Fans of classic murder mystery movies who feel they have glutted themselves on all the thin men, gumshoes, Confucius quoting consultants and dipsomaniacal detective duos that Hollywood and the British film industry have to offer may want to direct their attention to a veritable school of whodunits produced in Germany from from 1959 to 1971.  Adapted from popular pulp novels, these thrillers were given the name taschenkrimi, or pocket crime novels and sold in cheap editions with distinctive red covers.  In Italy, similar novels were sold with yellow (giallo in Italian) covers and in France the serie noir stood out with covers as black as sin itself.  While the novels of genre titans Agatha Christie, James Hadley hase and Edgar Wallace had provided sensational material for a number of American and British programmers, it was the crime stories, gangster tales and locked room mysteries of the uber-prolific Wallace that found particular purchase in Germany in the post-war era, resulting in a resurgence in popularity for the long-dead (and by then sadly neglected) writer.

The illegitimate son of an English stage actress, Wallace (1875-1932) distinguished himself in early life as a war correspondent and parlayed his winning combination of pluck and passion into the conjoined careers of playwright, novelist, businessman, gambler and newspaper columnist.  He was a better writer than chancer, and gambling debts compelled Wallace to remain prolific.  The writer turned out two to three novels a week, dictating his stories onto wax cylinders while drinking cup after cup of sweet tea.  German filmmakers adapting his works for the screen were initially faithful to the source material but inch by inch the Wallace adaptations became more violent, more erotic and more perverse than even the writer himself could ever have imagined.

However obscure in the United States (though many of these titles did run on American television), films such as Die Toten Augen von London (THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON, 1961), Der Schwarze Abt (THE BLACK ABBOT, 1963) and Der Monch mit der Peitsche (THE COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS, 1967) proved surprisingly influential, feeding the Italian gialli stoked by Mario Bava in the 60s and fanned by Dario Argento in the 1970s, and perhaps even laying an egg or two for the nascent “slasher” films of the 1980s.  (Produced with West German money, Argento’s first thrillers were often sold abroad as Wallace adaptations.)  Without Zimmer 13 (ROOM 13, 1964), which director Harald Reinl and scenarist Will Tremper turned from a mild counterfeiting mystery into a psychothriller about a razor-wielding killer, there may never have been a Tenebre (UNSANE, 1982) or even a BASIC INSTINCT (1992).  For the interested and the brave of heart, New York-based writer Miro Lipinski has started publication on the newsletter The Krimi Corner, a quarterly discussion and critique of the West German Wallace adaptations and their influence.  The first issue is available now.

The Krimi Corner costs $2 an issue or $8 for a five issue subscription (international orders: $2.50/$10).  Checks, money orders and well hidden cash should be sent to M. Lipinski, PO Box 2398, NY NY 10009.  Paypal payments may be made to Mirelski@aol.com.