Wednesday, December 11, 2013

DAS RÄTSEL DER ROTEN ORCHIDEE - Peter Thomas - "The Secret Of The Red Orchid" (1962)

This week I've got a mini Christopher Lee Tribute for you! Two movies where Chris Lee is not from the UK! In this one he's from the U.S. and in the other one he's from Hong Kong!  This with be the 7th movie we've listed with foliage or vegetation in the title, the other six are "Attack Of The Mushroom People," "The Beast Of Yucca Flats," "The Blue Gardenia," "The Case Of The Bloody Iris," "The Day Of The Triffids,"  and "No Orchids For Miss Blandish!"

In the "Secret Of The Red Orchid," Christopher Lee has the role of hard-nosed American FBI agent Captain Allerman! It's not the greatest movie in the world, but the music is by Dungeon top dawg,  the always interesting Peter Thomas! So what is the secret of the red orchid you ask, beats the crap outta me!

Chicago: A place that produces Presidents and more gangland crime than is even imaginable in the 1960's right up to this day! Some things change, Chicago hasn't!

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned poker match to get things started, but you know there's always interruptions at these things usually involving guns! This one would be no exception!

Klaus Kinski is once again in there as sleazy slimeball Steve this time!

Looks like you damn well better have permission to enter this joint, or at least know what the password is! Tell 'em Joe sent you, and just see if they laugh out loud!

What was I telling you about that poker game?

                                                                    Beautiful shot!!

Hard to imagine, but Christopher Lee has over 275 acting roles to his credit, and most of them are major parts, and he's still going strong with appearances in the two new Hobbit movies!

At 6' 5", Christopher Lee towers over the 5' 8" Klaus Kinski, but Klaus has got Krazy on his side!

Captain Allerman comes out guns a' blazin'! For some strange reason, in the dubbed into English version, they don't use either Chris Lee's or Klaus Kinski's real voices! That's just weird, and it really detracts from the film!

The two crime bosses discuss their options from different ends of the table! I love the whole hat and glove routine!

"Secret Of The Red Orchid" is a fairly straight ahead crime drama with lots of Knives.............

........Guns and..........

.........Dead Bodies!!!!

It's got a lot of the regular Edgar Wallace elements, but when you make as many EW movies as these people did, you're not going to knock it out of the ballpark each and every time! Sometimes there's going to be lots of walks! This is one of those one to nothing in the ninth inning kind of games!

The combined talents of Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lee are what make "Secret Of The Red Orchid" watchable, but it will never be considered to be the best thing that they, or Edgar Wallace ever did!

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if in this one case, the book was better than the movie!

Once again, like in countless other Edgar Wallace German made films, Eddi Arent provides the comedy relief, unfortunately, some movies don't need comedy relief, and if you don't think Eddi Arent is the best thing to come along since liquid soap, then you're not likely to like this film at all! The good news is that "Secret Of The Red Orchid" is on DVD as a double Feature with a better film, "Monster Of London City" so you really can't go wrong, it's just like an added bonus!

3 comments:

CHRISTOPHERLEEIDOL said...

I have this film on DVD and i love it, Christopher lee plays american awesomely its a shame it were not in colour.

EEGAH!! said...

Oh, Well, Chris Lee always looks good whether it's black and white or colour!

CHRISTOPHERLEEIDOL said...

Yes i agree but its more interesting.

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