Production
Der Schwarze Abt was the 13th in a series of films based on works by Edgar Wallace made in the late 1950s and 1960s by producer Horst Wendlandt for Rialto Film. The script to the film was adapted by Johannes Kai and Franz Josef Gottlieb from the Edgar Wallace novel The Black Abbot (1926). An earlier film version had been made in Britain in 1934. This was the fourth script Kai (a pen name for Hanns Wiedmann) had written for a Wallace film and the plot remained relatively close to the original novel. F.J. Gottlieb had just directed Der Fluch der gelben Schlange (de) produced by competitor Artur Brauner and had previously worked on Wallace scripts for Constantin Film. He reworked the script, trying to improve the odds of receiving a favourable age rating from the FSK.
It was one of the earliest films of the series emphasizing the "gothic" elements that came to be a hallmark of the series but were not to be found in Edgar Wallace's original material. Principal cinematography took place from 17 April to 28 May 1963. Interiors and some exteriors were shot at the CCC studios in West Berlin. Schloss Herdringen near Arnsberg was used as Chelford Manor. The film was shot in 'Ultra-Scope', a form of CinemaScope. It features opening credits in colour but is otherwise in black-and-white.
The FSK gave the film a rating of 12 and up and found it not appropriate for screenings on public holidays. This was changed from the first rating of 16 and up after some scenes were edited (the killing of Wüstenhagen, Borsche dragging around the unconscious Böttcher and final twitches by Borsche after being buried by masonry). The film was initially distributed by Constantin Film and premiered on 5 July 1963 at the Universum in Munich.
Read more about this topic: The Black Abbot (1963 Film)
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