In Fritz Lang’s final film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, the eponymous master of disguise (Wolfgang Priess) re-emerges in the Cold War era after a lengthy absence – and uses all manner of methods to insight murder and mayhem. The Return of Dr Mabuse sees him use brainwashed prison inmates to commit a litany of crimes while evading the German authorities and the FBI. In The Invisible Dr Mabuse, he seeks to use an amazing new invention – a device that renders the user invisible – to his own ends. The Testament of Dr Mabuse – a remake of Lang’s earlier film – has the German police tying themselves in knots as they try to figure out how their adversary could be continuing his reign of terror from inside an asylum. In Scotland Yard Hunts Dr Mabuse, Mabuse’s tentacles begin to creep across the English Channel. Finally, in The Death Ray of Dr Mabuse, the criminal mastermind comes to possess a weapon capable of unleashing untold destruction.
What We Thought:
I have to admit that I was not familiar with the character Dr. Mabuse. I may have seen a Jess Franco 1970s version at some point, but I had definitely not seen any of the 1960s German films in this Mabuse Lives! Dr Mabuse At CCC: 1960-1964 fantastic box set collection. I still haven’t seen Fritz Lang’s original silent Dr. Mabuse films, but this was a great introduction to the character.
If like me you don’t know the super villain Dr. Mabuse, think of him as Moriarty, Dr. Fu Manchu, Svengali or Blofeld. He’s a supervillain with powers like hypnosis and he corrupts those around him to do his bidding. It doesn’t matter if he’s in an asylum, prison or even sometimes dead and replaced, Dr. Mabuse is the man behind the mischief. Despite each film in this collection coming from a different director, Wolfgang Priess plays the criminal mastermind in each film.
Lang first adapted the Dr. Mabuse novel into silent films in the 1920s and returned to the character in the 1960s with The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse which finds a reporter killed in his car, an American in a German hotel helping a woman being threatened by her husband and an insurance salesman also at the hotel with all of them having ties to Dr. Mabuse. The Return of Doctor Mabuse finds an Interpol agent killed in a railway with a missing case that contained information connecting the Chicago mob to European gangsters. Inspector Lohmann is on the job. The Invisible Dr. Mabuse tackles The Invisible Man when he uses a device to make people invisible, but of course it’s to push his own plans. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a remake of one of Lang’s original silent films and involves Lohmann investigating a series of high risk bank robberies with criminals appearing like police officers at times and a man behind the curtain giving them commands with Dr. Mabuse ultimately pulling the strings from inside an insane asylum. Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse finds the mastermind using a hypnotic device to convince regular people to kill people, steal royal jewels and more. The Death Ray of Dr Mabuse finds the criminal mastermind wanting to get his hands on a death ray created by a professor on an island with an inspector and a team of SEAL type men out to stop them.
If you are a fan of the series then you’ll love Mabuse Lives! Dr Mabuse At CCC: 1960-1964. If you like detective noir films and haven’t seen these, you’ll dig them too. I have always liked noir so I had fun with these. For 60 plus years old they are still pretty inventive and have cool gadgets and even better set design. The box set is packed with bonus features like interviews, introductions to the films, alternate endings for two films and a 60 page booklet that slides nicely into the box set next to the 2 Blu-ray hard shells. It’s a very cool collection that introduced me to a well established villain.
Bonus Features:
The Nerds Templar 