Evidently Dr. Mabuse was still a popular character in the 60’s:
The return of Dr. Mabuse’ was originally produced as a motion picture in 1961.
The invisible Dr. Mabuse’ was produced in 1962.
The death ray mirror of Dr. Mabuse’ was produced in 1964.
DVD release date: Jan. 9, 2007.
If this is streaming on netflix, I’ll try to see this.
Btw, there a bunch of Mabuse films. Is there an ideal order for seeing them?
@ Jazzaloha
It is indeed.
Regarding the Mabuse filmes, only three were actually made by Lang. Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) is first, but the second film, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), is best—and probably more accessible, since it’s only half as long. The last one, The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) is supposed to be very good as well, but it’s hard to find in Region 1…Netflix doesn’t have it at all, and the non-dubbed version is about $35 used on Amazon. I haven’t seen it myself, sadly.
So chronological order is best?
Chronological is probably best, but I saw Testament first and it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of it.
Jazz: I don’t think it makes any difference in which order you watch the Mabuse films. They’re barely connected. Testament is most peoples’ favorite because it’s Lang at the height of his new found sound powers. Gambler is an overreach and a bit of a mess, but it establishes so many tropes of the genre. Thousand Eyes is strictly for Lang fans only, a master in his old age making something purely personal that is hard to relate to (I compare it to Ford’s Donovan’s Reef- you can only appreciate it if you know and love him body and soul).
Thanks for the feedback, guys!
Dr. Mabuse is an excellent film. Brilliantly made…. the only thing I have against it is that the story was poorly written. For that reason, it didn’t keep me as engaged as (caligari, nosferatu). Nonetheless, its a remarkable achievement in film, and it inspired Kurosawa and many others.
After being intrigued by the DVD cover for years it was great to finally see this film, and to add another silent to my list.
Mabuse the Gambler is probably the best “epic” film I’ve ever seen.
There’s a lot to like about DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER, but that storyline sprawls and sprawls and fucking sprawls, and it never feels like it holds together very well. I much prefer DIE NIBELUNGEN, which is just as long but feels a lot more like Lang had an idea of where he was going.
Of course, there’s no way to entirely dislike a movie with the immortal title card — “Cocaine or Cards?”
The film is based on the serial model as standardized by series like Feuillades’ LES VAMPIRES and JUDEX. It’s not meant to be watched in one 4-hour go; that’s like saying THE SOPRANO sprawls…
^^I agree with that analogy. Particularly since the film was meant to be watch on two separate (but consecutive) nights, it’s more like a mini-series style of storytelling from before television was invented.
Point taken about the serial structure of the film, Daniel, but I’ve never felt that DR. MABUSE generates anywhere near the tension that the SOPRANOS does — it is very busy being very current and relevant and all that — the storytelling has always felt very stodgy somehow. The assorted elements never really come together into anything nearly as satisfying as a good sprawling season of THE SOPRANOS.
ah well, I loved the sprawl. Maybe just because like it said above, this was the invention of a lot of tropes we take for granted now.
Agreed!
Which tropes did DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER invent?
It invented more complex ediing tropes than existed before. Characters will refer to something or someone and Lang cuts directly to what’s being mentioned — even though it’s in another cinematic space entirely. It builds a sense of genuine paranoia as if everything were under Dr. Mabuse’s scrutiny and control. Eisenstein credited “Dr. Mabuse the Gambler” with teaching him about the possibilities of film editing.
The third Lang “Mabuse” — and his very last film — is teriffic.
Thanks for the clarification, David.
Which tropes did DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER invent?
Supposedly the shoot out for one.
Lots of structures to be used in gambling films or detective films too I guess.
David Ehrenstein, thanks for the info. Very interesting.
That editing technique is amazing, super jarring. People take it for granted now because filmmakers who use it don’t use it for the impact Lang intended.
TV commercials, music videos, and action movies have practically ruined the art of editing, or at least corrupted it and made it empty.
Well, I’ll try to watch this next week if the right block of time presents itself.
Bumping this discussion, since the match is coming up.
Also, I stumbled across this quote about the film from David Thompson, who I normally don’t like at all, but who I agree with here…
I challenge anyone to point to more plot material being delivered per minute of screen time in 1922 with such conviction or atmosphere. Quite simply, in the development of early cinema, the control of complicated information, the delivery of a moral point of view, and the accumulation of fascinating urban atmosphere is unrivaled.
Sorry Cara, you’re taking the fall.
Cinesthesia (aka Duncan)
WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS
“Who he is—nobody knows! He is there! He lives! He towers over the city! He is damnation and eternal bliss! He is the greatest man alive!"
So proclaims one character of Dr. Mabuse, a hypnotist, master of disguise, criminal kingpin, and cinema’s first great supervillain. Pursued by the police and aided by a group of devoted cronies, Mabuse lies, manipulates, and kills in the pursuit of money, sex, and influence. He is a Nietzschean über-mensch in the will-to-power sense: a man of limitless ability, and with no moral scruples holding him back. But the “unknown” aspects of Mabuse are paramount; here is a character that would be deflated by an origin story. In his ubiquity and omnipotence—popping up in various places under various guises—he becomes more of force than a human being. Call it pure opportunism unleashed.
But don’t forget that the subtitle of part 2 is “A Play About the People of Our Time”, and indeed, one of the most striking things about the film is how Mabuse is a man for his time and place. After all, it seems clear that he couldn’t wield the kind of power he does if his victims and pawns—the decadent rich gambling with their fortunes; a crowd of frantic stock traders; an angry mob easily whipped into a frenzy; a woman who desperately wants his love—weren’t so very ready for him. Fritz Lang very much intended the film as a kind of exposé of Weimar Germany, and in populating the film with such grotesque desperation, he has created something with more bite than anything I can think of coming out of Hollywood in 1922. Here is a vision of a society on the edge of oblivion, just waiting for someone to come along and take advantage of it—and it’s both a fitting and chilling sidenote that Lang would revive the Mabuse character ten years later as an allegory for the rise of Naziism. Thus, where most movie villains are simply caricatures, Lang successfully turns Mabuse into something darker, more elemental, and more symbolic.
It’s all, of course, wrapped in a landmark serialized suspense film, meant to be watched over two consecutives nights, full of chases and cliffhangers, and carried by Lang’s ferociously expressive visual style. Lang deserves the credit he gets as one of the great compositional artists in film history, and to see Dr. Mabuse, or any of Lang’s best silent films, is to see just how much can be conveyed through visuals alone.
(All this, plus one of the most adorably modest car-off-cliff explosions in film history!)
And in the end, it’s interesting to consider what brings down this über-mensch. The police finally catch up with him, yes, but there’s also the sense in which Mabuse, the “great man”, is brought down by the isolation inherent in such power and ambition. He ends the film locked in his own hideout, haunted by the visions of his victims, collapsed on a pile of fake money, like a cross between a Bond villain and Charles Foster Kane. The finale, where he’s escorted out by two lawmen—to a mental institute, we’d later find—is full of pity more than anything else.
I chose Dr. Mabuse as my first Lang pick for the simple chronological reason that it’s Lang’s first essential film, and the one that cemented his place in German cinema. (In fact, I value it over all his silent work, Metropolis included). It remains an artful and exciting landmark of the thriller genre, whose adventure aspects are reminiscent of Tintin and Sherlock Holmes, but whose style of visuals and performances hint at something more subversive. German Expressionism may or may not have been a distraction, as Lang playfully winks at the audience in one self-reflexive scene, but for my money, it’s aged more potently than anything else from the silent era. D.W. Griffith’s literary realism feels dusty, and the comedies of Chaplin and Keaton, as funny as they are, can’t help but feel like a throwback. But Expressionism—the angles, the shadows, and above all, the faces—still comes twisting to life.
I hope you enjoyed, and don’t worry. I promise my next two picks will be much shorter. :-)