"Zimmer 13" or "Room 13" is a German black-and-white film from 1964, so over 50 years old already. It is another Edgar Wallace novel adaptation starring Joachim Blacky Fuchsberger as the main character. I already mentioned the title. Usually, they quote the main antagonist in here, but this time it is different. The rest is the same however. A cop chases a serial killer, the femme fatale is played by Karin Dor as always and the director is Harald Reinl, who also made many other Edgar Wallace films like this one, even if he is more known for Winnetou today. And this film runs approximately 90 minutes as usual. Eddi Aren't is in here too and just like him other cast members appeared in other Wallace films. There is nothing innovative or entertaining about this film here and the story is entirely interchangeable with any other Wallace film really, just like the characters. Four stars may already be a generous rating and the fact that these films are the most famous Germany has to offer in terms of 1960s film shows how bad this decade was for German movies. watch something else instead.

Listening to Kim Newman and Alan Jones excellent audio commentary to Dario Argento's Giallo debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage a few years ago,I found out about an earlier title from the Krimi genre that featured themes which Argento used in his debut.Looking round for "Zimmer 13",I was disappointed to find the film not being available anywhere on DVD or Video.

Years later:

Looking round for interesting movies on Amazon.Com that I could import,I decided to take a look at their "Sinister Cinema" label.Getting near the end of the first page,I was thrilled to discover that they had put out Zimmer 13 under its English dubbed title Room 13!,which led to me getting ready to finally find out how lucky number 13 would be for a Krimi.

The plot:

Fearing that his political career could be ruined, Sir Marney tries to keep an underworld gang silent.Not being happy with Sir Marney's offer,the gang start making plans on staging an epic robbery.Fearing that his daughter Denise may be in danger,Marney hires police officer Johnny Gray to keep her safe.As Gray tries to stop the gang in their tracks,a mysterious killer starts to bring back memories which led to the tragic death of Denise mum.

View on the film:

Opening with a razor blade held by a black glove wearing killer gliding across the screen,director Harald Reinl (who made 6 films in this genre with his then-wife Karin Dor) and cinematographer Ernst W. Kalinke slash the Krimi into the yet to appear Giallo genre,with Reinl and Kalinke breaking taboos with the murder of a naked stripper, (which led to the movie getting an "adult" rating,which helped it to bomb at the box office!)and the other victims being killed in a strikingly stylised manner.Building the tension up towards each murder set-piece,Reinl gives the Krimi a firm Film Noir atmosphere,as long winding staircases and dusty rooms filled with broken dolls allow the killer and the criminals to lurk in the shadows,whilst Reinl's long tracking shots of murky streets and strip clubs in England, (which for the third and final time for the Krimi genre were actually shot in Denmark)reveal the seedy world that Johnny Gray is trying to open.

For the proto-Giallo slices of the screenplay, Will Tremper hangs a eerie feeling of dread above the Krimi,with the shadow from Denise's mums portrait covering everyone with suspicion of murder,as the razor stabs into the heist activates and allows the film to dip into some delightfully odd moments which go from cut up mannequins to the identity of the killer giving the title a dark final note.Whilst the Giallo edge of the Krimi shines in the low-light,Tremper's attempts to cross the murder mystery with a "British" heist Drama leads to the tension sadly cooling down.Originally starting as a heist "ripped from the headlines" of the previous year Great Train Robbery,Tremper's crossing over of the heist leads to the stylish Giallo/Krimi mystery being pushed to the side lines,due to Tremper getting caught up in a tangle of placing each of the robbers in dazed and confused conspiracies.

Searching for the mysterious killer and the underworld thugs, Joachim Fuchsberger gives a very good performance as Johnny Gray,with Fuchsberger giving Gray a hard-nose ruthlessness to stop the thieves in their tracks and also to break the deadly razor blade.Looking gorgeous,Karin Dor gives a wonderful performance as Denise,thanks to Dor's wide eyed shivers giving the mystery an deep icy feel,as the Krmi enters the Giallo room 13.

Edgar Wallace was a popular British author of crime thrillers during the 1920s. Though Wallace himself died in 1932 ( while working on the screenplay for King Kong ) the popularity of his work spawned a number of films based on his novels. Of particular note is a series of German adaptations by Rialto Films, beginning in 1959 and continuing until 1971, that presented the material with a stylish mix of humor and thrills. While this approach led to some very entertaining films, such as DER HEXER, ZIMMER 13, or ROOM 13, is unfortunately one of the poorer entries, being a very predictable and pedestrian affair.

The disappointment begins almost immediately. While the ominous sounding title suggests some significant mystery, ( What, Where, is Room 13? ) it is very quickly revealed that room 13 is about as mysterious as room 222. Ten minutes into the film we learn that room 13 is simply the number of a room in the Highlow nightclub where gangster Joe Legge is planning his next heist. The film attempts to present this theft, a train robbery, as a minutely planned Mission: Impossible style caper, but in fact the whole business essentially consists of pulling the train onto a siding and unloading it.

On the side of the angels is Johnny Gray, played by Wallace series regular Joachim Fuchsberger. Gray is supposedly the greatest private detective in London, which would suggest a marked drop in standards since Sherlock Holmes' day. Gray is brought into the affair by Sir Robert Marney. Legge is threatening that unpleasant things will happen to Marney's daughter, Denise, unless Sir Robert provides some unspecified assistance with his planned robbery, and Gray is hired to protect her. What follows is rather uninspired business with Johnny Gray doing much running around but not much detecting. Often it seems the only progress that Gray actually makes toward solving the case, is when the heavy handed ineptitude of the thieves pushes him toward the solution.

The only actual mystery in the film, is the hidden identity of a maniac who likes to slice women's throats with a straight razor. This subplot seems almost like an afterthought, tacked loosely to the main narrative. Actually it isn't even really much of a mystery, as the film's complete lack of subtlety makes the identity of the killer blatantly obvious very early in the film.

The only real bright spot in the entire production is Eddi Aren't. Aren't is usually on hand in the Rialto Wallace films to provide comedy relief and in ZIMMER 13, he has his work cut out for him. As Higgins, a brilliant, if somewhat odd, police scientist, who is madly in love with his lab mannequin, Emily, Aren't is by far the most interesting thing in the movie. Unfortunately, Aren't alone simply isn't enough, and in the end ZIMMER 13, with its night club setting and hip private detective, feels very much like a less than inspired episode of PETER GUNN.

For fans of the Edgar Wallace mystery thrillers, ZIMMER 13 is available on DVD as part of the Edgar Wallace Collection from Tobis Home Entertainment. This impressive series presents pristine copies of all thirty-three of the Rialto Wallace films in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. Happily, the majority of the DVDs releases in this series feature both German and English audio and subtitle options.