Although "Der Müde Tod" (known as "Destiny" in English) was commercially and critically successful, what made Fritz Lang a truly bankable director was "Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler" (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler), the pulpy five-hour, 1922 two-part adaptation a best-selling (German) novel from the year before by Norbert Jacques featuring a super-villain in the Moriarty, Fu Manchu tradition. In the first rendition, Mabuse was destabilizing the currency by counterfeiting.

A decade later, when Lang returned to Mabuse in his second talking picture ("M" was the first), "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse," Mabuse had gone crazy, was incarcerated in a mental hospital, and was coordinating criminal endeavors to destabilize the already very unstable society of the Weimar Republic. The world-domination rhetoric came from the increasingly powerful Nazis and the insane master-mind was less the visible Hitler of 1932 than the raving nihilistic Hitler in the (then-)future of 1945. It seems prophetic now, but the movie was a warning and the German Everyman figure in it who had been under Mabuse's influence resisted and brought the tyrant down (with the bolstering of a good woman).

Neither the representation of a Hitler-like madman bent on destroying the human world nor his defeat were things that the new censor of movies, Dr. Josef Goebbels, wanted shown. "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" was one of the first movies submitted to the new Nazi censors in 1933. Goebbels banned it, and, for good measure, also banned "Mabuse, the Gambler." After being offered a job (according to Lang, the job of supervising film production in the Third Reich) by Goebbels, Lang left German with a print of "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse." The movie opened in Budapest in 1933—and made it to America in 1943, years after Lang himself.

Lang's Hollywood movies recurrently focused on murder and fakery (and "fallen" women redeeming themselves, especially in The Big Heat), and Lang had a particular fascination with examining the uses and users of new technology. Closed-circuit television surveillance was the new technology that gave the thousand eyes of the title to Mabuse. This surveillance in a posh hotel (called Luxor in the movie) was based on the Hotel Adlon, a luxury hotel built by the Nazis with the intent to spy on, blackmail, and otherwise manipulate guests.

The movie's producer, Artur Brauner, specialized in remakes (and sequels). He wanted Lang to remake "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse." There are major elements recycled from ""The Testament of Dr. Mabuse," "Die Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse" (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1960) including a police inspector who looks and sounds somewhat like Otto Wernicke who had played the plodding but dogged InspectorLohmann in both "M" and "Testament," a male-female pair trapped and awaiting their deaths, a malign psychiatrist in the Dr. Caligari tradition, and the stop-light murder (one had been near the end of "Testament" and is at the beginning of "Eyes"). Still, "Eyes" is not a remake of "Testament," but a postwar sequel to the prewar horror/thriller/policier.

There was a problem in further Mabuse rampages, however: Mabuse was dead in 1932-33 at the end of "Testament." The Mabuse of "Testament" possessed the psychiatrist who ran the institution where Mabuse's body was incarcerated. In that movie, the possession was done with ghostly double-exposed images, of which there is none in "1000 Eyes." The evil spirit of Mabuse has not died and now (1960) has plans to gain control of plutonium manufacture and destroy human life on earth altogether.

Without revealing who the current (that is, 1960) embodiment of Mabuse is, it is established early on (before it is clear what Mabuse wants from him) that the person who has the plutonium is an American businessman, Henry Travers,* the polyglot American Peter van Eyck, who played British and American officers in subsequent Mabuse movies produced by Brauner, not directed by Lang, and had been featured in Orson Welles's similarly convoluted "Mr. Arakadin") staying in the hotel multiply bugged and wired hotel. is entangled by a noirish femme fatale posing as a victim in need of his gallant assistance, Marion (the American actress Dawn Addams who had starred in "The Robe" and Chaplin's "The King in New York"—and spoke no German).

The plot is quite complicated with most everyone (including the policemen) pretending to be someone or something they are not. Although I find the middle of the movie somewhat tedious (as I also do "Testament of Dr. Mabuse"), I will not spoil any pleasures of unraveling the plots, or specify who the participants are in an outstanding underground shootout.

The reincarnation of , Kriminalkommissar Kras, is played by Gert Fröbe, who would himself soon thereafter play a super-criminal named "Goldfinger" (the only other movie I remember seeing Fröbe in is Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines in which he plays a very funny stubborn Prussian officer). Like Inspector Lohmann in both "M" and "Testament" Kras is grumpy, has no life outside work, is not particularly scrupulous, and needs a lot of help for the criminal to be identified.

There are some memorable scenes in "1000 Eyes" including a crashing through a mirror (Cocteauish), the already-mentioned underground shootout, a dog that bears close attention from viewers, most of the hits ordered by Mabuse, and the wild astronomical decor of the clairvoyant Peter Cornelius's office. (surpassing that of Raymond Burr's character's bachelor's pad in Blue Gardenia, and recalling "Metropolis, "which in fact had the same set designer, Erich Kettelhut, who had also been involved with the first Mabuse movie).

The interesting commentary track by Mabuse expert and enthusiast David Kalat explains (and thereby increases appreciation of) the editing style of providing narrative elements visually. (The credited editors were the Wischniewsky brothers, who had worked with Lang on "Der Tiger von Eschnapur," but Lang was very specific about what he wanted, pretty much at the level of each frame.)

Later in the commentary track, Kalat tells the story of Artur Brauner, a Polish Jew who survived the Nazis and tried to re-establish movie-making in Germany after the war, and was denied a permit in the American sector by none other than US Army officer Peter van Eyck, who would later star in many of the movies Brauner produced! Then Kalat moves on to relating some of the difficulties involved in obtaining usable prints of "1000 Eyes" and some of the ins and outs of versions with different rates of frames per second. The digitally restoration of sound and picture is outstanding, so that even the dubbed English version looks far superior to what played on tv and VHS. He also notes that the dubbed English version has Dawn Addams's voice. She and some other non-German speaking actors (such as Andrea Checci) were dubbed into German in the German version, and that the music in the French, German, and American versions that were used for reconstruction did not always match.

Kalat is engaging and witty, enthusiastic, and expert (he is also the author of a 2001 book on Mabuse incarnations: The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse: A Study of the 12 Films and 5 Novels ). As the commentary track rolls along, what he talks about departs more and more from what is being shown, and I think he could and should have commented on what Lang was doing in the last 5-or-so minutes of the movie. In contrast, I have to say that Brauner's story is more interesting than what occurs onscreen during that part of the commentary track. Overall, the commentary track enhances understanding and appreciation of Lang's last movie. The talking heads featurette (running 35 minutes), in contrast, would bore anyone without a considerable interest in the life, personality, and working methods of Fritz Lang (I am one with such an interest). Some identification beyond names of those speaking would have been helpful, too. There are also posters of the whole series of (twelve) Mabuse movies, trailers for this and the following four Mabuse movies (Fröbe returned and his policeman character regained the Inspector Lohman name), and a set of production stills and posters (most with Addams kneeling in her slip).

The movie may be watched with subtitles (I like to have the subtitles on while listening to the commentary track) in German-language or English-language versions. The choice of words for English dubbing frequently departs from the words in the subtitling, which makes watching the English-language version with the subtitles on somewhat disconcerting (in the parts I watched this way, the content was the same despite being expressed differently in what was processed through my ears and what was processed through my eyes).

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This is part of my ongoing Fritz Lang writeoff. I have not written about "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse," other than indicating that I think the middle drags (between very striking opening and closing) here. For a similarly ambivalent analysis of the movie's importance and fitful entertaingingness see Metalluk's review.

"!000 Eyes" was the last movie Lang directed. His eyesight deteriorated making it impossible to make more. (He earlier said he lived through his eyes, and concerned himself with the look of every shot.) Lang went on to play the part of a movie director in Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Mépris" (Contempt), and the look and the dystopian vision of a futuristic surveillance society in Godard's "Alphaville" owes more than a little to "1000 Eyes." (the main hit man in "1000 eyes," played by Howard Vernon , seems to me to bear a strong resemblance to Godard, BTW). I think the soon-to-be-launched James Bond films do, too, though even more so to Lang's (1928) "Spies." The arch-villain there, too (Haghi), has multiple disguises. Lang's wartime movie about Nazi spies in England Ministry of Fear included an evil psychiatrist (like "Testament" and "1000 Eyes") and a similar web of deceptions, including planned demoralization of the population.

(On the US surveillance society mixing profit and "national security," see Robert O'Harrow Jr.'s No Place to Hide).

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*Henry Travers was an English-born actor who played genial, bumbling parts in many Hollywood movies (including the angel in "It's a Wonderful Life," though in none of Lang's. Kalat did not comment on the character's (recognizable to Anglophone moviegoers of the time) name, but Lang's Travers is the most naive character in the movie, and surely intended to show Americans the perils of trusting duplicitous Germans and the dangers to Americans trusting de-Nazification. Although making this movie in Germany, Lang was adamant that he would never return to live there with those who had supported or gone along with the Nazis (the whole of the population, not least Fröbe...)




Recommended:
Yes

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