Das Gasthaus an der Themse (The Inn on the River)

From 1959-1972 German company Rialto Film produced a whopping 38 films based on Edgar Wallace stories. When I was a kid, many of them would show during early afternoons on Sundays. I remember watching quite a few of them and as a consequence not being able to sort the stories apart in my head. I did vaguely remember a story with a killer using a harpoon to off his victims. Turns out, this is the one.

The personnel in many of the films - as well as this one - were similar, often including Joachim Fuchsberger as the good guy and on occasion the great Klaus Kinski as the bad one (or seemingly bad, on occasion). Comic relief (not that the film needed it) came from the wonderful Eddi Arent.

Of course, the stories are repetitive and the acting is not top of the line but the films offer are always quite enjoyable. Das Gasthaus an der Theme is actually one of the better in the series.

And the murderer turns out to be the one you least expect.

Ah, childhood memories!

7/10

La jetée

In post-apocalyptic Paris, the survivors of WW III live underground. There, they experiment with time travel, hoping that in the past or future they find means to assist them in the bleak present they live in.

The scientists have a hard time finding suitable subjects to send through time. They find a prisoner, who seems perfect for the experiment, as he has what they consider an 'obsessive' memory. Most consistently he holds onto a moment from his childhood, in which he saw a woman on a peer and he has a vague memory of a man dying.

After several days of experimenting, the prisoner manages to move freely in the past, where he finds the woman from his memory again and establishes a relationship with her. Motivated by the successful travel to the past, the scientists send him to the future next. There he obtains a power unit, that he brings back with him and that enables the scientist in the present to re-generate their society.

As he is now redundant, the prisoner is to be executed. The people he met in the future offer to save him by bringing him forward to their time permanently. He instead asks to be sent back to the past he previously visited. There he finds the woman again in exactly the same context of his childhood memory. He realizes that he himself is the dying man he saw as a child, his executor was sent after him into the past.

Sounds familiar?

In 1995, Terry Gilliam retold the story in the brilliant Twelve Monkeys.

This, the original 1962 version, is brilliant in its own way. Made up almost entirely of still images (once the woman is seen blinking a few times) and told via voice-over (except for the whispered German of the scientists).

8/10

Dr. No

The first of many, many James Bond films is Dr. No.

James Bond himself is played, of course, by Sean Connery. Obviously, this is the type of secret agent that defined similar characters for years to come. And this is what James Bond was to be like for a long time - right up to Daniel Craig, who was remodeled in the spirit of re-imagination that took place around the time. Before, it was not possible for a hero of his caliber (or Batman, or Spiderman, etc.) to show any signs of vulnerability. 007 is suave, cool and a ladies' man.

The first so-called Bond girl is Ursula Andress. Her name? Honey Ryder. The names of the Bond girls were persistantly ridiculous and put the female in her place. She is "Honey" as well as "honey" and not only needs saving, she also falls for the hero. She is introduced with the obligatory bikini shot.

The villain is Dr. No, a half-German, half-Chinese recluse, who is a member of SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion). SPECTRE becomes a theme throughout the series and - as we learn in later films - is headed by evil genius Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Dr. No, as well as several other Asian characters in the film, is played by caucasian actor, Joseph Wiseman. This was in a more innocent time, after all, before casting a white man in the role of an Asian man was being frowned upon.

The plot is straight-forward. Dr. No plans to interfere with the Project Mercury launch with his atomic-powered radio beam. He works from within a well-protected secret lair, filled with quite the art collection - including a Goya painting of the Duke of Wellington, that had been stolen in the year before the film came out and was only recovered in 1965.

Bond strolls through the Jamaican scenery while doging more than one attempt on his life, thanks to his driving skills, his natural suspiciousness and sheer luck. The tarantula scene had to be filmed with a stuntman, as Sean Connery suffers from Arachnophobia.

In the end, he single-handedly takes out Dr. No's entire operation and saves the dame.

5/10