Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

talisencrw As I generally greatly detest sequels, reboots and the like, especially of great filmic franchises created and led by outstanding filmmakers (ie., the Mabuse character and Fritz Lang) I initially had quite guarded reservations about seeing Reinl's version here. But it had significant strengths that made me quickly realize my fears were undeserved and that I, in fact, was in for a treat. The pace is whipcrack, the plot is intense and in Commissioner Lohmann, the villainous 'Goldfinger' (an excellent Gert Fröbe) pulls off a gritty cross between an Ed Asner and a Popeye Doyle-era Gene Hackman. I love how one of the ways Mabuse resorts to do away with pests pays homage to Lang's 'The Testament of Dr. Mabuse' from three decades prior. It certainly made me wary of churches, one-legged men and even laundry workers, for crying out loud, and part of the fear the film brings across is because in the back of our minds, we know this is precisely how the Nazis operated, studying fluoride as a mind-control agent. If there is any negative I got from the film, the Berlin police department (good ol' Lohmann notwithstanding) seemed the most unintelligent and incompetent sleuthing force this side of Inspector Clouseau. Definitely recommended for fans of thrillers and spy films.

classicsoncall The style and direction of the movie reminded me of the later British Hitchcock films as well as some of the Sherlock Holmes flicks of the 1930's and '40's, even though this German movie was made in 1961. The quality of the print I viewed also seemed to place it as an older film by a couple of decades, but in that regard it added to the atmosphere of the story. I'm not familiar with the prior Mabuse films as most of the other posters on this board are, so my review isn't influenced by those other works.Of course the mystery lies in the identity of the title character, regularly mentioned but never seen, with hints of his previous demise and possible after life as a ghost of some sort. The voice of Mabuse makes contact at various times with Inspector Lohmann (Gert Frobe) and a mysterious contact who could be an undercover policeman or a mob contact from a Chicago based syndicate. It's not enough that Lex Barker goes by Joe Como and Nick Scappio, but later takes on a third guise as Bob Arco. I thought Mabuse figured out his identity just a little too easily with the Maria hostage ruse; I would have thought the character would be more wary of a trick like that.I was a bit surprised to see that gruesome flamethrower death scene near the beginning of the story, particularly involving a woman. When a similar apparatus appeared later on with Maria (Dahlia Lavi) as a target I caught myself wincing a bit. I would have hated to see her go out like that.The story takes enough twists and turns to make it rather hard to follow as it nears the finale, and the payoff as to the identity of Mabuse came off as a downer actually since he wasn't a character introduced earlier in the story. There was enough mis-direction in the picture to suggest Mabuse as any number of people like Warden Wolf, the creepy Bohmler, or even Maria's father the Professor. Come to think of it, the Professor said he WAS Mabuse, and you kept watching for that to play itself out to no avail. So having Mabuse show up as someone else altogether was a bit of a disconnect for me. I did come away though wondering, as did Lohmann, that perhaps Mabuse found a way to escape his fate in a way that Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty managed to do on more than one occasion.

Hitchcoc I had heard that Gert Frobe was a pretty good actor. Most of us remember him in "Goldfinger," of course. He plays a multi-dimensional police detective who must pursue the wily Dr. Mabuse (whoever he might be). Working with a man imprisoned for his experimentation, a series of alleyways and twists and turns, leading to prisons, narrow escapes, and death, Frobe stays on the path, even though he doesn't seem to be respected by his adversary. The scientists daughter becomes a pawn in the game and complicates things. The pacing is pretty good and there are some surprises. And, as we know, super villains aren't all that easy to kill. Still, I liked the low key performance of Frobe and the way he is never intimidated by his discoveries.

Vigilante-407 This was another good entry in the Dr. Mabuse series, and a good German mystery movie in general. Gert Frobe is excellent as Lohmann, and Lex Barker is a welcome addition with his character, who keeps us on our toes by never really letting us know his true allegiances until late in the film. Once again though, a lot of traps and salient plot points are recycled from some of the previous Mabuse movies. The addition of the "Chicago Syndicate" element looks to have been added to make the movie more reachable to US audiences, but the film does manage to keep the unique verve that most German cinema had back in the fifties and sixties.