Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Oct 08, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Jesús FrancoRelease Date(s)
1972 (August 19, 2025)Studio(s)
Copercines/Fénix Cooperativa/Tele-Cine Film und Fernsehproduktion (Kino Cult/Kino Lorber)- Film/Program Grade: C
- Video Grade: C+
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Director Fritz Lang based a series of films on the 1921 Norbert Jacques novel Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, about a criminal mastermind. Starting in 1922 with a silent film of the same name, Lang would go on to direct The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) and The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960). Five additional Dr. Mabuse films were made under different directors between 1961 and 1964 until Jess Franco capped the series with The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse in 1972.
Dr. Mabuse (Jack Taylor) is hardly recognizable as the sinister, calculating hypnotist of earlier films. He’s a suave criminal mastermind planning to steal government secrets and obsessed with space lasers, adding a touch of sci-fi to the film. To get these secrets, Mabuse has chosen poison gas and an imposing assistant, femme fatale Leslie (Beni Cardoso). Instead of psychological games, Mabuse holds onto power in his part of the criminal underworld with intimidation, lurid means, and thug-assisted menace. At one point, he stages a robbery of moon rocks from a scientific institute. Mabuse has a disfigured assistant, Andros (Moises Augusto Rocha)—a combination of a Bond villain and a creation from Frankenstein’s lab—to do some of his dirty work.
Small-town Inspector Thomas (Fred Williams) gets wind of the scheme and tries to get to the bottom of who’s responsible, allowing for location shifts from dimly-lit nightclubs to deeply shadowed backrooms. Along the way, there are episodes of violence. The connection between scenes isn’t always clear, and suggests either missing footage or poor editing.
Ewa Stromberg, a veteran of Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos, appears briefly as striptease dancer Jenny, adding exotic sexual appeal with a dose of nudity. Franco himself makes an appearance, providing his Hitchcock-like personal stamp on the film.
The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse is clever in terms of how Franco combines a low-budget’s limitations with over-the-top sequences. Shadows abound, making cramped sets appear moody and color is liberally splashed in nightclub scenes. Lighting, however, varies from shadowy to bright, depending on the scene, but this gives the picture an inconsistent look—a sort of patchwork of scenes rather than a smooth visual flow. Despite its brief running time, the film’s ponderous dialogue slows its pace. Franco fails to build momentum as the story approaches its climax and, as a result, suspense and tension are weak.
The acting overall is poor, and it often seems as if we’re watching a filmed version of community theater. Because Franco has consciously decided not to be bound by Mabuse’s established persona and special abilities, the title character has been reduced to a generic villain. Why do that? It’s like making a new Sherlock Holmes movie and eliminating the famed detective’s powers of deduction. We have a watered down, and not terribly interesting Mabuse as the focus of a tepid thriller that lacks the psychological impact of earlier films. It’s more a pulp interpretation of the deviously talented criminal than a welcome added chapter in his screen legacy.
The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse was shot by director of photography Manuel Merino on 35mm film with spherical lenses and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The Blu-ray presentation has many scratches, mostly vertical, throughout the film, and there are occasional embedded dirt specks and a bit of emulsion clouding. A few shots appear slightly out of focus. The film has a yellowish cast, which resembles many 70s movies. Franco likes garish colors and color filters that flood his sets, but in some scenes, the colors appear washed out. Alternately, there are office scenes that tend to be dark even though characters are providing exposition and they aren’t inherently suspenseful. Extreme close-ups are used, especially on Andros’ scarred face. Some scenes look overexposed, others underexposed.
The soundtrack is German 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. English subtitles are an option. Dialogue is perfectly clear due to post dubbing. However, the dubbing work is sub-standard, undermining the original actors’ performances. The jazz score by Jess Franco and Rolf Kuhn is excellent and deserves a better film. It isn’t stereotypical thriller music with low, ominous chords, tinkling piano notes, and high-pitched strings. It’s more upbeat and suggests to the viewer that this film is more parody than serious crime drama.
Bonus material on the Blu-ray release from Kino Cult (#34 in the line) is limited to the following:
- Audio Commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
Audio Commentary – Film Historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson provide a spirited overview of The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse, which holds the distinction of being the last Mabuse feature film made. This isn’t the original Spanish version, La Vengenza Del Dr. Mabuse, but a re-edited German cut prepared by producer Artur Brauner, who wasn’t pleased with Franco’s director’s cut. The on-screen title is Dr. M Strikes Back. The film was first screened in Berlin in December, 1972, and was never dubbed into English. The commentators give the running times as 75 minutes for the German version, 65 minutes for the Spanish version, though it’s believed a longer Spanish version exists. The jazz-influenced soundtrack is the same for both versions. The film is supposed to take place in the United States, near the Mexican border, but this might be an example of the “geography of mind,” in which the filmmakers use one location as a stand-in for another. The film originated as an authentic Mabuse film, but turned into a “ramshackle, pulpy thing.” To compensate for the film’s low budget, Franco resorts to psychedelic strobe lights, backlighting, weird colors, and fish-eye lenses to give it visual distinction. He wasn’t especially invested in his films’ special effects, but made the best of locations to give his films a sense of costly production design. The same character names appear from film to film. Franco felt that Brauner was the best producer he ever worked for. The commentators provide a discussion of Jess Franco’s best-known films as well as brief overviews of some of the cast members noting that Jack Taylor (Mabuse) was a known actor in Spanish films. Franco’s goal was to make films that could be re-released years after their original run to extend their “shelf life.” However, many of his pictures lacked strong commercial appeal. This Dr. Mabuse is patterned more like a Bond villain than as a mysterious criminal mastermind with a command of hypnosis. Certain gratuitous, protracted scenes that don’t serve any purpose were added to “beef up” the running time. The additional footage is lifeless and reminiscent of bland 1970s made-for-TV movies. The film was re-edited without input from Franco. Fritz Lang’s career in the United States was uneven because he didn’t have the clout he did in Germany. Howarth and Thompson talk about the Mabuse films made after Lang’s first three. The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse didn’t have wide distribution. It’s uneven, but has its merits. There has been considerable scholarship on Jess Franco’s films in recent years. As the commentators note in their concluding remarks, “This is a very strange film.”
The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse is a disappointment on several levels. It fails to treat the title character as he was portrayed in earlier films. It lacks a consistent style, sometimes a parody of evil mastermind movies and other times a serious thriller. The acting is poor, compounded by poor voice work by dubbing actors. Suspense is at a minimum, leading to dull sequences. And the exploitative use of nudity, though a trademark of Franco’s work, draws attention from the main plot.
- Dennis Seuling