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The
1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
Virtually unknown in the U.S., the German Dr. Mabuse crime thriller series has long been relegated to the dupe-y "public-domain" video collecting market. Now, thanks to dedicated film historian David Kalat and All Day Entertainment, the venerable series (10 in all!) is finally being given the respect it is due, with the release of the first two volumes of "The Diabolical Cinema of Dr. Mabuse". The first and most famous entry, Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), was Lang's final film before fleeing his native Germany in the wake of the Nazi takeover. Returning to his homeland after the war, Lang was offered the chance to remake his classic, but chose instead to shoot an unorthodox sequel of sorts, The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960). In what proved to be his directorial swan song, Lang produced a frenetic pop art caper that reflected the current paranoia of the Cold War climate, not to mention served as the virtual prototype for the '60's spy film craze that followed (a full two years before the first James Bond film, mind you!). A TV reporter (Bruno W. Pantel) is murdered by an assassin (Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon) who fires poison steel needles from a tommygun. A blind clairvoyant (Mill of the Stone Women' s Wolfgang Preiss) has had a (somewhat blurry) vision of the incident, which he describes in detail to Commissioner Kras (Gert Fröbe, soon to star as Goldfinger ). Kras believes this latest crime to be connected to a series of mysterious incidents centered on the Hotel Luxor, an ex-Nazi hideout equipped with hidden television cameras (the 1000 eyes of the film's title). Meanwhile, a visiting American tourist (German actor Peter van Eyck), rescues a young woman (The Vampire Lovers' Dawn Addams) when she attempts to jump from the hotel's rooftop. Could this also be the handiwork of the (presumed dead) criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse? A stylish, jazzy, black-and-white art house hit (in Europe anyway), The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse spawned a slew of additional Mabuse films (with the last directed by Jess Franco!), nearly all of which have faded into obscurity. One of the best was a sequel/remake of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (the third in the revived series, following The Return of Dr. Mabuse and The Invisible Dr. Mabuse ), an update of Lang's classic which transports the action into the hi-tech arena of '60s spy epics (the same year that Bondmania would hit with the release of Dr.No ). Commissioner Lohmann (Gert Fröbe, playing essentially the same character as before, with a different name) is investigating a series of crimes which hint at the involvement of the nefarious Dr. Mabuse (Wolfgang Preiss, again), now residing in a Berlin insane asylum. Somehow, the Doctor would seem to be orchestrating a vast criminal plot (including the heist of an armored truck carrying gold) from inside his cell. All Day Entertainment presents The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse in widescreen (1.66:1, 16X9 enhanced) tranfers as Volumes 1 and 2 of "The Diabolical Cinema of Dr. Mabuse". Both films look absolutely stunning, even though the source prints have some traces of damage. The razor-sharp images completely blow away the scratchy, blurry bootleg tapes we've always settled for. Both films are presented with their original German language soundtracks (with optional English subtitles), along with the English dubbed soundtracks (thankfully provided, if only for comparison). The 1000 Eyes ...(onscreen title: The Terror of Dr. Mabuse ) disc includes as a supplement "The Eyes of Fritz Lang", a 35-minute documentary featurette consisting of newly-recorded interviews with Mabuse experts and enthusiasts such as Forest J Ackerman, Richard Gordon and Ronald V. Borst. The Testament of ... disc includes, as a "supplement" (one could easily call it a co-feature), The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse ,the 75-minute 1950's variant of Lang's original classic with an English dubbed soundtrack, updated to include some anti-Nazi sentiments. Image quality is a few notches below that of its co-feature, but it's a wonderful bonus just the same. Each disc also contains a gallery of Mabuse poster art, several English-language Mabuse trailers and excellent, 8-page booklets filled with comprehensive liner notes. All Day Entertainment's founder David Kalat, a passionate champion of the Mabuse series (and author of the forthcoming McFarland book The Strange Case of Doctor Mabuse ), provides in-depth audio commentaries for both films which are so exhaustive in scope that they rival the fine commentaries in the Universal Monsters series. Kalat dispenses a wealth of information, covering every aspect of the films' productions and histories, and even dispels some long-held myths along the way. Previous
DVD releases from All Day (including Ganja and Hess and
Edgar Ulmer's Bluebeard ) were mighty impressive, and with
the release of these essential Dr. Mabuse volumes (I can't wait
to see the rest of the series), they've entered the DVD big leagues.
Official Website: http://www.alldayentertainment.com
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