Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler
Encyclopedia
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is the first film in the Dr. Mabuse series, about the character Doctor Mabuse
who featured in the novels of Norbert Jacques
. It was directed by Fritz Lang
and released in 1922. The film is silent and filmed mostly 16 frames per second. It would be followed by The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
(1933) and The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
(1960).
It is about four hours long and divided into two parts: Der große Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit and Inferno: Ein Spiel um Menschen unserer Zeit. The title, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, is plurivalent. Der Spieler means the player in German, and can be translated as the gambler, the actor, or the puppeteer. Dr. Mabuse, who disguises, plays with emotions and tricks other people, is probably all of them in some sense.
Dr. Mabuse is a criminal mastermind, a doctor of psychology and a master of disguise, armed with the powers of hypnosis
and mind control
, who oversees the counterfeiting and gambling rackets of the Berlin underworld. He visits gambling dens by night under various guises and aliases, using the power of suggestion to win at cards and finance his plans. Among his many henchmen are: Spoerri, his cocaine-addicted manservant; Georg, his chauffeur and sometime assassin; Petsch, an inept goon; Hawasch, who employs a gang of blind men in a counterfeiting operation; Fine, a woman who serves as a lookout; and Folies Bergère dancer Cara Carozza, who loves him.
As the film opens, Mabuse orchestrates the theft of a commercial contract in order to create a temporary panic in the stock market, which he exploits to make huge profits.
Edgar Hull, the son of a millionaire industrialist, becomes Mabuse’s next victim. As "Hugo Balling", Mabuse gains access to Hull's gentlemen's club
and wins a small fortune at cards from the hypnotized Hull, who is made to play badly and recklessly. Afterwards, Hull is unable to account for his behavior.
State prosecutor Norbert von Wenk takes an interest in Hull, believing that whoever tricked Hull is the elusive “Great Unknown” who had previously victimized others in a similar manner. Von Wenk goes undercover to visit a gambling den, where he encounters a disguised Dr. Mabuse. Mabuse attempts to hypnotize von Wenk, but he effectively resists. Mabuse flees. Von Wenk, quickly regaining his faculties, gives chase through the city, but the doctor evades capture. Boarding a taxicab driven by Georg, von Wenk is gassed, robbed, and set adrift in a rowboat.
Dr. Mabuse realizes that Hull is assisting the state prosecutor, and resolves to eliminate both men. Carozza, who has been romancing Hull on Mabuse's orders, lures the young man to a new illegal casino; when von Wenk calls in the police to raid the place, Carozza, Hull and a police bodyguard exit through the back door, where Georg awaits. He kills Hull and escapes, but Carozza is caught and jailed. Von Wenk questions her for information about the "Great Unknown", but she refuses to speak. Von Wenk enlists the aid of Dusy Countess Told (nicknamed the "Passive Lady"), an aristocrat bored by her dull husband and seeking thrills wherever she can find them, to try to get the information by trickery. Countess Told is placed in the same cell, an apparent victim of another raid, but Carozza is not fooled. Carozza reveals only her great love for Mabuse, ensuring her silence. The countess, moved by Carozza's passion, tells von Wenk that she cannot continue to assist him.
Dr. Mabuse does nothing to extricate Carozza from jail. He instead attends a séance where he meets Countess Told, who (while under his hypnotic influence) invites him to her house. Once there, Mabuse, taken by the Countess’ beauty, decides to display his power by telepathically inducing her husband, Count Told, to cheat at poker. His guests are outraged when they detect it, and the Countess faints. Dr. Mabuse uses the distraction to abduct her and imprison her in his lair.
A sick and disgraced Count Told seeks the help of Dr. Mabuse to treat him in his depression; Mabuse uses this chance to isolate the Count in his manor and cut off any inquiries on the Countess's whereabouts. The Count’s condition worsens and he is tormented by hallucinations.
Meanwhile, Carozza is moved to a woman’s prison and again interrogated by von Wenk. Fearing betrayal, Mabuse sanctions Carozza’s death. Georg smuggles poison to her cell, which she ingests out of loyalty to Mabuse. Another of Mabuse’s henchmen, Pesch, bombs von Wenk's office while posing as an electrician, but von Wenk is unharmed and Pesch is detained. Mabuse – again fearing betrayal – arranges for Petsch to be killed by a sniper while being transported in a police wagon.
Intent on leaving town, Mabuse gives the captive Countess the choice of going with him voluntarily. Her refusal angers him, and Mabuse vows that he will kill the Count. Through his powers of suggestion, he induces the Count to commit suicide with a razor blade. Later, as von Wenk investigates his death, he questions Dr. Mabuse as the Count’s psychoanalyst. Dr. Mabuse speculates that the Count had fallen under the control of a hostile will, and asks von Wenk if he is familiar with the experiments of one “Sandor Weltemann”, who will be performing a public demonstration of telepathy and mass hypnosis at a local theater.
Von Wenk and his men attend Weltemann’s show. Weltemann is none other than Mabuse in disguise, and his magic show provides him an opportunity to hypnotize von Wenk, who falls into a trance. Mabuse's secret command to von Wenk is to leave the auditorium, get in his car, and drive off a cliff, but von Wenk’s men intercede just in time to save his life. Coming to his senses, von Wenk orders a siege on Dr. Mabuse’s house.
Dr. Mabuse and his men take a final stand, and a gunfight with the police ensues. Hawasch and Fine are killed, Spoerri and Georg are taken into custody, and the Countess is rescued. Dr. Mabuse flees through an underground sewer that leads to Hawasch’s counterfeiting workshop, where Mabuse becomes trapped, as the doors cannot be opened from the inside. He is confronted by the ghosts of his victims and various demonic illusions.
Spoerri, under interrogation, identifies a key found at Mabuse's mansion as being for the workshop. Von Wenk and the police break in and take the now-insane Dr. Mabuse away. In Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse
(The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, known also as The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse) it is revealed that Mabuse is, in fact, confined to an insane asylum.
. Although the novel was a best-seller at the time, Jacques was convinced by Lang and von Harbou to discontinue his plans for a literary series in exchange for a movie sequel to the hit 1922 film. The three went on to conceive Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933), also starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Mabuse. Lang's final film, Die tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960), picked up the character once more and rounded up the trilogy. Wolfgang Preiss
took over the title role since Klein-Rogge had died in 1955. The movie was produced by Arthur Brauner, who would go on to produce five more movies centering on the character of Dr. Mabuse (whom Preiss portrayed in four more movies), including a 1962 remake of Lang's 1933 film.
There are many versions of Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. The original German version, with a running time of about four hours, was later restored to 271 minutes by the Murnau Foundation. The final, restored version lasts 297 minutes. Generally, the movie was cut down and re-edited when originally shown. The USA video version lasts a little under four hours. At the time of its release, Soviet editors also re-cut the Dr. Mabuse films into one shorter film. The lead editor in charge of the cuts was Sergei Eisenstein
.
Doctor Mabuse
Doctor Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and made famous by the three movies director Fritz Lang made about the character; see Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Although the character was designed deliberately to mimic pulp magazine-style...
who featured in the novels of Norbert Jacques
Norbert Jacques
Norbert Jacques was a Luxembourgian german-language novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Luxembourg-Eich, Luxembourg, and died in Koblenz, Germany. He created the character Doctor Mabuse who was a feature of some of his novels, including "Mabuse's Colony". Jacques is known best for his work...
. It was directed by Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
and released in 1922. The film is silent and filmed mostly 16 frames per second. It would be followed by The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a 1933 German crime film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a sequel to Lang's silent film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and features many cast and crew members from Lang's previous films. The film features Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse who is in an insane asylum...
(1933) and The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a 1960 film made in West Germany. It was the last film directed by Fritz Lang and concerned the further exploits of Dr. Mabuse, a character Lang had used in two previous films in 1922 and 1933.The movie, based on the Esperanto novel Mr...
(1960).
It is about four hours long and divided into two parts: Der große Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit and Inferno: Ein Spiel um Menschen unserer Zeit. The title, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, is plurivalent. Der Spieler means the player in German, and can be translated as the gambler, the actor, or the puppeteer. Dr. Mabuse, who disguises, plays with emotions and tricks other people, is probably all of them in some sense.
Part I
Part I — The Great Gambler: An Image of the Age (Part I - Der große Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit)Dr. Mabuse is a criminal mastermind, a doctor of psychology and a master of disguise, armed with the powers of hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
and mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
, who oversees the counterfeiting and gambling rackets of the Berlin underworld. He visits gambling dens by night under various guises and aliases, using the power of suggestion to win at cards and finance his plans. Among his many henchmen are: Spoerri, his cocaine-addicted manservant; Georg, his chauffeur and sometime assassin; Petsch, an inept goon; Hawasch, who employs a gang of blind men in a counterfeiting operation; Fine, a woman who serves as a lookout; and Folies Bergère dancer Cara Carozza, who loves him.
As the film opens, Mabuse orchestrates the theft of a commercial contract in order to create a temporary panic in the stock market, which he exploits to make huge profits.
Edgar Hull, the son of a millionaire industrialist, becomes Mabuse’s next victim. As "Hugo Balling", Mabuse gains access to Hull's gentlemen's club
Gentlemen's club
A gentlemen's club is a members-only private club of a type originally set up by and for British upper class men in the eighteenth century, and popularised by English upper-middle class men and women in the late nineteenth century. Today, some are more open about the gender and social status of...
and wins a small fortune at cards from the hypnotized Hull, who is made to play badly and recklessly. Afterwards, Hull is unable to account for his behavior.
State prosecutor Norbert von Wenk takes an interest in Hull, believing that whoever tricked Hull is the elusive “Great Unknown” who had previously victimized others in a similar manner. Von Wenk goes undercover to visit a gambling den, where he encounters a disguised Dr. Mabuse. Mabuse attempts to hypnotize von Wenk, but he effectively resists. Mabuse flees. Von Wenk, quickly regaining his faculties, gives chase through the city, but the doctor evades capture. Boarding a taxicab driven by Georg, von Wenk is gassed, robbed, and set adrift in a rowboat.
Dr. Mabuse realizes that Hull is assisting the state prosecutor, and resolves to eliminate both men. Carozza, who has been romancing Hull on Mabuse's orders, lures the young man to a new illegal casino; when von Wenk calls in the police to raid the place, Carozza, Hull and a police bodyguard exit through the back door, where Georg awaits. He kills Hull and escapes, but Carozza is caught and jailed. Von Wenk questions her for information about the "Great Unknown", but she refuses to speak. Von Wenk enlists the aid of Dusy Countess Told (nicknamed the "Passive Lady"), an aristocrat bored by her dull husband and seeking thrills wherever she can find them, to try to get the information by trickery. Countess Told is placed in the same cell, an apparent victim of another raid, but Carozza is not fooled. Carozza reveals only her great love for Mabuse, ensuring her silence. The countess, moved by Carozza's passion, tells von Wenk that she cannot continue to assist him.
Dr. Mabuse does nothing to extricate Carozza from jail. He instead attends a séance where he meets Countess Told, who (while under his hypnotic influence) invites him to her house. Once there, Mabuse, taken by the Countess’ beauty, decides to display his power by telepathically inducing her husband, Count Told, to cheat at poker. His guests are outraged when they detect it, and the Countess faints. Dr. Mabuse uses the distraction to abduct her and imprison her in his lair.
Part II
Part II — Inferno: A Game for the People of our Age (Part II - Inferno: Ein Spiel um Menschen unserer Zeit)A sick and disgraced Count Told seeks the help of Dr. Mabuse to treat him in his depression; Mabuse uses this chance to isolate the Count in his manor and cut off any inquiries on the Countess's whereabouts. The Count’s condition worsens and he is tormented by hallucinations.
Meanwhile, Carozza is moved to a woman’s prison and again interrogated by von Wenk. Fearing betrayal, Mabuse sanctions Carozza’s death. Georg smuggles poison to her cell, which she ingests out of loyalty to Mabuse. Another of Mabuse’s henchmen, Pesch, bombs von Wenk's office while posing as an electrician, but von Wenk is unharmed and Pesch is detained. Mabuse – again fearing betrayal – arranges for Petsch to be killed by a sniper while being transported in a police wagon.
Intent on leaving town, Mabuse gives the captive Countess the choice of going with him voluntarily. Her refusal angers him, and Mabuse vows that he will kill the Count. Through his powers of suggestion, he induces the Count to commit suicide with a razor blade. Later, as von Wenk investigates his death, he questions Dr. Mabuse as the Count’s psychoanalyst. Dr. Mabuse speculates that the Count had fallen under the control of a hostile will, and asks von Wenk if he is familiar with the experiments of one “Sandor Weltemann”, who will be performing a public demonstration of telepathy and mass hypnosis at a local theater.
Von Wenk and his men attend Weltemann’s show. Weltemann is none other than Mabuse in disguise, and his magic show provides him an opportunity to hypnotize von Wenk, who falls into a trance. Mabuse's secret command to von Wenk is to leave the auditorium, get in his car, and drive off a cliff, but von Wenk’s men intercede just in time to save his life. Coming to his senses, von Wenk orders a siege on Dr. Mabuse’s house.
Dr. Mabuse and his men take a final stand, and a gunfight with the police ensues. Hawasch and Fine are killed, Spoerri and Georg are taken into custody, and the Countess is rescued. Dr. Mabuse flees through an underground sewer that leads to Hawasch’s counterfeiting workshop, where Mabuse becomes trapped, as the doors cannot be opened from the inside. He is confronted by the ghosts of his victims and various demonic illusions.
Spoerri, under interrogation, identifies a key found at Mabuse's mansion as being for the workshop. Von Wenk and the police break in and take the now-insane Dr. Mabuse away. In Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a 1933 German crime film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a sequel to Lang's silent film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and features many cast and crew members from Lang's previous films. The film features Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse who is in an insane asylum...
(The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, known also as The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse) it is revealed that Mabuse is, in fact, confined to an insane asylum.
Cast
- Rudolf Klein-RoggeRudolf Klein-RoggeFriedrich Rudolf Klein-Rogge was a German film actor. Klein-Rogge is known for playing sinister figures in films in the 1920s and 1930s as well as being a main-stay in director Fritz Lang's Weimar-era films.- Biography :...
– Dr. Mabuse - Aud Egede-NissenAud Egede-NissenAud Richter was a Norwegian actress, appearing in many early 20th century German films.- Biography :...
– Cara Carozza - Gertrude WelckerGertrude WelckerGertrude Welcker was a German silent film actress who appeared in films between 1917 and 1925.Welcker was born in Dresden, Germany. Not much is known about her life after 1925. She died in Danderyd-Stockholm, Sweden....
– Gräfin Dusy Told - Alfred AbelAlfred AbelAlfred Abel was a German film actor, director, and producer. He appeared in over 140 silent and sound films between 1913 and 1938...
– Graf Told / Richard Fleury (US version) - Bernhard GoetzkeBernhard GoetzkeBernhard Goetzke was a German film actor. He appeared in 130 films between 1917 and 1961.He was born in Danzig and died in Berlin.-Selected filmography:...
– Chief-Inspector Norbert von Wenk / Chief-Inspector De Witt (US version) - Paul RichterPaul RichterPaul Richter was an Austrian film actor. He married the actress Aud Egede-Nissen and was stepfather to Georg Richter.-Selected filmography:* The Indian Tomb * Die Nibelungen * The Sorceror...
– Edgar Hull - Robert Forster-Larrinaga – Spoerri
- Hans Adalbert Schlettow – Georg, the Chauffeur
- Georg JohnGeorg JohnGeorg John was a German stage and film actor.-Early life:Georg John was born in Schmiegel, Province of Posen, Imperial Germany.- Career :John began his career around 1900 in smaller stages and traveling theatres...
– Pesch - Charles Puffy – Hawasch
- Grete Berger – Fine, a servant
- Julius FalkensteinJulius FalkensteinJulius Falkenstein was a German film actor of the silent era. He appeared in 184 films between 1914 and 1933.- Selected filmography :* Die geheimnisvolle Villa * The Oyster Princess...
– Karsten - Lydia Potechina – Die Russin / Russian woman
- Julius E. Herrmann – Emil Schramm
- Julietta Brandt (uncredited)
- Max AdalbertMax AdalbertMax Adalbert was a German stage and movie actor.- Biography :Adalbert was born in Danzig , Imperial Germany as Maximilian Adalbert Krampf to a Prussian Officer. He used his firstnames as his stagename from the start of his career and debuted at the age of 19 at the theater of Lübeck and in 1894 at...
(uncredited) - Anita BerberAnita BerberAnita Berber was a German dancer, actress, writer, and prostitute who was the subject of an Otto Dix painting. She lived during the Weimar period.-Early life:...
(uncredited) - Paul Biensfeldt (uncredited)
- Gustav Botz (uncredited)
- Lil DagoverLil DagoverLil Dagover was a German stage, film and television actress whose career spanned nearly six decades.-Early life:...
(uncredited)
Production notes
Based on Norbert Jacques' novel of the same name, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler was adapted to the screen by Lang and his wife Thea von HarbouThea von Harbou
Thea Gabriele von Harbou was a German actress, author and film director of Prussian aristocratic origin. She was born in Tauperlitz in the Kingdom of Bavaria.-Early work:...
. Although the novel was a best-seller at the time, Jacques was convinced by Lang and von Harbou to discontinue his plans for a literary series in exchange for a movie sequel to the hit 1922 film. The three went on to conceive Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933), also starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Mabuse. Lang's final film, Die tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960), picked up the character once more and rounded up the trilogy. Wolfgang Preiss
Wolfgang Preiss
Wolfgang Preiss was a German theatre, film and television actor.The son of a teacher, in the early 1930s Preiss studied philosophy, German and drama. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlenck, making his stage début in Munich in 1932...
took over the title role since Klein-Rogge had died in 1955. The movie was produced by Arthur Brauner, who would go on to produce five more movies centering on the character of Dr. Mabuse (whom Preiss portrayed in four more movies), including a 1962 remake of Lang's 1933 film.
There are many versions of Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. The original German version, with a running time of about four hours, was later restored to 271 minutes by the Murnau Foundation. The final, restored version lasts 297 minutes. Generally, the movie was cut down and re-edited when originally shown. The USA video version lasts a little under four hours. At the time of its release, Soviet editors also re-cut the Dr. Mabuse films into one shorter film. The lead editor in charge of the cuts was Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
.