lang never faltered, never stopped being relentlessly contemporary. nuclear disaster, american-german finances after the war, the astrological mysticism behind business interests, the 24/7 surveillance state, assassination networks, and mabuse not as a man, nor even as a ghost, but as an archetype which is inherent in the cursed inception of western civilization, like how mass shooters inspire a dozen more copycats, a nihilistic virus. anyone with access to the levers and databanks can play god over others -- mabuse is a 'gambler' with men's fate because he wants to play the system out to its logical conclusion, he is 'rational' in the sense that he sees nukes being built, and wants them to be used for their intended purpose: the…

For his last film, Fritz Lang decided to return to his Dr Mabuse character that initially propelled him to success in Germany. The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse falls in with the Krimi films that were building in popularity at the time, and this one is plot heavy to say the least. The complex narrative begins with the murder of a reporter, with the action then switching to a hotel where a young lady is about to commit suicide. The titular character looms large over the proceedings without actually featuring. Similar to how in Testament the character existed more as an idea than a man. The spectre of Mabuse manifests literally here in the form of a hotel riddled with…

I keep thinking about the fact that the hero in Fritz Lang's The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is an American, a clueless but good businessman whose faith and loyalty enable him to not only save (and get) the girl, but also fire the bullets that end the immediate threat to the good guys. The same is the case in the film's two official sequels, The Return of Dr. Mabuse and The Invisible Dr. Mabuse, in which it is FBI agents (both played by Lex Barker) who are able to solve the mystery and end the danger. In all three of these films, the figures who dream of world domination, whether they're Mabuse or simply Mabuse-inspired, are homegrown, as are…

If you speak to the old hardened criminals they all say the same thing, “Dr Mabuse isn’t dead, he can never die “

27 years after 1933’s "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse", director Fritz Lang returns to the Dr. Mabuse character for his third in the series and his last film ever.

I’ve seen several Lang movies, but this was my first experience with Dr Mabuse. If nothing else, it’s sparked my interest in the series and I’m planning on watching his first two movies as well as the many followups.

As for this one, it’s a complex affair, with mysterious characters, sneaky surveillance, masterful disguises and enough gadgets to keep even the pickiest of Bond villains busy.

Speaking of…

The police are shrouded in smoke from their own cigarettes like a thick fog. The seer is a blind man in a room surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. Only the camera, the microphone, sees, tells stories, and everyone who knows of its gaze must carefully curate their every word and expression so that even this record doesn't contain the truth. The last movie that Fritz Lang made in his long career before being declared legally blind, features the return of his signature character, Dr. Mabuse, to a new, postwar age where everyone is compromised and no one is safe. Gert Fröbe centers the picture as a detective who is tired of seeing death and at his wits end…

“Criminals never sleep, so they?”

As Fritz Lang’s Hollywood career was all but over, Artur Brauner sought this as an opportunity to bring home one of his idols and one of Germany's great filmmakers. Tim Bergfelder writes in his essay Artur Brauner, Master of Cinema: A Brief History of CCC Film, “from early on in the company's history, CCC encouraged émigrés to return to Germany to resume the career they were forced to abandon after Hitler's rise to power. Lang had been Brauner's idol since his childhood days, and Brauner was very keen to bring the legendary director back to Berlin. An early attempt to win Lang over […] had failed. A few years later, circumstances had charged; Lang’s career…

An honorable but relatively unmemorable final chapter not only in Fritz Lang's Mabuse mystery/crime trilogy but in the German director's film-making career.

The inventiveness and spark of Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) are not extinguished here, but the burners have been turned down to simmer. Those movies were groundbreaking, but think of some of what was being done by others in 1960, and it's harder to give this Mabuse the same compliment.

For one, there are long static chunks with little-to-no movement on the part of the characters or the camera. For another, there's far less use of shadow and dark/light interplay, which is to be expected given this was 1960 and not…

Após o êxito obtido na Alemanha pelos filmes do marajá de Eschnapur (Das Indische Grabmal) o produtor Brauner voltou a abordar Lang, convidando-o a filmar um remake de Die Nibelungen. Lang recusou imediatamente (a ideia pareceu-lhe despropositada) mas quando Brauner voltou à carga com a proposta de um remake de Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse pensou duas vezes. E contrapõe a Brauner, em vez de remake, uma nova variação sobre a figura de Mabuse que o tornara célebre em 1922 e lhe valera a proibição dos nazis em 1933. Assim nasceram “Os 1.000 olhos de Dr. Mabuse” numa tradução literal, que viria a ser o último filme realizado pelo autor de M.

Lang recordou um dia que o subtítulo do…

Ich mach mal kurzentschlossen eine Krimi-Woche 🕵️‍♂️ . Deutsche Krimis sollen es aber sein. Und Klassiker obendrein. Nein nicht Edgar Wallace. Aber so ähnlich. Die Dr. Mabuse-Reihe aus den 60ern habe ich mir vorgenommen 🧐.

Beginnen möchte ich, um die chronologische Reihenfolge einzuhalten, mit Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse. 1960 inszenierte Fritz Lang diesen Schwarzweiß-Krimi, der an seine Mabuse-Filme aus den 30ern anknüpfen sollte.

Ein Reporter 🗞 wird ermordet. Die Art und Weise der Tötung lässt die Polizei 👨‍✈️ um Kommissar Kras (Gert Fröbe) an Dr. Mabuse erinnern, der allerdings schon lange tot sein soll 🤔. Die Spur führt in ein Hotel 🏪 und dort passieren plötzlich seltsame Dinge.

Ein typischer deutscher Krimi aus dieser Zeit. Das soll jetzt…