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The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse |
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The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
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by Kino Video
Sales Rank: 34264
Price: $19.95
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Fritz Lang's all-but-unseen final film, a low-budget German thriller that resurrects (sort of) his legendary underworld genius Dr. Mabuse, is a flashback to Lang's early days of criminal conspiracies and wild, fast-paced adventures. A relentless police inspector (Gert <I>Goldfinger</I> Fröbe) targets the Nazi-built Hotel Luxor as the central connection in over a dozen murders and camps out in the lobby. Upstairs an American industrialist (played by the very German Peter Van Eyck) rescues a suicidal woman (Dawn Addams) from the ledge and falls in love, while in the basement a mysterious, club-footed character watches everything on an elaborate closed-circuit surveillance system. Rounding out the cast of shady characters are a jovial but nosy insurance salesman, a creepy blind psychic, and a particularly menacing Howard Vernon as an icy assassin with a silent rifle. The complicated, at times confusing plot is secondary to the web of blackmail, murder, secret identities, and incessant surveillance at the center of the conspiracy: everyone is spying on somebody and almost no one is as he or she seems. The generic sets and frankly cheep special effects are made up for with ingenious cinematic signatures (the opening assassination is a model of cool simplicity and striking suggestion), dark humor, a rich cast of vivid characters, and a driving pace that sends the film hurtling headlong toward a fatal climax. <I>--Sean Axmaker</I>
Viewer Reviews
"The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" (1960) marked director Fritz Lang's final film. At age 70, Lang returned to Germany after abandoning Hollywood in 1956. Despite a low budget and obvious commercial considerations, Lang managed to create an atmospheric thriller. Though the criminal mastermind had died in 1933's "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse," Lang developed a spiritual heir who would continue the Mabuse tradition. "1,000 Eyes" is a throwback to Lang's early German thrillers, yet has a modernist style - depicting a world in which nothing is what it seems. The film is not without its slow stretches, but the inventive assassination sequence and climactic car chase represent Lang at his best.
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