Dr. M

There is a massive wave of suicide in Berlin, some of them causing accidents with hundreds of casualties on both sides of Berlin. The population believes it is caused by a virus and there is an exodus of Berliners that travel through Club Theratos, an agency promoted by the model Sonja Vogler (Jennifer Beals) in several screened billboards, television and magazines. In West Berlin, Lt. Klaus Hartman (Jan Niklas), who lost his wife Nina two years ago after committing suicide, and his partner Sgt. Stieglitz (Benoît Régent) are relentless in the investigation. He believes that the suicides are murders indeed. When the snoopy journalist from Eastern Berlin, Moser (Hanns Zischler), breaks in the Club Theratos, he finds that the owner Heinrich Marsfeldt (Alan Bates) is the responsible for the deaths, and is using his stepdaughter Sonja to hypnotize the population. Further, he intends to use the popular show of the host Veidt (Peter Fitz) to induce the viewers to commit suicide. Will Hartman and Sonja be capable of stopping his evil plan?

"Dr. M" (1990) is a different movie by Claude Chabrol with a futuristic view of Berlin, the same way Jean-Luc Goddard made "Alphavile" in 1965 meaning a different genre from these two filmmakers. The plot is confused, and it is never clear whether Dr. Marsfeldt is only lunatic or has the interest to increase business in his travel agency. But why the police officer is helping him? In the end, this film seems better when watched for the second time, although totally different from Chabrol's style. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Dr. M - Dr. Mabuse e Seu Destino" ("Dr. M - Dr. Mabuse and His Fate")

The only negative I can come up with on this is that it is kind of slow. I felt the cheapness just adds to the charm. Should be watched on VHS for best effect.

The actors are good all across the board. Jennifer Beals is a beauty. The mood is depressive and dark with nice music. The location and feel of the architecture and settings are so very cool. Kind of a state controlled European feel going on. The story is interesting and thoughtful. I thought the scenes all fit together in a great way with the sounds and such making this one really great. The repetition of seeing screens of Beals face talking about time all through the film makes it a very trippy, cool film.

I will be watching this one over and over. Awesome film!

I wanted to like this and I did for what it could have been and not the sorry mess it turned out to be ..... I even enjoyed the auto smash it turned into because all the ingredients were there but didnt get used ...

Brave concept ..crap realization .... but I do love B Grade sci Fi so I got off on it for the crap it was ... If you like the Outer Limits this one is for you sorta like "the boy and his dog" that thought too much and tried too hard ... woof

This is not a good film. Check out the rave reviews. They are left from people who think they have more intellect than you. They make comments like "most people won't understand this movie."

That's poor writing not superior intelligence.

The film is a very low budget fare. The story line is not compelling. And who cares if it's a quasi remake of Dr. Mabuse? So it's a bad version of it.

It reminds me more of Alphaville than Dr. Mabuse. Just not as good.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the film on Prism video cassette.

Claude Chabrol goes sci-fi with depressing results in "Dr. M", an already dated 1989 European production that opened in Paris last November but reaches the U.. in video stores and retitled "Club Extinction".

Film is inspired by Fritz Lang's classic "Dr. Mabuse" features, but Chabrol clearly is not comfortable with this form. The dialog is stilted, and many scenes are designed for somnambulist acting more suited to the expressionism of Robert Wiene's "Dr. Caligari" than Lang's work.

Alan Bates plays two roles: the title Dr. Marsfeldt, head of a German media conglomerate, and (uncredited) a white bearded guru who lords it over a Marsfeldt-owned resort Club Theratos that's closer to Jim Jones' Jonestown than Club Med. As the guru, he talks in a funny voice and hams it up embarrassingly.

The Berlin Wall is used throughout "Dr. M" as a metaphor for modern malaise, its presence contaminating the stry's Berliners in a way now hopelessly dated since the wall was torn down. Using tv spokesmodel Jennifer Beals as his main instrument, Dr. M is causing Berliners to commit suicide by sending out subliminal messges over the airwaves beneath broadcasts exhorting folks to escape for a vaction at Theratos.

Jan Niklas plays the dogged police investigor trying to make sense of the rash of suicides, all of which point at Beals' involvemetn. He predictably falls in love with her and ultimately accompanies her to Theratos for an anticlimactic ending.

Except for repetitive use of an annoying noise-song by Mekong Delta to suggest the anomie of folks at a local nightclub, "Dr. M" is easy to watch. Best performance is by Hanns Zischler, erstwhile co-star of Wim Wenders' "Kings of the Road", who has honed his English dialog delivery to perfection.

Guest star Andrew McCarthy, who toplined Chabrol's "Quiet Days in Clichy", pops up briefly as an assassin.