The Inn on the River

A series of murders is being committed along the Thames in London. The killer shoots his victims with a speargun, then jumps into the river in a diving suit and escapes through the sewer tunnels. The press has named him the Shark. An inspector from Scotland Yard comes to a tavern on the riverside; its regulars, its owner and everyone around it seem to be at the centre of the killings. The passages under the tavern open onto the river. The film is one of the Edgar Wallace adaptations made in Germany in the sixties. That series ran to around thirty films and became one of the best known genre strands in German cinema; they all appear to be set in England, but the shooting was done in Germany. Alfred Vohrer directed. Joachim Fuchsberger plays the inspector, and Klaus Kinski plays one of the uneasy types he often played in the series. Ninety-two minutes. Black and white, foggy and heavily stylised.