Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" or "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" or "The Terror of Doctor Mabuse" is a West German black-and-white film from 1962, so this one has its 55th anniversary this year already. If you read the names Klingler, Fodor and Stemmle, you have a bunch of people who made this that were very experienced back then and very known too as they also worked on quite a few films that are still known today from back then. Anyway, the title is of course already a giveaway that this is one of the many German films about Dr. Mabuse and it is actually a remake of the 1933 film that was already a sound film as well. And fittingly with the popularity of the Mabuse character, it is no surprise that the likes of Gert Fröbe, Wolfgang Preiss, Rolf Eden and Harald Juhnke are in here. Also a very young Senta Berger plays the most important female character, even if this was not even from the very early days of her career. The story is similar to what you would expect if you have seen some other Mabuse stuff. It may sound a bit unfair, but I do believe that in terms of story, contents and characters you have seen all of the later Mabuse films if you have seen one of them. There is always a touch of mystery and a lot of crime. Cops investigating and nobody really ever knows how much Mabuse is involved in everything. The horror component is missing though in my opinion, even if the IMDb genre description thinks otherwise. The story here did not convince me either and as I wrote in the title of my review, this is quite a pity because the case offered potential for much more, especially also in my very subjective case because I like Fröbe quite a lot. But he just did not have the material here to shine and even his physical approach to the character was not working this time too much. The final scene with him (maybe that was a bit of horror) cannot make up for all the mediocrity before it. Having seen pretty much all the German Mabuse films (even one by Jess Franco), I must say that the character's appeal back then and still today remains a mystery to me. I give this movie here a thumbs-down as well and don't recommend watching it. 85 very forgettable minutes overall.

okami_ito This movie is so silly, you've got to love it. The way the actors keep a straight face to the nonsense their up to is absolutely delightful.There are countless great scenes to witness. My favorite one: When Inspector Lohmann studies Mabuses "secret" plans he's informed that a bank has been robbed. Immediately he pulls out the master-plan out of a heap of shabby looking pages. The "plan" is shown briefly. Do yourself a favor and push the stop-button there. You'll see some badly drawn figures, a few stars and the words "unternehmen stadbank" (operation city-bank?). That's the plan of a mastermind of crime! Watch the scene when informer "Locke" is chased by his gang. It's a very bad copy of the chase-scene in the beginning of the original version. It's good proof how good Fritz Lang actually was.

R Becker While TESTAMENT is preferable to the rather weak THOUSAND EYES OF DOCTOR MABUSE, you'd still be better off looking for the silent Mabuse films -- DOCTOR MABUSE, THE GAMBLER, for example. It just isn't the same without Fritz Lang, though Lang is not at his best after 1960, in my opinion (apart from his INDIAN TOMB two-parter, a stylish classic and direct influence on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM). Klingler tries, but he's just not up to the Master's standards.

amikus2000 The 3rd Dr. Mabuse with the team Wolfgang Preiss + Gert Fröbe is added here with C. Reigner. Meanwhile the 'Dr. Mabuse' had become well known in other continents, too. I think this movie is more finicky and tricky, than the others, but still tentious and good. So I recommend it.