Rudolf Klein-Rogge

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

by
Close-up of Dr Mabuse

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 … Read more

100 Years of… Dr. Mabuse the Gambler

by
Dr Mabuse in one of his many disguises

An important film rather than a good one, at four and a half hours Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler) is simply too unwieldy to qualify as a quality movie and yet it regularly ranks up there with the best of them, bolstered by the reputation of its director, Fritz Lang, who, whisper it, could turn out some real rubbish when his mind wasn’t on his work. Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is not rubbish though. And in spite of the reservations about its length, this silent behemoth from 1922 is a remarkable document in many ways, though a heavy one, in which Lang lays down the template for all the bad … Read more

Spies

by
Willy Fritsch as agent 326

Metropolis, now seen as a classic, didn’t do many favours for director Fritz Lang short term. And it nearly bankrupted Ufa, the studio that made it. For Lang’s follow-up, Spies (Spione), Ufa clipped his wings and forced him to shoot on a reduced budget. Hey ho, another classic, and also, just incidentally, the template for almost all of the spy thrillers of the future. In a brilliant, lightning-fast opening montage, Lang lays out his stall – stolen documents, a murder, a public furore stoked by incendiary newspaper headlines (“public officials asleep on the job”), – another murder, followed by a man who might as well be named M calling a spy who might … Read more