Face Of The Frog 1959 Based on 1925 novel The Fellowship Of The Frog by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Egon Eis and J Joachim Bartsch, directed by Harald Reinl.
Joachim Fuchsberger plays an American playboy called Richard Gordon who solves crimes. Richard is working with Inspector Elk from Scotland Yard trying to catch the notorious scumbag the Frog. He's got a gang of 300 and none of them is any more aware of who the Frog is than the police are. We only see the Frog with his mask on. He's a deadly guy, cross him and you're dead, screw up in the gang and you're dead, I bet his henchmen don't expect any pension when they retire.
There's the usual bit of romance, made all the more complicated by the Frog being interested in the same woman as Richard. There's plenty of murdering and chasing about as the Frog goes about his dirty biz. The story is fairly good, the cast is fine, nice sets and locations, can't complain about much of anything. I found a copy on Rarelust and downloaded that.
The Avenger 1960 Based on the 1926 novel The Avenger by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Gustav Kampendonk and Rudolf Katscher, directed by Karl Anton.
That's Klaus Kinski and Heinz Drache, Klaus is a film maker working as the script supervisor for a film company, Heinz is a detective for the Special Branch. They meet through murder, someone is cutting off the heads of people and leaving packages with the severed heads for people to find on the street. The heads are packaged with a note from The Executioner. The typewriter used has a couple of misaligned letters.
The Inspector meets with the niece of one of the murder victims and on the film set he finds a script page with the same misaligned letters. That leads him on a search for the writer of the script. Klaus isn't any help, he said he hasn't seen the script before, soon after his head is in a box. More and more evidence piles up and the case is solved.
It's a goofy story with an odd villain at the core. I enjoyed it, fairly decent script, a good lot of characters and a bit of a sense of humor. I'd watch it again.