each different character, it would only be fair!

In the film "The College Girl Murders," I wrote that Joachim Fuchsberger was chewing gum throughout the whole movie, in this one, I think he's munching on something about half the time! What a great character!

Joachim is the only one smart enough to carry wirecutters around with him!

I'm not sure exactly who to credit for set design, but isn't this a wild amalgamation of objects? There's a skeleton, a Balinese carved mask, a poster of a polka trio, and Lord only knows what else just for starters!

In The End, this whole amazing film gets a most deserved standing ovation, kinda like when CREAM reunited, it's an all-star ensemble!!