Sadly I don't remember the book anymore, but I do recall that I was captivated by the stories of Edgar Wallace. This Film represents a typical German Production of low quality. It does not hold my attention - although the story itself is good, it is just badly adabted. At the center of the misery are the characters that are overly simplyfied and exaggerated - they have no nuances in their performances. Even the well known and liked German Actors Joachim Fuchsberger and Eddy Aren't cannot rescue this poor spectacle. However there's hope ... I've been told that the films following this one are getting better and better. So in conclusion I must say that this film doesn't deserve the cinematic screen but may be enough for a lazy afternoon.

The Frog is a master criminal who is sought both by the police and by an amateur American sleuth and his comical butler/sidekick. The Frog falls in love with a young woman and hatches a ridiculous Rube Goldbeg-like plot to get her to give herself him. He uses a singing siren named "Lolita" to ensnare her ne'r-do-well brother into a gruesome murder plot. The brother is convicted of the capital crime and sentenced to death only to find the executioner is someone very familiar to him.As other have said, this is the first of West German Edgar Wallace krimis. It's certainly not the best, but it is pretty entertaining. The comical sidekick (here played by Eddie Aren't) would become a staple of this series, to the annoyance of some, but personally I don't think this kind of comedy really hurts these films that much because the plots are already delightfully absurd and villains like the Frog are more than a little cartoonish to begin with(but I mean that in a good way). The butler/sidekick here kind of anticipates (perhaps even influenced?) the "Kato" character in the "Pink Panther" series in that he is always sparring with his boss to keep him sharp. The bigger liability here, however, is the "American" protagonist himself. But Joachim Fuchsberger, who was in nearly all these movies, would get a lot better in the future entries in the series, especially when he got to play an "English" detective (a role at which the German actor was much more convincing).But in addition to the serial-comic strip elements of the plot, there is also a little bit of raciness courtesy of "Lolita" (Eva Pflug), and some surprisingly gruesome violence--the centerpiece murder and a scene where the Frog very violently dispenses with one of his accomplices. In any event, if you enjoy the German krimi series (or the later but the closely related Italian gialli), you certainly won't want to miss this first one.

This movie is an abomination, and its making should have been considered a capital crime.One of the great mysteries of film-making is why nobody ever has made a faithful movie adaptation of this wonderful mystery. It is a tale of a really gripping mystery, nice old-fashioned romance, and dry English humor. Why did the makers have to change Richard Gordon from a Scotland Yard policeman to an amateur detective, introduce the idiotic role and caricature of his English servant, change the part of the main storyline about the murder charge and circumstances of Gordon's struggle to save the accused, etc., etc.? These producers and directors who always think they can make a better story than the one in the book should write the original script themselves and not to rape another person's product.

This was the first of the long-running German "krimi" series based on the mysteries of Edgar Wallace (actually, there were two simultaneous series from rival companies, the other based on the works of the author's son Bryan). As Tim Lucas and other astute critics have pointed out, the films were the precursors of the Italian giallos and ultimately the slasher pictures of the 70s and 80s. They also have obvious stylistic links to the superhero and superspy action genres of the 60s.Most of the key elements of the series already appear in this effort -- the foggy Soho underworld settings; the cabaret shows (which became progressively sleazier); the archvillain with his bizarre modus operandi and grotesque henchmen; the clever, persevering but underappreciated Scotland Yard inspector; the flippant comic antics of Eddie Arent (here appearing as the consummate English butler with Kato leanings) who is always smarter than he seems; the statuesque ingenues; the unfathomable plots featuring dozens of red herrings; and the quite violent-for-the-time stalk-and-murder sequences. Later the series would rely more on flashy camera tricks and tongue-in-cheek stylistics (especially under Alfred Vohrer's nifty direction), but here the proceedings are mainly played straight. Harald Reinl's work was always atmospheric but rather stiff in its mise-en-scene and ragged in continuity. However, this film features quite a sadistic, eye-opening ending that seems to have wandered in from a Jess Franco opus. Well worth a look, especially for amateur film historians.