{"id":16480,"date":"2017-08-09T23:34:53","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T03:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16480"},"modified":"2017-08-10T00:45:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T04:45:24","slug":"dvd-dead-pigeon-on-beethoven-street-tatort-tote-taube-in-der-beethovenstrase-1973","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16480","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street \/ Tatort: Tote Taube in der Beethovenstra\u00dfe (1973)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Olive Films<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 April 19, 2016<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 TV \/ Crime \/ Neo-Noir<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0An American detective investigates the murder of his partner in West Germany, both of whom were attempting to infiltrate an elaborate blackmailing scheme by a secretive organization.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 Disc 1: Theatrical Trailer \/ Disc 2: 2015 Documentary “Return to Beethoven Street: Sam Fuller in Germany”(110 mins.) +\u00a0Essays by Lisa Dombrowski (11:01) and Samuel B. Prime (5:01).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The events that led to Sam Fuller making an episode of the still running German TV series Tatort<\/strong> (\u2018Scene of the Crime\u2019) is almost as intriguing as the film itself, which exists in 3 distinct versions.<\/p>\n

Around 1970, German director Hans-Christoph Blumenberg had flown to Hollywood with a camera crew to interview Howard Hawks and John Ford, but lacking the right contacts, Fuller interceded, enabling Blumenberg to get the material for the series which ran on TV that year. Grateful for the help and aware of Fuller\u2019s inactivity after the debacle of Shark<\/strong> (1969), he offered him an opportunity to direct an episode of Tatort<\/strong>, a unique series that debuted that same year and over the decades gave numerous young filmmakers their first chance, including Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot<\/strong>, Poseidon<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Although Fuller spoke no German, the prospect of a crime show intrigued him, and his pitch of a spoofy version of the hardboiled detective thriller was given the green light by series producer Joachim von Mengershausen, who soon realized Fuller wasn\u2019t going to make a standard feature-length episode.<\/p>\n

The teleplay ended up being filmed in West Germany\u2019s then capital Bonn and parts of Essen, the hometown of wife and co-star Christa Lang. The location-heavy cinematography was handled by Roman Polanksi\u2019s ace Jerzy Lipman (Knife in the Water<\/strong>), and the music score was composed by pioneering krautrockers The Can. Fuller had previously filmed Verboten!<\/strong> (1959) in Germany and was stationed in Bonn during the waning years of WWII, making the teleplay a unique opportunity to craft a story in a country that rebuilt itself with rapid success; when he wasn\u2019t filming & editing, Fuller was regaling the cast & crew with his wartime tales.<\/p>\n

When Pigeon<\/strong> was broadcast on German TV, it ran around 97 mins., and a shorter cut 87 min. version was released to international cinemas, but Fuller\u2019s preferred 123 min. cut existed on a print he took back to his home in Hollywood, where it remained mothballed for decades until a chance retrospective of his work led to the print\u2019s rediscovery and later restoration.<\/p>\n

Olive\u2019s DVD & Blu-ray sets only contain the longer version, and as per Fuller\u2019s design, none of the German dialogue is subtitled (although the English dialogue that makes up 90% o the script was subtitled for the German TV broadcast). With the film\u2019s return to active distribution, the question is whether this rarely seen work is a mini masterpiece maligned by critics during its broadcast and theatrical release, or a disaster that did more than baffle German TV audiences; the answer lies sort of in between, being neither, but not very good, either.<\/p>\n

Revisionists will champion the film for Fuller\u2019s active rule-breaking, his odd sense of humour (he always wanted to do a comedy), heightened absurd moments, and Fuller\u2019s innately and inimitable weird tone, but even pal Wim Wenders (who later cast Fuller in The American Friend<\/a><\/strong>) admits the film doesn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n

The plot feels like an extrapolation of Foreign Intrigue<\/a><\/strong> (1955), in which a lawyer becomes a detective and discovers an elaborate blackmail scheme that kept his deceased boss exceptionally wealthy for years.<\/p>\n

Fuller\u2019s idea has fish-out-of water American gumshoe Sandy (Glenn Corbett, reuniting with Fuller after co-starring in 1959\u2019s The Crimson Kimono<\/strong><\/a>) investigating the sudden murder of his partner, both of whom were sent to Germany by a U.S. Senator (voiced by Fuller) to track down the negatives being used by a clever organization to blackmail diplomats. Instead of Nazi secrets, the bait is compromising photographs of drugged diplomats and politicians with tawdry women; if demands for $100,000 aren\u2019t paid, the pictures are publicly released to embarrass the men, their families, and their respective countries.<\/p>\n

The entire scheme is managed by a fencing school instructor named Mensur (Anton Diffring), who checks in with \u2018operatives\u2019 and their progress in honing in and executing plans for specific targets. Among Mensur\u2019s best is Christa (Christa Lang), a cold creature whose past gigs as an actress enable her to assume various types to attract targets and ensure her partner will take premium shots in the bedroom.<\/p>\n

American Sandy is initially paired with German customs officer Kressin (Sieghardt Rupp), but the recurring Tatort<\/strong> character is pretty much gone from the film after he\u2019s injured in a shootout with the killer of Sandy\u2019s partner. Fuller gives Kressin a few scenes before dumping him outright, ending the weird German-English exchanges between the two characters, and having the narrative exclusively follow Sandy as he gets closer to Mensur. The mystery also takes a slight backseat as Sandy develops feelings for Christa \u2013 a woman whom Lang describes as \u2018fully lost,\u2019 unsure of her real identity and feelings. She\u2019s an archetypal femme fatale; Sandy\u2019s the decent-hearted detective; and Mensur the sadistic criminal orchestrator who must die horribly to atone for all that immoral behaviour and smarmy glee.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, Pigeon<\/strong> is fascinating for glimpses of Germany and cities along the Rhine (the misty mountains in Bonn and a Krupp train factory are highlights), but it\u2019s also a grim looking film, with overcast skies, sludgy rain, and grunge \u2013 a look not atypical for revisionist genre entries, such as Mike Hodges\u2019 crime-drama\u00a0Get Carter<\/strong> (1971), which was similarly situated in industrial locales and steeped in nihilism. The problem with Fuller\u2019s film resides in the loose, mediocre dialogue, a brutal 2 hour running time with a lot of little scenes and little moments that just aren\u2019t very interesting or relevant, and a cast whose performances are hampered by their English dialogue, or just aren\u2019t very good, as is the case of several minor characters. (Blumenberg appears in a thinly written role of Sandy\u2019s sudden new partner, and he\u2019s terrible.)<\/p>\n

Lang\u2019s performance style is also very odd, and the disaffecting character may be due to a combination of flaws which render her as snooty, cold, and disingenuous. It may in fact be rooted in giving the femme fatale too much dialogue, robbing the archetype of necessary mystique. The implausible blackmail scheme also becomes increasingly ridiculous because Christa and new partner Sandy pull off each job with such ease, fattening up Mensur\u2019s organization quite generously. Fuller\u2019s cyclical fixation on the thrill of luring, doping, and ensnaring diplomatic targets negates any explanation of the organization\u2019s inner machinations.<\/p>\n

A scene with Claude Chabrol\u2019s muse Stephane Audra (Le Boucher<\/a><\/strong>) in a notorious real-life sex shop is played for dry laughs (music is performed by a topless frauleine in leiderhosen), but the scene and the pair\u2019s next target just add to the film\u2019s length, although the payoff is a rare failure for the duo, causing both to sip drinks and confess their love in a scene that should\u2019ve come earlier.<\/p>\n

Action scenes are sometimes clumsy and crudely edited, such as the final duel between Sandy and Mensur that probably read great on paper \u2013 fist-fighter Sandy hurls everything in the room at fencing master Mensur to stay alive \u2013 but is so badly shot and edited, it\u2019s a complete mess. Why Sandy doesn\u2019t just leave the room<\/em> is a mystery, because the door neither auto-locks nor is clamped shut by Mensur, and when Sandy exits after the kill, it\u2019s clearly unlocked.<\/p>\n

Also strange is how Fuller avoids showing any gory details: when Sandy attacks his partner\u2019s killer, the pavement slams are obstructed but also covered from an angle that makes the pivotal revenge look fake; and although it\u2019s pretty definite Sandy cleaves Mensur in a powerful death blow, the coverage and face-saving edits are incoherent.<\/p>\n

Fans would argue the action set pieces reflect the French New Wave style to which Fuller was paying homage \u2013 and a chunk of that logic is true \u2013 but bad cutting is bad cutting, and Pigeon<\/strong> varies from sometimes brilliant and playful interjections of material to glaring continuity gaffes and bad footage. According to Lang, Fuller dusted off his D-Day 16mm Bell & Howell camera and shot loose second unit footage at a train station and later carnival sequence, but the blown-up footage is filled with fixed gashes in all frames and an overall washed out look. The director similarly played with film grain and applied weird angles in Kimono<\/strong>, but the qualitative shifts in Pigeon <\/strong>are very jarring.<\/p>\n

Like Kimono<\/strong>, the film\u2019s finale involves a street parade and mass of crowds, and it\u2019s here where Sandy finally gets to tackle his partner\u2019s killer, the cheekily named Charlie Umlaut (Eric. P. Caspar), who dons a court jester\u2019s costume and painted face, and screams to passersby (and into the camera) \u2018I am Charlie Umlaut!\u2019 and other nonsense. It\u2019s either playful teasing with audiences won over by Fuller\u2019s little spoof, or annoying.<\/p>\n

The Can\u2019s prog-rock score is good but often too sparsely applied, and sometimes looped to extend rhythmic tracks that drone and add to the meandering nature of scenes. Most of the material seems derived from the group\u2019s 1972 album Ege Bamyasi<\/strong> and the song \u201cVitamin C\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reportedly written off as a dud by most critics, there is great significance within Pigeon <\/strong>as a prime example of Fuller\u2019s rule-breaking habits that led him to become a maverick, an independent writer-producer-director, and seek work as writer and occasional director in Europe. The ballsy choice of locations, some genuinely inventive editing, and brash characters in Kimono<\/strong> are echoed in Pigeon<\/strong>, but his editing style is even more jarring.<\/p>\n

Being an uneven film, sometimes the editorial jousting with audiences pays off beautifully: instead of sticking to shots of the actors, Fuller cuts to historic etchings of the train station that’s being discussed; and when Sandy gains the upper hand in the duel with Mensur, his sudden dominance is punctuated by a rapid repetition of similar shots. The script was reportedly written fast, then improvised in spots during filming, and production and post-production were tied to a tight schedule \u2013 challenges to which Fuller was game to conquer – but somewhere within those successes the latent flaws seeped out; the film is a tough slog at 2 hours, and more than likely the shorter edits made scenes more jarring, if not incoherent.<\/p>\n

Olive\u2019s added the film\u2019s original awful, awful<\/em> spoiler-laden theatrical trailer that does nothing to sell Fuller\u2019s steamy film, but a shorter variant also exists (see end of review). An excellent feature length documentary covers every aspect of its genesis, production, release to the masses, rediscovery, and restoration. Robert Fischer\u2019s Return to Beethoven Street: Sam Fuller in Germany<\/strong> (2015) is more fascinating than the film because it perfectly contextualizes it within the director\u2019s canon and life with Lang. Fischer also uses Fuller as an example of the many veteran talents ignored by 70s Hollywood, and their struggles to just make a movie.<\/p>\n

Fuller did end up more lucky than Nicholas Ray (Don\u2019t Expect Too Much<\/a><\/strong>), perhaps because the cigar chomping eccentric retained his journalist\u2019s regimen and wrote everyday, and moved to the next project when a script didn\u2019t sell nor a deal fell through. It\u2019s an ethic that kept his mind sharp, and when given the chance to direct, often yielded a unique work that sometimes too years to emerge in its intended form. Fuller\u2019s The Big Red One<\/strong> (1980) was recut by UA but restored in 2005, and the deeply flawed but fascinating White Dog<\/strong> (1982) took decades before it emerged in a proper home video release after being locked up in \u201cfilm jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the familiar faces in Fischer\u2019s doc are actress \/ widow Lang, daughter Samantha Fuller (who directed the 2013 documentary A Fuller Life<\/strong>), Wim Wenders, actors Caspar and Blumenberg (who would himself direct several episodes of Tatort<\/strong>), producer Rohrbach, and film historians Janet Bergstrom and Bill Krohn. (Fischer\u2019s massively prolific career is packed with documentary and interview featurettes, including the classic Monsieur Truffaut Meets Mr. Hitchcock<\/strong>, portions of which appeared in Kent Jones\u2019 2015 film Hitchcock\/Truffaut<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

Both feature film and feature doc go hand-in-hand and illuminate Fuller\u2019s European-late American years, which also include acting in Wenders\u2019 The American Friend<\/strong> (1977) and the Hammett<\/strong> (1982).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2017 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>\u00a0 — The Can Wiki<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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