Review "Das Mädchen mit den Katzenaugen"/The Girl with the Cat's Eyes 1958 Fuchsberger debuts as Inspector

December 28, 2024

Review "Das Mädchen mit den Katzenaugen"/The Girl with the Cat's Eyes 1958 Fuchsberger debuts as Inspector

The Krimi, as the Giallo, did not appear out of thin air. Numerous films and successful formulas had been tried out in 1959 when Rialto decided to try something new. So here we get "Das Mädchen mit den Katzenaugen"/The Girl with the Cat's Eyes/La Ragazza dagli Occhi di Gatto, a movie so full of potential that the way the execution fails hurts even more.

We have Vera Tschechova, the love interest of Elvis Presley and ultra-hot movie property; here being very young, and we have Joachim Fuchsberger, already a well-known actor, here giving his first performance as a police investigator. Furthermore, there is Gert Fröbe AND Wolfgang Preiss (talking about Mabuse) in leading roles. Even more Krimi nobility shows up with Mady Rahl and Hans Clarin. We even get to see German national treasure Heidi Kabel as a worn-down prostitute (literally, streets have been named after her, and she got her own bronze statue in Hamburg). We have Willy Krüger, who later got his 3-season run on TV as "Kommissar Freytag," and Willy "Bum" Krüger, whom we'll see again in "House on the Hill." We have seedy bars, seedier bargirls, the seediest bar managers, small-time crooks flirting around with the love interest of the spanish-babo-boss, and even one Inspector gets killed.

Willy Zeyn junior is the producer, who later went on to produce some of the most notable krimis and gialli (e.g., Blood and Black Lace) and camerawork is done by experienced Heinz Hölscher of later "Green Archer" fame.

What can go wrong? What --- in --- can go wrong? Well, Werner P. Zimbaso, for one. A prolific scriptwriter of the most shallow plots, he is the epitome of Germany's lack of good scripts after WWII, with all the fancy writers having fled to Hollywood (and most of them decided to stay there—and create the Film Noir). I will not go into detail about how many potentially good movies I have watched that were bogged down by his scripts. So here we go:

Small-timer Hans Clarin works for Spanish El Mafioso Wolfgang Preiss, who uses the fancy "Variety" Bar as a facade to steal and deal German cars that are then shipped to South America. Conveniently, this is set in Hamburg. Clarin does the carnapping using the bar's star "The Girl with the Cat"Eyes"—Mady Rahl, who seduces older, stupid men to go out with her, preparing their cars for the theft. Mady and Hans have their own little thing going as Mady will always leave her furs in the car to later demand extra compensation from the victim, which she and Clarin then split without Preiss knowing about this.

Problems arise when they steal a fancy American cruiser and the owner begins to make trouble. Police inspector Krüger now goes into our bar as a drunk, rich, old man to flirt with Rahl and gather information. Of course Rahl and Clarin fall for his fancy Mercedes-Cabriolet (like "Miami Vice"), but that one's bugged, and Clarin has got to flee in his own car to the garage, where they prepare the cars for the voyage. This garage is owned by heavy-drinker Fröbe, who is not too happy about the criminal things going on there but is afraid or too greedy to ask.

Inspector Krüger now goes in alone, sadly to be killed by Preiss and driven over by Fröbe, just in time for Fröbe's daughter Tschechova to arrive home from a miserable job experience.

Preiss immediately smells fresh meat and throws out older Mady Rahl (to be shipped with the cars...) and replaces her by Tschechova, who is now "The Girl with the Cat's Eyes." The police find the body of Krüger, and now Fuchsberger is sent in to investigate. He starts at the last job and goes undercover as a used-car dealer into the bar to see Tschechova dance and fall in love with her.

STOP.

Up to this point, the movie is a blast. Murder, Girls, Carnappings, Music, Songs, Dance—Numbers of old hags in fancy drags. Everything is right on the spot, and I was wondering why on earth this movie a) did not perform well b) is ridiculed by the critics.

Well. Now we got a completely new movie. The investigation of Krüger's murder is tiresome, as is the love-interest angle between Tschechova and Fuchsberger. They do not seem to have any chemistry together. Cleary Tschechova, later a very good actress, is not able to play up to the star power in this movie. And really... she is as good a dancer as Soledad Miranda is (=not at all). The movie loses quality and interest fast, and if it weren't for this review, I would not have even gotten to the end.

I do not know what went wrong, but 45 minutes of excitement are followed by 45 minutes of complete boredom; it's like a failed sequel. Furthermore, Fröbe is seriously overacting and Preiss is seriously underacting.

The movie bombed, reaching spot 146 (!) in Germany's year-end charts and was correctly ridiculed by the press. Director Eugen York did some other lesser-known krimis later, but honestly, I will try to avoid them as long as possible.

I have no idea why they put Fuchsberger into Wallace after this movie, as he too is not very convincing. Tschechova (said to be a relative of the author Anatoly Tschechov) became better over the years and earned her spot in Krimi-Heaven later.

The DVD by Magic Picture has a good 2K-neg scan and good sound in German only ( but english, italian, polish and french subtitles...) I was already sorry that I had gotten down to purchase and watch it, but then I discovered that they had 10+ trailers of movies that I had never heard of, including the 1952!!! Nudie-Crime-Heimat-Epic "Geheimnis des Bergsees" (Mystery of the Mountain Lake), that I immediately ordered after viewing the trailer.

Well. This is a curio for Fuchsberger, appearing for the first time as a police investigator. And for all the Krimi-stars assembled. Other than that, it is just 45 minutes of good entertainment. You can skip the rest after Fuchsberger's bar fight...