THE MYSTERIOUS MAGICIAN (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Opinions seem divided as to where DER HEXER, the "krimi" adaptation of Edgar Wallace's 1925 book THE RINGER, stands. Some reviews call it one of the worst of its ilk, others, one of the best. My take is somewhere in the middle: MAGICIAN is an enjoyable romp without a lot of substance.

A young woman is gruesomely murdered and her body gets tossed in the Thames. When Scotland Yard investigates, it's discovered that the victim possesses an indirect celebrity: she's the sister of a professional assassin, the Ringer-- whose name in German became "hexer," meaning magician or wizard. (The English dub uses the latter term, even though the movie's title uses the former.) He's called the Ringer because he's got an uncanny ability to assume many disguises in order to knock off his targets. The movie's vague about what the Yard knows about the Ringer: on one hand, they have the info that he was somehow exiled from Britain, yet no one knows what he looks like sans disguises. Perhaps the book's more consistent on that point.

I would guess that the book doesn't inject as many allusions to sex as MAGICIAN does. For instance, from Goodreads reviews I know that though the book-version of the story has the sister killed for discovering some skullduggery, MAGICIAN has her find out that her employer's involved in white slavery. Similarly, I'll bet the main character of the book isn't as much of a "player" as Joachim Fuchsberger's Inspector Higgins-- for all that the cop's engaged to a pert young miss named Elise (Sophie Hardy). The overall sexiness of the film stands in contrast to the comparatively higher quotient of violence in many krimis: only the opening murder and the Ringer's killing of the big boss-- with a sword-cane through his heart-- caught my attention.  

Edgar Wallace created a fair number of oddly named masterminds in his career, but the Ringer's only an "uncanny villain" by virtue of his power of disguise-mastery. It's suggested that the cops covertly admire the assassin because he's only targeted other criminals, and indeed the Ringer is really the star of the story, more than any of his pursuers. I can't speak for the book, but the movie ends with the assassin escaping after killing the last of the white slavers. I don't think Wallace usually resurrected his criminals for any encores, but Goodreads also informs me that the author also published a collection of stories, ALIAS THE RINGER.