Technically remarkable, fitfully brilliant, not entirely successful, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) was Fritz Lang’s second time out with a character who fascinated him. His creation is the archetypal Bond villain, a criminal mastermind whose tentacular reach extends right through the city of 1930s Berlin and from the here and now into the afterlife, or so it appears.
The story kicks off where 1922’s Dr Mabuse the Gambler ended, with Mabuse in an insane asylum after being apprehended by the police. Whether he is actually or just feigning it is moot, but one man on the case, Inspector Hofmeister, believes Mabuse is still somehow running his rackets. As the film opens Hofmeister’s stealthy stalking has resulted in him being cornered by two of Mabuse’s many henchmen, leading to what the film suggests is Hofmeister’s death.
From here the action breaks down into three sphere: Mabuse and his doctor at the asylum, the highly attentive Professor Baum; one of Mabuse’s henchmen, Tom, and his relationship with Lilli, a young woman who has no idea what her beau is involved with; and Inspector Karl Lohmann, whose disdain for Hofmeister turns to admiration when he realises the man was on to something big.
In plotting and scene-making that slightly resembles Robert Altman’s decades later, Lang broadens his focus, gradually roping in more characters – many a henchman, a few cops, some doctors at the asylum – spinning his camera through the lives of the characters assembled around Mabuse, though Mabuse himself does not figure that much.
It’s very much a film of two halves. The first half, the odd bravura camera move to one side, is a bit on the dull side, fairly static, as if Lang is so taken up with incorporating sound (which he does brilliantly) into the mix that he’s forgotten to make the story visually interesting. In the second half the pace picks up, events begin to pile up and there’s even some James Bond style ingenuity when Tom and Lilli get trapped in a room with a ticking bomb and no obvious way out.
Lang is decades ahead of the pack with some of his edits, and the way one scene bleeds into another prefigures Altman.
The cast is well used, with Rudolf Klein-Rogge returning as Mabuse, a vampirish wraith not seen that often. Also returning, a character from Lang’s film M, is Otto Wernicke as Inspector Lohmann, the meat and drink of this movie – irascible, voluble, mercurial, smart and with a cigar permanently in his mouth, he’s also a very modern sort of cop. Gustav Diessl puts in a good performance as lovestruck Tom, and so does Wera Liessem as Lilli, a modern young miss with a smart hairstyle and dressed in up-to-date fashions. And Oscar Beregi Sr as Professor Baum, whose relationship to Mabuse is intense and beyond the professional.
What is Lang getting at with the Mabuse/Baum relationship? That there is some genuine Freudian transference going on, and Mabuse has somehow become Baum, or vice versa? Quite possibly. He’s definitely up to something, shooting occasional scenes from odd angles, high viewpoints and the like, and lighting everyday objects in highly dramatic ways. A “things are not as they seem” touch, which for all its boldness does not quite cohere.
There is some supernatural stuff, which Lang later regretted adding, and the film does not need Mabuse reappearing from beyond the grave to make its point. Lang was a great one for mythologising himself and for rewriting history, and his “regrets” were often phony. He also later claimed that Mabuse and his “Herrschaft des Verbrechens” (translated as “Empire of Crime”) was a reference to the rise of Hitler. If it is, it’s hard to stand up the assertion, though the Nazis didn’t like the movie and it wasn’t seen in Germany while they were in power.
As to the state of the film itself, it’s not bad. The visuals are sometimes brilliant, at other times a touch sub-par, which can be put down to the fact that a dupe was used as source material for the restoration. Try either the Criterion or Eureka Masters of Cinema versions if you’re in the market for one.
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
