EDGAR WALLACE "KRIMI" + ORIGINAL POSTER ART

The West German cycle of films begun in the late 1950's and continuing into the 1960's collectively termed "Krimi" or "Kriminalfilm", were named (much like Giallo films) after Kriminalroman, a genre of German crime novels. Many or most of the films were adapted by the British mystery writer, Edgar Wallace (1875 - 1932).

Author Edgar Wallace.

Wallace was extremely popular in his day for his crime thrillers, and is the same writer who, along with Merian C. Cooper, developed the ideas for the film, KING KONG. Between WWI and WWII, Wallace's books became very popular in Germany, and seemed to be a natural evolution for filmmakers to adapt his works to the screen. However, when the Nazis too over, they prohibited any kind of horror or other genre film if it did not suit their political agenda. As a result, genre films could not be portrayed easily in this fashion (although Allied films -- cartoons especially -- showed the so-called Ubermensch as monsters).

After the war, Germany didn't catch up with making mainstream movies as quickly or easily as the rest of the film world. The first krimi film is generally attributed to a Danish company (Rialto Film) that produced one of Wallace's stories in 1959 as DER FROSCH MIT DER MASKE, with the alternate titles THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG or FACE OF THE FROG. Constantin Film of West Germany distributed it. Other titles quickly followed with titles like DAS RATZEL DER GRUNEN SPINNE (THE GREEN SPIDER, 1960), DIE 1000 AUGEN DES DR. MABUSE (THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE, 1960), with Gert Frobe who would soon become James Bond's nemesis in GOLDFINGER, and DIE TOTEN AUGUEN VON LONDON (DEAD EYES OF LONDON, 1961) that was remade with Bela Lugosi as THE HUMAN MONSTER (1939) and in Spain by Jess Franco as GRITOS EN LA NOCHE (THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF,(1962).

Krimi Films had enough creepy scenes to also be categorized as horror films
(DEAD EYES OF LONDON).

In his overview of krimi at Diabolique.com, Samm Deighan explains that krimi "are not for everyone and can sometimes be a confusing mashup of genre elements: namely horror, crime, mystery, and police procedural, with moments of fantasy, science fiction, or surrealism." He goes on to say that "krimi have a set number of themes that act as motives for murder, such as sex, drugs and blackmail, as well as many financially-motivated murder and revenge plots."

Sound familiar? Krimi are regarded as contemporaries of film noir and precursors to Giallo that would soon spring to life -- or death -- in Italy and other European countries.

Another Edgar Wallace Krimi thriller, THE WHITE SPIDER.

The image shown below is the original artwork for the French grandes (movie poster) by Constantin Belinsky for the West German film, DIE BLAUE HAND (Constantin Film, 1967). It was released in the U.S. as CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND in 1971. It has made the rounds in the auction circuit and the 27" x 35.5" gouache painting on illustration board is currently up for sale again. It is estimated to retrieve $1,500 - $3,000.