As Jeffrey Sconce brilliantly describes in his book Haunted Media, new technologies have always been a source of great wonder and terrible fears. With each technological advancement, popular media in general and Hollywood (America’s “subconscious” as embattled film critic Armond White puts it) in particular represented the new gadgets as containing a disembodied Unknown capable of invading the safe haven of our homes and/or bringing terror and fear to our lives. Radios could establish contact with the world of the dead, televisions could suck humans into an otherworldly void, and the internet was capable of infiltrating our minds and perverting the country’s youth.
Every decade has had its own technological obsessions, and with that the Hollywood pendant of “conscious” or “awakened” technologies out to get you (just watch how much home improvement technologies, greatly en vogue in the 1990’s, were utilized in the X-Files as a source of terror and death), but the 60’s put a man on the moon and saw the advent of the first video game – both starting points for the increasing “technologization” of our lives.
With spacecrafts, barcodes and videogames altering the perception of what man made technology could accomplish, surely, inventing a machine that could control a human being’s mind was not too outlandish a concept. Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse, the fifth installment of a Dr. Mabuse series for German television, tapped into this fascination of technologies gone wrong, as the spirit of the megalomaniac Mabuse takes over the body of Professor Pohland who gets a mind-controlling machine in his possession. Now able to turn hordes of policemen into docile servants of his cause (namely destruction and mayhem), seemingly nothing can stop him.
And if that over-the-top premise didn’t already tip you off to the film’s rather conservative politics, wait until you hear the solution to the problem of the mind control. As it turns out, wearing a hearing aid makes one immune against the brain seizing waves of Mabuse’s evil apparatus. So the leading detective’s mother, a wacky old lady reading too many crime novels but always a step ahead of the real police, zips by and brings Scotland Yard a suitcase filled with hearing aids which they dutifully wear to defeat Mabuse.
But one can say this in the movie’s favor: within its ludicrous conceit, Scotland Yard Vs. Mabuse manages to build a more or less coherent narrative with clear goals for the characters, some juicy plot twists, and a reasonable amount of tension towards the end. However, Paul May’s uninspired directorial work can’t do the movie any good, and a lot of the performances are too hammy to be taken seriously.
Every decade has had its own technological obsessions, and with that the Hollywood pendant of “conscious” or “awakened” technologies out to get you (just watch how much home improvement technologies, greatly en vogue in the 1990’s, were utilized in the X-Files as a source of terror and death), but the 60’s put a man on the moon and saw the advent of the first video game – both starting points for the increasing “technologization” of our lives.
With spacecrafts, barcodes and videogames altering the perception of what man made technology could accomplish, surely, inventing a machine that could control a human being’s mind was not too outlandish a concept. Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse, the fifth installment of a Dr. Mabuse series for German television, tapped into this fascination of technologies gone wrong, as the spirit of the megalomaniac Mabuse takes over the body of Professor Pohland who gets a mind-controlling machine in his possession. Now able to turn hordes of policemen into docile servants of his cause (namely destruction and mayhem), seemingly nothing can stop him.
And if that over-the-top premise didn’t already tip you off to the film’s rather conservative politics, wait until you hear the solution to the problem of the mind control. As it turns out, wearing a hearing aid makes one immune against the brain seizing waves of Mabuse’s evil apparatus. So the leading detective’s mother, a wacky old lady reading too many crime novels but always a step ahead of the real police, zips by and brings Scotland Yard a suitcase filled with hearing aids which they dutifully wear to defeat Mabuse.
But one can say this in the movie’s favor: within its ludicrous conceit, Scotland Yard Vs. Mabuse manages to build a more or less coherent narrative with clear goals for the characters, some juicy plot twists, and a reasonable amount of tension towards the end. However, Paul May’s uninspired directorial work can’t do the movie any good, and a lot of the performances are too hammy to be taken seriously.
Kinski, in a welcomed reversal of his usual 60’s villain film work, plays a cop who falls under Mabuse’s spell, but is rescued just in time and helps to defeat the villain. It’s rather light fare that lacks the charm of his Edgar Wallace performances because he can’t infuse the role with the detached irony he exhibits in the other films.
Kinski always said that the only criteria for accepting a film role was how much money it paid. And after watching a good dozen of these krimis, and comparing them to his recitals of Francois Villon poems, or his reading of Romeo and Juliet of the time, one can begin to understand why he despised film so much. He was a force of nature when he performed material that suited him. Unfortunately, all these German krimis didn’t suit him at all.
Kinski always said that the only criteria for accepting a film role was how much money it paid. And after watching a good dozen of these krimis, and comparing them to his recitals of Francois Villon poems, or his reading of Romeo and Juliet of the time, one can begin to understand why he despised film so much. He was a force of nature when he performed material that suited him. Unfortunately, all these German krimis didn’t suit him at all.
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