The Many Masks of Dr. Mabuse: Mabuse in the 1960s

by Holger Haase

Dr. Mabuse! The name evokes images of a mysterious figure hiding behind a thousand masks, bent on taking over society through clever conspiracies playing on the people's fear and paranoia. Created by Norbert Jacques for his novel DR. MABUSE, DER SPIELER, the character became world famous in two classic movies by Fritz Lang, DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (1922) and THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1933). This book will look at Lang's lesser known third Mabuse film, THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960), as well as analyse five subsequent Mabuse movies filmed and released in Germany during the 1960s. These six films were riding high on the popular wave of Krimi movies at the time, German language thrillers mainly inspired by the works of Edgar Wallace. What the 1960s Mabuse may have been lacking in artistic panache and critical subtext, they sure made up in fast paced action sequences and conspiratorial world building. They featured a range of popular German and international actors such as Gert Fröbe, Lex Barker, Wolfgang Preiss, Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Werner Peters, Karin Dor, Klaus Kinski, Senta Berger and many more making these essential viewing for anyone interested in classic German cult movies.During the course of the series the movies featured a mélange of diverse elements, combining aspects of Krimi, Sci Fi and Euro-Spy films. THE DEATH RAY OF DR. MABUSE even featured some clever underwater fight sequences that would later be mirrored in the more famous THUNDERBALL!While those 1960s films continued to be popular in Germany, outside of its country of origin they have remained strangely elusive and are often difficult to obtain. This book aims at making information about these productions available to a wider international audience.

41 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 10, 2020

About the author

Born in Germany. Living in Ireland. Lover of cult films and paperbacks. Photographer. German tutor. Salaryman. Loves to travel.

As a writer I have written a lot of cult film related reviews for various websites and fanzines and am currently in the process of making some of the older material more easily accessible via e-Books while also creating some new stuff.

Most important for me is a series of books dedicated to the German Krimi and Thriller movies of the 1960s, the first of which "The Many Masks of Dr. Mabuse" has just been published.

As a reader my tastes are pretty eclectic but genres that I tend to read a lot are:

*Crime and Mystery - Great fan of Sherlock Holmes in all his incarnations, Modesty Blaise, James Bond, other serial heroes and villains (e.g. Fu Manchu), love Noir novels, especially Cornell Woolrich
*Books about cinema - Great fan of all things horror or trash with a deep undying love for the classic Hammer movies but also love all things Eurotrash
*Classic novels - Will I ever finish all the 1001 books I need to read before I die? Nope, but I will die trying
*Horror/SciFi - Love those genres and need to urgently revisit some of the classics of my youth. I have, however, some surprising gaps in my knowledge and am more familiar with Guy N Smith than Stephen King.
*Graphic Novels - Well, comics, as I like to call them. I used to never include them in my list of books as I believe they are a totally different media format but what can I say: they make my reading list appear much bigger than it often is.

Oh, and I *do* buy books for their covers as I really love the vintage 1960s/70s paperback design and especially some of the vigilante style men's adventure novels of the time.

Reviews

[Larry Sampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun read. Having the seen the original Dr. Mabuse films I now regret not being able to find copies of the 1960's film. Holger Haase well written and researched guide make me want to find a way to see these films.

[Dennis Sisterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very concise yet highly informative short book -or long essay - by a writer who clearly knows his stuff and loves it... warts and all, to use his own concluding phrase. It serves as an excellent companion to the Eureka Blu-ray box set "Mabuse Lives", which includes all the films described here, but it's best to read this after watching the films, not before, since despite his stated intention to reveal no spoilers, some of his plot details sail a bit too close to the wind in that respect.