#001 KRIMI POCKET REVIEW [CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND aka DIE BLAUE HAND (1967)]

[Note: This is the first post in a continuing series discussing and analyzing our favorite Krimis and Gialli (some of the reviews started as rough drafts on my Letterboxd account). As with every post on this site, SPOILERS SHOULD BE EXPECTED.]

My Krimi Rating: ★★★½ (out of 5★)
Subcategory (if any): 
     i. Inheritance Scheme Krimi
     ii. Ingénue-in-Distress Krimi
     iii. Kinski-as-Grotesque Krimi 
     iv. Old Dark House Krimi
Who Portrays the Detective (amateur or official):
     Harald Leipnitz(official); Klaus Kinski (amateur)
Who's the Ingénue: 
      Diana Körner

In My Krimi Top 20 (Y/N): No (Letterboxd link)

I'm about 20 movies into the Krimi genre and there are a certain number of objections that seem to recur in those who find themselves new to the genre, objections that seem to be stumbling blocks that keep them from being able to "fully take to" the genre. *Some* of this comes (I think) because genre fans are encountering the films in reverse.

I.e., a lot of people seem to come to the Krimi by way of the Giallo, a genre that comes after it both chronologically, and in terms of how far past censorship the movies could push. Because Gialli are, almost by definition, sleazier, gorier, more explicit, I think it is sometimes hard to then pull back from this level of explicitness and return to a genre that was much more hamstrung by the censorship of a slightly earlier time. (It's also true of course that, as movies came later and later in the Krimi cycle, their onscreen presentation of nudity, sexuality, gore, violence did increase; so much so that one of the more leery and explicit Gialli—WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?—is in actuality a Krimi co-production.)

Another, related stumbling block comes in terms of the Krimi worldview. A worldview that asks us to believe in (or, at least suspend our disbelief in) something that feels too often dated; anachronistic; out of touch. That is, less drenched in the dream-logic of the Gialli, and more prone to giving itself over to eye-rolling kitsch. So it often feels like the hyper-stylization that makes the best Gialli so memorable, so oneiric, here gives way to a style that feels like a punchline (and an stale one at that).

Sometimes this problem stems from the degree (and broadness) of the genre's entrenched comic relief, or the way in which the plots—even when done with impressionistic flair and giddy experimentation—seem kitschy or too old-fashioned to believe.

Part of this has to do with the era (often the 1920s) in which the source material was being written—the problem of trying to adapt and "update" the context and norms attached to something from four decades earlier. The author of the blog Giallo Fever puts it this way, while discussing a Krimi I've yet to see:

"As with most krimi films The Black Abbot has that strange sense of temporal and cultural displacement stemming from being a 1960s German evocation of a 1920s England that was probably already half-mythical at the time of its creation."

Say all that to say, even as I've found myself "taking to" the genre quite a bit, I've still found the examples I've watched incredibly uneven (even moreso than with Gialli). A full half of those I've seen so far feel like unjustifiable "fails," while only a handful feel as accomplished, as delirious, as exciting as anything else I've discovered in the under-explored corners of the genre world. CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND skews toward the top of the heap, even if its occasional clunkiness keeps it from being an unqualified classic.

At this point in the cycle (1967), it's no surprise that Krimi regular Alfred Vohrer is comfortable ticking off all the familiar genre devices. Here we get, among other things:

1. A convoluted and murderous inheritance plot;

2. Ostentatious, narratively unnecessary style, e.g.:
 

Look at the blue wash of fogged lighting that accompanies escaped convict Kinski's return to his home (blue, as one might expect from the title, is expertly employed as *the* dominant visual motif throughout).

Or the cache of hanging mannequins, whose presence literally cannot be explained by the plot (the story tries, a bit weakly, but they only make "sense" as one prong of a larger strategy of outre and macabre stylization).

Or, look at the way inanimate objects are used to emphasize the more salacious elements of the plot, as in the pronounced use of the keyhole striptease, or the extreme foregrounding of the spiked glove in frame ...

 

... these same objects are used also to distort and stylize characters, as when the "Lady of the House" (Ilse Steppat, from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE) has her face filmed through the swishing liquid of her wine glass.

3. A sinister manse where much of the action takes place, replete with secret passages and ancient dungeons;

4. The oft-employed "ingenue in distress," who is being threatened in order to get her to give up an unknown inheritance (here played by Diana Körner; more often, the role is played by Karin Dor, perhaps as much because she was married to one of the chief Krimi directors of the day [Harald Reinl] as anything else); 

5. A masked killer who dispatches his-or-her victims in gruesome and overcomplicated ways and makes each, next appearance more theatrical and weird than the last;

6. A strong investigative element, either in the form of Scotland Yard or an amateur sleuth (unfortunately *not* played by Joachim Fuchsberger here);

7. the prominent use of doubles or twins. Kinski plays twin brothers, one accused of murder, the other a pillar of the upper-crust; of course Kinski's presence is its own familiar element; he's been in nearly half of the entries I've seen this year; 

8. a mental hospital run by a corrupt doctor who uses the facility as a front to either hide or discredit other characters in the plot (Carl Lange plays the doctor, he who played Christopher Lee's ghoul sidekick in THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM);

9. Martin Böttcher's musical signature—jazzy, experimental, bombastic (even while being compressed, clipped, and undercut by surprisingly electronic flourishes);

10. and more red herrings than you can shake a stick at.

There are also Giallo connections. The medieval murder weapon—a suit of armor's gauntlet that deploys stunted Wolverine claws—points to both the gauntlet used in BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and the one in DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT. There's also a clear obsession with voyeurism, with looking and being looked at. Both in a sexual context (that gratuitous inclusion, twice, of the stripper doing her routine in her cell at the mental ward) and in a proto-"stalk-and-slash" context. In the credit sequence alone, there are at least five extreme closeups on eyes looking through openings (the single eye-hole in the mask, a keyhole, a secret opening in a wall, etcet).

Despite all this, it feels, toward the end, as if it's missing a little something, some intangible that keeps it from being in a Top 5. Also, despite the fact that it doesn't strongly feature a comedy sidekick (there's no Eddi Arent in sight), the movie's overall tone feels a bit too insubstantial or "light".

Still lands in a respectable spot, on the Letterboxd Krimi Quest list.

Leonard Jacobs

August, 2014

[SHOW NOTES]

VERSION WATCHED: Bootleg | LANGUAGE: German with English subs | DIRECTOR: Alfred Vohrer | WRITER(S): Edgar Wallace, Harald G. Petersson, Herbert Reinecker | MUSIC: Martin Böttcher | CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ernst W. Kalinke | CAST: Harald Leipnitz (Inspektor Craig); Klaus Kinski (Dave Emerson / Richard Emerson); Carl Lange (Dr. Albert Mangrove); Ilse Steppat (Lady Emerson); Hermann Lenschau (Rechtsanwalt Douglas); Diana Körner (Myrna Emerson); Albert Bessler (Butler Anthony); Richard Haller (Edward Appleton / Die Blaue Hand); Ilse Pagé (Miss Mabel Finley); Fred Haltiner (Wärter Reynolds); Peter Parten (Robert Emerson); Thomas Danneberg (Charles Emerson); Heinz Spitzner (Richter); Siegfried Schürenberg (Sir John)