The Inn on the River

Alfred Vohrer was the flashiest of Rialto's Edgar Wallace directors, and this is the one where the machine hums. A hooded killer harpoons victims along a studio-fog Thames while a smuggling ring works the docks, and Scotland Yard's Joachim Fuchsberger and a twitchy Klaus Kinski circle each other through trapdoors and secret passages. The plot is the usual Wallace clockwork of wills, disguises and last-reel unmaskings, and it does not matter. What you come for is the sheer velocity of the thing, black and white, jazzy, absurd, over before it can wear out its welcome. Widely rated one of the best of the sixty-odd Rialto krimis, and one of the easiest to actually enjoy.