The Many Faces of Klaus Kinski

I got my hands on the May 1980 issue of American Film magazine a couple months ago. It features 'The Many Faces of Klaus Kinski,' a six page cover feature on Kinski by David Thomson in which the author wonders, "Can a small, middle-aged foreign actor with an alarming face be a star in America?"

The article is interesting, though it seems to dismiss a large portion of Kinski's work as not being "worthwhile" while spotlighting DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and ZOO ZERO as those that are.

Most intriguing is the last paragraph in which there's talk of Klaus in a large supporting role in one the era's most spectacular action fantasy films.

LIFESPAN DVD Coming from Mondo Macabro

Mark Tuesday, May 30th on your calendars... that's the release date for LIFESPAN starring Klaus Kinski from Mondo Macabro! Though there isn't much info there, you can pre-order the title from Amazon (and support The Kinski Files in the process) by clicking the link above.

LIFESPAN was made in 1974 and co-written, produced and directed by Alexander Whitelaw. The box art on the MM website touts this as a "Uncut Special Edition." The only version I have is the PG rated Vestron Video VHS from 1986 which states an 85 minute running time.

I picked the tape up during last summer's excursion to Butler, PA for the Monster Bash Film Convention but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I'll certainly be doing so soon in order to compare it to the DVD when it comes out.

Here's the synopsis from the box: "A Drug That Will Cheat Death. Klaus Kinski Would Kill For It. Walk a tightrope of award-winning suspense as KLAUS KINSKI (FITZCARRALDO, CRAWLSPACE) turns a search for an immortality drug into a deperate race against time.

In this fast-paced chiller, Kinski plays Nicholas Ulrich, a weathly industrialist obsessed with selfishly using this life rejuvenating drug for his own personal benefit. But his plans are threatened by a young American scientist whose own investigation has uncovered several cases of horrific, inhuman experimentation. Now Ulrich must battle the young scientist to keep the elixir of life to himself. The search for eternal life may end in an early death!

A LIFESPAN that goes on forever -- what would you do for it?"

Klaus Kinski... Blogging from the Great Beyond

All I ever hear about MySpace.com is that nothing good happens there. Seems like every news report is about some creepy old guy trawling for teens. Nobody mentioned to me that Klaus Kinski is blogging from beyond the grave and apparently his CAPS LOCK key is stuck.

THE BLACK ABBOTT (1963)

If you’re a Klaus Kinski fanatic like me you’re bound to become a krimi watcher at some point. It's impossible to neglect this crucial, early chapter in the man's career, which includes close to two dozen films made during the 1960s. THE BLACK ABBOTT (aka DER SCHWARZE ABT) is one of Klaus's earliest krimi appearances, falling between THE BLACK COBRA (DIE SCHWARZE KOBRA) and THE INDIAN SCARF (DAS INDISCHE TUCH), all 1963.

Thanks to the recent Edgar Wallace DVD box sets many of these flicks are becoming available in uncut, widescreen versions for the first time, though I believe they are currently only available as PAL/Region 2 releases. (See Xploitedcinema.com for all eight (!) box sets as well as many single disc releases.) THE BLACK ABBOTT comes from Box 4 which also includes the aforementioned THE INDIAN SCARF, ROOM 13 and DER HEXER (a particular favorite of the titles I've seen so far), though the latter two are non-Kinski-related.

Most, if not all, the krimis that I've seen – and my education is admittedly in its infancy – have been of the "whodunit" variety, with a masked or unseen figure carrying off a spate of crimes that leave sleuths of the professional and amateur type scratching their heads. Red herring after red herring is laid at the viewer's feet until everything comes careening together in a last minute unmasking that's filled with twists, turns and the inevitable revelation of false identities.

It's no wonder these flicks give me a headache. The plotting is dense despite their compact running times, background info on characters is often sketchy and picked up on the fly, and you'd need a scorecard to keep track of the intertwining relationships of everybody involved.

THE BLACK ABBOTT is no exception, though it's far less of a "whodunit" than it is a thriller packed with traditional krimi elements.

Krimi regular Joachim Fuchsberger (DER HEXER's Inspector Higgins) stars here as Dick Alford, cousin and administrator to Lord Chelford (Dieter Borsche), the last lord of Fossaway Manor. When hunter Mr. Smooth gets offed by the hooded Black Abbott in the film's pre-credit sequence, Inspector Puddler (Charles Regnier) and comic relief assistant Horatio Smith (omnipresent Eddi Arent) arrive in an attempt to get to the bottom of things.

Naturally, there's no shortage of villains and nefarious types to choose from. There's Gilder (Werner Peters of THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE), a blackmailing corporate secretary leading a double life as a bookie who lusts after Leslie, the sister of his employer, Arthur Gine (Harry Wustenhagen). Gine, of course, is a degenerate gambler who has unwittingly paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to Gilder through the years and also happens to be embezzling from the Chelford fortune. Mary Wenner (Eva Ingeborg Scholz) is a heartless gold-digger with designs on becoming Lady Chelford so she can get her hands on the legendary Chelford treasure.

Alford is no prince, either. He's up to some kind of shenanigans with his cousin's physician Dr. Loxon (Friedrich Schoenfelder) all the while taking horseback rides and long walks with Leslie Gine (Grit Bottcher), his cousin's intended.

Got that? If so maybe you can explian it all to me.

Last, but certainly not least, is Kinski as Thomas Fortuna, the detached, almost robotic butler of Fossaway Manor. A whimsical smile dancing across his lips, the role of the butler who is more than he appears to be is perfectly suited to Kinski's icily superior air. In one of my favorite exchanges in the witty script, Lord Chelford informs Fortuna that "The more I see you the more I dislike you" to which the butler replies, "I regret, my lord, that my face annoys you."

As I said, THE BLACK ABBOTT is less a whodunit than a thriller with Lord Chelford slowly but surely embracing his paranoia about everybody and descending into complete madness. Mary and Gilder team up to search for the hidden treasure while everybody (or so it seems) starts hanging around the estate's gravel pit. And not one but two Black Abbotts appear along the way, with neither being the red herring I suspected.

I don't like divulging plot details in my reviews, especially when it comes to krimis, so I'll end it there. The flick looks great, all crisp black and white with a splash of red thrown in at the beginning and end credits. The witty script by Johannes Kai and director Franz Josef Gottleib is a tad convoluted, but that's to be expected when compressing one of Wallace's novels into an 88-minute running time, and prolific composer Martin Bottcher does a nice job of contemporazing the staid pastoral setting with his funky score.

As for Klaus, I'm still working my way through a bevy of krimis (I have a baker's dozen or more on tap) but I dug this performance more than his turn in 1961's DEAD EYES OF LONDON. He's condescending while at the same time defferential and his head often seems too big for his body, making him resemble a walking bobblehead.

Got Klaus?: RED ORCHID Out on DVD Today

Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia brings us another double-feature disc featuring a Kinski Krimi. This time out it's 1962's SECRET OF THE RED ORCHID which is on a disc with MONSTER OF LONDON CITY.

ORCHID stars Christopher Lee with Kinski as "Steve" and krimi regular Eddi Arent most likely appearing as some kind of comic relief. Look for a full review soon.

iPod Alert! Klaus in Berlin (MP3)

German language MP3 file of Klaus in Berlin. Performance, commentary and what sounds like audience comments. Listen at the gym and confound those around you!

Welcome to The Kinski Files

It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to The Kinski Files. I have been fascinated with actor Klaus Kinski since the early 1980s when my family had cable television installed. I lived in South Jersey at the time, and we convinced my father to let us get Prism, a sports and movie channel so he could see all of the Philadelphia Phillies home games.

I was more interested in the channel's cinematic offerings and -- in those pre-TV ratings and channel blocking days -- was more than happy to immerse myself in the station's more prurient delights. I can still recall coming home from grade school one day and having the house to myself. I tuned in something called DEADLY GAMES (a mind-bending erotic thriller starring Sondra Locke, Colleen Camp and Seymour Cassel) and I swear I was never quite right again.

My Kinski fascination started in earnest during Halloween one year. With a lineup themed for the season, Prism showed the English language version of Werner Herzog's NOSFERATU starring Klaus as the titular vampire. If you've never seen this version it's, well, a howler.

When I saw it listed again a few weeks later I couldn't help but tune in. Who doesn't love a good bad film?

I was shocked to discover that not only was the flick in German, but it was like watching a completely different movie. The hammy, laugh-out-loud English version had somehow morphed into this atmospheric and riveting German version.

As for Kinski, well, what can I say? His performance as the rat-like Nosferatu is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Or so I thought.

Next thing I knew I couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Kinski flick. There was his turn as a psychotherapist in Billy Wilder's BUDDY, BUDDY. A memorable role as a hunchback in 1965's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. Spaghetti westerns. War films. Spy flicks. It seemed like he was everywhere and frankly, no matter how bad the flick, I couldn't take my eyes off the guy.

A few years later while publishing the drive-in movie zine EXPLOITATION RETROSPECT my buddies and I decided to dedicate an entire issue to Kinski's work. We wrote about his controversial autobiography (later pulled from the shelves and turned into a collector's item), watched a bunch of his films and reveled in his Klaus-ness.

Little did I know that the issue would spark a fascination that's going on two decades and has driven me to devote days to his films, spend hours scouring the internet for interviews and pieces of information or trawl through pages and pages of eBay auctions looking for one, just one, movie I haven't located yet.

I hope you'll enjoy this journey through the world of Klaus. If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out the Kinski Guide over at the ER web site which includes reviews, interviews, and other nuggets about the man they call The German Olivier.

This blog will be the first place to find out what's new in the world of Kinski, from upcoming video releases to new gems I've unearthed in my quest, as well as details on Kinski-related projects that remain hush-hush... at least for the moment.