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Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

1922

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler

Directed by Fritz Lang

Dr. Mabuse and his organization of criminals are in the process of completing their latest scheme, a theft of information that will allow Mabuse to make huge profits on the stock exchange. Afterwards, Mabuse disguises himself and attends the Folies Bergères show, where Cara Carozza, the main attraction of the show, passes him information on Mabuse's next intended victim, the young millionaire Edgar Hull. Mabuse then uses psychic manipulation to lure Hull into a card game where he loses heavily. When Police Commissioner von Wenk begins an investigation of this mysterious crime spree, he has little to go on, and he needs to find someone who can help him.

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Rudolf Klein-Rogge Aud Egede-Nissen Gertrude Welcker Alfred Abel Bernhard Goetzke Paul Richter Robert Forster-Larrinaga Hans Adalbert Schlettow Georg John Károly Huszár Grete Berger Julius Falkenstein Lydia Potechina Julius E. Herrmann Julietta Brandt Max Adalbert Anita Berber Paul Biensfeldt Gustav Botz Lil Dagover Heinrich Gotho Leonhard Haskel Erner Huebsch Gottfried Huppertz Hans Junkermann Adolf Klein Erich Pabst Edgar Pauly Karl Platen Show All…

Alternative Titles

The Fatal Passion, Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler, El doctor Mabuse, Dr. Mabuse: El infierno [Part II], Dr. Mabuse: El gran jugador [Part I], La pasión fatal del Doctor Mabuse, Доктор Мабузе, коцкар, Doktor Mabuse, Dr. Mabuse, Doctor Mabuse, ドクトル・マブゼ, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. Erster Teil: Der grosse Spieler. Ein Bild der Zeit., Dr. Mabuse, Inferno des Verbrechens, Le Dr. Mabuse, Mabuse le démon du crime, Mabuse le joueur, Tri Mabuse: rikosten pyörteissä, Tri Mabuse: ihmispeto, Dr. Mabuse - mängija, Inferno, Doktor Mabuse, dobrodruh, Mabuse, le joueur, Доктор Мабузе, играчът, Dr. Mabuse, o Inferno do Crime, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Part One: The Great Gambler. An Image of the Time., Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Part Two: Inferno. A Game of People of Our Time., Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit, 마부제 박사, Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Il dottor Mabuse, Docteur Mabuse le joueur, Dr. Mabuse, el jugador, O Doutor Mabuse, Доктор Мабузе, игрок, Dr. Mabuse, spelaren, Dr. Mabuse, Kumarbaz, 玩家马布斯博士, Dr. Mabuse, o Jogador, Tri Mabuse - ihmispeto

Genres

Crime Thriller

Themes

Thrillers and murder mysteries Crime, drugs and gangsters Violent crime and drugs Intriguing and suspenseful murder mysteries Show All…

Theatrical

27 Apr 1922

Germany

26 May 1922

Germany

03 Feb 1923

Estonia

12 Feb 1923

Estonia

01 May 1923

Japan

20 Feb 1924

Portugal

07 Aug 1927

US Virgin Islands

08 Aug 1927

Estonia

03 Feb 1923

Theatrical part 1

12 Feb 1923

Theatrical part 2

Germany

27 Apr 1922

Theatrical part 1

26 May 1922

Theatrical part 2

Japan

01 May 1923

Theatrical

Portugal

20 Feb 1924

Theatrical

US Virgin Islands

07 Aug 1927

Theatrical

USA

08 Aug 1927

Theatrical

271 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Mike Thorn ★★★★★

"You take the bank, Mr. Mabuse..."
Principally, just a monumental entertainment; this is probably the breeziest 4.5 hours I've ever spent with a film. Lang's mastery of action alone is substantial enough (when it comes down to it, this is essentially a ludicrous cat-and-mouse yarn). But Lang also offsets Mabuse's endless procession of glamours with some key, densely composed crowd scenes, bringing psychoanalytic penchants to bear on questions of identity/selfhood & self-knowing. Technical invention, totally precise mise-en-scène, a pursuit of all the things that cinema can be and do. An extremely special film.
Review by san ★★★★ 1

Welp, this is definitely one of the longest films I have ever seen. Split into two parts, the film is about a criminal mastermind, Dr. Mabuse, who uses psychic suggestion to control people and win in gambling events — doing so, while also attempting to evade the town’s prosecutor, von Wenk. Fritz Lang uniquely elevates the cat-and-mouse genre with his stunning visuals and cinematic inventions. The only downside to this is obviously the runtime as the plot doesn’t really earn it, but despite this unpleasant issue, it oddly kept me invested all the way through.
Like in his previous film, Destiny, the set design is chef’s kiss. The score was spectacular and original as well; even though songs had to be reused multiple times, they never felt as if they overstayed their welcome. Overall, I’m just truly impressed that Destiny and Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler are only one year apart!
Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★

one of the most tremendously exciting villain vs. hero capers you'll ever see -- i was blown away by how modern this feels, despite it being over a hundred years old. fritz lang understands the lateral nuts-and-bolts of how to tell a fast-paced story better than almost anyone, and mabuse, the gambler takes advantage of the repetitive pulp serial structure to repeatedly emphasize a weimar germany that can be taken advantage of by a hundred mabuse-esque madmen; his use of disguises dissolves his personality into a horde of figures, so that he appears everywhere and nowhere at the same time (much like lang's camera, which frequently inhabits first-person POV shots for mabuse and his victims, yet steadfastly refuses to give…
Review by CJ Probst ★★★★★ 12

FSDO: If You Aren't With Us, You're Against Us
When tasked with watching a film from the German expressionist movement, one name sprang directly to mind, that name was Fritz Lang. I was interested in going with something a little lesser known than the most iconic films of this genre like Nosferatu, Caligari or even his own works Metroplois and M. Though some other directors can boast the more widely regarded and recognizable titles, for my money Fritz Lang is the one with the most impressive body of work, including his often overlooked masterpiece Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler. Whereas many films of this movement were horrors, Mabuse is more akin to what would be referred to today as a psychological…
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★½ 1

Cat, mouse, repeat, complicate, repeat
Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 12

Despite my pathetically short attention span, once I got my musical accompaniment sorted out (a synthwave/vaporwave mix) and settled into the movie's rhythm, I had a blast with all 260+ minutes of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler.
It's hard not to see hints of Metropolis in the Weimar Germany the film depicts, with the bored, bland elites in their palatial homes, and their evenings spent in a well-dressed quest for thrills; with the underclass they don't even see, living off of crumbs and small crimes, surviving hand-to-mouth, if at all. And the rampant lawlessness onscreen speaks loudly to the nation Fritz Lang saw around him, a nation in which everyone, ultimately, suffers, whether it's a man who thinks he is in…
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½ 2

Doctor Mabuse, who featured in the novels of novelist Norbert Jacques, is a master of disguise and hypnotism, and Dr Mabuse the Gambler is the first movie about the character. It's a movie which is crowded with extraordinary cinematic images from its director Fritz Lang and employs long shots to take advantage of its magnificent production designs from Otto Hunte and Carl Stahl-Urach that successfully creates a brooding atmosphere.
It's split into two parts and holds a runtime of four and a half hours; which were initially released a month apart, and its style is firmly rooted in the expressionism of the period and strengthened with a cloak of stylish fashionability which recognises the social environments of the amplified class tension in Germany at the time. Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays the title role with noticeable temperance, and the movie intrinsically holds interest despite its extended runtime.
Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★★ 2

Cinematic Time Capsule
1922 Marathon - Film #48
"I played and I lost… but to whom exactly?"
So there I was, the King of the Berlin Underground. The ultimate criminal mastermind. A master of disguises, armed with the powers of hypnosis and mind control. I had it all.
But then came the complaints. A bunch of sore losers started whining about me being a predatory gambler. And that’s when this Prosecutor, von Wenk started poking his nose around in my business.
But I figured I could handle it. Bedsides, I had assembled a crackpot team of henchmen. Including Spoerri, my cocaine-addicted manservant; Georg, my chauffeur and sometimes reliable assassin; Pesch, who’s mostly just an inept goon; Hawasch, who runs my…
Review by Slig001 ★★★★ 1

Fritz Lang's silent epic, taking place in Germany following the end of World War One. The film depicts the antics of a supercriminal known as Dr Mabuse - a forger and hypnotist who uses his abilities to manipulate those around him. Seemingly all powerful and feared - as one character puts it; "he is damnation and salvation"! The film depicts a situation where a man such as this is allowed to rise due to a society afflicted with apathy. The character himself forsakes his humanity for his lust for power. There's two major female characters in the film - one loves him but he doesn't care, the other one he just wants to possess for his own self gratification. The…
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 4

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler is one of the creepiest films of the silent era. It is quietly unnerving, with very dark ideas. This is a film of complete psychological manipulation, as our titular lead hypnotises and controls so many people. The Germany here is a dystopia, an economically unstable nation caught in the chaos of the early 1920s, which the evil Mabuse exploits for his own ends. This representation certainly reflects some then-contemporary myths about Jewish people trying to destroy and exploit the German people, but Mabuse is closer to a representation of the disturbing orators and manipulators that gained popularity on the political fringes, notably from the Nazi party. Lang's film doesn't necessarily have a political component, but its…
Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★★ 6

Four and a half hours of thrills; mounting this "like" a serial thriller was a very smart move, foregrounding Lang's debt to Feuillade as a precursor and cementing the characteristics of a genre that never actually took shape, a sort of conspiracy thriller that would have linked the Gothic novel with modernist concerns pertaining to new technologies and their effect on human sensibilities. Gothic anti-heros like Melmoth could be everywhere, spinning their arcane webs of infinite disruption, but they didn't have telephones or motor-cars. (Film noir is also a modernized version of Gothic, expressing distinct, new concerns within a similar framework, and that's the one that ended up taking root.)
In terms of craft, it's a huge step forward for Lang from the previous year's Der Mude Tod; everything's polished to knife-edge perfection. Editing, in particular, is razor-sharp here. Great, great movie.
Review by D Rock ★★★★ 3

Great early cop-vs-criminal mastermind battle royale from Fritz Lang, from the series of novels by Norbert Jacques.
The criminal mastermind here (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) is also a master of disguise, a doctor of psychology and a hypnotist/mind-controller extraordinaire, talents he uses to fleece upper-class gamblers in Weimar-era Berlin out of their money and otherwise humiliate, degrade and eliminate those standing in his way. Only dissonant note about him is that for all his craftiness and foresight, he has surrounded himself with a collection of pretty dumb-ass henchmen, including a cocaine-addicted sniveler who spends the whole. long movie quaking.
In the other corner, the valiant and dogged state prosecutor von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke), who spends four and half hours of movie time…