Up against his old nemesis one last time, silent film titan Fritz Lang, in his penultimate turn as director, seems rejuvenated, a vigorous presence compared to the spent force of the last few years. (More Mabuses followed; none with Lang.) And while this can’t compete with his silent and sound Mabuses of the ‘20s and ‘30s*, this low-budget winner has qualities of its own. It also proved highly influential on soon to come James Bond & Mission: Impossible franchises. Naturally, master criminal Mabuse wants to take over the crime underworld and has 1000 camera eyes to keep him informed, monitored from a forgotten, underground Nazi inner-city bunker. Opening with an assassination of a reporter who’s about to spread the news (a steel needle to the brain), Gert Fröbe plays the gruff investigating police inspector who comes across the series of plots and counterplots that make up the conspiracy. Top billed Dawn Addams and Peter van Eyck on the lookout for her violent husband; Wolfgang Preiss a blind Irish psychic, the man who knew too much too soon; and Werner Peters, the bumbling insurance salesman whose act is too bumbling to be believed. Could they be working for Mabuse? Could they be Mabuse? The film turns talky in the second act, but everything else is a pacey blast of OTT reversals, revelations, and surprise explosions. Plus one two-way mirror to stop an uxoricide in the nick of time. Hard to be sure if the stingy budget helps or hurts. It does tend to make you more forgiving.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Lang’s first DR. MABUSE, a five hour silent decades ahead of its time in content and technique from its opening shot. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/02/dr-mabuse-1922-2nd-writeup.htmle
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