Der Wixxer (2004)

You know you’re dealing with a major cultural phenomenon when you can make fun of it fifty years later, and your audience still gets the jokes. That’s certainly the case with Der Wixxer, a parody of the Edgar Wallace krimi genre. Der Wixxer is loosely based on 1964′s Der Hexer, but it gives the unheimlich maneuver to a bewildering number of other krimis, too.

I have no idea what to make of the movie. On the one hand, it’s one of the most unapologetically stupid comedies I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, there’s a great deal of intelligence at work behind the surface stupidity.

Things I Learned from This Movie: 70% of all German comedians are named “Oliver”.

Whew, 15 chapters and done.  As usual, I may not have written well, but I wrote long. Here’s the alpha and the omega of it.

Chapter 1

Chapter 15

THE DARK EYES OF LONDON (1939)

In which an alarming number of drowning victims are fished out of the Thames, all of them insured for surprisingly large amounts of money, in spite of being effectively alone in the world…

The trail of carnage leads from the Greenwich Insurance Company, headed by disgraced former medical man Dr Feodor Orloff, to a home for destitute blind men run by the dedicated Mr Dearborn, who is blind himself.

Throw in one victim’s beautiful daughter, a dumb and blind violinist, a jovial forger, a wisecracking Chicago cop, a hulking, disfigured henchman, a drowning pool and a square-jawed London detective, and we have a story whose moral seems to be never send the police to do a homicidal maniac’s job…

Observation: In England, insurance fraud is a bigger deal than multiple murder.

Hey! Let’s remake King Kong! Only this time we’ll aim it completely towards kids, taking out all of the intense stuff so the movie will get a “G” rating! Since we don’t have much money, we will have it animated as close to Saturday morning style as we can! Plus, we’ll add songs and make it a musical! And we’ll call it The Mighty Kong!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen – and I’m not talking about what happens to Kong in the climax.

Time for another gushing review of Columbia’s 1940 serial The Green Archer, based (sorta) on Edgar Wallace’s novel. See how things come out in the wash in Chapter 7: The Secret Passage.

It’s the most terrifying peril yet…loads of Odious Comic Relief! See this and more as we examine The Necklace of Treachery.
(Not to be confused with The Bracelet of Betrayal, or The Tiara of Treason.)

A third of the way in and Edgar Wallace is nowhere much to be seen. On the other hand, there’s fights, guns, robberies, explosions, Edgar Allan Poe-esque deathtraps and murdered chairs. So there’s that anyway. Join us as the action continues in The Fatal Spark.

Henry Winkler stars in An American Christmas Carol, an American/Canadian co-production retelling the classic Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol, with the setting this time being Depression-era America. While the time and place may have changed, the end results still respect their source of origin.

“That’s right, I’m bad!”

Not a lot o’ Wallace happening here, but things are definitely picking up in the Awesome Department. Even so, with warehouse explosions and impending death by spiked ceiling, why would they name our latest chapter of The Green Archer Vanishing Jewels?

When last we left our hero, he was apparently in a car that fell over a cliff. You’ll never guess how he escaped. Anyway, you may have no fear of Lucifer’s Label Maker, and laugh when confronted with Satan’s Stationary, but are you prepared to face The Devil’s Dictaphone?

The sorta/kinda Edgar Wallace hijinx continue as we look at the second chapter of the 19940 Columbia serial The Green Archer. I think you will honestly be amazed when you learn the real secret behind The Fact at the Window.

The Green Archer, one of Edgar Wallace’s more famous novels, was adapted several times. Right now we’re looking at the 1940 Columbia serial version. Join us in the month ahead as we ‘archly’ (get it?) examine each episode.Tonight we begin with Chapter 1. I don’t know, that just seemed like a good idea.

And yes, I am weirded out by getting the first roundtable segment up instead of the last one. Don’t worry, I’m sure it will never happen again.