Fritz Lang’s first masterpiece, a four & a half hour double-feature with hardly a moment wasted, has been restored to stunning effect. (NOTE: In the KINO DVD edition, you can improve the grey scale of the picture by lowering the contrast & brightness levels a few notches.) On one level, this is simply a far-fetched, but smashingly entertaining detective drama about Mabuse, a criminal mastermind with more disguises than Alec Guinness in KIND HEARTS & CORONETS. He runs a gang of counterfeiters, manipulates the stock exchange (a thrilling sequence), kills personal rivals, runs the local drug racket and generally lords it over the pursuing police force of the modern city. But particularly, in Part One, MABUSE also offers a devastating look at the perilous world that was Weimar Germany, and there’s still plenty of action & schemes left for Part Two. In this early work, Lang manages, more than he would in METROPOLIS, to hold all the expressionist elements (design, acting, story construction) in perfect balance. The dynamism for an early ‘20s pic, (before the era of easy camera movement) is simply phenomenal. And where else will you find an inter-title as glorious as: ‘Eat some cocaine, you weakling!’
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