HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 73
12th of 12 countries: Germany

I really wanted to get a German krimi film into this year's HoopTober list - krimi being generally considered to be the forebears of gialli, a sub-genre I've neglected in this challenge. Hmmm, gialli and krimi sounds like a yummy dessert of some sort...

Anyway, I am just as hooked on these as I am on their Italian successors. Although they go lighter on the proto-slasher tropes of the gialli, they are often just as brutal in their violence. But unlike gialli, which are largely rather self-serious affairs (which is part of what makes them sometimes so unintentionally comical), the krimi are much more like black comedies, with little beats of irreverence thrown in here and there.

The Squeaker refers to a master criminal of Moriarty-esque proportions - or perhaps Mabuse-esque would be more culturally appropriate? Hmmm, no: maybe Moriarty after all, because like most krimi this is set in a bizarrely Teutonised version of London. His identity is unknown, but you just know it's going to end up being one of our characters. Pursued by the unflappable Inspektor Bill Elford (Heinz Drache, who sounds like he could have been an understudy to Max Schreck for Nosferatu), he is killing off his competition via the brutal injection of black mamba venom from either a dandy-looking snake-headed syringe thing or his nifty, fold-down mechanical blow gun.

This film features my two favourite krimi actors: Klaus Kinski (who needs no introduction; he cut his teeth on these films) and Eddi Arent, a guy who generally plays something of a comic relief but generally pivotal to the plot - and he's in fine form here. As always, Alfred Vohrer's direction is exuberant and visually accomplished, even featuring one of his more bizarre predilections: the "in-mouth" perspective shot, kind of like a POV from the tonsils - in this case so that we can see one of the characters eat a carrot from this unique perspective, although I have no idea why this was deemed necessary.

Most of these films are based on Edgar Wallace novels (a British crime author who was more popular in Germany than his home market, although he did also write the original King Kong screenplay) and this means they generally have some really clever twists. In this case, not so much: the mystery resolution is rather run-of-the-mill by Wallace standards. But there's so much fun to be had along the way, it doesn't really matter.

If you like giallo films, I'd highly recommend you try and track down some krimi. There might be better options to start with than The Squeaker, but I think most folks would still find this a pretty fun ride.