Secret Of The Red Orchid (1962) Just like the previously reviewed '1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse', another crushing disappointment in the annals of post-war German Euro-Junk.
This one's part of the peculiar 'Krimi' genre of murder mysteries based on the stories of Edgar Wallace (also one of the co-writers of "King Kong")
Usually a 'Krimi' presented a warped perverse universe filled with whip-wielding monks, slobbering hunchbacks and an escalating body count......
'Red Orchid' went off course for the series, dealing with competing extortion gangs operating in London. It looks and sounds like a pale imitation of 1940's American gangster movies. The really cheap bad ones.
And even more criminal, it wastes a killer cast who could've made this film a crazy romp, given half a chance.
Two iconic titans appear together, Christopher Lee (who at this point needs no introduction) and cinema's most dangerous madman, Klaus Kinski. Incredibly, both are terribly miscast - Kinski as a dapper dan gangster and Lee as an FBI agent.
For added dessert toppings, there's long time international character actor Eric Pohlmann (the voice of Blofeld in "From Russia With Love" and "Thunderball") and the ever stunning Euro-babe Marisa Mell.
All of them, we should point out, are badly re-voiced by run-of-the-mill dubbers who all sound, as usual like they're stuck in the same phone booth together.
Kinski and Pohlmann play competing crime lord extortionists. They threaten rich old farts with death if they don't pay up big time. Lee's FBI guy has landed in London to help Scotland Yard with the case as old fart bodies start piling up.
This leaves a prissy butler (Eddie Arent,hamming it up) flitting from one wealthy employer to another as the gangs bump them off. (This is the actor for whom they invented the expression, "a little of him goes a long way....."
What an opportunity was thrown away here.....uniting legendary pulp cinema giants Lee and Kinski and then giving them literally nothing to work with. A damned shame beyond all known stupidity.
Dreary, dumb and tired from start to finish threw away 83 minutes on it......BQ recommends you avoid it like the plague.
Zero star (0).
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