LA VENGANZA DEL DOCTOR MABUSE (1972)

la venganza del doctor mabuse 1972 Directed by Jess Frank (Jess Franco)

(a.k.a. DR.M SCHLAGT ZU; DER MANN DER SICH MABUSE NANNTE; DER DOKTOR MABUSE) In a remote lighthouse lab, criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse conducts mind control experiments on women who are kidnapped by his assistants. Mabuse uses a mineral from stolen moon rocks (!) to create a ray that turns people into obedient robots (cf ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS-1966). A stripper (Ewa Stroemberg), a witness to one of the abductions, in turn becomes the next victim. Under Mabuse’s telepathic guidance, she seduces an American diplomat. These rapidly escalating events are investigated by Thomas, the local Sheriff, who finally manages to locate the hideout. Mabuse is killed during a melee involving his brain damaged henchman resulting in the lab’s destruction. This obscure feature represents the last gasp of the long-lived Dr. Mabuse franchise, which had seen better days in the Fritz Lang thrillers of the 1920s and 30s. Franco’s movie has a very rushed look, For instance, one scene is partially obscured by a section of the lens-cap which appears not to have been properly removed. Also, when the cops arrive at Dr. Mabuse’s hideout, the shadow of the Manuel Merino’s camera falls over the arriving police car. Some amusing touches include Mabuse’s hulking henchman (Moises Rocha), who with his sewn-up skull cap looks like a refugee from a Hammer horror entry. The Red Garter «nightclub,» which is obviously just a parking garage with a few battered chairs and tables placed inside, is the setting for Ewa Stroemberg’s minimalist striptease (the German version of which contains topless nudity removed in the Spanish cut). The office of Sheriff Thomas (Fred Williams) looks like a leftover from some spaghetti western, and Williams appears throughout the film in a cowboy costume. Perhaps this aspect was Franco’s satire of the then popular Eurowestern craze. Despite these technical glitches — and that Jack Taylor is miscast an evil mastermind (he appears too normal to be an evil mastermind, but that does support a banality-of-evil subtext)– the action is punctuated by a «le jazz hot» music score, as well as Manuel Merino’s stylish-on-a-budget photography. Most interesting are some extremely wide-angle compositions in Mabuse’s lab and during the abduction scenes, which distort spatial relationships and employ lighting and color in a way which reminds one of Kubrick’s dystopian sci-fi CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which had a much larger budget and was critically acclaimed while Franco’s live action comic book sank without a trace. Producer Artur Brauner also released an alternate version with footage which Franco did not direct. He also didn’t sufficiently promote the film or add it to CCC’s catalogue. The final judgement on this is to try to find the longer Spanish language version and take the German language version, available on the CCC DVD with a grain of salt. To reconstruct a proper version one would need to include scenes from both.  The robbery sequence in the German cut has footage obviously not directed by Jess Franco. It was likely added by producer and CCC founder/CEO Artur Brauner, who is also co-credited with the film’s story. It wasn’t included in the CCC sales catalog and Brauner pretty much buried the film instead of trying to give it a wide theatrical release. This outcome was all to typical of Franco’s career. Films which were condemned to obscurity/failure by frustrated producers. Seeing the film almost 50 years after it was made one immediately thinks of it as kind of animated photo comic or Eurospy fumetti, complete with the legendary Dr. Mabuse continuing his experiments and planning to throw the civilized world into chaos. It must be remembered that Lang’s series began in the cauldron of German post World War I Expressionism and when the country had Hitler and the Third Reich in its tormented womb. In 1933 Lang would make THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, which Hitler admired to the point of having Goebbels offer Lang the reins of the German film industry. Lang politely withdrew and left the country rather than make Nazi propaganda. His wife, the Nazi supporter Thea Von Harbou, stayed. Lang returned to Germany in 1960 to make his final film, DIE TAUSEND AUGEN DER DR. MABUSE, produced by Artur Brauner. Lang refused to make follow-ups, which were given to directors such as Dr. Harald Reinl, and were commercial successes. LA VENGANZA DEL DR. MABUSE is a far cry from the Lang series, but not uninteresting. The final Lang film can be seen as a template for the 1960s Bond spy series. Gert Frobe who played the inspector in Lang’s film went on to play the villain Goldfinger in what is still the most famous of the James Bond epics. Franco’s LA VENGANZA… looks impoverished in comparison. The director himself appears in it as the Sheriff’s superior who demands that the abductions ordered by Mabuse be solved post haste. They are, with an assist from plot elements from Franco’s 1961 GRITOS EN LA NOCHE, which was already a decade old. Franco repeatedly points his camera into the setting sun and bright lights as if trying to saturate his mise-en-scene with chromatic energy if not dynamically staged action. The final showdown has the look and aesthetic  of a grade C western.  One wonders what Fritz Lang, who had publicly admired Franco’s 1967 NECRONOMICON, would have made of it.   (C) Robert Monell 1999-New Version 2020.