After the critical acclaim of Fritz Lang’s final film, THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE, the German producers (Wolfe and Arthur Brauner) decided to bring back everyone’s favorite criminal genius, Dr. Mabuse. They recruited Werner Klinger, a director of espionage thrillers (such as THE DIRTY AGENTS), to helm the new picture, which was to be not only a continuation of THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE, but a remake of Lang’s own 1933 film, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE. Returning from the previous movie are Gert Frobe as Inspector Lohmann, and Wolfgang Priess as the megalomaniac, Dr. Mabuse. Though Klinger’s version was not as good as Lang’s swansong film, it did well enough to insure more Dr. Mabuse sequels. Though THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE was well-received in Europe, it was never seen in the U.S., until a small company called Thunder Pictures finally picked up the rights in 1965. Thunder Pictures dubbed the film in English, and renamed it TERROR OF THE MAD DOCTOR. Sadly, their distribution efforts were marred by marketing the film like a B-grade horror picture, something THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE is definitely not. Enter All Day Entertainment, an independent DVD company dedicated to films that fell through the cracks. All Day saw fit to restore the film to its original luster on a superior digital format for the first time.

Dr. Mabuse is under heavy security at a sanitarium for the criminally insane. He is presided over by Professor Polland (Walter Rilla). A mysterious figure named Mortimer (Charles Regnier) makes his way through the gates of a cemetery, and into a hidden underground fortress, where a mysterious figure plans unbelievable and heinous crimes. The unseen figure orders Mortimer and his henchmen to capture an armored car. The criminals (wearing masks and armed with the latest technology) locate the armored car and easily disable it. They make off with the cash and without leaving any clues. Inspector Lohmann (Frobe) and his bumbling assistant, Krueger (Harald Juhnke), investigate the unsolved crime.

Meanwhile, Mortimer approaches a misguided young boxer, Johnny Briggs (Helmut Schmid), and recruits him into the service of the crime gang. Mortimer promises Johnny more money than his boxing career, so he can settle down comfortably with his attractive girlfriend, Nelly (Senta Berger). Only Johnny lacks the killer instinct of the other criminals. The next target for the masked criminals is the diamond exchange. In a daring nighttime raid, the security force is disabled by the criminals advanced technology, and they escape with the goods. Once again, Inspector Lohmann and Krueger are without any clues. It is a perfect crime. Perfect like Dr. Mabuse would have done it. But he is incarcerated isn’t he?

Lohmann and Kreuger pay a visit to Dr. Mabuse in the institution for the criminally insane. Professor Polland takes them into Dr. Mabuse’s cell. The madman does not recognize Lohmann, the man who stopped him last time. Professor Polland informs them that Dr. Mabuse is so crazy, that he does not live in the real world. He assures them that Dr. Mabuse has never left the institution, and that he could not possibly have anything to do with those unsolved heists. Lohmann and Kreuger leave the institution but they are not quite convinced. Back at the domain of the mysterious crime figure, the unseen intelligence prepares his gang (including Johhny) to steal counterfeiting paper and equipment from a train.

SPOILER ALERT (skip this paragraph if you don’t want the film ruined for you): A curious Professor Polland hypnotizes the delusional Dr. Mabuse, to possibly get some answers, when he learns the shocking truth. Dr. Mabuse turns the tables on the Professor, and hypnotizes him instead. Then he lets the Professor in on his big secret: Dr. Mabuse has exerted his criminal influence in the outside world through the mind and body of Professor Polland. Dr. Mabuse goes one step further by completely usurping Professor Polland’s personality. From his new host body, Dr. Mabuse avoids Inspector Lohmann’s suspicions and masterminds another bank heist. When Dr. Mabuse discovers that his henchman Johnny is not entirely loyal he kidnaps Johnny’s girlfriend, Nelly. Inspector Lohmann and Johnny must join forces if they are to learn the secret of Dr. Mabuse, and save Nelly!

To the uninitiated, this DVD could be mistaken for a horror film. In actuality, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE is an espionage pulp thriller. Imagine a James Bond film with a brilliant super villain, but without the dashing lead spy. Instead, we’ve got pudgy Gert Frobe (GOLDFINGER himself) as Dr. Mabuse’s arch nemesis. Instead of an action-packed 007 picture, the focus of THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE is on plot, mystery, and intrigue; all served up lovingly by director Warner Klinger and his crew. Klinger’s got a unique Film Noir-ish directorial style that really lends itself to black & white photography.

Wolfgang Priess is the ultimate actor to portray the sinister Dr. Mabuse. The German actor has a wonderful presence to him, along the lines of a Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. Gert Frobe balances out the film with his performance as Inspector Lohmann. Frobe plays his character as a modern day Sherlock Holmes, using deduction and intuition to solve the unsolvable. Helmut Schmid, who has the role of the boxer Johnny Briggs, proves to be an admirable actor, as he plays a man who refuses to let go of his humanity. He goes along with Dr. Mabuse’s nefarious schemes, but disobeys the orders to kill the guards; so he only knocks them out. Veteran genre actress Senta Berger can not only act, but she is a pleasure to look at. Too bad her token role as Johhny’s girlfriend-in-peril is vastly underdeveloped. Kudos to Walter Rilla who plays the skeptical Professor Polland.

I’ve read comparisons of the Dr. Mabuse character with that of Hannibal Lector, and its pretty much an apt description; except that Dr. Mabuse is no cannibal (he just suffers from megalomania). Both characters are insane physicians that make their sinister presence known in the outside world, even though they are incarcerated. Both characters use manipulation and hypnosis to control weaker minds to do their dirty work. But that’s where the comparison ends. Hannibal Lector is but a man, while Dr. Mabuse is more of an immortal force. He has survived over the years by taking over the minds and identities of those he comes in contact with. Of course, his victims don’t realize it. In this way, Dr. Mabuse is immortal. And now he has chosen the method of his rebirth—that little silver disk known as DVD!

SIGHT

All Day Entertainment presents THE TESAMENT OF DR. MABUSE in its original widescreen ratio of 1.66.1. All Day also included 16x9 enhancement for widescreen televisions. Overall, the image is very good for a film from 1962, but the image is not quite as polished as the outstanding transfer on All Day’s THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE DVD. But its obvious the folks at All Day put in a lot of time cleaning up the source prints. The deep, dark black level results in a balanced black & white transfer with no grayish hues (or any other colors) creeping into the image. Albert Benitz’s cinematography is well preserved with a solid sharpness and fine shadow detail. The transfer has its share of scratches, speckles, and grain, but the minor damage does not distract from the presentation. Contrast and brightness are fully balanced. The detail level is very good, and you can clearly appreciate all the subtle details of the production design and costuming (especially the hooded outfits worn by Dr. Mabuse’s gang). Most of the melodrama takes place on interior soundstages where the lighting is used to maximum effect. Several action set pieces occur outdoors such as the armored car and train heists. The lighting for these scenes is meticulously matched to the interior scenes. The gunfights (though sedate by today’s standards) are realistically choreographed and nicely rendered in the transfer. The subtitles are easy on the eyes. There were no DVD mastering flaws such as bleeding, chroma noise, edge enhancement or compression artifacts. It was very wise move for All Day to go with 16x9 enhancement on this one. Their efforts result in the moody black and white images reinforcing the pulp tone of the film.

SOUND

The sound track is a no-frills Dolby Digital Mono 1.0. The mono mix has been cleaned up, and gone are the hiss, pops, and dropouts. The soundtrack has a nice range of depth, with some strong highs and lows. The sound is very clean and natural. The German and English dialog comes through clearly from the center speaker. The sound effects such as cars, trains, gunshots, and explosions, are free from distortion. The one area where THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE shines over Lang’s THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE is in the scoring. German composer Raimund Rosenberger composes some wonderful jazz themes which must have been pretty cool back then, and hold up even better today. The score sounds great in the mix, and makes one pine for a stereo track (or even a Dolby Digital Mono 2.0 would have been an improvement). The English dubbing leaves something to be desired, and is nowhere near to great dub job on THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE (but this is not All Day’s fault of course). It sounds as if the entire cast is being voiced by a single person. Stick to the German version and you’ll be all set. The dialog, score, and sound effects are perfectly synchronized without one sound element overpowering the others. This is a decent effort from All Day, but I kind of hope they will use 2 channel mono in the future, which sounds a little more natural.

FEATURES

As soon as you put the DVD in the tray, a dynamite intro immediately plays called THE DIABOLICAL CRIMES OF DR. MABUSE. This two minute introduction into the world of Dr. Mabuse includes clips from the Dr. Mabuse films including the different actors (and various disguises) who have played the character over the years. These clips are accompanied by Raimund Rosenberger’s wonderfully jazzy music. This is a great idea on the part of All Day, because it informs viewers of the magnitude of the Dr. Mabuse series; that this is not a one-shot film. There is a photo archive featuring 16 shots of posters, lobby cards, and photographs. Fritz Lang’s 1933 original THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE is included as an extra (which pretty much makes this a double feature disc). This truncated, English-dubbed version of Lang’s film (full frame, mono), is cut down to about 75 minutes. As you can imagine for a film from 1933, the scratchy image is not all that good, but its still better-than-VHS quality. There is a filmography for all nine (!) Dr. Mabuse films, which include some great factoids (did you know Jess Franco directed a Dr. Mabuse film?). Then there is the trailer collection. The U.S. trailer for THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1.66.1, Mono, 2:05) is the highest quality of the trailers on this DVD, while the others are a little fuzzy. There is a U.S. trailer for THE RETRUN OF DR. MABUSE (FF, Mono, 1:30) which interestingly goes by the moniker, THE PHANTOM FIEND. The U.S. trailer for THE INVISIBLE DR. MABUSE (FF, Mono, :45) is called THE INVISIBLE HORROR. The U.S. trailer for the remake of Lang’s 1933 film, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (FF, Mono, :30) is called THE TERROR OF THE MAD DOCTOR. There is an audio commentary with film historian and author David Kalat. Mr. Kalat is publishing a book in 2001 about the Dr. Mabuse films, so he is more knowledgeable on the subject than just about anybody, and thus worthy of supplying the audio commentary for THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE.

CONCLUSION

You really cannot compare this film to Fritz Lang’s 1933 version. Both films are from different eras and have drastically different styles. Considering this version of THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE is both a remake of the 1933 version and sequel to THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE, the film successfully delivers on both levels while progressing the legend and mystique of the Dr. Mabuse character. While Werner Klinger is no Fritz Lang, he has his own style, which meshes seamlessly with the world of Dr. Mabuse. If you enjoyed THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE on DVD, then you will want to check out this DVD. Dr. Mabuse lives again—he has taken over the mind and body of All Day Entertainment owner, David Kalat, and forced him to write a book about the greatness of Dr. Mabuse! Gotta love the score, at least Dr. Mabuse has good taste in music.

TESTAMENT OF DR MABUSE 1962 (All Day) is available from DVDEmpire.com

TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE 1939 (Criterion) is available from DVDEmpire.com

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