Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Witwe

While I have loved many German films, I have noticed that every German mystery made in the early 60s that I have seen that were dubbed were dreadful. While "Das Geheimnis der Schwarsen Witwe" ("The Secret of the Black Widow") is not horrible, it is very slow and rather dull--and I had to really fight hard to pay attention to it. Considering the wild plot, this is pretty amazing.

The film is a mystery. Folks are dying from the weirdest projectiles in history--large rubber spiders with poison on them! The physics of shooting such objects make this pretty silly, as they all seem to land perfectly despite their irregular shapes. A boring guy is sent to investigate and he has some dull adventures (such as one of the more poorly staged fights I've ever seen). It's all very dark and atmospheric--which is nice. But it never grabs your attention, the dubbing (at times) is really bad and the film seemed 3rd-rate.