Monday, February 13, 2017
044 - The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933, Germany. Dir. Fritz Lang.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
An Empire of Crime is on the loose.
They are counterfeiting money. They have succeeded in a great jewelry heist. They have robbed a bank. They will attack a chemical plant. They will poison water. They will ruin farms.
The police are stumped. Inspector Karl Lohmann, our fearless leader from yesterday's M (043, February 12) is back on the job.
His former man, Detective Hofmeister, begins the movie hiding out in one of the plants. Something loud is pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
The criminals find Hofmeister and try to blow him up with explosives. He escapes. He phones the Inspector. Just as he is about to say the name of the mastermind, someone enters the room from where he is calling and drives him mad. The phone goes dead. Is Hofmeister dead?
Inspector Lohmann studies the room. Hofmeister has vanished. Someone has scratched something on the window glass. What is it?
The criminals run freely.
Men receive their orders in a locked room, from a man behind a curtain. They are not allowed to see him. One man tried and was found dead.
Like a priest attempting to enter the Holy of Holies in an unworthy manner.
Who is this man behind the curtain?
Dr. Mabuse has been in an asylum for ten years. He was a hypnotist and a criminal. He ravaged the city ten years ago, before he went mad, when he was free.
His exploits were shown in the prequel to this movie, the silent Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922).
But he is locked up now. Surely, he can do no harm now. What could he do now?
He has begun writing. Writing incessantly. Writing insanely. Writing madly. Plans for an Empire of Crime. Plans to paralyze the world with crime.
Professor Dr. Baum runs the asylum. He studies Dr. Mabuse. He presents his findings. Mabuse's writings began as nothing. Then they became ramblings. Then they became words. Then they became sentences. Then they became thoughtful, organized plans. Now they are being carried out.
Baum's colleague, Dr. Kramm, sees the correlation between Dr. Mabuse's writings and the current crime spree. It is as though he is giving orders to the syndicate.
How?
He is locked in a room in the asylum. He is writing. He is harmless. His papers lie disordered on the floor. Yet someone is giving orders from behind that curtain, in that other locked room, in another part of town, and the orders are carried out, precisely, to the letter of Dr. Mabuse's writing.
Dr. Kramm is onto something.
Dr. Kramm is shot dead.
Inspector Lohmann's forensics team deciphers the etchings on the window pane glass. It spells out Mabuse. Backwards and upside-down. Someone in the room during Hofmeister's phone call scratched it in the glass just before Hofmeister disappeared.
They have found Hofmeister on the streets. Now he is mad. Now he is in the asylum. He sings. "Gloria. Lovely are the maidens of Batavia."
What is plaguing our city?
Dr. Mabuse dies. The crime spree continues. And continues to follow his writings. Even without him around.
When they go to rouse Inspector Lohmann from bed, he lies asleep, awash in mini-blind shadows. Someone opens the blinds. He instructs them to close them. Someone closes them. This moment in our 1933 German crime film will be repeated for many years in American film noir. Mini blinds. Shadows. Mini-blind shadows. Lines of light and darkness across a human face. In hundreds of films.
One of the criminals is named Kent. Not Clark Kent. Tom Kent.
Tom Kent has a girl name Lilli. Lilli loves Tom. He tells her he is no good. She does not care. She loves him. He tells her about his past. She does not care. She loves him. He tells her about his present. She does not care she loves him.
Lilli's love gets through to Tom. It transforms him. He stays with her.
He misses his meeting.
Tom was ordered to strike the Overseas Bank. He failed to carry out his orders.
The gangsters are not happy.
They kidnap Tom and Lilli and put them in the locked room. With the man behind the curtain.
They are locked in. A bomb will go off in three hours. They will be blown up. How will they escape?
There will be a daring escape. A high-stakes shoot-out. Explosions at a chemical plant. A high-speed chase. Drama. Adventure. Excitement.
Who is that man behind the curtain?
And how are Dr. Mabuse's writings still being carried out after his death?
Is Mabuse really alive?
Is he a ghost?
Observe that our asylum leader is named Baum.
And that L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz. It was published in 1900, with thirteen sequels running to 1919. Our movie came out in 1933.
Someone is up to something.
And he will tell us.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Mabuse.
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