O Testamento do Dr. Mabuse

Even today The Testament of Dr Mabuse is refreshingly original and at times startling to watch. Lang was truly one of the greats of cinema and along with Alfred Hitchcock basically invented the suspense film. This film is also the reason Lang left Germany, as it wasn't viewed kindly by the newly elected government.

The film reads like a trainer for all the thrillers that came thereafter: The staring face reminiscent of 'Alien', the scary opening scene, which deserves to be better known, the tough but lovable cop, the haunted (literally) master criminal, the asylum, the heroine with an excuse to get her dress all wet and clingy, the Mae West look-alike, the spooky special effects, the explosions and the fires (real ones not your computer generated rubbish), the shoot out, the chase through the woods, the car chase, the high tech gadgets (using 78 vinyl!). There's even what looks like a placement add (Mercedes, during the car chase). Yes, all the thriller clichés are there but way back in 1933 they weren't clichés. Unfortunately some rather wooden acting by the heroine, Wera Liessem, who seems to be stuck in silent film mode, mars the film.

As for the political overtones, I'm not sure if these were deliberate. Lang's stories about himself were as fantastical as his films, especially the one about being offered the head of the Reich films.

(This comment is on the fully restored Criterion edition.)

I see that my comments on the Mabuse films have been deleted. There was an IMDb era when any offended reader could exact revenge by successfully complaining of scores of comments. But I guess that's apt for the aura of this film, its history of being suppressed and its themes.

I find watching Lang movies to be frustrating. His most celebrated films: "Metropolis" and "M" don't resonate with me as they do with others. Even though they have effective scenes, they are effective not because they are cinematic, but because they are masterful stagecraft. After Lang went to Hollywood, claiming this to be anti-Hitler, his films turned mechanical.

It was only with this project that he hits my sweet spot, where his attentions are turned to all the elements of the cinematic art. This is whole, and innovative in every element. Others may find the many plots overloaded and in some cases turgid. But I think the density of story is essential to the elegant narrative tricks that this uses - all of them rooted in the film as film.

We have, possibly for the first time, non-linear narrative designed in a way to confuse the viewer so that we are inserted as detective, actively engaged in watching merely to make sense of what we see. The thing is envisioned as a whole with many reflections, many cycles, many connections between scenes and jumping among scenes. Images, sounds, ideas, characters contrast with and merge with each other. Its a tight fabric with so many junctions we can navigate as we wish, or as we have skills.

Yes, there are ordinary pleasures, too: amazing effects shots, one of the best chase scenes ever filmed, some very fine use of grime. But they re merely incidental to the way that this symphony is constructed and executed. This is one of the few films in my experience that gets bigger the more you learn about its provenance: the infidelities between the filmmaker and his screenwriter wife; the business with Hilter, much obfuscated by later Lang claims and the notion that he would do so. The original novel, The previous and subsequent Lang Mabuse films and their failings, indeed the breakage of his career. The many incarnations of this film on its way to us.

The way it overtly is written to influence, containing a story about writing that influences. The way it deceives on the screen, containing a story about deception behind a "screen."

The sex, as it penetrates the whole thing without ever being shown. The fact that although you can see it as having historical significance, you can still after 75 years see it as a modern, immediately effective experience from a man that for one year actually mattered. Still does.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

Fritz Lang's Das TESTAMENT des Dr.MABUSE is a mesmerising, master-crafted entertainment which no serious movie freak will have missed. The largely forgotten, parallel French version, filmed simultaneously with a French speaking cast, is like most of these foreign versions, a poor relation. I'm glad I saw the German one first - twice in a week as it happens.

Shorter than the German film, it truncates the lovers subplot and plays it with colourless juveniles, omits the giant eye make up shots of Klein Rogge, which re-call Dr. Baum's art collection and, worse, attempts to up the pace by chopping off the fade out scene transitions - giving correctly, the impression that there is something missing.

The German cast is uniformly superior, with the possible exception of the jolly, frankfurter-cooking henchman, who does manage to make an impression. Jim Gerald was a comedian - effectively so in CHAPEAU de PAILEE d'ITALIE and FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS - and he lacks the monolith menace that Wernike provides. Thommy Bordelle is normally an unimposing performer and, giving it his best shot, he's still no fair swap for the the great Oscar Beregei, in the one circulating film where we get to hear Beregei's voice. The French Dr. Kramm (who is he?), in particular, is out classed by Theodore Loos (the secretary from METROPOLIS among other stand-out performances).

Well it's still Lang's Mabuse film and remains intermittently effective - Hoffmeister's vision of Lohman's entry into his see through cell is still a grabber - and it is another piece of the jig saw and another, if minor, Lang movie. So nice to get to see it after all these years.

This film's a thriller, a detective story, a ghost story; it has romantic and comic sub-plots, a striking array of sets, some of the first convincing special effects ever used, echoes of other films; and it is not hard to find in it political relevance to today. It's a lot to cram into two hours, and one has to work to follow every twist of the plot, but it is both a rewarding and entertaining experience.

The film draws on an exceptionally wide variety of cinematic styles. There are expressionist moments, and these are particularly striking, but they account for only two or three minutes out of a running time of 120. There are moments when one could almost be in a screwball comedy. And there are moments which come close to social realism – it would be interesting to know whether the patients at the mental hospital played themselves. The dominant mode, though, is an anticipation of film noir.

I would, though, counsel against investing too much historical hindsight in this film – yes, Fritz Lang did go into exile from the Nazis – but it is more the shadow of Weimar than the shadow of Hitler that hovers in the background here.

Not perfect; not an absolute masterpiece: but an occasionally stunning and always stimulating film, which deserves 9 out of 10.