Wednesday Horror: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Films: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse)
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on laptop.

When I was doing the 1001 Movies list, one of the more unpleasant slogs was the epic serial Les Vampires. While the 10-part serial is considered incredibly influential, it suffers from all of the problems of silent films for a modern audience splayed out over the course of 400 minutes. But there were some ideas there; the audience just had to dig for them through something that was far too long and contained far too much filler. Fritz Lang’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse if you prefer the German articles) is a distillation of the good ideas in Les Vampires placed in a single film.

Kind of. After all, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a sequel to Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. We pick up about ten years after the original film with the title character (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) locked away in an insane asylum. Treated by Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi), Mabuse spends his days writing endlessly, creating new and diabolical criminal plans designed to unleash a massive crime wave around the world. It is Mabuse’s belief that what the world needs is a constant threat of terrible, senseless crime to keep people terrified and docile. In D&D terms, Mabuse is the epitome of chaotic evil.

One Good Cop

Film: The Big Heat
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I’ve been on a little roll lately. After several days of seeing films that left me feeling flat, I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of films I’ve reviewed. At the risk of tipping my hand in the first paragraph here, well, the streak is continuing tonight. The Big Heat was far better than I predicted it would be. I went into this with no expectations other than it being film noir. In fact, I’ll admit that I wasn’t sold on Glenn Ford as a noir hero. Well, I was wrong. This film is all that and a bag of chips.

We start with the suicide of a cop named Duncan. Duncan’s wife Bertha (Jeanette Nolan) finds the body and doesn’t seem too terribly upset. She also finds an envelope addressed to the authorities and opens it. We’re not privy to the contents right away, but there’s no doubt that the information contained within is some sort of bombshell. Police Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is sent to determine the cause of Duncan’s death and rules it a suicide almost immediately. However, he’s soon contacted by Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), who claims to have been Duncan’s girl on the side. According to her, there’s no way that Duncan would have killed himself. Things take a real turn for the sinister when Lucy turns up dead and showing evidence of having been tortured.

Bluebeard

Film: Secret Beyond the Door
Format: Internet video on laptop

(Note: I'm trying something new here. I want to see what this looks like if I start inserting jumps into my reviews.)

So let’s talk about Fritz Lang for a second. I like Lang’s work in general. He’s a director I have a great deal of respect for, and have since the first time I saw Metropolis as a teen. Yeah, I actually bought a copy of Metropolis when I was in high school. Even then, my tastes were wildly divergent from my own generation. Anyway, I’ve liked Lang for years, so I never shy away from watching his films. When the opportunity arose to see Secret Beyond the Door, I jumped at it. After all, any Lang is good Lang.

This film has many of the elements that make film noir what it is, and while this is how I classify this film, it only fits in the genre because it doesn’t fit well anywhere else. There is a sinister edge to this film, one that perfades it from almost the start to the very end. This, more than anything, gives Secret Beyond the Door that particular noir taste. There is a real sense of murder, of secrecy, and of palpable danger, yet the film doesn’t fully cross over into noir territory.

Expressionism's Greatest Expression

Film: Metropolis
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

Metropolis is, like Nosferatu and some Chaplin films, the silent film that non-silent fans may have actually seen. While not the first science fiction film, it is perhaps the first great one, and one of the first (if not the first) to have a fully-fleshed plot and characters that are more than cardboard cutouts. Metropolis, despite its age, still has the ability to wow an audience with the size and scope of the sets if for no other reason.

It is, however, right in the heart of the German Expressionist movement, which means that you can expect that very little of this story will be specifically dropped into your lap for the understanding. No, it’s all going to be veiled by bizarre sets, heavy symbolism, unusual lighting, and all other sorts of weirdness. Much of what happens here will be melodramatic in the extreme, not the least of which are the facial expressions and movements of the actors. What you may not expect is how interestingly this film resonates with the current day.

In the city of Metropolis, the vast majority of people are workers, and they work far below the ground tending machines, keeping a brutal, inhuman pace to maintain the running of the mechanical works that keep the city going. Most of this is done for the benefit of the managers, especially Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), the original architect of the city. The children of the managers enjoy a life of pastoral bliss, sport, and intellectual pleasures far above the madding crowd. Of these, our interest will be the most taken with Fredersen’s son, the unimaginatively named Freder Fredersen (Gustav Frohlich).

Early in the film, Freder meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), who lives in the Worker’s City and has brought a small group of children up to see the top levels. Freder is immediately captivated by the girl’s beauty and wishes to follow her. He does, and discovers the hell that the workers below the city live in. He witnesses the explosion of a giant machine that causes the deaths of a number of workers, but finds that his pleas to his father for better treatment for the workers go unheeded. Around this time, we also discover that Freder’s mother died in childbirth, and that she was loved not only by his father, but by the mysterious inventor, Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge). Rotwang is a mad genius, and has created a mechanical man (also played by Brigitte Helm) that he wishes to use to recreate his lost love. But Fredersen convinces him to give the machine Maria’s face, since she is a leader of the workers. In this way, they will sow dissention among the workers and maintain their hold over the populace and their own comfortable lifestyle.

Of course, it’s all quite a bit more complicated than this, because this covers about the first half of the film. It also doesn’t cover Josaphat (Theodor Loos), fired by Fredersen and immediately rehired by Freder. It neglects The Thin Man (Fritz Rasp), sent to spy on Freder. The Thin Man is actually a pretty terrifying screen creation. He looks tailor-made for German Expressionism, because his head is made up of a number of strange angles.

Metropolis is most noteworthy not for the story it tells, but the style with which it tells the story. While not a case of style over substance (since there’s plenty of substance here), it’s the style that is in many ways the most interesting. The story itself is hardly anything new—privileged youth becomes enamored of poor girl and seeks to right social wrongs to win her love. But the strange look of the backgrounds, the huge and impressive sets, and the strange technologies that run through the film are what make it something fascinating to see on the screen. In today’s world, Metropolis lives and dies by its appearance, and if the message gets through, so much the better. Beyond the Machine Man, there are plenty of fascinating set pieces. The explosion of the giant machine, for instance, looks to Freder like people being marched endlessly into the mouth of Moloch. Later, when Freder takes a turn at a machine, he hallucinates himself strapped (almost crucified) on a relentlessly whirring clock.

Of course, the message is no secret here. We’re shown it in the first few moments of the film when a title card saying that between the hands and the brain, the heart must be the mediator appears. This is reinforced around the middle of the film when Maria tells the story of the Tower of Babel to the workers, claiming that while thousands worked on it, the work went awry because only the planners knew the ultimate purpose of the structure. The parallel here, of course, is to the workers and the managers. The managers neither know nor care about the difficult, painful lives of the workers, and the workers have no idea of the ultimate purpose of what they do.

Are there parallels to today? Of course there are. This will undoubtedly date this review in future months, but it’s impossible to watch this film today and not see a cognate in the recent Occupy Wall Street movement. So much goes to so few, and the hands no longer know the reason for their labors.

But is it good? Yes, it is. I watched the restored version, which adds a good half hour to the original film. It’s quickly evident where footage was added in, because this footage is of relatively poor quality, but it’s nice to see the film in a more complete state, regardless of how that footage looks. Metropolis may have lost most of its power to cause awe and shock, but it still works, the effects are still good, and the Machine Man is still impressive as a piece of costuming. Additionally, the first time it moves is one of the most iconic moments in film history, akin to Al Jolson singing.

Why to watch Metropolis: A formative film both for science fiction as a genre and film as a medium.
Why not to watch: It’s pretty weird, even for science fiction.

Les Vampires auf Deutsch

Film: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, parts 1 and 2)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.

There’s something about a criminal mastermind that the public loves. Really. There is some sort of primal human belief that some crime at least comes from gigantic world-spanning networks of evil geniuses intent on (insert thunderclap) taking over the world. James Bond would suffer without Auric Goldfinger or Ernst Stavro Blofeld; it’s impossible to imagine Sherlock Holmes without conjuring up Professor Moriarty; where would Marvel Comics be without Dr. Doom? A good criminal mastermind, a century or so of fiction tells us, is ruthless, lethal, has special powers, and is just charming enough to be somewhat appealing on some level.

With this in mind, Fritz Lang adapted the novel of Norbert Jacques into Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (loosely translated as Dr. Mabuse the Player, or more commonly as Dr. Mabuse the Gambler). The central character is exactly this sort of criminal presence. He controls a network of goons and thugs, and seeks to take over/destroy the world, essentially one card game at a time. Dr. Mabuse (Rudlof Klein-Rogge) has an encyclopedic knowledge of psychology, is a master of disguise, can hypnotize people with his intense gaze (and at times, it seems that not even eye contact is needed), and is ruthless when it comes to permanently removing obstacles from his path. Mabuse uses his disguises and hypnotic talents to cheat people at gambling tables, running away with their money. What he’ll do with this amassed wealth is anyone’s guess.

In fact, the film starts with another form of Mabuse’s epic manipulation abilities. In fact, it would seem that the ending of Trading Places comes from this film as Mabuse hijacks a secret report and uses this to manipulate the stock market. First he drives the price of something way down, then buys at a low price and drives the price way back up, making a killing for himself. This was clever and fun to watch.

Sadly, after this, it appears that we will spend the bulk of the rest of the film watching people play cards. Mabuse (which is pronounced “mah-BOOZE-uh” and not “muh-BYUSE”) has the ability to hypnotize people simply by staring at them really hard. What’s goofier is that he’s evidently able to make people do what he’s thinking rather than what he tells them. For instance, he “forces” a man to cheat at cards without saying a word to him. Evidently, he’s not a hypnotist, but a telepath.

Naturally, the forces of good want to stop him. The forces of good here are represented by a guy named von Wenk (Bernhard Goeztke). And here is where the problems with certain foreign and silent movies come to full fruition. According to the version I watched, he was States Attorney von Wenk. According to IMDB, the character is Chief Inspector von Wenck, or Chief Inspector de Witt. I can only go off the version I saw, though, so I’m going to call him von Wenk from this point forward, even though there’s a slight desire to call him “the Wank.”

Regardless, von Wenk sets his sights on finding the “Great Unknown” who has caused so much trouble in the unnamed city, presumably Berlin. Mabuse uses various disguises to sneak around places and rig card games in his favor. He also kills anyone who gets in his way. He is rather the prototype of the nefarious criminal mastermind, at least on film.

After nearly four hours of watching people chase each other and play cards, I’m going to boil this down into a good and a bad. It’s easier than recounting the plot, which involves suicides, murder, cards, hypnotism, and a lot of crepe facial hair.

The good is that this is a particularly interesting view of Weimar Germany. While Cabaret shows us the same time period in a more modern fashion, this film shows us the dissolution and debauchery of the wealthy while it was happening. It’s no secret that Weimar-era Germany was a divided society. While most of the population struggled with crippling inflation and not enough food, the few wealthy elite lived lives of idleness and plenty. Dr. Mabuse explores this, and the growing unrest. The character of Mabuse is a megalomaniac bent on conquering the world through his hypnotic gaze and mental powers. About 10 years after this film came out, a megalomaniac actually did take over in Germany. While I’m not suggesting that Lang was prescient, I would suggest that Lang’s film makes a case that some sort of power overthrow and societal shift in Germany showed signs early and may have been inevitable.

On the bad side, this film is really pretty dull. A lot of what happens doesn’t pass the sniff test, either. One of Mabuse’s minions, la Carozza (Aud Egde Nissen) is captured by the police and imprisoned. Knowing that she is being questioned by von Wenk, he causes a diversion (costing him another minion) and sneaks a man to her cell to convince her to kill herself. So she does. Fine, but here’s the thing. First, if she’s already leaning toward helping the police, wouldn’t a death sentence from Mabuse really just push her further? It’d make me talk in that situation. Second, the guy spends so much time trying to make her take the poison that he and Carozza could have sauntered out of the police station without anyone knowing. But no, this is to show us Mabuse’s ruthlessness. He’s ruthless, but he’s evidently pretty stupid.

Sadly, the film this reminds me of the most is the wretched and eternal Les Vampires except with crepe beards and disguises instead of secret passageways. Lang is better than this film, and I’m going to predict that in his collection that I’m watching here, this will be the weakest by far. I wanted to like this because I like Fritz Lang, but I can’t get beyond the fact that I was nearly bored senseless watching it.

Why to watch Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler: Early work of one of the greatest directors in the early age of film.
Why not to watch: It’s far less exciting than its premise.

"M" is for Morbid

Film: M
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

The women in my family, or at least my wife and older daughter, are in love with pugs. In their world, there is nothing so loveable and adorable as a pug. I’m not so enamored with the little dogs. They’ve got smashed faces and buggy eyes. If a pug was turned into a human being, it would look quite a bit like Peter Lorre.

Of course, this says nothing of the quality of Lorre’s acting, or in this case of Fritz Lang’s film, M. Lorre was perhaps the perfect person to play the role of Hans Beckert, a role that required the lead to have something of a disturbing look to him. The reason is that Beckert is a child murderer, and through implication throughout the film, a child molester.

Beckert hunts children, and his presence on the hunt is announced by his whistling a piece from Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The people of this unnamed German city are naturally going berserk over the murders, causing riots every time anyone speaks to a child in public. The police are in overdrive, and have continually raided the known haunts of the city’s criminal elements.

This causes a huge amount of consternation in the criminal community, since all of the people in the city’s united criminal underworld are being pinched by the police. In an effort to restore their own criminal enterprises back on a paying basis, the criminals set up a network of beggars to keep an eye out for the child killer with the hopes of bringing him to justice themselves.

What’s worth noting here is Fritz Lang’s use of what now are common film techniques. In 1931, however, all film techniques were new ones. As the criminals meet to discuss their plans for finding and destroying the child killer, for instance, the police are meeting at the same time. Lang cuts between the two conversations in a montage, having one conversation pick up where the other leaves off, back and forth for several minutes.

Lang also uses sound in interesting ways. Beckert himself is introduced by his whistling long before he is ever seen on screen. There are sound-based jokes as well; a beggar covers his ears while listening to a badly-tuned organ grinder, and the music reappears only when he uncovers his ears. In fact, it is sound testimony given by a blind beggar that ultimately verifies the guilt of Beckert, a plot device that could not have happened in a movie half a dozen years before.

While all of these things are noteworthy, what is truly remarkable in M is the way that Hans Beckert is treated not by the police or the criminal element, but by the film itself. There is no question of the man’s guilt, and no question that he is committing one of the most terrible crimes any human being can possibly commit, and is doing so over and over. His capture is something that everyone should want, and yet his treatment by the film, while not sympathetic in any way, is at least understanding. Beckert, given the opportunity to defend himself, makes a fairly compelling argument. It is the case, he claims, that he is compelled to do what he does by something he cannot control while other criminals have chosen to break the law.

Until I had watched the film, I was unclear as to its name. The answer becomes obvious about mid-way through the movie. Identified by his whistling, a criminal arranges to place a mark on Beckert’s back, a chalk “M” identifying him to the underworld so he can be tailed. Roughly the same time this happens, the police also break the case, leading to a confrontation among Hans Beckert, the city’s criminal underworld, and the police.

M is a staggering film for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the daunting subject matter for a year like 1931. It is brilliantly made and acted, daring and impressive. In addition to this, there are elements of humor dropped into the film, a surprise in a film that deals with such an uncomfortable subject. On trial by the criminal element, Beckert’s defense attorney demands to know what right another criminal, a paid assassin, has to judge his “client.” Such touches are deft, and easily overlooked on a first pass.

The film unquestionably belongs to Lorre, who is both terrible and pitiable. He is a monster of the sort shown in another 1931 film, Frankenstein. There is no question that he must be destroyed. It is equally undeniable, though, that he is a product of something other than himself, that he was created by society, or upbringing, or something greater and more terrible than what he became. That such a creature could be viewed with anything approaching pity in the final reel is a testament to what Lang was able to accomplish.

Why to watch M: Few filmmakers today have the guts to make a film like M today; that Lang had the guts 80 years ago deserves some respect.
Why not to watch: The subject matter is too disturbing.