There's no medium quite as capable as film to transform the exploits of twistedly maniacal, utterly evil mad scientists into a fine evening's entertainment.
The Most Dangerous Game gave us a decent version of this cinematic stock character, but if I have to choose, I'll take Dr. Mabuse as the superior ultimate bad guy over Zaroff the crazed hunter. Zaroff and Mabuse share an ability to pursue their own selfish desires seemingly unimpeded (despite mainstream society's efforts to isolate them from more conventional mortals) but Mabuse easily takes the prize for originality, scale of ambition and unstoppability. And
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (as a film) provides a lot more complexity, strangeness and cinematic bravado to savor. So let's give it a look.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse serves as a unique "double sequel," featuring characters from two different films directed by Fritz Lang - his 1920's silent feature (released in two parts)
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and
M, from 1931. Dr. Mabuse, in his original appearance, was a master criminal who orchestrated a broad network of cheats and took excessive pleasure in finding new ways to corrupt his fellow human beings. At the end of that movie (which I've never seen but would really like to some day) he winds up in an insane asylum, having lost his empire of crime. In
M, we first meet Inspector Lohmann, the police officer most intent and in charge of apprehending Becker, the serial child-killer. Lohmann makes a return appearance here, in the next film Lang made following
M. It would also turn out to be Lang's last German production. (More on that in a bit.)
Mabuse's role in this film is rather limited but memorable. He never left the asylum - in fact, he is as physically contained and remote from his fellow humans as a law-abiding citizen might ever desire, remaining confined to his bed in a near-catatonic state through most of the film. Not that that makes any difference though. Mabuse has developed his psychic and hypnotic powers to such a degree that what little human he is granted provides sufficient opportunity for him to wreak havoc for havoc's sake, without interference or interruption. He does this through the influence he wields on Dr. Baum, the head of the asylum whose fascination with Mabuse's dark insanity has made him all too susceptible to the fiend's control. Privy to the grotesquely brilliant conspiratorial strategies Mabuse draws up from his stark, barren cell, Baum uses Mabuse's written instructions to coordinate the activities of his own empire of crime, using the technology of his times to convey criminal directives, anonymously, to his organized units of henchmen.
We soon learn that Mabuse/Baum's motives go well beyond mere enrichment or the accumulation of worldly power. Their interest has taken on the purity and focus of abstraction - they are motivated to promulgate evil and calamity because they regard such upheavals as necessary, even cleansing, for the sake of saving a humanity at risk of deeper degeneracy from what they regard as its own base impulses. So they distribute counterfeit currency, distribute narcotics, threaten extortion and roil society in just about every other way imaginable, for the sake of our collective future. Or rather, not our future... but that of a new humanity that will arise from the rubble and wreckage that their harvest of chaos will leave behind.
Allow me to quote from Mabuse himself, from his handwritten manuscript titled Herrschaft des Verbrechens (The Empire of Crime):
"Humanity's soul must be shaken to its very depths, frightened by unfathomable and seemingly senseless crimes. Crimes that benefit no one, whose only objective is to inspire fear and terror. Because the ultimate purpose of crime is to establish the endless empire of crime. A state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world doomed to annihilation. When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven insane by fear and horror, and when chaos has become supreme law, then the time will have come for the empire of crime."
The scene where these words are read, and spoken, is about as creepy as one is likely to see from a film made in this era. Baum, poring over Mabuse's manuscripts, is suddenly besieged by a spectral visit from Mabuse himself, his facial features horribly distorted. Mabuse's disembodied spirit proceeds to inhabit Baum himself, who then goes on to fully absorb himself in the detailed plans Mabuse laid out for sabotaging gas storage tanks, chemical factories and the like.
So does this nihilistic philosophy seem at all... familiar to you? Let me turn your attention back to the calendar and the epoch when this film was released: Germany 1933. The Weimar Republic has breathed its last gasp and the National Socialists, b.k.a. Nazis, have been voted into office promising a renewal of the thwarted German nation. Lang clearly positioned himself against the Nazis in this film and in many other ways, and was rewarded for his efforts by seeing his new film promptly banned as one of the earliest acts of the new Nazi government and the official Department of Propaganda adminsistered by Josef Goebbels. Lang naively assumed that his status as a popular and celebrated filmmaker would lead to a popular revolt that would force the Nazis to reverse their decision, but he quickly realized that 1) Hitler and his own "empire of crime" were dead serious about their intentions and 2) the public was basically split between a majority who actually supported the Nazis and a minority that was too intimidated to actually put up any resistance. Lang would soon abandon Germany for France and eventually emigrate to America where he continued to have a long and influential cinematic career.
So
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse has a lot going for it beyond the psychological sophistication of its narrative and Lang's celebrated artistry and innovation behind the camera and with sound. We're seeing an important historical artifact, one of the last high-level works of art produced before the awful calamities of Hitler and Naziism came to fruition. The film marks a significant breaking point, a massive disruption really, in the development and history of German cinema. Given the prominence of films by Pabst (
Pandora's Box and
The Threepenny Opera) and Lang (
M and
Testament of Dr. Mabuse) in this early phase of the broader
Criterion canon, I find it significant that we won't be viewing any more German films in this series until we reach Volcker Schlondorff's
Young Torless, released in 1966!
A few other highlights that deserve mention are some great suspense and chase scenes in the second half of the film. This trailer (I think it's a short compilation of clips, not an actual theatrical preview) gives a nice sampling of the film's atmosphere and characters. The whispering voice toward the beginning is, of course, Dr. Mabuse. You don't need to understand German to detect that sinister thoughts are being spoken!
The movie packs a lot of entertainment value if you don't mind dwelling on the darker aspects of human nature for a couple of hours. And I think it relates quite well to our own times, if the commentary and historical tensions with the Nazis and 1930's-era Fascism don't hold your interest. The ideologies of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups have a lot in common with the rantings of Mabuse. It may not feel at all pleasant, but I think we benefit from the encounter with malevolent ideologies in films like this, in that it helps us to recognize them just a bit more clearly when they approach us, dressed up more politely and seductively, in our everyday lives.
I have two more titles to cover from the DVD of W.C. Fields 6 Short Films: The Pharmacist and The Barber Shop. (Both links will lead to YouTube clips where you can watch them yourself.)
