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. | Strangler
of Vienna, The (AKA
THE MAD BUTCHER) (1971) |
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The burly Victor Buono had already made his presence felt in Robert Aldrich’s classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in a brief but telling role and had also earned himself mass adulation through his marvellous portrayal of King Tut from the superb 60’s Batman TV series. He had also played the role of a mild mannered psychopath in "The Strangler" before he landed this part of “The Mad Butcher” of Vienna for an Italian made horror-comedy version which plays as a sort of Austrian version of Sweeny Todd. Otto Lehman, institutionalized for the last three years after he attacked a customer with an oversized chicken finally receives a certificate of “clean health” and is freed from the nuthouse that has served as his home and told to restart his life as the fine butcher that he once used to be before the mishap. Upon release he finds himself drawn to his old shop to such an extent that he decides to shack up in it rather than return to his home which is the domain of his shrew-like, henpecking wife whose only concern in life is what “people will say” and think of her. Otto resists her tirades and continues to devote himself to once again producing the very finest sausages in all of Vienna, something he has an uncanny knack for. After a hard days carving and slicing at the shop, Otto likes to unwind by playing the Peeping Tom, ogling a voluptuous young neighbour as she conveniently changes her clothes right in front of her window. His wife catches him ogling at the nubile young thing and threatens dire consequences at which point Otto snaps and in an uncontrollable fit, strangles the witch. Later he finds that the human cadaver helps make a delightful combination with his beef and horsemeat and he creates a mouth watering new sausage that has his customers swooning in delight, especially the local police force who even approach Lehman to provide their barracks with weekly rations of the fine stuff. Meanwhile the police chief and his buddy, an incompetent womanizing crime reporter are at sixes and sevens in their search for the culprit responsible for the mounting toll of missing young women in the vicinity. The police chief is too busy behaving like an imbecile while the crime reporter spends most of his energy wooing Lehman’s shapely neighbour whom he also happened to catch a glimpse of performing her burlesque in the window. Nobody seems to notice that women who seemingly enter Lehman’s house don’t appear to re-emerge ever again, unless in sausage form! The film is far too lightweight to satisfy horror fans and plays more like a farcical dark comedy with a negligible smattering of smut – a sort of euro horror-comedy with the merest suggestion of bawdiness but nothing more. By the time this odd and obscure Italian made sausage drama came out in the early 70’s its star Victor Buono had already been stereotyped as the kooky, soft spoken psychopath – not too far from his King Tut persona from Batman. In this film he hams it up to required proportions with thick Bavarian accent to boot even if the (dubbed) voice doesn’t actually sound much like his. The best thing about the film is Buono’s quirky presence and the commendably short running time because in essence this is a one joke movie that has no steam to run on. Not a horror film and definitely not very funny, so probably only of interest to those who enjoy hideously dubbed films, or are fans of Victor Buono or Batman if not both. Mildly distracting fare at best. One useful pointer though, according to the finest (if Mad) Butcher of Vienna, the veal for a schnitzel should never be cut more than 1/6th of an inch and never less than 1/8th and must NEVER be battered!
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