Mabuse Lives!
Introduced in Norbert Jacques’ 1921 novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler), adapted as a silent film of the same name in 1922 by Fritz Lang, it was forty years later when the sinister criminal mastermind found his profile rising to international levels with a series of six films produced between 1960 and 1964 by Artur Brauner through the Berlin based CCC Film company, now gathered as part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema range as a four disk Blu-ray box titled Mabuse Lives!
All of them starring Mill of the Stone Women’s Wolfgang Priess in the title role of Dr. Mabuse, master of disguise, hypnosis, manipulation, murder and terror, though with varying degrees of participation, released in September 1960 Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse) was the final film direct by Fritz Lang who, suffering from failing vision, soon left Europe to return to the familiar sunnier climes of California where he had already worked for two decades to enjoy his retirement.
Set around the Luxor Hotel, wealthy American businessman Henry Travers (The Spy Who Came In from the Cold’s Peter van Eyck) intervenes to save a suicidal woman, Marion Menil (The Vampire Lovers’ Dawn Addams), distraught for reasons she will not disclose, both they and Inspector Kras (Goldfinger’s Gert Fröbe), investigating the death of a reporter, finding themselves in the orbit of the psychic Peter Cornelius, blind but with insightful vision into the lives of those around him – and their deaths.
A complex film of surveillance and blackmail which acknowledges the shadow of the Nazi regime in the origin of the hotel, as befits the title everyone is seen and observed, the plot constantly twisting and surprising and actually based upon Jean Forge’s 1931 novel Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojn (Mr. Tot Buys A Thousand Eyes), adapted with Mabuse as the instigator of events, and Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse is well-written and acted and gloriously shot on the sumptuous sets of the high-class establishment built upon murky secrets and betrayal.
Released thirteen months later, Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse (In the Steel Net of Dr. Mabuse), given the simpler title of The Return of Doctor Mabuse internationally and called The Phantom Fiend in the United States, presumably thought to be more commercially appealing, is directed by Harald Reinl, again starring Fröbe though this time as Inspector Lohmann, with former Tarzan Lex Barker as visiting bilingual FBI agent Joe Como and Rocket to the Moon‘s Daliah Lavi as Maria Sabrehm.
The daughter of an imprisoned chemist whose fellow inmates seem to come and go as they please courtesy of the laundry room deliveries, committing murders to silence witnesses, written by Ladislas Fodor and Marc Behm and directed by Harald Reinl Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse follows the template set by its predecessor with a tale of the perfect cover for a crime syndicate of international reach.
Using brainwashed thugs as an army of zombies causing chaos across the city, conditioned to be unswervingly loyal to Mabuse, released less than two decades past the final days of the Second World War the images of the private army of a hidden enemy seeking total domination swarming over the brutalist architecture of an abandoned chemical factory remain chilling.
Barker returning as Como in Reinl’s Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse, simplified to The Invisible Dr. Mabuse), again written by Fodor and released in early 1962, the film pushes the series from thriller into science fiction, Professor Erasmus (Rudolf Fernau, previously Pastor Briefenstein in Stahlnetz) having created an invisibility ray, but what should be a mystery is initially presented as a gimmick tied with a ridiculous explanation that visible matter only formed recently in the universe, emulating the vibration of the early universe thus conferring invisibility, Erasmus using his invention to enjoy the theatrical performances of Liane Martin (You Only Live Twice’s Karin Dor).
Improving as Liane seeks escape in a country hotel only to be followed both by Erasmus and Como, the film works better in the second half as it moves into action territory and is also notable in its depiction of post-war Germany, vibrant and alive, a culture of theatre, art and scientific exploration, a contrast to the more typically presented image of a defeated people living under the post-war shadow in bleak despair.
The fantastical elements of the series accepted by now, the fourth film feels no need to justify telepathic control as its premise, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) a remake released in 1962 by director Werner Klingler of Lang’s earlier film of the same name, Thea von Harbou’s script based on Jacques’ unfinished novel updated by Fodor and Robert A Stemmle and seeing the return of Fröbe though now playing Kriminalkommissar Lohmann investigating unusual and audacious thefts of gold and diamonds.
Mabuse having been captured and declared insane, he is held in an asylum as the patient of neurologist Professor Pohland (Walter Rilla), yet his writings indicate foreknowledge of the crimes, his scribbled testament enacted by a group of organised criminals who meet in a secret lair beneath a mausoleum who have recently recruited boxer Johnny Briggs (One, Two, Three’s Helmut Schmid) to replace the traitor in their midst who was identified and executed.
Mabuse’s presence expanded despite his incarceration, elements of Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse feel familiar, the 1933 original undoubtedly having already been an influence on the previous films in the series, but trapped in a dungeon of mirrors, a madhouse of reflections akin to Mabuse’s own malady which has locked him inside, unresponsive, it is a move back in the right direction as it builds on the previous feature and sets up the next in the final scenes.
Now established as an ongoing series rather than individual films, Rilla returns as Pohland, revealed to be no match for the mind of his star inmate, the therapist possessed by the will of his former patient in Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse or sometimes Scotland Yard versus Dr. Mabuse), directed by Paul May from Fodor’s script based on a story by Bryan Edgar Wallace and released in September 1963.
Seeing van Eyck’s return as British military officer Major Bill Tern, aided by his crime novel loving mother Gwendolyn (The Trapp Family‘s Agnes Windeck) and assisted in a more official capacity by Inspectors Vulpius and Wright (Werner Peters is his fourth and final role in the series and a young Klaus Kinski), the telepathic control of the previous film is more formalised, the result of an energy beam directed at the brain from an apparatus disguised as a camera.
Suffering badly from a middle act of back-and-forth as the criminals undertake devious acts which are then immediately disentangled by the officers of the law, the failure to develop the story as a mystery again finds stronger footing as it moves to action first in the heist then in the siege, though the scene of a helicopter reconnaissance crew landing to ask for directions only to be swiftly ambushed remains indefensibly hilarious, while the setting of the interrupted execution of a condemned man is strangely overdramatic yet powerful.
The James Bond film series by then establishing itself as the benchmark by which the spy thriller was measured, the final inclusion in the Mabuse Lives! set reflects this with Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse or sometimes The Secret of Dr. Mabuse) which opened in September 1964 the very day after Goldfinger had premiered in London, though with underwater action it would mirror 1965’s Thunderball, about to enter production though with plot elements known from the 1961 novel.
Professor Pohland condemned to an asylum, diagnosed as suffering from hallucinations and so not responsible for his crimes, Major Bob Anders attempts to interview him, hoping to shake loose some aspect of the Mabuse persona through electrotherapy, but instead there is a power cut and the patient escapes, and Anders is soon assigned a different case, travelling to Malta in the company of his girlfriend Judy to investigate the powerful laser of Professor Larsen but becoming more enraptured by his niece, Gilda.
Van Eyck returning as a different character, the change can only be presumed to be because Major Tern was competent and capable while Major Anders is a bumbling buffoon, his meandering matched by Hugo Fregonese’s direction which presents all the tropes in a shiny science fiction frame but leaves out any engagement or urgency, in thrall to the Mediterranean locations and with every woman on the island – Rika Dialina’s simpering Judy, Yvonne Furneaux’s calculating Gilda and Yoko Tani’s duplicitous Mercedes – inexplicably throwing themselves at the man referred to as “Double Oh Eight.”
The “death ray itself” named Project Archimedes, a ruby laser capable of decimating an entire city, improbably targeted by bouncing off the Moon which would absorb the majority of the tiny amount of radiation generated by the fingernail sized jewel anyway, Mabuse barely appears in his swansong, perhaps a wise choice considering that for a series with a relatively high bar of artistic and technical quality overall, the final step is a significant and disappointing stumble.
All six films restored in 2K from the original film elements, each are supported by introductions by genre expert Tim Lucas and have commentaries by film historian David Kalat, the set also including a new interview with Alice Brauner, daughter of Artur Brauner and now managing director of CCC Film, an archive interview with Wolfgang Priess, alternate endings for Thousand Eyes and Death Ray and a fascinating new video essay by David Cairns and Fiona Watson, Kriminology, covering the series and Lang’s influence even past his departure, his shadow as long as that of the character he brought to the screen so dramatically.
Mabuse Lives! will be available on Blu-ray from Eureka from Monday 31st March
