Dr. Mabuse, the gambler – Fritz Lang, 1922

Dr. Mabuse, the gambler

Germany, 1922

Director: Fritz Lang

Script: Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou

Main actors:Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede-Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Alfred Abel, Bernhard Goetzke

Genre: Thriller

Plot

Dr. Mabuse is an organized crime boss who controls a gradual network of shady business deals. He is a master of disguise, capable of impersonating others to achieve his goals. Mabuse directs a complex operation focused on the theft of an important document, a secret contract between international companies. In this way, he intends to manipulate the stock market by selling the shares and then buying them back at a low cost. On the other hand, he is also dedicated to the counterfeiting of money, both dollars and marks and other European currencies.

After giving a lecture on psychology, Mabuse takes another guise and goes to a theater where the cabaret artist Cara Carossa is performing. But the mega-criminal has not gone there to enjoy the artist’s act, but to keep an eye on Edgar Hull, the son of a wealthy industrialist. At the end of the show, Mabuse hypnotizes the young man and goes with him to his social club, where he fleeces him playing cards. The victim is at the mercy of Mabuse’s hypnotic powers, and loses a lot of money in gambling. Cara Carossa belongs to the network of the big boss of the underworld, who orders her to go to a hotel and get ready to continue with the plan to take the money from the rich heir Edgar.

Meanwhile, a prosecutor suspects that some mysterious gamblers are cheating in several casinos in the city (“mysterious gamblers” who are in fact only one, always disguised…).

Cara, who is Edgar’s friend, discovers that Edgar has come into contact with the prosecutor. The heir is obviously unaware that Cara is being used by Mabuse.

The cabaret girl and the young rich man go to the Schramm event hall, where Mabuse is also in disguise, hypnotizing the players to manipulate them (an obese exiled Russian aristocrat says she couldn’t help but stop gambling when she saw the “evil eyes” of this other participant in the game).

Prosecutor von Wenk acts as a detective. He meets Countess Dusy Told, who out of sheer boredom frequents the clandestine gambling houses. The two form an alliance, she must help him find out the identity of this invisible enemy, this dangerous man of a thousand faces.

Von Wenk, moreover, decides to resort to the same tactic as his opponent: He, too, disguises himself, and goes to one of those hidden gambling halls where highborn characters gamble large sums of money.

Noticing that Wenk resists his hypnotic influence, Mabuse feigns an indisposition and leaves the casino. Wenk sets out to follow him, and Mabuse’s henchmen in turn pursue the prosecutor. Mabuse, posing as a Dutch professor, takes refuge in the Excelsior Hotel, but when he realizes that he is being followed, he changes his identity and flees from there as well. Wenk, who warns the hotel manager, arrives too late.

Then one of Mabuse’s henchmen knocks the prosecutor out and steals his belongings. The investigator’s papers get into the hands of Mabuse, who is now certain that they are out to get him (although his real identity is not yet known). The crime boss realizes that he is not as invulnerable as he thought. So he orders his thugs to finish off Wenk and also Hull. To do so, the cabaret artist Cara Carozza must serve as bait.

But Hull sees a note that the girl has dropped, and becomes suspicious. He calls the prosecutor to warn him, and the latter also sets out to go to the cabaret. For his part, Mabuse attends a séance, where the Countess is present.

After a police intervention in the clandestine casino, Cara is arrested. The prosecutor is unable to get anything out of her, and decides to turn to the Countess. The latter, also pretending to be arrested, will try to get information from the cabaret girl. But Cara notices the strategy right away.

The Countess senses something sinister in Mabuse, and would prefer that he not come to a party organized by her and her husband. However, this doctor, who is so fond of gambling and manipulation, appears at the Count’s mansion.

Mabuse telepathically controls the count, and makes him win several rounds at cards only to have it come out that he has been cheating. Taking advantage of the commotion, he kidnaps the Countess.

The naive count thinks that his wife has left him because he cheated in the game. So he tells the prosecutor. And as if that were not enough, the Count decides to begin psychotherapy… with none other than Dr. Mabuse himself. Meanwhile, he suspects that Carozza might be out of his mind and orders her to be eliminated. He also prepares an attack to get rid of the uncomfortable prosecutor.

The criminal in charge of planting the bomb is caught. Mabuse decides to eliminate inconvenient witnesses, those who could give him away. He begins to feel cornered by Wenk. The criminal will use his cunning tactics and disguises, employing his many agents.

The Count, meanwhile, falls into a deep depression, not without alcoholism and hallucinations.

Mabuse sets a trap for Wenk, insinuating that an illusionist, a certain Weltmann, has something to do with the Count’s misfortune. This Weltmann is none other than Mabuse himself, who tries to push Wenk, by means of mind control, to kill himself in an accident…

Comment

Fritz Lang offers us with this film the adventures of a mysterious and sinister character with a double (or rather multiple) personality: Dr. Mabuse, a respectable doctor in the face of public opinion, while incognito he works as the master of the underworld in the Berlin of the 1920s. The disguises and masks he wears to chameleon-like impersonate identities increase his danger. He has the help of the coke addict Spoerri among other lackeys, and clandestinely manages a dense skein of criminals of all stripes, being him the undisputed apex of the pyramid. Mabuse will not hesitate to resort to threats and extortion to achieve his unspeakable goals.

The film is extremely long, with a total running time of more than four hours. It is structured in two parts, and divided into acts, like a play. Despite the length of the film, the narrative and visual rhythm is very agile.

As in “Metropolis” (1927) it was Thea von Harbou, the director’s wife, who wrote the screenplay, taking as a reference the protagonist of a novel.

Mabuse plays not only with money, but also with the fate of other people. This is what Cara Carozza rightly tells him. It seems that psychopaths enjoy the feeling of holding other people’s destinies in their hands. Cara, for her part, is no saint, for she plays a double game, cajoling the naive Hull to win the favors of the dreaded Mabuse.

Mabuse tells the bored countess that there is only one thing that can free her from monotony: playing with people and their destinies. He also deals with occult matters. The symbolism of the Countess’s dress, with the spirals, is striking, as well as the decoration (African totems?) and the furniture (especially the chairs) in the Count’s house.

Cara Carozza (played by the Norwegian Aud Egede-Nissen) is completely at the mercy of Mabuse, she is fascinated by him, while the criminal just uses her, without any scruples.

Mabuse, besides being a master criminal, is also an expert in the occult arts and mind control.

La Carozza’s soul is parasitized by the psychopath Mabuse. The Count fails to understand that his strange behavior during the game was due to Mabuse’s hypnosis, and believes that it is a mental problem of his own… and goes to seek remedy from the architect of his ills. Mabuse imposes a quarantine on his patient, as he wants to keep him isolated from the outside world so that he has no contact with anyone (especially the prosecutor). The Count believes that Mabuse will be able to help him get his wife back, when it is he who is holding her hostage.

The film can be considered a crime thriller. And it even has some characteristics of espionage, as Mabuse’s agents are infiltrated everywhere. Thus, it is very difficult for Wenk to identify the leader of the organization, who for him remains incognito for most of the film.

It is very interesting to see how towards the end Mabuse himself (and his organization) recognizes himself as a “state within the state”, and proclaims to have conducted “a war”. The methods employed by Mabuse are in fact consistent with those of the deep state:

Counterfeiting currency to provoke inflation, manipulation of the stock market, multiple false personalities, constant surveillance (through his multiple agents) while keeping himself always hidden or protected by one of his disguises… Also striking is Mabuse’s use of trigger words for the mental control of his victims. In the case of the hypnosis to which he subjects Wenk, he uses on one occasion a Chinese expression “Tsi-nan-fu” and on another, the word “Melior”. Mabuse is not only a gambler, he is also a black magician. The film, which is over four hours long, is divided into two parts, the second of which is called “Inferno”.

Mabuse is masterfully played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who would later bring to life the mad scientist Rotwang from “Metropolis” (1927). Klein-Rogge was married to screenwriter Thea von Harbou before she married Fritz Lang.

Among Mabuse’s hitmen, the fat Hawasch, played by the Hungarian Károly Húszar, stands out because of his particularly dour appearance. This actor had an uncertain end: according to wikipedia he died in 1943 in a Soviet forced labor camp, but imdb states that he died in 1942 in Tokyo.

The soundtrack (the accompanying music, remember that it is a silent film), composed among others by Aljoscha Zimermann a long time later (in 1990), deserves to be highlighted.

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