I'll admit straight up that it's virtually impossible for me to be objective about this film. When I saw Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski in the prelude, I got happy. Then the opening credits rolled and I saw Marissa Mell's name. I almost creamed my... spinach! I love Marissa Mell. She's one of my absolute favourite 60s/70s Italian (okay, I know she was Austrian, but her career was in Italy) actresses.
So it may be my Mell bias which leads me to like this entry in the Edgar Wallace series a lot more than most other reviewers here, but I really did enjoy it. The story was entertaining, even if more unbelievable than usual. The reveal of certain documents and identities late on was very well done. I, for one, didn't see it coming. I do wish that the ending hadn't been so rushed, though. The shorter than usual running time didn't do us any favours.
Romances in films in general, and particularly in this series, are a bugbear of mine. They tend to be shoehorned in where they don't belong, be nauseatingly sweet or take too much time away from the main plot. Here, Mell keeps on subtly hitting on Hoven but his mind is fixed on his job. I applaud you, makers of this film, for doing something different. I would ask how you could cast Marissa Mell in the one film in the series where no one really seems that interested in the leading lady, but I've read that she and quite a few of the other actors were originally meant to do a different EW film but ended up doing "Orchid" because the other script wasn't ready in time.
Another reason why I might have liked it more than others did is that I saw the Spanish-dubbed version, so while I didn't get to hear Lee's great German again, I did hear a well-done dub, which can make a big difference in enjoyment of a film.
So it's a thumbs up from me. The film was good and I had a great time staring at the impossibly gorgeous Marisa Mell. What more could I ask?
So it may be my Mell bias which leads me to like this entry in the Edgar Wallace series a lot more than most other reviewers here, but I really did enjoy it. The story was entertaining, even if more unbelievable than usual. The reveal of certain documents and identities late on was very well done. I, for one, didn't see it coming. I do wish that the ending hadn't been so rushed, though. The shorter than usual running time didn't do us any favours.
Romances in films in general, and particularly in this series, are a bugbear of mine. They tend to be shoehorned in where they don't belong, be nauseatingly sweet or take too much time away from the main plot. Here, Mell keeps on subtly hitting on Hoven but his mind is fixed on his job. I applaud you, makers of this film, for doing something different. I would ask how you could cast Marissa Mell in the one film in the series where no one really seems that interested in the leading lady, but I've read that she and quite a few of the other actors were originally meant to do a different EW film but ended up doing "Orchid" because the other script wasn't ready in time.
Another reason why I might have liked it more than others did is that I saw the Spanish-dubbed version, so while I didn't get to hear Lee's great German again, I did hear a well-done dub, which can make a big difference in enjoyment of a film.
So it's a thumbs up from me. The film was good and I had a great time staring at the impossibly gorgeous Marisa Mell. What more could I ask?