The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle (1963)

[paleologos]

For those of you who have always been curious about this film, it's now viewable on youtube, here.

Of note, is the following:

This castle was built on an ancient robbers hide out. It's honeycombed with secret tunnels...You might wander around in one of those passages forever, and never find your way out.

[Yaztromo]

Thank you for flagging this!
This movie was an inspiration for this adventure as well: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8954

[paleologos]

Just finished watching this, yesterday.

Wow - there are secret doors in the castle, leading to dungeons (which are referred to as such) where some of the action is.

I think Arneson must have been inspired by this film.

[Havard]

I came across the title of this film years ago when I started doing random web searches for "Blackmoor" (lots of goldfish there), but since it never came up in any of the notes and interviews with Dave, I never tracked it down. Now it looks like I may have to watch it afterall!

-Havard

[Yaztromo]

I need to find the time to watch it full...

[Rafael]

Looked into the movie many years ago, given that it is a German production, and, besides actually being Spanish, I was born and raised in Germany. (Wanted to simply link to the thread, but didn't find it.)

The movie's based on an Bryan Edgar Wallace ("Edgar Wallace") novel that carries the same name. Besides the name, and the general "murder house" conventions that belong to the genre, I personally strongly doubt that this is somehow connected to Dave Arneson's creation. In "Dark Shadows", the TV show that Arneson and his early gaming group actually named as a source of inspiration, there's an actual "Blackmoor Prison", after all.

Personally, I think the name is simply a tongue-in-cheek name for the Saint Paul area in Minnesota: Between the Redwood (!) River and the Lake of the Wooda (!), it's mostly wetlands, with Leech Lake and the surrounding reservation as the arguable geological center of the region. A reference to the real-world location would go in tow with other naming conventions from the C&C map - mind you that before that was a "Castle Blackmoor", if only for a short time, there were "The Black Moors".