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La Mano de un Hombre Muerto
The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus
Le Sadique Baron Von Klaus
Spain/France 1962
produced by Albatros C.P.C., Eurocineac
directed by Jess Franco
starring Howard Vernon, Hugo Blanco, Gogó Rojas (as Gogo Robins), Fernando Delgado, Paula Martel, Ana Castor, Turia Nelson, Georges Rollin, Serafin García Vázquez, Ángel Menéndez, María Francés, Manuel Alexandre, José Luis Coll, Miguel Madriod], José Bast, José Bastida
screenplay by Rene Sébille, based on a novel (?) by Daniel Khune (= Jess Franco), music by Daniel J. White
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Someone's killing the nice girls of Holfen, Germany one by one, and in
no time becomes a story big enough to not only interest the local
police inspector Borowsky (Georges Rollin) but also to jornalist Karl
Steiner (Fernando Delgado). With the help of psychoanalyst Dr Kallmann
(Ángel Menéndez) it doesn't take them long to link the case of the
murders of Baron Von Klaus ... but that said, that was 150 years or so
ago, so that rules Baron Von Klaus out as the murderer - well, that Baron
Von Klaus anyways, he still has two ancestors, Max (Howard Vernon) and his
nephew Ludwig (Hugo Blanco) living at his estate. Initially, all the
evidence points to Max, and Steiner helps the professor to have him
arrested, but immediately after the arrest starts to have his doubts and
tracks down a witness (his mistress) to testify for him for the time of a
certain murder. Of course, the pure fact that another murder happens while
Max is still in jail also helps. Steiner now focusses his investigations
on Ludwig ... who of course is the killer, and who manages to snatch a key
witness - his mistress - away from the police and kill her under their
very noses. But Steiner has made friends with Karine (Paula Martel),
Ludwig's fiancée, and he persuades her to lure Ludwig out of the Von
Klaus mansion so he can give the torture dungeon a good lookover - now the
plan works well, apart from the fact that Ludwig has grown wise to
Karine's betrayal and now wants to kill her ... and now it takes a
concerted effort from Steiner, Max and the police to prevent him from
doing so. Finding himself cornered, Ludwig decides to make the local swamp
his watery grave, just like his ancestor. The Sadistic Baron
Von Klaus shows Jess Franco on his directorial best: The film is very
elegantly filmed, every frame is pretty much oozing with atmosphere and
has an incredibly gothic feel to it - and yet everything feels very fresh
and timeless, spunky if you may. And even a torture scene in the Von Klaus
dungeon that features a topless girl (almost unheard of back in 1962) is
beautifully laid out, well integrated into the film, and obviously much
more than cheap sensationalism ... and that said, The Sadistic Baron
Von Klaus is decidedly a less than great film. Basically, the
narrative lacks stringency, suspense scenes are few and far between, and
on top of that the characters are uniformly flat. Plus, for a murder
mystery it's disappointingly easy to guess the killer. It's still worth
watching for 1960's genre afficionados at least, and probably better than
quite a few of maestro Mario Bava's films, it's just nowhere near as great
as it could have been with a decent script.
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