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DigitalRevenantX7 A number of rich foreign businessmen living in London are being killed, their bodies tossed into the Thames & made to look like drownings. Scotland Yard inspector Larry Holt & his always cheerful colleague Sgt. Harvey are on the case. They find pieces of paper on each of the victims, written in Braille as well as a piece of rope on the feet on the victims. They bring in Nora Ward, an expert in Braille, who tells them that the deaths are the result of foul play & that the paper notes reveal that the killer is blind. Investigation also reveals that the victims had large insurance policies on themselves. Whilst investigating the insurance broker, Holt discovers a conspiracy by an unknown party to swindle the insurance money for gambling debts & that Nora Ward is actually the illegitimate daughter of one of the victims, as well as the sole beneficiary of the dead man's policy. At the same time, the mastermind behind the killings is competing with some of his underlings in a deadly game to collect the money.One of a number of German B-grade crime thrillers based on the works of Edgar Wallace that came about in the early 1960s, Dead Eyes of London is a pretty routine thriller as far as thrillers go. But what makes this quite interesting is the weird story that serves as the film's plot, as well as some inventive deaths & a modest atmosphere. In case you don't guess so from the English language version, the film is a German production with German actors (including Klaus Kinski) & dubbed into English, although the dubbing isn't obvious at first glance.Director Alfred Vohrer manages to make a passable detective yarn out of the convoluted storyline & despite the dragging pace, actually makes for an interesting watch. Some of the killings – everything from drownings in laundry vats (& the bodies tied to salt rocks that dissolve after a while to release the bodies & make them look like accidental deaths), hit-&-runs, gunshots to the face, a janitor getting shot in the eye while looking in a peephole, people thrown out the window & a priest wielding a flamethrower – are quite full-on for 1961 standards. Not just that, but there has to be something said for a film where the likes of Klaus Kinski (himself a very weird actor) is not the weirdest person in the cast. From a detective who knits clothes for the Salvation Army & who is always cheerful, even in dire circumstances, to the pudgy fat killer who resembles Tor Johnson in some aspects, Dead Eyes of London is chock-full of strangeness that will make this a reasonable night in.

ferbs54 As distinct a film genre as the American film noir of the 1940s and '50s and the Italian giallo of the 1970s, the German krimi pictures that flourished throughout the 1960s are almost exclusively based on the works of one remarkably prolific author: British novelist Edgar Wallace. The creator of around 175 (!) novels of mystery, crime and detection, Wallace and his gigantic oeuvre supplied the German film industry of the late '50s to the early '70s with a superabundance of material to draw on. Though a huge fan of noir and giallo, this viewer had never seen a krimi film until very recently, and the film in question, 1961's "Dead Eyes of London," would seem to be a nice introduction to the genre. Based on Wallace's 1924 novel "The Dark Eyes of London," the picture is supposedly a remake of a 1939 British filmization, but with what I can only imagine to be more modern and creative touches.In the film, a serial killer(s) has taken to murdering wealthy old men and dumping their bodies in the Thames. The victims, all foreigners who had recently taken out life insurance policies, have ropes strangely tied around their legs, and some are found to have Braille messages on their persons. Inspector Holt of Scotland Yard (played by krimi regular Joachim Fuchsberger, who at this stage in his career resembled a young Tom Brokaw) suspects the criminal organization known as the Blind Men of London, and together with his assistant, the sweater-knitting fusspot Sgt. Harvey (Eddi Aren't), and a beautiful Braille expert (played by Karin Baal), he attempts to crack this case as the body count mounts....As in the film noir, "Dead Eyes of London" features moody B&W photography (the film has been well lensed by DOP Karl Lob), seedy nightclubs, a femme fatale or two, and numerous assorted lowlife characters. As with the giallo, it also features some stunning murderous set pieces, a gloved killer, some gruesome and inventive homicides, and a plot that is complex and twisty...perhaps a bit too much so for its own good. Still, unlike many gialli that I have seen, the story line ultimately DOES make perfect sense, and indeed, the crimes and their motivations are actually fairly ingenious. Director Alfred Vohrer, who would go on to work on 14 krimi films altogether, does a very impressive job here, giving his film a dark, moody feel and adding several astonishing touches. Perhaps most memorable, of course, is the POV shot seemingly taken from within the mouth of a man using a water pick (how a motion picture camera was supposedly inserted, facing out from within a man's mouth, is a matter best left unexamined!), but almost as startling is that close-up shot of another krimi regular, Klaus Kinski, his mirrored shades a study in coolness, and the POV shot, taken from a dead man's perspective, of a crowd of onlookers staring down on him as he lays on a sidewalk. Staking its claim as a bona fide horror film, the picture boasts several scenes guaranteed to chill, including Blind Jack (played by Ady Berber, who here looks so hideously homely that he practically makes Tor Johnson seem handsome!) sneaking into a victim's dwelling place to perpetrate another murder; that gloved killer strangling a girl while a pet parrot squawks hysterically; a particularly well-executed homicide in an elevator shaft; and an imprisonment in a rat-infested, burning cellar. The picture offers welcome bits of painless humor from the Sgt. Harvey character, as well as pieces of inventive freakout music from composer Heinz Funk (love that name!). The resolution of the film's mysteries is a surprising one (at least, I didn't see it coming), and the action climax is one worthy of a "Perils of Pauline" serial. All told, a highly satisfying affair; to see this film is to want to see many more in the krimi genre. Hopefully, "Dead Eyes of London" is just the first of many for this viewer....

samhill5215 Interesting film with some really thoughtful details and noirish elements. The camera work was especially arresting with liberal facial close-ups and scenery that reminded me of "The Third Man". The story is interesting enough to keep the viewer occupied although the dialog dubbed from German to English was quite distracting. It would have been better to release it with subtitles. Part of its appeal was the diversity of the characters and the fact that the outcome was truly unexpected. It kept me guessing all the way up to the end like all good thrillers. On the negative side it dragged at times and some of the scenes, especially some with the Inspector's sidekick, seemed to have been inserted as fillers. Overall though I was pleasantly surprised.

MARIO GAUCI This remake of DARK EYES OF London (1940), from an Edgar Wallace novel, joins the mere handful of Krimis that I've watched over the years; as far as I can recall, these extend to just 3 DR. MABUSE entries and CIRCUS OF FEAR (1966). I know many are ardent fans of this type of film but, personally, I don't think they have the same rewatchability value as the contemporaneous Italian gialli.The film is marked by directorial stylistics – arresting shock cuts, inventive transition between scenes (including the iris effect), etc. – and an avant-gardist score. It goes on too long, however, by having an inordinately convoluted plot that involves numerous characters; the original – a British B-movie – was, by necessity, far more compact and, consequently, more direct and effective. Still, the basic thriller elements remain undeniably engaging and the noir-ish atmosphere is thickly laid on (though undermined by the dupey, splicey print on the Retromedia DVD) – making the film quite enjoyable if, ultimately, nothing special.The cast is O.K.: likable middle-aged lead, attractive female roles, slightly overstated comic-relief sidekick; Bela Lugosi's role in the original is split into two here; the blind killer – played by a Tor Johnson look-alike former wrestler – is, again, depicted as a hairy grotesque; and it also features a young but typically intense Klaus Kinski in a supporting role.