The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

This is a 16mm print which I acquired in a batch of films. It is very well dubbed in English. I assume the film is available on video. This film reminds me of the serials of the 1930's. Fritz Lang ended his career with this swansong, a return to a theme of his earlier Dr. Mabuse films. The master criminal's henchmen have never seen his face, and get their commands by radio while cruising in a van. Note the scene in the police commissioner's office. Everyone is smoking furiously and the room soon becomes filled with smoke. There is an almost identical scene to this in "M". Overall and very amusing and enjoyable film.

What a swan song this is! Wild and wooly fun from Fritz Lang. Dr Mabuse is running his criminal empire from the Hotel Luxor. His henchmen never see his face as they receive their orders via radio.Without giving too much away his plans involve the takeover of a rich man's empire and general blackmail and murder.Gert Frobe plays the inspector out to nab Mabuse before Mabuse kills him.Funniest scene takes place in the Inspector's office when everybody starts to fall before a bomb goes off! After watching 5 Mabuse movies in a row this is easily the best.It is available from Sinister Cinema.

Fritz Lang's "Die 1000 Augen Des Dr. Mabuse" aka. "The Thousand Eyes Of Dr. Mabuse" of 1960 is, after 27 years, the third movie on the arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse, the first one made after World War 2, and Lang's last movie as a director. Although not brilliant in any of its aspects, this is a very well-acted, highly entertaining and original mystery that maintains its suspense and stays interesting throughout its 100 minutes, as it cleverly bears more than one surprise.

After a reporter is murdered on his way to a TV station in Wiesbaden, Comissioner Kras' (Gert Fröbe) investigations lead him to a local luxury hotel. As the investigations are dragging on without progress, Kras is offered the help of a mysterious blind psychic...

The acting in "The 1,000 Eyes Of Dr Mabuse" is generally very good, especially Gert Fröbe, who would play the arch villain "Goldfinger" in the greatest James Bond movie four years later, delivers a great performance as the rough-and-ready police commissioner Kras. Further great performances come from Wolfgang Preiss, Dawn Addams, and Werner Peters, who plays and obtrusive insurance salesman. The movie remains interesting all the time, as there's one little twist after another, and just when you think that something was predictable, another twist is coming up. One noticeable quality of this movie is that director Lang, who had fled to the United States in the years of Naziism, dares to mention the Nazi times in the movie, which (allthough only mentioned casually once or twice) was more than rare in 1960, a time when popular German movies usually remained as silent as possible about this "unpleasant" subject.

"Die 1000 Augen Des Dr. Mabuse" is not one of Fritz Lang's masterpieces, but it definitely is a highly entertaining and clever mystery, that should not leave anybody bored. Recommended!

You don't necessarily need to have seen Lang's earlier Mabuse films to be able to love this one. Like in his silent spy film 'Spione', Lang creates everything that would go on to be a genre cliche - but they all had to be original once. Here we have the stolen prototype weapon - a gun that fires needle shaped bullets that travel through glass and leave very little trace of assassination; and then there's the villain's car, with its revolving number-plates. Lang was certainly a few quick steps ahead of the makers of the Bond films, and certainly on a level with Hitchcock, Powell et al when it came to commenting on voyeurism.

The plot's labyrinthine, of course, but it rattles along at such a pace and with such striking visuals that you hardly have time or the inclination to stop and worry - and it all comes clear at the end, with one or two fantastic revelations in addition to the few you expect.

If one part doesn't quite please as much as you like, it's the context it fails to reference properly. Made at such a crucial time in History by a man who had seen so much, one only wishes it had more commentary to make. Lang's career swung like a pendulum between social commentary and serial escapades - if only he'd been able to pull the two together for his final film.

The last film that Lang directed, this was to be his triumphant return to Germany after having fled the Nazis in the late 1930's. Unfortunately, it was brutally cut and re-edited when it was released here, so it never gained the popularity and acclaim that it deserved. It's the story of an American businessman in Berlin who is drawn into a secretive world of conspiracies, spies, and murder. Everyone in this movie is lying to him, with the single exception of the police inspector, played by a pre-"Goldfinger" Gert Frobe. But it's also the movie that effectively laid down the basic rules of the modern spy thriller: the handsome and well-dressed leading man who is equally at home with a gun, a girl, or a drink in his hand, the megalomaniacal and shadowy villain with plans for world domination, the gadgetry and surveillance, the hidden lair, etc. Don't be put off by the fact that it's a foreign, black and white movie – this is an exciting story told by a master director who has been unforgivably forgotten.