I recently caught a beautiful German-language print of the film and was taken aback to encounter character actor Otto Waldis as a hulking red herring with a prominent birthmark. Now I know how an avid birdwatcher might feel if he spotted an Australian Magpie in the wilds of Bayonne. For in spite of his thick mittel-European accent, Waldis always seemed to me as American as mom's apple strudel, if only because I grew up seeing him so often on TV. Indeed, the simian-faced exotic was a ubiquitous presence on U.S. screens big and small throughout the 50s and 60s, playing frontier furreners, egghead medicos, and nogoodnik enemy agents in everything from THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN and SURFSIDE 6 to grade b action films like DESERT SANDS. But Waldis is probably best remembered around these parts as Dr. Loeb to Roy Gordon's Leopold in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN. He's the one at the climax who gazes at the fallen Archers with flapping arms and a world weary sigh.

According to the IMDB, in 1963 Waldis made two films in Germany -- this one and a musical western with expatriate sexpot Mamie Van Doren -- before returning to the States to resume his career as a day player on HOGAN'S HEROES and GOMER PYLE, U.S.M.C. I'm not sure what prompted his one-year sabbatical in the fatherland. Perhaps he was visiting some old country members of the Waldis clan and managed to scare up a few acting gigs for wiener schnitzel money. Or maybe PHANTOM OF SOHO producer Artur Brauner, being a closet SUPEY fan, told his casting people, "Get me an Otto Waldis type. No wait - get me Otto Waldis!" and flew him in from Hollywood, first class no less.

I'd like to believe the latter, but then I'd also like to believe in the Tooth Fairy.