Secret of the Red Orchid

Another film in the series based on novels by Edgar & Bryan Wallace.It seems that 2 rival Chicago gangs have come to London.They are extorting money from wealthy men.Pay up or die.

Christopher Lee plays a FBI agent sent to London to investigate the gangs.A supposedly dead gang leader is rumored to be alive and running his business.

I knew this movie was in trouble within the first 4 minutes. The great voice of Christopher Lee was horribly dubbed.The dubbing will set your teeth on edge.

The movie is dull and you can have the answers figured out within the first 30 minutes.

This gets a 2 only because Lee is in it.This orchid is wilted.

So we start with a novel written by englishman edgar wallace. Give it to an austrian screen writer in post war germany. Hire a mixed cast of english and german actors, led by chris lee, who made so many horror films over the years. Probably best known for dracula. Mostly terrible acting, terrible dubbing into english. There's even an actor channeling peter lorre. When gangs from chicago start bumping off the rich society folks in "london", scotland yard and the fbi work together to find out who is behind it. It's so awful it's accidentally funny! Keep those expectations low, and you won't be disappointed. Even the music is oddly hilarious, and almost never appropriate for the current scene. Currently showing on several streamers.

Well this was ghastly.

If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's dubbing. This is a German film dubbed into English. The dubbing here sounds like it was done by people in grammar school. It's appalling. People using exaggerated gangster voices or being overly cheerful.

The kicker is that you can tell that it's supposed to be a comedy.

American thugs are in London threatening wealthy people with death if they don't pay up. Lots of people don't pay so they're shot, knifed, or blown up.

Christopher Lee is an FBI agent - dubbed - stars with Klaus Kinski - dubbed. I understand Lee's German is exquisite. Alas I just heard another man speaking English for him.

Very convoluted plot which i figured out.

One really had to see this in German - the dubbing was too distracting even to enjoy the humorous sections or characterizations.

Terrible Dubbing Alert!! This DVD of MYSTERY OF THE ORHCID is terrible, as it only has the very poorly dubbed English version. The original German dialog is not an option and this is a shame, as I would have loved to hear Christopher Lee speaking German. Plus, the dubbing was done so badly I just hated the film. Oddly, while Lee and Klaus Kinski speak English, neither does their own dubbing and voices that sound nothing like theirs are used instead. Often, the silliest voices are used--sounding very fake and stupid. However, take note--my review is ONLY for this dubbed version. The original film might be a lot better and worth seeing--especially since some dubbings actually change around the plot and even produce a very different movie from the original.

The film is a gangster flick--just the sort of thing you wouldn't expect to see with Christopher Lee--especially since he plays an American FBI man. It begins with one gang of mobsters wiping out another. Then, the mobster who was responsible is shown being deported. Soon after, various rich folks start receiving extortion letters--they either must pay or die! Oddly, in a mistranslation, they call it 'blackmail'--a slightly different crime.

Frankly, this is an incredibly dull film from start to finish--despite its extortion plot. With lousy dubbing, bad music and lousy writing, I can't see much reason to waste your time with this one.

This is yet another "Krimi" pairing Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski; the hero this time around is, like them, a Jess Franco regular i.e. Adrian Hoven, and the leading lady future "Euro-Cult" starlet Marisa Mell. The film, however, is not only inferior to THE DEVIL'S DAFFODIL (1961) – which preceded this viewing – but only marginally a genre entry…as, rather, than a sadistic masked killer (the German "Krimis" were obvious precursors to the Italian "Gialli") we get rival gangs of Chicago hoodlums who improbably relocate to London to first extort and then dispatch various wealthy elders when they invariably turn to Scotland Yard for protection! Why this is done is never quite clear, especially since they never get to collect; incidentally, we start off with one mobster eliminating his opponents – but the only survivor, Kinski, soon sets up his own unit of gun-happy thugs whilst retaining an ostensibly respectable front as a tobacconist. One of the victims bequeaths his fortune to his secretary (Mell) rather than his sole ne'er-do-well relative (who has a propensity for orchids, the only link to the title – that is to say, extremely cursory – provided by the narrative!); still, he proves to be not what he seems – with his final trapping of the heroine inside a bank vault one of the very few scenes pertaining to the form's recognizable style (another highlight has a car going off the rails after a large mirror set up along the road gave the illusion to the bewildered driver of an imminent head-on collision).

Lee does not have much of substance to do as an F.B.I.(!) agent, but he at least gets to display his quick two-gun draw in a shoot-out with one of the baddies. Somewhat more prevalent, regrettably, is a comic-relief butler who happens to have served each of the murdered parties immediately prior to their untimely demise…and, ultimately, even offers his would-be expert services to both one of the perpetrators – who promptly winds up dead himself – and the Police!