Dr. Mabuse is a fictional character, a villain, created by author Norbert Jacques but made most famous by the three films German director Fritz Lang made about him over a period of almost forty years. Though the character was designed to deliberately mimic pulp-style villains in the mold of Dr. Fu Manchu and particularly Fantômas, the latter of which was a direct inspiration, Jacques' aim was both to capture the commercial success of such pulp tales and to make political comment on the establishment of the day, in much the same way that the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had done just a few years previously. A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. ... Snidely Whiplash, a stereotypical villain. ... Friedrich Anton Christian Lang (December 5, 1890 - August 2, 1976) was an Austrian film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer, one of the most famous emigrés from Germanys school of expressionism to work in Hollywood. ... Pulp magazines, often called simply the pulps, were inexpensive text fiction magazines widely published in the 1920s through the 1950s. ... This article is about the fictional literature character. ... Fantômas, a fictional master criminal and villain, is the subject of a series of early- 20th century French detective thrillers. ... The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari in German) is a groundbreaking 1919 silent film directed by Robert Wiene. ...

Description

As befits his pulp influences, Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise like Fantômas and a master of 'telepathic hypnosis', not unlike the hypnotist Dr. Caligari. Like Fu Manchu, Mabuse commits very few of his crimes in person, instead operating primarily through a network of agents acting out schemes he has laid down for them. Mabuse's agents range from career criminals following him for money, to innocents blackmailed or hypnotized into cooperation, to dupes so successfully manipulated that they do not realize that they are doing exactly what Mabuse planned for them to do. Telepathy from the Greek τηλε, tele, distant, and πάθεια, patheia, feeling, is the supposed ability to communicate information from one mind to another, and is one form of extra-sensory perception or anomalous cognition. ... Hypnosis does not have a single definition that is universally applicable. ... For other uses, see Blackmail (disambiguation). ...

There are other things, however, which makes Mabuse unusual among pulp-style villains. One of them is that his identity changes; that is, one 'Dr. Mabuse' may be defeated, the human being bearing that identity going to an asylum, a jail, or a grave, only for a new 'Dr. Mabuse' to later appear, with the same methods, the same powers of hypnosis, and the same criminal genius. There are even suggestions in some installments of the series that the 'real' Mabuse is some sort of spirit that possesses host after host. A spirit or spiritual being is a non-corporeal entity found in many religions and belief systems throughout the world. ... Spiritual possession is a concept of many religions and tales, where it is believed that a spiritual beings may take temporary control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in behaviour. ...

Another trait that separates Mabuse from similar characters is the self-destructive bent to his personality and his plans. (Some have even suggested that Jacques took the name Mabuse not, as he claimed, from the painter who used that pseudonym, but from a pun: M'abuse is French for I abuse myself.) Several times Mabuse's plans are foiled only because he himself interfered with them, as if trying to bring down on himself his own downfall. This dovetails with another important distinction about Mabuse: whereas Fu Manchu aims to conquer the world, then rule it, Mabuse makes clear more than once that his intent is to destroy the world -- and then rule the ashes. This may explain why the character is regarded in Germany almost more as a horror icon, akin to Dracula or Frankenstein, than as a criminal mastermind of adventure tales akin to Fu Manchu. Bela Lugosi as Dracula United States stamp Dracula is a fictional character, arguably the most famous vampire in fiction. ... Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. ...

History

Dr. Mabuse first appeared in the novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (trans. "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler") by Norbert Jacques. The novel was the beneficiary of unprecedented publicity efforts and became a best-seller immediately. Fritz Lang, already an accomplished director, worked with his wife Thea von Harbou to translate the novel to the screen, where it also became a huge hit. (The film history can be confusing on the subject of this film adaptation; Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) is technically a single film with a running time of almost four hours, but it was released in two separate sections: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, An Image of the Times and Inferno, People of the Times. This practice was popular at the time but fell into disuse; in recent time the practice was revived by Quentin Tarantino with his film Kill Bill). Thea von Harbou (December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954) was a German actress and author. ... Quentin Tarantino, playing Mr. ... Kill Bill is the fourth feature film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino released in two parts: Volume 1 & Volume 2. ...

After the great success of both the novel and the film, it was almost a decade before anything more was done with the character. Jacques had been working on a sequel to the novel, titled Mabuse's Colony, in which Mabuse has died and a group of his followers are starting an island colony based on the principles set out in Mabuse's manifesto. However, the novel was stalled and unfinished. After conversations with Lang and von Harbou, Jacques agreed to shelve the novel and the sequel instead became the 1933 movie Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, in which the Mabuse of 1920 (still played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a mute prisoner in an insane asylum, but has for some time been obsessively scribbling out meticulous plans for crime and terrorism -- plans that are being carried out by a gang of criminals in the world outside, who receive their orders from a literally shadowy, unknown figure who has identified himself to them only as Dr. Mabuse. A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. ... 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) is a 1933 movie by director Fritz Lang, his second sound film, and the second to feature the villain Dr. Mabuse (if the first, , is counted as one movie in two parts rather than as two films). ... A psychiatric hospital (also called a mental hospital or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... Terrorism is a controversial term with multiple definitions. ...

Filmography

• 1922 Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (dir. Fritz Lang)
  • English title: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
• 1933 Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang)
  • English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
  • The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse is a not-very-faithful adaptation of Testament made primarily for American audiences.
  • A French-language version was filmed at the same time, on the same sets, but with an entirely different cast (except for one actor who spoke both German and French fluently, and Klein-Rogge, whose dialogue remained in German.)
• 1960 Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Fritz Lang - the first of the Mabuse films that was produced by Artur Brauner)
  • English title: The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
• 1961 Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl)
  • English title: The Return of Dr. Mabuse
• 1962 Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Harald Reinl)
  • English title: The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse)
• 1962 Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Werner Klingler - remake of the 1933 film)
  • English title: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
• 1963 Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (dir. Paul May)
  • English title: Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (literally: Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse)
• 1964 Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (dir. Hugo Fregonese)
  • English title: The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse (literally: The Death Rays of Dr. Mabuse)