Dr. M schlägt zu

Doctor Mabuse strikes again in this highly-colored movie shot by Jess Franco in the mid-seventies, when he was still comitting marvels. This one has almost everything you can expect from a spanish late night masterpiece : the evil doctor and his mindless Frankenstein-like monster, Monica Swinn as her evil and sexy sidekick, a cameo by a screaming and cigar smoking Franco, some cops dressed like laughable cowboys, a few sexy girls in mini-skirts and the incredible camera angles and locations that has made old Jess famous.

It's about doctor Mabuse's evil plans - plans I couldn't understand because the movie is in spanish - and the endeavours of humanity to stop him, Franco-style. Shot in the most unusual and strange locations of Spain, it is a visual treasure and the funny characters are, as always, very parodic. It may last only about an hour, but it will remain in your hearts and minds for a long long time...

You can say a lot of things about director Jess Franco (including negative things, mind you) but most of all, I'd like to think of him as a very clever filmmaker who always damn well knew where there was some easy money to earn! If there ever was a popular trend or franchise in horror cinema, you can bet your bottom dollar that Jess Franco was part of it or at least attempted to rapidly shoot a film that profited by this particular trend. In the early 80's, when the teen-slasher was immensely popular, Franco brutally hacked up young beauty queens in "Bloody Moon" and in the late 60's already, he also took over the "Fu Manchu" series. Here in this film, our beloved pal Jess further exploits the successful horror character of the evil "Dr. Mabuse", which was originally created by no less than the German top-director Fritz Lang.

"La Venganza del Doctor Mabuse" actually is one of Franco's better films of that period with delightfully twisted characters, stunning locations, truly beautiful camera-work and a terrific musical score. The story is of minor importance but it handles about the mean Dr. Mabuse and his accomplices stealing all kind of attributes from a National Research Institute (including female staff members) in order to complete his own, evil mind-control ray. Dr. Mabuse has this impressive and horribly scarred man-monster that kills for him while the entire police force desperately tries to catch him. This film is great and trashy entertainment, starring some incredibly beautiful cult-sirens like Ava Garden, Ewa Strömberg and Beni Cardoso...all wearing mini-skirts! The action sequences are a little grotesque, but Franco's directing is very stylish and surefooted. Many of Franco's later films suffer from overlong and tedious scenes but this effort is pure excitement from start to finish. Typical Franco trademarks also include that he makes references towards his earlier films (more particularly, "the Awful Dr. Orloff") and that he rewards himself with a small supportive role. Definitely one of the director's best films and simultaneously a great title to illustrate the class of early 70's euro-exploitation!

Jess Franco, I love his films (The Sadistic Baron von Klaus; Venus in Furs), and I hate his films (Lust for Frankenstein; Female Vampire). Sometimes I love and hate them at the same time (Oasis of the Zombies). One of his best films is The Awful Dr. Orloff, a film that I re-watched just a couple days before viewing Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse. The latter film suffers badly in comparison.

Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse borrows a great deal from the first Orloff film. Mabuse (Jack Taylor) has both a female assistant and a hulking Frankenstein monster henchmen in the Morpho vein. Said monster ends up turning against its master because of love (or lust) for a woman. The climactic showdown between cop and monster in both Mabuse and the first Orloff film are strikingly similar. If that was not enough, both films rely on bums out fishing to provide the police with a clue to the villains' hideout. Oh, and of course, both films deal with the abduction of a stripper. Although, strangely, in the print that I saw, Mabuse had less nudity than The Awful Dr. Orloff.

I know that some Franco fans like the way his films intersect, but, to me, The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse shows a lazy director dropping in plot points from a movie he made better a decade before.

Finally, in all of the other Dr. Mabuse films, the man is a master criminal. He does not work for others! Yet, this Mabuse alludes to the trouble he and his cohorts will be in from "the organization" if they abandon the project. Mabuse as a mafia stooge. . . what a let down!

Jess Franco directed over 180 movies in his lifetime, so it's not very surprising that he occasionally lacked inspiration. The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse sees Jess imitating his own 1962 movie The Awful Dr. Orlof, which itself was inspired by George Franju's classic Les Yeux Sans Visage.

As with The Awful Dr. Orlof, the plot concerns a crazy scientist, the titular Dr. Mabuse (Jack Taylor), who abducts women with the help of disfigured servant Andros (Moisés Augusto Rocha) in order to subject them to a powerful ray, the aim being to create an army of robots. Parallels with The Awful Dr. Orlof abound, from the police inspector (here played by Fred Williams) whose girlfriend is called Wanda (same as in Orlof), to the woman lured to an abandoned building where she is accosted by Orlof's servant (as in Orlof), to the vagrant who catches a vital clue on the end of his fishing pole (as in Orlof). Needless to say, the film ends in the same way, with Andros carrying off Wanda, the inspector arriving just in time to kill the 'monster' and save the girl.

Sadly, this time around, the formula doesn't result in such a great film: Franco's direction is sloppy, the performances aren't very good (Howard Vernon's presence would be beneficial), and Eva Garden as Wanda isn't anywhere near as sexy as Diana Lorys, who played the inspector's fiancé in The Awful Dr. Orlof.

4/10

Q. Did the same artist who drew the police sketches in The Awful Dr. Orlof also design the sign for The Red Garter cabaret club? It's just as terrible.

Jesus Franco's take on the Dr. Mabuse franchise...well that should sum up pretty much how this movie is like. Jesus Franco is a director who has always distinguished himself by delivering extremely bad and poor movies. He's always fascinated with putting a lot of nudity and explicit sexuality into his movies. He began early in his career by making mostly bad horror flicks in the '60's and '70's but his career has now reached a point that he's stuck to mostly soft-erotic movies. In many ways his career parallels that of Ed Wood's, also not in the least because of the comparable qualities of their movies. Who ever gave him the green light to do a Dr. Mabuse movie? Fritz Lang is turning over in his grave.

As you would expect, this movie has actually very little to do with the previous Dr. Mabuse movies. It features an extremely muddled story with all kind of oddness's over it and you just simply don't bother to try and understand what the story is all about. It's some extremely bad and disjointed storytelling within this movie. Often the scenes and different characters and plot lines just don't blend in with each other.

The characters (Really, a couple of cowboy cops?) and dialogs are often just horrible and simply laughable. And yes, of course the movie also features a couple of lesbian actions. A thing Jesus Franco also really seems obsessed with. The nudity and sexual content within this movie just seems terribly out of place and makes this more a 'dirty movie' than a real serious attempt by Franco. Not that I expected this in advance though.

Like a typical Franco flick, it's also a real cheap looking movie, with bad locations, laughable make-up effects (what was that monster creature all about?) and shot sequences without the use of any additional lighting, or anything of that sort. On top of that, Jesus Franco also felt to urge to compose the music for this movie. What an horrible, horrible choice that was.

Seriously only watchable for the fans of Franco-trash.

2/10

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