Face of the Frog

Face of the Frog (Der Frosch Mit Der Maske) (1959)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Harald Reinl

Starring: Joachim Fuchsberger, Elfie Von Kalckreuth, Jochen Brockmann, Carl Lange, Dieter Eppler

From: This is a German-Danish production

If you have zero knowledge of the krimi genre, then prepare to learn something new today:

You probably shouldn't trust a saucy cabaret singer named Lolita.

The German krimi films are not something that I have known of for as long as, say... the poliziotteschi movies of Italy. That being said, when I eventually found out about them (via Letterboxd and elsewhere) I realized this was something which eventually should be explored by me. Of course procrastination happened, but for awhile now there have been some of them available for rental on Amazon courtesy of Sinister Cinema and last night I finally pulled the trigger... or in this case, threw the knife. I might as well start with the first film that is recognized as a krimi, right?

Krimi is a German word meaning “Thriller” and it's one of the genres that are mixed into these German films, along with crime and mystery. They are all based upon stories by prolific English author Edgar Wallace (in this case, The Fellowship of the Frog, which is the title this goes by on Amazon Video) and most of them involved a masked killer, a bold protagonist investigating the case, a wacky sidekick, and action which happens both in London and the English countryside. In Face of the Frog, the title character is a masked supercriminal who leads an army of frogs-literally, that's what a group of frogs is known as; the evil organization here is a gang and not a paramilitary thing-and both a brilliant English detective and rich American amateur sleuth (Richard) who has a wisecracking butler investigate. At one point Richard and his butler spar as if they were Inspector Clouseau and Cato.

The Frog and his gang commit daring robberies and Mr. Frog is actually willing to be an active participant instead of lurking in his lair only barking out orders. Additional characters are a rich British family who the gang targets and Richard tries to protect. There is a cabaret singer who sings in German (otherwise the copy on Amazon is dubbed) and “Harry Lime” is referenced as a brilliant bad guy from the past; presumably that's not Orson Welles.

There are many characters but it never becomes confusing; for certain this is never dull as there is plenty of intrigue, a bloody throat slash (making me understand why some have said that giallos were influenced by these pictures), action, shootouts, double crosses, etc. In further tropes you later saw in giallo, there's a blind character-although here it's someone in disguise-and yes, there are moments that don't hold up to sound logic. Overall, though, it was fun entertainment, so no doubt that in the future I'll track down more krimi flicks for viewing.