Review of Tenderness of the Wolves

Years before he came to America to delight us with THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR and THE BOOGEYMAN, Herr Lommel teamed up with the Fassbinder troupe to give us this beaut. It's based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann who prospered in post-World War I Germany by way of theft and murder. A police informer posing as a detective, he lures young lads from the train station to his apartment where they're drugged, raped and finally murdered by having their throats chewed open. Then they're hacked up and their flesh sold as beef or pork. Haarmann's neighbors complain about the noise he makes–if they only knew. Much of his activity is left to the imagination but what's shown is truly disturbing and was considered mean stuff at the time. Shaven-headed and pointy-eared, Kurt Raab looks suitably predatory in the lead role. Jurgen Prochnow's name appears in the main credits but so far I haven't been able to spot him. This movie claims that Haarmann was hanged in 1925 but other sources say he was beheaded. His execution should have been shown; I really wanted to see this dirt-bag get it before the film's end. TENDERNESS...is all the more disturbing because it's so well made, possessing a grim, bleak atmosphere lacking in Lommel's later, more commercial work. Not for the squeamish, the homophobic or anyone expecting a normal motion picture.