User Reviews

I broke my golden rule in order to watch The Death Avenger of Soho. Understand, I love gialli, Italian and Spanish, and I love 60s and 70s horror; I've watched hundreds and hundreds over the last few years. But after seeing about 20 films by one, the other or both of them in collaboration, I developed the rule: no more Jess Franco or Paul Naschy movies for me. I feel I have to explain.

Franco's only interest was getting as much nudity and sex (preferably lesbian) on to the screen as possible, at the expense of a coherent or satisfying plot. Maybe bare flesh was enough for people back then, but nowadays we have unfettered access to porn, so why bother with his rubbish?

Naschy seems to have had an ego the size of a house. He had to play the monster but also the hero at the same time. All the beautiful women had to be in complete thrall to him, repeatedly declaring their eternal love ad nauseum. Next film, same thing, and so on, and so on.

The thing is Naschy was a charismatic actor and, if his worst instincts were toned down or someone else had written the script, he was capable of turning in a good film. For example, I love A Dragonfly for Each Corpse and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. Seven Murders for Scotland Yard is also good, although his character is, once again and inexplicably, a babe magnet. But Franco was a completely lost cause. I guess, being a director, he always had the power to turn anything he touched into absolute c*** and he wielded it mercilessly.

Okay, that's the background. Sorry, Naschy fans (who I know are legion), but, since he's part of the golden rule, I had to explain why, even if he has no connection whatsoever with this film.

Anyway, on to The Death Avenger of Soho. Having seen all the other films in the Bryan Edgar Wallace series, I reluctantly broke the rule and watched it for the sake of completion. And yes, it turned out just as I knew it would.

All the usual Franco touches are here: silly long-distance shots, exaggerated close-ups, weird camera angles, bridging parts of the plot ripped out (for example, the lead detective goes to interview a doctor and meets his secretary, with whom he speaks briefly. The next time we see both of them, they're having dinner together in a restaurant), pointless violence against women, a hint of incest, lack of clarity as to character motivations, clumsy dialogue, bad music etc. The major difference with respect to normal Franco fare is that he's obviously been forbidden from including sex scenes here, otherwise what little plot there is would have gone out the window to accommodate them.

The Death Avenger of Soho is a tedious, garish, incoherent mess. I would advise anyone interested in the storyline to instead go and watch 1962s Secret of the Black Trunk, which is based on the same Bryan Edgar Wallace story and, therefore, runs along the same general lines. The difference is that it's a decent, satisfying film which won't have you logging onto IMDB to launch long tirades against the director and an actor who's not even in it.

The golden rule will not be broken again.

"Der Todesrächer von Soho" (and there are several English titles for this one that I won't list) is a West German 75-minute movie from 1972, so this one will have its 45th anniversary next year. The star here is possibly the director Jesús Franco, who is still very known today, mostly for his trashy horror films. This one is a bit of that too, even if there are no supernatural aspects here and the focus is mostly on police investigation. Franco is also one of several people who worked on the script. The two lead actors are Horst Tappert, still very known in Germany today because of "Derrick", and Fred Williams, who is not known here anymore today. The latter played the good guy, even if he was almost too nice for the role, while Tappert plays a character where you never knew if he was good or bad, except at the ending. The female characters are written pretty badly again, but that's a common problem from the 1970s. I personally did not enjoy the watch too much. I believe Tappert elevated the material on some occasions, but it was a fairly weak film overall. The base material here is by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of Edgar, who followed in his father's footsteps, but this film is mostly an appendix as the Wallace film series was pretty much over in the 1970s. I give this one a thumbs-down and I am glad it was over so quickly, even if it still dragged despite only 1hour and 15 minutes. Thumbs down.

By 1972, the krimi had given way - for the most part - to the giallo. Both offshoots of the work of author Edgar Wallace - this is an adaption of his book Secret of the Black Suitcases which had already been filmed by Werner Klinger eleven years before - with this one being about a series of killings by knife throwing, followed by the corpse having a suitcase packed for them.

Also: While set in London, this was shot in Spain and yes, it's a Jess Franco movie. He even shows up as a knife-throwing expert with a fancy hat.

Scotland Yard Inspector Ruppert Redford (Fred Williams) is on the case, along with crime novelist Charles Barton (Horst Tappert), which leads to organized crime running mescaline through the Flamingo Club and if you thought gorgeous women and jazz weren't going to be part of a Franco movie you really need to brush up on what he loves most.

This is the last in the long series of krimi made by CCC and seeing as how they had reached the point where they were remaking past films, they probably were ready to move on. As for Franco, he's subdued but still figures out some interesting places to place his camera. I kind of adore the late 60s and early 70s films he made, which still have a budget and weren't yet the same movie being remade and remixed.

Amidst flourishes of typical Jess Franco-directed eccentricity, there is an overall strangeness to proceedings here. We get a jazzy nightclub scene of course (music courtesy of Rolf Kuehn), but the style throughout is a slightly awkward marrying of Franco style and traditional thriller: Jess has never been a traditionalist! Like his two Fu Manchu films never quite convince as either typical horrors in the oriental series or untamed Franco productions, this doesn't quite come across as a straightforward thriller - but then, it wouldn't would it? Somehow this works, and works very well.

I get the feeling Franco felt somewhat restrained when 'limited' to realising someone else's ideas (this is an adaption of Edgar Wallace's 'Secret of the Black Suitcases,' one of three 1970s Wallace adaptions), and this could be seen as something of a compromise. I say this mainly because two Jess trademarks, nudity and sex, are virtually absent. It is stylish though, and acted with urgency (Horst Tappert as Barton is particularly good) as befitting the complicated plot.

I enjoyed this; it's a strange beast. It is convoluted but very engaging. Apart from the fine performances, it seems to have a fairly substantial budget. There is also a good mix of fairly nasty drama and comedy, a balance which is difficult to get right.

Two further things I notice in this: most of the location filming seems to be carried out in misty London, but some scenes are shot in sunny Spain - with Vaseline smeared over the camera lens to try and signify UK smog (this idea is rejected in the middle of the film, but returns later)! A couple of scenes feature a comedy-twanging/springing sound effect dubbed over the action of particularly dramatic scenes (a double knifing).

Ultimately, this is hugely enjoyable. It is a curious production, but it really works well, proceedings benefitting hugely from the fast pace and often beautiful visuals. It is a lesser known Franco film, a collection under-appreciated as it is, and deserves a wider audience.