A serial killer who calls himself "The Laughing Corpse" dresses up in a skeleton costume and kills his victims with a poison-filled scorpion-shaped ring. | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:Detective

Scotland Yard is after a homicidal maniac called The Blue Hand, which is what he uses to kill his victims.

Arthur Milton aka Der Hexer (The Magician/Ringer) must return to London after his calling card was left at the scene of a murder he did not commit.

Crippled mastermind Mario Orlandi di Alsconi, who is motivated by misanthropy, sets up a gang of blackmailers. His henchmen kill unscrupulous and without any hesitation everyone who is not ready to pay the sum demanded by the gang. English student Donald "Don" Micklem wants to avenge the murder of his uncle. Almost by himself he manages to break up the blackmailer ring and to bring Mario Orlandi to his just punishment.

The film was one of a series that attempted for the first time to capture the unique and high romantic Western novels of Germany's greatest adventure writer Karl May. Now, more than 30 years later, and with a video copy of the film in my library to look at when in the mood, I find this version of Karl May's novel rather quaint and clumsy in terms of script/screenplay and certainly out of step with the more popularised versions of the Wild West.
However, May's portrayal of late 19th century America was always a mixture of well researched facts mingled with high romantic fantasy adventure in the "Knights of the Round Table" or "Star Wars" vein. In this regard, the film does capture the spirit of Karl May's novels pretty well, if rather geared towards an assumed prior knowledge by the audience of the characters and of May's novels. From today's sophisticated movie audience's perspective this film version of "Winnetou I" is still noteworthy for its magnificent soundtrack rivaling any John Williams score, and for the noble portrayal of the hero by French actor Pierre Brice, who made this role his own in numerous sequels and stage shows.

Forester, a ruthless oil baron, wants to create a war between the native American tribes and the white men. Old Shatterhand, Winnetou and their sidekick Castlepool try to prevent this.