Doctor Mabuse

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Dr. Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques, made famous by the three films German director Fritz Lang made about him over a period of almost 40 years. Although the character was designed to deliberately mimic pulp-style villains in the mold of Dr. Fu Manchu and Fantômas, the latter of which was a direct inspiration, Jacques' aim was both to capture the commercial success of such pulp tales and to make political comment on the establishment of the day, in much the same way that the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had done just a few years previously.

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[edit] Description

As befits his pulp influences, Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise like Fantômas and a master of telepathic hypnosis, not unlike the hypnotist Dr. Caligari. Like Fu Manchu, Mabuse commits very few of his crimes in person, instead operating primarily through a network of agents acting out schemes he has laid down for them. Mabuse's agents range from career criminals following him for money, to innocents blackmailed or hypnotized into cooperation, to dupes so successfully manipulated that they do not realize that they are doing exactly what Mabuse planned for them to do.

Mabuse's identity often changes; one "Dr. Mabuse" may be defeated and sent to an asylum, jail, or grave, only for a new "Dr. Mabuse" to later appear. The replacement invariably has the same methods, the same powers of hypnosis, and the same criminal genius. There are even suggestions in some installments of the series that the "real" Mabuse is some sort of spirit that possesses host after host.

Another trait that separates Mabuse from similar characters is the self-destructive bent to his personality and his plans. (Some have even suggested that Jacques took the name Mabuse not, as he claimed, from the painter Jan Mabuse who used it as his pseudonym, but from a pun: M'abuse is French for I abuse myself.) Several times, Mabuse's plans are foiled only because he himself interferes with them, as if he is trying to bring about his own downfall. This dovetails with another important distinction about Mabuse: whereas Fu Manchu aims to conquer the world, then rule it, Mabuse makes clear more than once that his intent is to destroy the world — and then rule the ashes. This may explain why the character is regarded in Germany almost more as a horror icon, akin to Dracula or Frankenstein, than as a criminal mastermind of adventure tales akin to Fu Manchu.

[edit] History

Dr. Mabuse first appeared in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (trans. "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler") by Norbert Jacques. The novel was the beneficiary of unprecedented publicity efforts and became a best-seller immediately. Lang, already an accomplished director, worked with his wife Thea von Harbou to translate the novel to the screen, where it also became a huge hit. (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) is technically a single film with a running time of almost four hours, but in a practice popular at the time, it was released in two separate sections: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, An Image of the Times and Inferno, People of the Times. This is why some film histories refer to der Spieler as the first Mabuse film, and others refer to the two sections separately, as the first two.)

After the great success of both the novel and the film, it was almost a decade before anything more was done with the character. Jacques had been working on a sequel to the novel, titled Mabuse's Colony, in which Mabuse has died and a group of his followers are starting an island colony based on the principles set out in Mabuse's manifesto. However, the novel was stalled and unfinished. After conversations with Lang and von Harbou, Jacques agreed to shelve the novel and the sequel instead became the 1933 movie Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, in which the Mabuse of 1920 (still played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a mute prisoner in an insane asylum, but has for some time been obsessively scribbling out meticulous plans for crime and terrorism — plans that are being carried out by a gang of criminals in the world outside, who receive their orders from a shadowy, unknown figure who has identified himself to them only as Dr. Mabuse.

[edit] Influence

[edit] Filmography

  • Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (dir. Fritz Lang, 1922)
    • English title: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
  • Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang, 1933)
    • English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (may also be translated as The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse)
    • The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse is a not-very-faithful edited adaptation of Testament made primarily for American audiences. It is truncated, reorganized and redubbed.
    • A French-language version was filmed at the same time, on the same sets, but with an entirely different cast (except for one actor who spoke both German and French fluently, and Klein-Rogge, whose dialogue remained in German.)
  • Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang, 1960 - the first of the Mabuse films that was produced by Artur Brauner. English title: The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse)
  • Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl, 1961. English title: The Return of Dr. Mabuse)
  • Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl, 1962.) English title: The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse)
  • Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Werner Klingler, 1962 - remake of the 1933 film. English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse)
  • Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (dir. Paul May, 1963) English title: Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (literally: Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse)
  • Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Hugo Fregonese, 1963.) English title: The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Death Rays of Dr. Mabuse)
  • La Venganza del Dr. Mabuse (dir. Jess Franco, 1970.)
  • Docteur M (dir. Claude Chabrol, 1989.)
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