''Poison in the Zoo'' (german: Gift im Zoo) is a 1952 West German

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by Hans Müller and Wolfgang Staudte and starring

Irene von Meyendorff Irene von Meyendorff (6 June 1916 – 28 September 2001) was a Russian-born German-British actress. Biography Irene von Meyendorff was of Baltic German origin, born in 1916 in Tallinn (then Reval, Russia), Estonia as the eldest child of a German ...

Carl Raddatz Carl Raddatz (13 March 1912 – 19 May 2004) was a German stage and film actor. Raddatz was a leading man of German cinema during the Nazi era appearing in a number of propaganda films and romances. Later in his career he developed a reputation f ...

and Petra Peters.

Production

During production in 1951, the director Wolfgang Staudte was removed and replaced when the West German authorities refused to consider it eligible for state subsidies unless Staudte declare that he would no longer work for the

DEFA DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...

studios of the Communist

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

state. Staudte, who had made several major productions for DEFA, refused and was replaced by Müller.Schissler p. 297 It was shot at the

Wandsbek Studios The Wandsbek Studios are film production and television studios located in Wandsbek, a district of the German city of Hamburg. The complex was established in 1948 when Real Film, set up the previous year, acquired a site in Wandsbek for constr ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and on location in the city's

Tierpark Hagenbeck The Tierpark Hagenbeck is a zoo in Stellingen, Hamburg, Germany. The collection began in 1863 with animals that belonged to Carl Hagenbeck Sr. (1810–1887), a fishmonger who became an amateur animal collector. The park itself was founded by Ca ...

. The film's sets were designed by

Albrecht Becker Albrecht Becker (14 November 1906 – 22 April 2002) was a German production designer, photographer, and actor who was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for the charge of homosexuality. Personal life Born in Thale, Germany, Becker trained as a ...

and

Herbert Kirchhoff Herbert Kirchhoff (1911–1988) was a German art director. Selected filmography * ''Nora's Ark'' (1948) * '' My Wife's Friends'' (1949) * '' The Last Night'' (1949) * ''Second Hand Destiny'' (1949) * ''Third from the Right'' (1950) * ''Harbour ...

Synopsis

After a series of mysterious deaths of animals at a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...

the police are called in to investigate.

Cast

as Vera Pauly *

as Dr. Martin Rettberg * Petra Peters as Jutta Flamm * Ernst Schröder as Oskar Beck *

Hermann Speelmans Hermann Speelmans (14 August 1906 – 9 February 1960) was a German stage and film actor.Capua p. 120 Selected filmography * '' Her Dark Secret'' (1929) - Emil * ''Diana'' (1930) * ''There Is a Woman Who Never Forgets You'' (1930) * ''Danton'' ...

as Kriminalrat Walter Glasbrenner *

Nicolas Koline Nicolas Koline (1878–1973) was a Russian stage and film actor. He established himself in Russia as a stage performer with the Moscow Art Theatre. He emigrated from Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 and came to France with La Chauve-So ...

as Wärter Mathias * Kurt Meister as Oberwärter Kruschke * Otto Reimer as Wärter Robby * Helmut Peine as Kriminalkommissar Werner * Tilla Hohmann as Wirtschafterin Karola * Hella Attenberger as Gaby Rettberg * Alwin Pauli as Oberwärter Berger *

Bruno Klockmann Bruno may refer to: People and fictional characters *Bruno (name), including lists of people and fictional characters with either the given name or surname * Bruno, Duke of Saxony (died 880) * Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne, ...

as Polizeichef Dr. Wöltje

References

Bibliography

* Hans-Michael Bock and Tim Bergfelder. ''The Concise Cinegraph: An Encyclopedia of German Cinema''. Berghahn Books, 2009. * Hanna Schissler. ''The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968''. Princeton University Press, 2001.

External links

* 1952 films 1950s thriller films German thriller films West German films 1950s German-language films Films directed by Hans Müller Films directed by Wolfgang Staudte Films set in zoos East Germany–West Germany relations German black-and-white films 1950s German films Films shot at Wandsbek Studios Films shot in Hamburg {{1950s-Germany-film-stub