Note: This title is being released from Olive Films on Blu-ray April 19th.
It’s always great to report on a lost film finally seeing the light of day. This week, Olive Films are bring a long lost picture to light from one of cinema’s great filmmakers. It’s pleasantly shocking that this is even happening, and the fact that a high definition version can now be owned by cinefiles is nothing short of remarkable.
There’s a long story behind this one. Director Samuel Fuller has always been something of a Hollywood outsider, working within and eventually outside the system. His pulpy, hard-boiled style and eccentric voice has always placed him on the margin, even though he’s made several genuine classics. These include Pick Up on South Street (1953), Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964) among others. While these thrillers are all beloved now (all of them have been put out by Criterion), they were never big hits during their initial release.
Much like Orson Welles, the filmmaker essentially found himself scraping to secure funding for various independent features and had many fall apart. But he did have a fan base in Europe and a meeting with a TV producer led to an odd proposition, resulting in Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street.
In Germany, the police procedural drama Tatort (1970-) is one of the most popular shows of all time. Think of it as their version of a show like NYPD Blue or Law and Order. It’s still running some 46 years after its debut and is currently closing in its 1000th episode. Fuller was asked to shoot a feature length episode of the series, and he quickly wrote one, which aired under the title Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße. He also was allowed to retain the rights and secure release for it in North America.
The final product was heavily edited for German TV and of course the US version barely played at all on these shores before it quickly disappeared from sight. Recently, a complete director’s cut (with over twenty minutes of added footage) was located by family members. A restoration by UCLA has resulted in this impressive Blu-ray release.
Its loose narrative involves an American private detective named Sandy (Glenn Corbett) who has been hired by a US Senator to stop an European criminal enterprise run in Germany by a man named Mensur (Anton Diffring). Mensur uses female agents to drug various politicians and take pictures with them in compromising positions, resulting in massive pay-offs. Sandy goes deep undercover to try and get himself within the organization. He soon begins to fall for Christa (Christa Lang), one of the villain’s operatives.
There’s more to it, but in truth the plot is a bit convoluted. It’s a little more leisurely paced than other efforts from the director and goes on plenty of odd tangents. A few of them, including a failed attempt to extort a politician whose orientation isn’t what was originally thought and a case of mistaken identities during an introduction, are very amusing sequences that are simply there as humorous asides to the main story.
Thankfully, the movie possesses some of the director’s trademark tough guy touches. There’s a great chase early involving a suspect that moves through Cologne from a hospital baby ward (where a shot is fired) and features some gritty action (a character is dragged down a flight of steps). The climactic confrontation is also entertaining, with the snobby antagonist and determined everyman using completely different styles in battle. They’re already eccentric and punchy sequences, and one wonders what Fuller could have done with a bit more money.
This is clearly a very low-budget film – some of the action ends up more implied than shown. At least it’s interesting to see the filmmaker using every trick in the book to get more production value out of things. He and the crew are constantly stealing shots from various downtown locales in Cologne, shooting the actors from rooftops as they move through crowds and down streets. It results in a lot of visually striking high and low-angle shots.
The transfer is very strong as well. Obviously, the film stock at times varies from shot to shot. Fuller ran around shooting some of the crowd footage himself on a wind up, 16 mm camera, and this material looks much grainier than the 35 mm stock. It doesn’t really matter though, as the majority of the presentation is incredibly sharp and this is the best that the movie is ever likely to look.
In addition to two essays and a theatrical trailer, the Blu-ray also features a great, 110 minute documentary on the production which features footage of Fuller directing behind-the-scenes, as well as remembrances from cast and crew members, as well as friends of the director like Wim Wenders. It’s quite detailed in explaining how this unusual project came to be and offers great insight on the director and how his personal experiences influences the end product. Amazingly, Fuller was a bit ahead of the curve once again. The movie has now been categorized as “neo-noir”, a style of filmmaking that didn’t become popularized until the releases of The Long Goodbye (1973) and Chinatown (1974). Bad luck once again that no one was quite ready for this type of film during its very limited original run.
Fuller went on to continue struggling for financing in Hollywood, although he did eke out a couple more films that have been reassessed very favorably in recent years, including The Big Red One (1980) and White Dog (1982) (the latter of which has also been released on the Criterion label).
If you’re a independent film buff, a Fuller fan or just enjoy very quirky late 60s/early 70s crime cinema, this Blu-ray is a must own. Dead Pigeon of Beethoven Street is certainly not a classic, but it is an fascinating and entertainingly strange entry in a famous moviemaker’s wild and storied career.