SCFZ poll: Alfred Vohrer

[flip]

Polling the films of director Alfred Vohrer

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Vohrer films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Tuesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: umbugbene, greennui, evelyn, bure, m arkadin, mrcarmady, nrh, brian d, mesnalty, kanafani, st gloede, ofrene, silga, greg x, therouxxx, charulata, oscarwerner, wba, unholymanm, john ryan, dt, flabrezu

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

we'll use the extended rules:

• if you have seen an odd number of vohrer films, you can round up instead of down when deciding how long to make your ballot (e.g. if you have seen 7, you can vote for 4 instead of the usual 3)
• if you have seen more than 10 vohrer films, you can vote for more than 5 (e.g. if you have seen 13, you can vote for up to 7)

[wba]

not a fan, but my no.1 pick is a masterpiece.

01. Ein Alibi zerbricht "An Alibi for Death" (1963)
02. Sieben Tage Frist "School of Fear" (1969)
03. Das gelbe Haus am Pinnasberg (1970)
04. Wer stirbt schon gerne unter Palmen? (1974)
05. Das Gasthaus an der Themse "The Inn on the River" (1962)

Vohrer seen: 12

PS: Can't vote for 6 of his films, cause I only really like 4 and the 5th is only slightly better than all the rest I've seen.

[MrCarmady]

Never heard of this guy. Might have to kill two birds with one stone and check out the ones from 1963.

[St. Gloede]

The first time I went "Who?!"

Not seen a single film.

[kanafani]

Not familiar with that gentleman

[greennui]

Might be the most obscure name yet! I've only seen one Edgar Wallace krimi and it was directed by some other guy.

[thoxans]

in the immortal words of flabrezu and holymanm, who dis?

[oscarwerner]

His films were showed in former USSR and in Lithuania of that time. His films were simply cheap. Omg, i have forgotten his films with Pierre Brice about indians. I have 12 of him. Mainly criminal films and films about indians.
1.An Alibi for Death (1963)
2. Only the Wind Knows the Answer (1974)
3. The Rain Erases Everything (1972)
4. Amongst Vultures (1964)
5. Old Surehand (1965)
6. School of Fear (1969)
Very average director, but at this time we loved his films from West Germany better instead of DDR films about indians.

[wba]

His films were showed in former USSR and in Lithuania of that time. His films were simply cheap. Omg, i have forgotten his films with Pierre Brice about indians. I have 12 of him. Mainly criminal films and films about indians.

Wow, interesting, I didn't know that he was widely shown in Eastern Europe at that time.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Wish I could help, as I'm interested in German genre cinema of this period, but haven't seen a one by Vohrer. Will be very interested in the poll results as a guide for viewing!

[nrh]

also had a "who's this?" reaction, but i've actually seen 3 of the wallace adaptations, only one of which i remember enough to vote for -

the dead eyes of london

[FLABREZU]

I've seen 14, but I've NOT seen An Alibi for Death. It's on Karagarga, but there are no subtitles. Does anyone know where to find subtitles?

[wba]

^sorry, can't help you with subs.

[wba]

His films were simply cheap.

I just saw that I forgot to mention that some of his films were very expensive for their times, and most were total 'A-List' titles, meaning that he worked with comparatively huge budgets and with many of the biggest West German filmstars back then.
So they might seem "cheap" in retrospect, but were made extremely professionally.

Compared with the USA, his standing would have been like that of Hitchcock, Spielberg or Coppola and not a guy like Ulmer, Fuller or Boetticher, moneywise and from the respect he got (not necessarily in a "prestige"-way, though) in the West German film industry during the 60s and 70s. Vohrer himself was seemingly not fond of the many crime films and the Westerns he made, as he was not interested in those genres and in genre-filmmaking itself and seems to have lamented to have been trapped too much in the commercial aspects of filmmaking during his career. He was also a homosexual when it was still a punishable criminal offense in West Germany, but you get a lot of subtext in that regard in some of his films. So he's a somewhat contradictory and conflicted artist, trapped between commercial restraints of his times (and being a "hit"-director, but not with subjects and movies he was happy or even comfortable with).

[oscarwerner]

USSR tried not to buy USA and other best West movies. Of course, the reason was propaganda. But many films were simply innocent from a political point of view:) Other reason was -money. As i see many lists of films showed in USSR wide distribution-most often Soviets tried to buy as sheap films as possible. A.Vohrer films were solid in comparison with West Germany cinema. But they were must cheaper, then best Holywood westerns and crime films. Little who liked DDR films about indians with Gojko Mitic in title roles. In comparison with them West Germany films looked much better with Pierre Brice as a Winnetou. One reason , why they appeared into East Europe-was Yugoslavia. Most of those films were coproduction of West Germany and Yugoslavia. Automatically they were showed in Yugoslavia cinema theatres. It made there way to USSR and other East Europe countries more easy.

[brian d]

huh, i've seen one even though i don't recognize this dude's name. so i'll vote for it, even if i wasn't too into it.

the monk with the whip [the college girl murders]

[Holymanm]

jesus christ... after 100 straight directors named Eduardovicherusky von Lamentación III that all of you folks have heard of and apparently love, while i'm going wtf is this made-up director, there is a director i know and you all don't! [laughs in german]

The Zombie Walks
The Monster of Blackwood Castle
Der Hexer

Seen 6

[Holymanm]

the english title translations of this man's movies are so various - and so awful - that Flip might need to take a little care with everyone voting for the same movie under different names. or it's our responsibility i almost think it might be useful to link to urls (as i did up in my ballot, as a test) sometimes, just to make sure we're on the same page, with directors like this

[flip]

the english title translations of this man's movies are so various - and so awful - that Flip might need to take a little care

it should probably be cool, i always look at a director's imdb listing after tabulating, both so i can list the year with each film, but also so i can detect duplicate votes under different titles. when i don't see a film that got a vote among a director's imdb credits, i figure out what other titles the film might go by.

so i guess if people want to be helpful, listing films with their imdb title (and another title if there's, say, an english title but the imdb one is german, or a more commonly used english title that imdb is not using) would make things easier for me.

[FLABREZU]

Looks like I probably can't watch An Alibi for death, so here it is:

The Monk with the Whip
The Indian Scarf
The Man with the Glass Eye
The Mysterious Magician
The Zombie Walks
The Monster of Blackwood Castle
The Inn on the River


Seen 14

[flip]

it looks like we have no eligible nominators so far, which means we'll reset, and i'll pick our next director. so i'll pick phil karlson -- not sure we need to check, but it's probably good to confirm he'll work (i've seen 16). if anyone else has seen 7+ karlson films, please post here!

[...]

At least 11 Karlsons, can't remember whether I saw Ben or Willard, and I'm not even gonna try to figure out which Charlie Chan movies I've seen.

[Curtis, baby]

Karlson is pretty impressive. In addition to making a bunch of cool noirs, he is also (to my knowledge) the only classic Hollywood filmmaker to have been world chess champion. In addition to that, he dabbled in hockey, and is the only defenceman to have been top ten in voting for the Norris trophy twice in the same year.

[rischka]

i got 9

[nrh]

6 karlson

[MrCarmady]

Karlson is pretty impressive. In addition to making a bunch of cool noirs, he is also (to my knowledge) the only classic Hollywood filmmaker to have been world chess champion. In addition to that, he dabbled in hockey, and is the only defenceman to have been top ten in voting for the Norris trophy twice in the same year.

All this while living on the roof!

[Curtis, baby]

Grr the vohrer snow movie isn't on kg. I guess I'll just vote based on the six I've seen

The Monk with the whip
The Hound of "Mackenzie" Blackwood Castle
The mysterious magician

[flip]

we just ran an alfred vohrer poll where 17 different films got votes. for comparison, that's the same number of films that got votes in our billy wilder poll.

results

1. An Alibi for Death (1963) — 10 pts
2. The Monk with the Whip (1967) — 9 pts
3. The Monster of Blackwood Castle (1968) — 4.5 pts
4. School of Fear (1969) — 4 pts
4. Only the Wind Knows the Answer (1974) — 4 pts
4. The Mysterious Magician (1964) — 4 pts
4. The Indian Scarf (1963) — 4 pts
4. The Zombie Walks (1968) — 4 pts
9. The Man With the Glass Eye (1969) — 3 pts
9. The Rain Erases Everything (1972) — 3 pts
9. The Yellow House on Pinnasberg (1970) — 3 pts
12. Amongst Vultures (1964) — 2 pts
12. Wer Stirbt Schon Gerne unter Palmen? (1974) — 2 pts
14. The Inn on the River (1962) — 1.3 pts
15. The Dead Eyes of London (1961) — 1 pt
15. Old Surehand (1965) — 1 pt
17. School of Fear (1969) — 0.5 pts

[flip]

up at letterbox:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-250/