Wait! There was no sequel to 1949's "The Third Man." Harry Lime (Orson Welles) dies at the end. Au contraire! If Patrick Duffy can come back from dead, just by taking a shower, Harry Lime can come back... or can he? From West Germany we have a film set in London...1959's "Face of the Frog," directed by Harold Reinl and starring a whole bunch of krauts! Wait, is "krauts' a derogatory term?
The Frog is a mystery. A crime lord who wears a frog mask and commands a gang of 300 loyal and ruthless followers. For the past four years he has spread his wrath of murder, robbery, terrorism, and more murder all throughout England. On his tail is American playboy, Richard (Joachim Fuchsberger) and Detective Inspector Hedge (Siegrfied Lowitz). Fair is fair, if the Germans can culturally appropriate English and Americans, I can call them krauts. So there. Richard figures out the ultimate target of The Frog is the Bennet family...more specifically, he wants the lovely Bennet daughter Ella (Elfie von Kalckreuth) as his bride or lover. Too bad for this reptile wannabe, Richard has fallen in love with Ella and now sees it as his divine duty to protect her.
A lot happens in this film, but the theory is posed by Richard that Harry Lime did not die five years ago, but survived and moved to London. Is Harry Lime The Frog? The creep gets everywhere and corrupts every institution of the government. Who else works for The Frog? Lolita (Eva Pflug). Lolita is a nightclub songstress and is all seduction. What happens to her at the hands of The Frog will shock you and give us one of the most vicious scenes in film history. Richard seems to be outsmarted, as does the good inspector, at every turn. The Frog takes and murders at will and now he makes his move on Ella. He does this by seemingly annihilating any effort to stop him. After a couple of sultry and seductive numbers by Lolita, she too will be grabbed. What happens next is shocking and all loose ends will be tied up.
Just what will The Frog do to the two babes, Lolita and Ella? Will Richard shake off his failures and regroup with the inspector to track down The Frog and save a couple of damsels? Will Richard or The Frog end up with Ella? This is a quirky one, as was "The Third Man." For some neat West German cultural appropriation of England and America, see "Face of the Frog."
It's also called The Mask Of The Frog. This was the first of a long-running series of German films, called 'krimis', based on - or, later on, 'inspired by' - the novels of Edgar Wallace, a now-forgotten English thriller writer from the early 20th Century. (Their, shall we say, inaccurate depiction of London and England is legendary, although Wallace's novels were often just as over-the-top.)
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the best, and also one of the most faithful adaptations. 'Harry Lyme' was a character in the original Wallace novel - it isn't clear whether Graham Greene borrowed him for The Third Man, or even if the Harry Lime of this film is meant to be the character from The Third Man.
Best watched with subtitles IMO - it just works better if you can hear the original actors.