The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse |
| Original title | The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse / Il diabolico dottor Mabuse / Le Diabolique Docteur Mabuse |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany , France , Italy |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Lang |
| script | Fritz Lang Heinz Oskar Wuttig Jan Fethke |
| production |
CCC Filmkunst ( Artur Brauner ) CEI Incom Critérion Film SA |
| music |
Gerhard Becker Bert Grund |
| camera | Karl Löb |
| cut |
Walter Wischniewsky Waltraud Wischniewsky |
| occupation | |
| |
The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a crime film that was shot in West Berlin in 1960 . This last film by Fritz Lang was the continuation of the two Dr. Mabuse films he created from the 1920s and 1930s. The black and white film produced by Artur Brauners CCC Filmkunst GmbH was made with the financial participation of CEI Incom ( Rome ) and Critérion Film SA ( Paris ) and was the prelude to a series of five other Dr. Mabuse films that followed until 1964. The film premiered on September 14, 1960 at the Gloria Palast in Stuttgart .
action
Shortly after the television reporter Peter Barter announced the biggest hit of the year to his broadcaster, he was found dead in a car parked at the traffic lights. The police find that he was killed with a previously unknown weapon; a steel needle went straight into his brain. BKA and Interpol intervene.
One remembers the megalomaniac super criminal Dr. Mabuse , who died in a madhouse in 1933 . Various traces point to the Hotel Luxor: A series of crimes, in which large sums of money changed hands, had their starting point in this luxury hotel . And there will soon be another spectacular event about US billionaire Travers. The pretty Marion is the decoy who should make his acquaintance; she is under hypnosis and terrorized by her clubfoot husband who is in the service of the legendary Dr. Mabuse or its successor stands.
Travers has to do with nuclear fission and has become interesting for Mabuse's organization, which uses the Hotel Luxor, which was once built by the Nazis and equipped with a secret surveillance system, as a base for lucrative fishing trips.
The mastermind behind all these crimes is the doctor Prof. Jordan, who lives in the delusion that he must continue the work of the deceased. With the help of an Interpol agent acting as a representative and Commissioner Kras, Travers finally succeeds in exposing the madman and breaking his bonds.
History of origin
prehistory
By Fritz Lang staged films Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) turned out to be extremely exciting films; they have been considered classics in German film history at the latest since their revivals in the post-war period .
In 1953, the film producer Artur Brauner acquired the rights to use the well-known criminal figure from Norbert Jacques , the author of the novel. Because the chances of success for fictional crime substances were assessed as low by the film distributors in the 1950s, Brauner's CCC film was initially occupied with the production of films from other genres. This situation changed when the Edgar Wallace film The Frog with the Mask, marketed by Constantin Filmverleih in 1959 , had proven to be a great public success. Rialto Film secured the filming rights for almost all of Edgar Wallace's novels and competing companies developed numerous other crime films as a result.
Script and preproduction
The Mabuse film series project presented by Brauner in 1959 was enthusiastically received by Constantin Filmverleih. The producer developed an initial concept in collaboration with Gerhard F. Hummel . In addition, it was again in 1956 from the United States undertake returned to Germany director Fritz Lang, who in 1958 and 1959 respectively for Brauner's CCC Film already The Tiger of Eschnapur and its sequel The Indian Tomb had staged. In collaboration with Heinz Oskar Wuttig , Lang wrote a screenplay for his third Mabuse film, which was based on the novel Mr. Tott buys 1000 eyes (original title: Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojn) of his companion Jan Fethke (pseudonym: Jean Forge ) , published in Esperanto in 1931 ) based. The framework of the book, in which Mabuse does not appear, was combined with the well-known criminal figure and his motifs.
Aspects of the surveillance state and Orwell's Big Brother theme can be found in the plot . It is possible that the film can also be attributed with interpretations of the Cold War with the subliminal struggle for world domination . The time of the late German economic miracle was clearly captured visually. In the person of the US nuclear industrialist and multimillionaire Henry B. Travers, the possibility of personal economic advancement was thematically integrated as well as the underlying fear of a nuclear war . In contrast to his Mabuse adaptations during the Weimar Republic , the director wanted his new film less to achieve political or particular stylistic ambitions than to tell a “rough and realistic story, almost in the weekly show style”.
In order to be able to market the film internationally, Brauner cast the roles with renowned and well-known actors, above all the British actress Dawn Addams and the German-American Peter van Eyck . Gert Fröbe can be seen in the role of the charismatic commissioner Kras . In two later Mabuse films he was to take on the recurring role of Inspector Lohmann , who appeared in the Fritz Lang films M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was embodied by Otto Wernicke . The supporting roles were also taken on by well-known film and stage actors such as Werner Peters , Reinhard Kolldehoff and Howard Vernon . In the title role one saw Wolfgang Preiss , who also portrayed the mysterious super criminal in later contributions to the film series. In order not to betray the resolution of the film with the cast list, Preiss was only listed in the role of Professor Jordan, while "Lupo Prezzo" (an Italian translation of "Wolf Prize") was shown as the actor of Cornelius. He was also dubbed by Curt Ackermann in the corresponding scenes . Dieter Hallervorden can be seen in an extra role in a group of press people .
production
The German-Italian-French co-production was shot from May 4 to June 28, 1960 in West Berlin , mainly in the CCC-Film studios in Berlin-Haselhorst . The film architects Erich Kettelhut and Johannes Ott were responsible for the film construction. Ina Stein designed the costumes . The comparatively few outdoor photos were mostly taken on the premises of the studio and in its immediate vicinity. This is how Dr. Mabuse's car from the Great Eiswerder Bridge at the end of the film . The film The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is not produced by CCC Filmproduktion GmbH, but by the newly founded CCC Filmkunst GmbH.
Film music
The film music was arranged and conducted by Gerhard Becker . In addition to mostly his own compositions, an instrumental version of the Caterina Valente hit Schau ich zum Himmelszelt by Werner Müller was used in the film. The film composer Bert Grund mentioned in some staff lists is not mentioned in the opening credits .
The film's theme music was released in 2000 on CD Kriminalfilmmusik No. 4 .
synchronization
Since it was a co-production with actors who were partly foreign languages, they had to be dubbed . For dramaturgical reasons Wolfgang Preiss got the voice of Curt Ackermann in the role of the fortune teller Cornelius , while he can be heard as Professor Jordan himself.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Marion Menil | Dawn Addams | Dagmar Altrichter |
| Cornelius | Wolfgang Preiss | Curt Ackermann |
| Hotel detective Berg | Andrea Checchi | Harry Wüstenhagen |
| Hotel manager | Nico Pepe | Joachim Cadenbach |
| Michael Parker | David Cameron | Knut Hartwig |
reception
publication
The FSK released the film on September 5, 1960 from the age of 16. The film, which premiered on September 14 of the same year and was released in theaters by Prisma-Filmverleih, a subsidiary of Constantin-Film, developed into an extraordinary commercial success. With the gloomy and threatening mood, Brauner had found an original counterpart to the ironically distant Edgar Wallace films , which was honored by the audience.
The fact that the film bears Fritz Lang's signature less than his earlier works in the eyes of the film critics was certainly due to the arguments between the director and the producer that accompanied the shooting. But even as a modern thriller, the film had some staging inadequacies. Fritz Lang, who with The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse directed his last feature film, later admitted that he had become a stranger to the German language after the war through emigration. The Mabuse series of the 1960s was in 1961 with the of Harald Reinl directed film in the steel mesh of the Dr. Mabuse continued.
Since its TV premiere on 12 September 1966 at the First is The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse has been repeated regularly on television. There are also several video and DVD releases. On the box set Dr. Mabuse's masterpiece from Universum Film was added a few missing seconds at the beginning of the film. The logo of the Prisma-Verleihe from another film and inadvertently the logo and the fanfare of CCC Film produktion GmbH from the film Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse resorted to. The age rating of the film has been downgraded to twelve years for the DVD releases, with Scotland Yard chasing Dr. Mabuse , a release from 16 years applies.
Under the title Die 1000 Glotzböbbel by Dr. Mabuse , the film came back to the cinemas in 2018 in a Swabian dubbing with modified content, produced by Dodokay .
Award
The 1000 eyes of Dr. On the day of the premiere, Mabuse was awarded the “Predicate valuable” by the Wiesbaden film evaluation office .
Reviews
“A pastime with a cultivated macabre note, from whose sometimes implausibly perfectionist means one distanced oneself through gentle irony. Best performance: Gert Fröbe. "
"... with which one of his. successful story continued; not very likely, but rich in proven u. new ingredients, well filled u. in an equally impressive and creepy environment. "
"Weak, if not tension-free continuation of the Mabuse films from 1929 and 1932."
“Fritz Lang's last film is on the sensational level of all those crime novels that were produced at the same time. Therefore, he can inevitably never achieve the cinematic qualities of his old Mabuse successes ( Dr. Mabuse, the player , The Testament of Dr. Mabuse ), but still plays an entertaining and attractive game with ambiguous perspectives, illusions and false appearances. "
“'The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse 'is atmospherically a great thriller with a great cast. [...] Gerd Fröbe as commissioner was more than just a good choice, even if the stripe as such has its lengths. "
“'The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse 'is certainly not one of Fritz Lang's best films, because the plot not only appears constructed, but also bloated in its complexity. The look and the atmosphere of the thriller are remarkable. "
“'You can read the film as a parable on the reality of the Federal Republic of Germany: where the good and peaceful are once again falling prey to the manipulators in the background, the power addicts, the money jugglers."
literature
- Jean Forge : Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojn . Literatura Mondo. Budapest 1931 (1st edition) / 1934 (2nd edition), 242 pp.
- Jean Forge: Mr. Tott will buy 1000 eyes . German translation. 1st edition. Goldmann Verlag, Leipzig 1932, 249 pp.
- Solveig Wrage: Dr. Mabuse in the film . Reinhard Weber Verlag, Landshut 2011, ISBN 978-3-943127-00-3 .
Audio book
- The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse with intermediate texts read by Wolf Frass . Author: Susa Gülzow. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-8218-5381-9 .
Web links
- The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Original version: 104 minutes for cinema projection (24 images / second), 99 minutes for television reproduction (25 images / second), film length: 2833 meters; Version presented to the FSK: 103 minutes for cinema projection (24 images / second), 98 minutes for television reproduction (25 images / second), film length: 2824 meters.
- ↑ a b Joachim Kramp: Hello! This is Edgar Wallace speaking. The history of the crime film series from 1959 to 1972. 3rd, revised and expanded edition . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-645-3 , p. 452-454 .
- ↑ a b Simon Ofenloch: The Dr. Mabuse Films - Essays of German (Film) History . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) eichborn.de
- ↑ Mabuse - With air rifle . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1960 ( online ).
- ↑ Internal correspondence of the CCC-Film ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 85 kB) May 10, 1960.
- ↑ CD crime film music No. 4 . BSC Music. 2000. Order no. 398.6560.2.
- ↑ The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Fritz Lang in an interview. Beverly Hills, November 1967.
- ↑ DVD box set Dr. Mabuse's masterpiece. The famous six Dr. Mabuse films from the 1960s Universum Film GmbH . 2005. Order no. 82876 72593 9.
- ↑ Movies of the Week . In: Die Zeit , No. 39/1960.
- ↑ The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse . In: Paimann's film lists . No. 2579 , October 11, 1960 ( Reizfeld.net ( memento from January 21, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )).
- ↑ Ev. Munich Press Association, Review No. 647/1960
- ↑ The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Thomas Ays: film review on moviesection.de
- ↑ Dieter Wunderlich: Film review on dieterwunderlich.de
- ^ History of German Film , edited by Wolfgang Jacobsen, Anton Kaes and Hans Helmut Prinzler, 2nd edition, JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2004, p. 213
