This Edgar Wallace crime thriller starts off with a daring robbery, and then the plot takes several interesting little turns.
After the murder of one of the gang members involved in the daring robbery, the police get involved and uncover much more than the fact that a lot of money was stolen. A police inspector by the name of Elliot (Leo Genn) is assigned the case and tries to track the missing money and the killer.
His search leads him to a circus at it's winter headquarters and there is no shortage of suspects and bizarre characters. The circus owner, Barberini (Anthony Newlands) gives the inspector free reign to carry on his investigation. A masked lion tamer named Gregor (Christopher Lee) and a very jealous knife thrower named Mario (Maurice Kaufman) are two prime suspects.
This is an excellent example of how to do a murder mystery. There are a lot of plot twists and the ending still threw me for a loop. The cast is top notch and also includes Klaus Kinski, Heinz Drache, beautiful Suzy Kendall and the gorgeous Margaret Lee in a great role until her untimely murder. I was hoping her character would live just because I enjoy seeing her on screen so much.
John Moxey handles the directing chores very well as is usual with him. The last time I saw this movie it was a very bad print and before that it was the US black and white version that was edited to 65 minutes, so this Blu-ray was a revelation.
The print is beautiful and the audio is excellent. If you've never seen this film I suggest you do and see how to make an entertaining film that can still throw a viewer curves after all these years. Speaking of curves, did I mention Margaret Lee is in this?
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