Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960)
Directed by Fritz Lang

Film Review

After his successful two-part remake of the Indian saga Der Tiger von Eschnapur / Das Indische Grabmal (1959), Fritz Lang was persuaded by German producer Artur Brauner to direct an updated sequel to his previous Mabuse thrillers, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) and Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933).  With his sight failing him, Lang was initially reluctant to take on the project but he became more enthusiastic about it when he saw that it would allow him to express his present-day anxieties, notably with the fragmentation of German society following WWII, the increase in surveillance methods and the growing threat posed by the atom bomb.  In Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Lang had likened the fanatical crime lord to Hitler; in the next film, the ghost of Hitler is still felt, a malign influence that continues to poison the soul of Germany.

Whilst Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (a.k.a. The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse) is by no means as stylistically inspired as Lang's previous two Mabuse films (both of which are now considered masterpieces of the thriller genre), it is nonetheless a masterfully crafted film and rates as one of the director's most entertaining and prophetic films.  It is not only chillingly prescient, predicting the 24x7 surveillance society that we now live in, with a camera on every street and virtually in every room, it can also be seen as a precursor of the modern spy-thriller genre which came to dominate popular cinema from the mid-1960s.  A proto-James Bond film, it offers everything you could hope to find in a sixties spy film, including a spectacular car chase and a liberal smattering of trendy sci-fi elements.  It even features Gert Fröbe in a leading role, the very actor who would later threaten the world in his most famous role in Goldfinger (1964).  The hero (smoothly played by Peter van Eyck) is 007 in all but name and Dawn Addams offers herself up as the template for the Bond girl, eye-catchingly beautiful and possibly lethally treacherous.  The most visible Bond influence is 'Mabuse' himself: Wolfgang Preiss (a.k.a. Lupo Prezzo) looks like the amalgam of just about every Bond villain, and (thanks to a superb make-up job) is particularly menacing as the blind clairvoyant Peter Cornelius.

Lang's main motivation for making the film was that, if it proved to be a commercial success, this would give him considerable artistic freedom so that he could devote himself to subjects that were of interest to him, freedom he had not enjoyed since his departure from Germany in the early 1930s.  Whilst the film did indeed prove to be a box office hit (resulting in a series of inferior sequels produced by Artur Brauner in the 1960s) Lang was unable to profit from this.  His eyesight worsening, he was forced to abandon his next film, so that Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse was to bring down the curtain on a long and illustrious filmmaking career.  Lang's posterity was assured by the critical reappraisal he received in later years, and he took his final bow in front of the camera in 1963, play a slightly caricatured (or perhaps idealised) version of himself in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris (1963).  It seems fitting, given the trajectory of his career, that Lang's last film should be a popular entertainment imbued with an auteur's genius and a cogent statement of his hopes and fears for the future of mankind.

Film Synopsis

Confronted with a spate of inexplicable and unrelated murders Inspector Kras turns to a blind informer, Peter Cornelius, who claims to have psychic powers.  Cornelius predicts that the next victim will be Henry Travers, a millionaire industrialist whose holdings include factories manufacturing nuclear armaments.  Travers is presently staying at the Luxor Hotel and manages to talk an attractive young woman, Marian Menil, out of killing herself.  Marian confides in Travers that she is threatened by her club-footed husband, Hieronymus B. Mistelzweig.  Meanwhile, Kras realises that there is a similarity between the recent crime spree and that prosecuted by the evil Dr Mabuse in the 1930s.  But Dr Mabuse died in a psychiatric institution nearly thirty years ago - or did he?  Is it possible that the criminal mastermind is still alive, and preparing to visit a new reign of terror on mankind...?