DVD 88 mins IMDB 8.0
NR (Not Rated)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Criterion/Voyager (1933)
In Collection
#790

Seen It:
Yes
Crime, Foreign, Horror
Germany  /  German

Leon Askin Flocke
Oscar Beregi Sr. Prof. Dr. Baum
Senta Berger Nelly
Ze'ev Berlinsky Gulliver
Paul Bernd Erpresser / Blackmailer
Gerhard Bienert Juwelen-Anna
Henry Bless Bulle
Gustav Diessl Kent
Rolf Eden Eddie
Heinrich Gotho Muller
Henry Pleß Bulle
Paul Henckels Lithograph / Litographer
Oskar Höcker Bredow
Georg John Baums Diener / Baum's Servant
Rudolf Klein-Rogge Dr. Mabuse
Adolf E. Licho Dr. Hauser
Theo Lingen Karetzky
Josef Dahmen
Heinrich Gretler
Otto Wernicke

Director Fritz Lang; Werner Klingler
Producer Fritz Lang; Seymour Nebenzal
Writer Fritz Lang; Thea von Harbou; Norbert Jacques

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is Fritz Lang's sequel to his flamboyant Dr. Mabuse two-part epic of the 1920s, this time adding subtle use of sound to the creepy effects developed for the earlier film. Once a Moriarty-like mastermind, the haggard Dr M (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) has become an autistic asylum inmate who scrawls plans for daring crimes in his cell and exerts an unhealthy influence on his psychiatrist. Inspector Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), the jolly policeman from Lang's M, is puzzled by a series of daring crimes that bear the Mabuse signature, and a gang of thugs take instructions from a shadowy figure who claims after the doctor's death to be Mabuse reborn and is staging a reign of crime apparently designed to bring about the ruin of all law-abiding society.

Though it works best as a textbook thriller, some commentators, including Lang, suggested that the pulp plot was intended to allegorize the evil influence of the Nazi party, with a crime boss who rants like Hitler. The many impressive set-pieces still work, too: the pursuit of a spy through a grinding print-works, an assassination at a traffic light, hero and heroine trapped in a room with a bomb cutting a water main to flood their way to freedom, the persecution of the asylum head by a phantom of his patient, and a last-reel night-time chase. --Kim Newman

Edition Details
Distributor Criterion
Edition Criterion
Barcode 037429187227
Region Region 1
Release Date 18/05/2004
Packaging Custom Case
Screen Ratio Fullscreen (4:3)
Subtitles English
Audio Tracks Dolby Digital Mono [English]
Dolby Digital Mono [German]
Mono [German]
Layers Single Side, Dual Layer
No. of Disks/Tapes 2

Features
Disc 1: Disc One Audio Commentary by David Kalat, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse Disc Two Excerpts from For Example Fritz Lang (Zum Beispiel Fritz Lang), a 1964 interview with Lang, directed by famed German documentarian Erwin Leiser (Mein Kampf) Mabuse in Mind (Mabuse im Gedachtnis), a 1984 film by Thomas Honickel featuring an interview with actor Rudolf Schundler Comparison between the 1933 German version, the French version, and The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse, the edited and dubbed American version of the film Interview with German Mabuse expert Michael Farin about writer Norbert Jacques, creator of the Mabuse character Rare Production design drawings by art director Emil Hasler (M, The Blue Angel) Collection of Memorabilia, press books, stills, and posters. Complete French language version of the film, Le Testament du Mr. Mabuse, filmed simultaneously by Lang with French actors. Plus: a new essay by Tom Gunning, author of The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity