13. Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, parts 1 and 2) 1922

Directed By Fritz Lang

Synopsis

There's this guy right? He is Dr. Mabuse, criminal mastermind and master of disguise, as well as gifted hypnotist and psychoanalyst. After commiting corporate crime at the spectacular opening of the film, Mabuse turns to making money from hypnotising card players. He does this initially with Hull, an American millionaire, always in disguise. Soon the State Prosecutor Von Wenk becomes involved in the case of the mysterious gambler, who either appears as a youth or an old man or a russian gentleman to his victims and leads them to commit irrational acts. Wenk eventually plays against Mabuse who is disguised as an old man, yet Mabuse hypnotises him with the aid of some Chinese glasses. Hull, the American Millionaire gets killed in an attempt at Wenk's life and his girlfriend, Carozza, a minion of Mabuse is arrested. Countess Told is asked by Wenk to help in the investigations and get some info from Carozza. Which she refuses after meeting Carozza, because she understands she did it for love (of Mabuse). Mabuse then sends her a poison pill, and she commits suicide.

Meanwhile, Mabuse falls in love with Countess Told, an adventurous woman, and kidnaps her while descrediting her husband by hypnotising him in order to make him be caught cheating after a dinner party. With the Countess captive, Mabuse turns to count Told and becomes his psychoanalyst, eventually leading him to cut his own throat with a razorblade. Tired of Von Wenk's meddling, Mabuse organises a show, where he disguises himself as a Rasputin like magician and mass hypnotist. While falling into a trance Wenk discovers that the hypnotist and all the previous criminals are all actually Mabuse, but too late! Mabuse has instilled the order to comit suicide by driving full-throttle into a quarry into Wenk's mind. Wenk's assistants, seeing his odd behaviour when he leaves the show follow him and save him at the last moment, while his car plunges down the quarry, exploding when it hits the bottom (yay!).

Next day, Wenk, the police and the military siege Mabuse's house while he and his minions have a shoot out with the forces of order, by shooting rifles of their windows, Western Style. Eventually, Mabuse manages to escape to his money faking facility through a tunnel in his house and there he goes insane seeing the ghosts of all the people he has killed. Wenk finds him and takes him away.

Review

Phew, that was the very condensed version of the synopsis. In fact this is a 4.30 hour long film.There is loads of stuff I left out, actually, but I can't be arsed. In fact, this is such a good film that you need to watch it anyway so it's pointless to write more about the story. Now it's a question of convincing you of why you should watch a 4.30 hour long silent film.

Simple, it has the best plot of all films reviewed until now and some of the most beautiful set design and makeup ever. The sets are not in the scale of Intolerance by Griffith or anything like that, but they are just exquisite. From the restaurant, to Le Pettit Casino and, especially, the Counts' house, all are masterworks of design and architecture. And the design isn't just the architecture of the building, it's all the decoration and pieces in the sets. Like the collection of African Art and Expressionist Art, side by side in Told's house, or the circular tiny casino which transforms into a burlesque bar in seconds. And yes, there are nipples.

Even better than this is the plot and the characters of the film. Mabuse is an all-round despicable character, but not so flamboyant that you can't suspend disbelief. Mabuse is probably one of the great villains, thoroughly believable and scary. All the more scary because believable. Even Von Wenk' is not the common annoying do gooder, he has a sense of duty more that follhardy stupidness of the main character of Les Vampires for example. Strangely, and probably due to all these reasons, the fim seems quite modern compared with most silent films. You could easily have said that it was filmed in the 40's if it wasn't for the fact that it is silent.

Fortunately new versions of the film have quite quite good soundtracks, which help you bear the length of the film. Such as these (shameless plug time!): Amazon US or UK.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Mabuse might originate in the French M'Abuse meaning I abuse myself, which is not a veiled reference to his prolific wanking but to the fact that he brings about his own downfall.

There are other Mabuse films:

* Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang, 1933)
- English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (may also be translated as The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse)
- The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse is a not-very-faithful edited adaptation of Testament made primarily for American audiences. It is truncated, reorganized and redubbed.
- A French-language version was filmed at the same time, on the same sets, but with an entirely different cast (except for one actor who spoke both German and French fluently, and Klein-Rogge, whose dialogue remained in German.)

* Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang, 1960 - the first of the Mabuse films that was produced by Artur Brauner. English title: The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse)

* Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl, 1961. English title: The Return of Dr. Mabuse)

* Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl, 1962.) English title: The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse)

* Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Werner Klingler, 1962 - remake of the 1933 film. English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse)

* Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (dir. Paul May, 1963) English title: Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (literally: Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse)

* Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Hugo Fregonese, 1963.) English title: The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Death Rays of Dr. Mabuse)