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.

Eccentric characters are drawn to the Luxor Hotel where a panicked and paranoid pretty lady (Addams) is attempting to kill herself to be rid of her fears forever. Van Eyck saves her, falls in love, but also under the influence of the nefarious "Dr. Mabuse". He's the old "prophet" who the police go to -- or is he? No, he's the guy pretending to be Dr. Mabuse, using secret cameras hidden around to Luxor to spy on its guests and set up a master plan! -- or is he?

This one may sound cheezy, but it's all in good fun and with tongue in cheeck, and a good final film for Lang.

This is a great little whodunit and an excellent start to the revival of Fritz Lang's great Dr. Mabuse series. It is very reminiscent of the earlier films in the twenties and thirties, particularly Le Testament Du Dr. Mabuse, from which Lang lifts and modernizes many situations.

I said don't read the credits in the title to this review because guessing who is actually the mastermind Mabuse is half of the fun...there are a lot of red herrings that don't play out until the last fifteen minutes of the movie.

This was the first movie in the new Mabuse series and I would recommend anyone delving into the world of Dr. Mabuse use this as a starting point (especially if none of the silents or early talkies are available in your area).

A new crime wave has brought the attention of police commissioner Kras (Gert Frobe), and rumors persist that the crimes are the work of mastermind Dr. Mabuse, a legendary super-criminal thought dead for nearly 30 years. As Kras sets out to find the true culprit, American businessman Henry Travers (Peter van Eyck) finds himself the latest target of Mabuse's machinations.

Fritz Lang returned to Germany and the character that he had so much success with in the 1920's and early 30's. This newer film doesn't rank with those earlier ones, but it's a lot of fun, and was an obvious influence on the later spy films of the 1960's. The mystery of Mabuse's identity isn't very difficult to guess at all, but there are enough interesting characters to fill up the screen and make things enjoyable. Frobe as the dogged policeman, Wolfgang Preiss as a blind psychic, and Howard Vernon as an assassin with a needle gun, are all stand-outs. This was a big hit in Europe, and spawned a whole new series of sequels, but without Lang's participation.

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.