Director: Jürgen Roland
Year: 1960
Country: West Germany/Denmark
Alternate Titles: Der rote Kreis; The Crimson Circle
Genre: Krimi
Plot:
After a series of murders, a detective is called in to investigate the crimes, which are soon found to belong to a suspected criminal mastermind running wild in the city due to a hereditary birthmark that predisposes him to murder, and tries to protect the remaining figures in their path.
Review:
This was a rather enjoyable Krimi with a lot to like about it. Among the best attributes to be found here is the immensely likable and enjoyable setup that provides quite a strong starting point for the activities within here. Not only is the main series of crimes rather intriguing, but the main killer getting a solid backstory to explain their motivations and rampage serves this one incredibly well by looking into the family ancestry to uncover the truth about the relatives’ survival of the guillotine that accounts for their calling card pattern at each crime scene. By doing this, the idea of the blackmail and murder spree being used to seek revenge for these past activities is an intriguing touch, which gives everything the kind of starting point to understand the history and motivation of everything. This serves to make the targets being selected to undergo the kind of necessary panic and stress that reveals more clues about the rampage that hint at the severity of his intent, as well as the intelligence and ruthlessness to pull off this plan, which all make him a solid criminal figure.
The other fun part here is the series of investigations that are used to solve the case. Knowing the killer is using the special symbol on the letters for his targets, the investigation into the other factors they know about give this some energetic situations involving the recovery of the figures who are competent with specific knots, a look into the shady business of a bank manager to force out phony money distribution tactics, or the mysterious ability of the secretary to walk up to every crime scene that signals something odd going on with everything around her. This sets up some solid stalking scenes involving the killer obscured by the shadows to emerge out of the darkness and strike in some solid overall sequences including a car chase to get out of the city alive, a striking scene at a countryside estate where a victim is attacked with a bow and arrow, or a surprise ambush on a train fleeing the city that’s immensely chilling and creepy trying to figure out where the killer is going to come from.
There are some issues to be had with this one. The biggest issue here is the utterly convoluted and densely-plotted storyline that might manage to work nicely with the identity and personality of the killer, yet makes for a rather twisted offering in most other regards. There are way too many characters involved here, especially on the police side, with way too many figures on the case, even though it’s entirely expected to do so, with the case being as baffling and intricate as it is, but that still manages to bring about too many figures trying to sort out the different aspects of the investigation. As several of them, normally, the woman who keeps showing up in the various crime scenes looking shifty, the different inspectors playing with the case to uncover the allegiances of various suspects, and the outside forces that are dragged into the spree that are uncovered later on, make this one feel quite twisty and complex. That also makes this one somewhat sluggish and tough to get going during the first half, where the early stages of this one manage to get off to a slow start before settling into a solid pace. Overall, these factors are enough to lower this one slightly.
Overview: ***.5/5
An intriguing and overall enjoyable Krimi, there’s enough to like here that allows this to be a solid genre effort, while having enough drawbacks to be just slightly lowered in the genre. Those who enjoy this kind of genre, appreciate this era of European genre fare, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like with this one, while most others should heed caution with this one.
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