Review "Hypnosis"/Nur Tote Zeugen schweigen (1963) Eugenio Martin's try at a Krimi!

 

With the German distributor "Constantin Films" pushing movie producers hard to fill the huge demand for Krimis that surged in the early 1960s, the German company decided to produce four movies in Spain with Carolco based on the works of Ersatz-Edgar Wallace Louis Weinert-Wilton using the spanish facilities but german personell. So time was right to try something a little bit different, with first-time director Eugenio Martin at the helm, a fifth movie was made called Ipnosi/Hypnosis or "Nur Tote Zeugen schweigen" (Only dead witnesses stay silent). This was obviously a more spanish affair and the plot tansgresses the Krimi-territory into British thriller movies (most notably "Taste of Fear") and even (maybe) into the supernatural.

Shot in stark expressionistic, even silent era style black and white, we witness the mesmerising show of a hypnotiseur/ventriloquist act in a theatre at the beginning. This is one stunning piece of cinematography, worthy of a Bunuel and I sincerely was hyped for the rest of the movie. 

After this it boils down to a standard-krimi fair with the hypnoticist/ventriloquist being murdered and the puppet being the only witness. In comes a searched-for thief who accidentally happens to be around when the murder happened and is now obviously the main suspect, so he is hunted by the police but has to solve the murder mystery himself. All the usual suspects (partner, lover, ex-lover) are in there and they all encounter the ventriloquist puppet at one point or the other, which is scary (and here the reference to "Taste of Fear" is drawn). 

This makes for an effective small thriller, but in the German dub at least, the puppet speaks without anyone being around, giving it a supernatural spin. (I mean even before the technical gadgetry is used) I am not sure about the original script. But anyway this movie would have worked without it as well.

The puppet is actually creepy (aren't they all?) but the rest of the movie is pretty standard fare. The director, Eugenio Martin had been drafted from the pool of people working on the Weinert-Wilton Krimis and went on to direct a lacklustre portfolio of Almeria-Westerns, drama and erotic comedies. The only better known movie by him is the competently handled "Horror Express" starrring Telly Savalas and the Cushing/Lee team.

Looking at the attendance, "Hipnosis" just reached about 100.000 meagre spectators in Spain and France. In Germany around 850.000 wanted to see the star-power of Götz George, Heinz Drache und Werner Peters, all of them Wallace-regulars. But still way below the Weinert-Wilton figures. Additionally, we have an early appearance of "beautiful" Jean Sorel. This is interesting as the movie does not hide its Spanish origins, outdoor-shots and the police are clearly identifiable as Spanish. 

This is not a bad time-waster and the puppet-thing gives this Krimi the extra creepy spin, the rest, though, is pretty much standard fare...

On the Krimimeter, this movie reaches 6.2 out of 10 points as it tends to be leaning more towards british trillers of the Hammer factory than to the Krimidom.

The "Filmjuwehlen" DVD I watched was ok, obviously taken from a print, clocking 82 minutes (around 86min  on BD/Projection)