Having enjoyed Rialto Film's later, color filled Edgar Wallace adaptations, I recently decided to give the earlier black and white adaptations a try. So far, my favorite from that period, just ahead of The Dark Eyes of London, is The Door with 7 Locks. I'm not sure the mystery holds completely together, but it is a great pulp set up. Seven keys are being held by seven rather unscrupulous individuals, all of whom worked for a deceased lord whose son is supposed to inherit everything on his twenty-first birthday. The seven keys fit into seven locks which open a door in a castle, but what is behind that door? Scotland Yard inspector Dick Martin comes into the case after the murder of two of the key holders. Martin romances Sybil, a librarian distantly related to the deceased lord and banters with his superior Sir John and the comic relief. This comic relief is once again played by Eddi A-r-e-n-t (no apostrophe in his name, auto-correct). Here, he is playing an inspector who, in spite of having the last name of "Holmes," has less than stellar deduction skills. However, the two most welcome returning actors are Pinkas Braun, the dashing villain from Secret of the Red Orchid and Ady Berber, the Tor Johnson lookalike who played Blind Jack in The Dead Eyes of London. Here, Berber's character Giacco strikes such fear into an intended victim that just hearing his name causes the target to grab a Sten Submachine gun and start blasting. I do not know how close the film is to the source material, but the film is a highly enjoyable mystery. Unfortunately, Klaus Kinski is bumped off too early. Recommended!

"Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern" or "The Door with Seven Locks" is a French / West German co-production and the outcome is another German-language installment to the prolific Edgar Wallace franchise. This one here is from 1962 (almost 55 years old) and thus from the earlier years of the series. And as such, it is also still in black-and-white. The lead actor is Heinz Drache this time and the supporting cast includes familiar names such as Aren't, Uhlen, Peters and Kinski. And story-wise, I have to give the makers a bit of a thumbs-up here. It may be the same people who made this like usual, but there are changes to the plot that you find in pretty much no other Wallace film. So it's good they got the courage to enter new territories here and try to deliver in other areas than usual, but nonetheless, the outcome is pretty uninteresting and I did not feel it was very smart or even inspired. The story was just not good enough in terms of the writing. My final verdict: Watch something else instead. Then again, I am not a great Wallace films fan at all, so maybe you will enjoy the watch more than I did.

A priest arriving by train to London collapses while having an orange soda. A doctor appears and says that the man is in having a heart attack and gives him a shot before trying to lift a key, which the police confiscate. The priest dies and the doctor disappears. It transpires that the doctor was carrying one of the keys that tie into a fortune that a soon to be 21 year old Lord is going to be inheriting. It also seems that someone is trying to kill the keepers of the keys in order to get the fortune for themselves. Remake of an earlier film, with both based upon an Edgar Wallace story. This is a good film, but its also a clichéd Edgar Wallace story with everything you'd expect going on-seemingly random murder,a hidden fortune, feuding heirs, lots of red herrings, an old manor house, stalwart police. If you've seen any of the German Wallace films this is going to play like a greatest hits film of sorts. Its not bad, actually its quite good, its just that there isn't anything to make it stand out from the rest of the films in the series so instead of being one of the best it falls down to being one of many. Unremarkable nature of the plot aside this is still a film thats worth seeing because it is very good.

Two murder victims have turned up in London; one was found floating in the Thames, the other suffers what appears to be a heart attack at a soda stand. Both have one thing in common: they each had a mysterious key attached to a gold chain. Scotland Yard Inspector Richard Martin (Drache) investigates (with his veddy-British comic relief partner Holms), and discovers there are seven keys in all. But where is this door with seven locks? And what does a young heir coming to town for his 21st birthday have to do with it? The mystery involves a mad scientist conducting genetic experiments in the basement of a spooky old castle. This German-made black-and-white "krimi" based upon an Edgar Wallace story is fast-paced and fun.