Joe Deebs was afictionaldetective who appeared in a series of Germanfilms andserials during thesilent era. Along withStuart Webbs and a number of other fictional cinema detective characters with Anglo-Saxon names, he was modeled onArthur Conan Doyle'sSherlock Holmes.[1] In 2009, Ken Wlaschin wrote that "Joe Deebs was one of the most famous screen detectives of the German silent cinema, the suave crime-solving star of at least thirty films."[2]
Deebs was played by six different actors includingMax Landa,Heinrich Schroth andHarry Liedtke. The films were produced byJoe May (Julius Mandl), who also directed several of the films.[3] Some of the films were produced atWeissensee Studios.
Deebs' first appearance was in 1915 during theFirst World War and the character continued to be featured in films through the early 1920s during theWeimar Republic. One example isDer Onyxknopf, orThe Onyx Head, a 1917 silent film starring Max Landa,Bruno Kastner andLeopoldine Konstantin.[4]