A murderer is plaguing London. Referred to as “The Snake” the killer uses the poison from a black mamba to kill his victims. Scotland Yard is baffled. Inspector Bill Elford (Heinz Drache) and his assistant, Sgt Lomm (Wolfgang Wahl) are assigned to the case. Dogging the inspector is a reporter, Joshua Harras (Eddi Arent).
The investigation reveals that the killer is using a sort of dart gun to inject his victims with the poison. Eventually it is revealed that the “Snake” is blackmailing various criminal business owners. Those that refuse to pay are either ratted out to the police or are killed using the mamba venom.
Elford learns that a black mamba was stolen from a company called Mulford Breeders. At Mulford Breeders Elford learns that the owner committed suicide some time ago and his widow, Nancy (Agnes Windeck), has given the day to day running of the business over to their manager, Frankie Sutton (Gunter Pfitzmann).
Elford also learns that Mrs. Mulford likes to do civic works, so she employs ex-cons, wanting to give them a hand up. The company also employs a weird creepy guy named Krishna (Klaus Kinski) who they found one time in a shipment of animals. Elford has more than enough suspects to wade through. Finding and stopping the Snake will be complicated.
“The Squeaker” AKA “Der Zinker” was released in 1963 and was directed by Alfred Vohrer. It is a West German and French crime film and a krimi. The film was based on the 1927 book “Der Zinker” by Edgar Wallace. It is the thirty-sixth krimi and the fourteenth Edgar Wallace krimi. It was also the first Edgar Wallace krimi to feature the opening credits with the signature gun shots and blood spatter opening as well as director Vohrer’s voice saying “Hello, this is Edgar Wallace”.
There are various subplots that really have nothing to do with the movie. It also has some of your standard krimi cast. In addition to Kinski, we get Eddi Arent as a reporter and Siegfried Schurenberg as his editor. It is a standard krimi for the most part, complicated plot, silly comic bits, the usual. I’m not sure why it is one of the most popular of the krimi films.
The title of the film is a bit quirky. Zinker means snitch, squealer or informer. Some versions of the film were released as “The Squealer”. The reference most likely refers to the killer as being a snitch to the police when his blackmail attempts don’t work. As for the title “The Squeaker”, the word has sometimes been used as a slang term for an informer.
There is one strange POV scene where you see a giant mouth eat a carrot.