With “Mord unter Misteln” the Munich “Tatort” branch has succeeded in creating a nice piece of English crime nostalgia. Have Chief Inspector Francis Lightmyer and Detective Constable Ivor Partridge whetted your appetite for more? Here’s half a dozen crime classics as British as Shortbread, Teatime and Big Ben.
Ladykillers (GB, 1955)
The scheming Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness) and his gang rent a room from the unsuspecting Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) in order to plan the next heist in peace. But no matter how naive the old lady and her three parrots may appear, the preparations for the coup aren’t going smoothly – soon it’s not just about money, but about life and death. The superbly cast black comedy premiered in London on December 8, 1955, was released on Super 8 in the early 1970s and is now considered an absolute classic.
Continue watching: “Arsenic and Lace Caps”
4.50pm from Paddington (UK, 1961)
No one can get close to Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford), there is no way around it. Originally titled “Murder She Said”, this case begins quite unspectacularly with a train ride. However, when the amateur detective accidentally observes a woman being strangled in the compartment of a passing train, things start to roll. Miss Marple sets out to investigate. As the first of four Marple films starring Rutherford, “4:50 from Paddington” is one of the evergreens of the whodunit genre.
Continue watching: “The Wax Flower Bouquet”
The Old Dark House (GB, USA 1963)
The great remake of “The House of Horror” from 1932 manages to walk an atmospheric tightrope. On the one hand, the morbid experiences of the car salesman Tom Penderel are subtly silly, while at the same time the parody repeatedly turns into real horror, and the nightly occurrences in the London villa are simply eerily beautiful. It’s also worth seeing the wonderful Robert Morley again, one of the great characters in British cinema.
Continue watching: “Theatre of Horror”
The Indian Cloth (GB, 1962)
After Lord Lebanon has been murdered, the relatives arrive for the reading of the will and are told they will be sentenced to a six-day gathering at Castle Marks Priory before they are told who will inherit what. It is the prelude to a murderous intrigue with the reliable Heinz Drache as lawyer Frank Tanner, with greats such as Elisabeth Flickenschildt, Corny Collins, Klaus Kinski, Hans Clarin and the indispensable Eddi Arent in other roles. The German cinema versions of the Edgar Wallace crime novels have long since been classified as cult.
Watch next: “The Hound of Blackwood Castle”
A Corpse for Dessert (US, 1976)
With an incredible cast of Peter Falk, Sir Alec Guinness, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Truman Capote and many others, atmospherically staged by director Robert Moore, this comedy is as timeless as dominoes and fondue. The creepy-funny events surrounding the eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain have not aged a day even after five decades. The fact that this whodunit situation loses its thread a little at the end fits perfectly with the most mysterious and botched events in the castle, the dialogues from Rainer Brandt’s dubbing workshop are worth their weight in gold anyway.
Weitergucken: “Only Murders In The Building”
Death on the Nile (GB, 1978)
Published as a novel by Agatha Christie in 1937, this Egyptian crime trip is also one of the evergreens of the genre. Peter Ustinov as detective Hercule Poirot is in a class of his own, and the cast of absolute legends – David Niven, Maggie Smith, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Jane Birkin and many more – is a surefire thing. Kenneth Branagh’s remake from this year may pull the crime register just as competently, but the originals can’t be topped.
Continue watching: “Evil Under the Sun”
