Adding to the lustre of KILL, PANTHER, KILL! are Siegfried Rauch and KILL, BABY, KILL!’s Erika Blanc.
the start?) Adding further dramatic interest to this storyline is Blanc’s exposure as a femme fatale who manipulates Rowland into falling in love with her, deepening caricature into character with a litte heartbreak.
Perhaps to help the film make an easier transi-
tion to the likelier graveyard of television, the se- ries’ screen ratio here switches from 2.35 to 1.66:1. It opens with the Constantin Films logo in 1.33:1 and fairly ragged condition, bracing the viewer for a plummet in picture quality. Fortunately, the bal- ance of the presentation is first-rate, flawed only by a couple of instances of audio repair on the English dub track where the much-cleaner German dub au- dio kicks in to cover some missing sound effects. The extras consist of a German trailer (3m 25s) with various screen ratios and unique footage, this time including footage of Tony Kendall breaking the fourth wall; two Super 8mm condensations (16m 10s and 16m 6s, respectively, the second one titled Kommissar X: Die leiche lässt schöngrüben); a Tony Kendall filmography of 55 pages; and the usual pressbook, film-programme and poster gallery.
24 KOMMISSAR X: DREI GOLDENE SCHLANGEN
“Three Golden Serpents” aka THE ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS 1969, 84m 40s, €21.65, PAL DVD-2
In THE ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS, the final pic- ture included in this set, SLAUGHTER OF THE
VAMPIRES director Roberto Mauri—who had just made KING OF KONG ISLAND (1968) with series producer Ralph Zucker—picks up the flagging reins of Kommissar X. It’s a more conspicuously Italian production than any of the others, with a sudden epidemic of crude zoom shots and Walter Brandi (the vampire in both THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE and THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLE- RINA) miscast as the villainous Dr. Landru, a French expert on the Orient—and Oriental poi- sons in particular. Landru is also unusually atten- tive to a variety of pets, which may indicate that the role was intended to be played by Rudolf Zehetgruber, or perhaps as someone’s thumbed nose at the self-styled star.
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