Das Rätsel der grünen Spinne (1960) Poster

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6/10
Gruselkrimi meets Schlagerfilm - first attempt
ZeddaZogenau19 October 2023
Horror crime thriller meets hit film - first attempt

The 1960 film "DAS RÄTSEL DER GRÜNEN SPINNE / The Mystery of the Green Spider" is an interesting mix of crime and hit film. After the Edgar Wallace horror crime wave had been heralded a year earlier with the surprising audience success of "DER FROSCH MIT DER MASKE / The Frog with the Mask" (1959), an attempt was made to cross such a crime film with another popular genre in the Federal Republic film industry, the hit and revue film . This entertaining film came out in which bizarre murders alternate with beautiful singing performances. Another attempt at a film of this kind was made in 1965 with "Hotel der Toten Gäste" (again, by the way, with the stunningly beautiful Renate Ewert), which pursued a similar concept.

What's particularly worth seeing in "The Riddle of the Green Spider" are the great actors Adrian Hoven, Hans von Borsody and of course the breathtakingly attractive Renate Ewert (1933-1966), who unfortunately died far too early. Di(e)tmar Christensen's successful dance performances are also worth mentioning.

An absolute highlight of this film is the appearance of Jacqueline Boyer, who won the Eurovision Song Contest 1960 in London that year with "Tom Pillibi" and now sang one of her other successful songs in the film with "Comme au premier jour". Absolutely great and almost a contemporary document of this legendary EUROVISION winner.

Anyone who has a taste for such an unusual mix of horror crime and hit films will be thoroughly entertained here.
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4/10
More music than mystery
Leofwine_draca7 December 2022
I watched MYSTERY OF THE GREEN SPIDER due to my love of the German krimi films, although this one's more musical than mystery. It stars Adrian Hoven, who I know for his later involvement with MARK OF THE DEVIL, and is set entirely in a little nightclub populated by a variety of musical acts circa Germany in 1959. Oh, and one of the singers gets bumped off, and the usual detective and reporter team up to figure out who did it. While the mystery is intriguing at times, there simply isn't enough of it to keep this film going. The musical numbers are fun at times but there are too many similar-sounding ones and that saps enjoyment from them.
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