In the late 1950s and early 1960s, West Germany experienced a crime movie boom featuring mysterious masterminds, outlandish plots, and bizarre murder methods, shot in atmospheric black and white and frequently harkening back to the expressionist cinema of the silent era. The most interesting of these were the Dr. Mabuse films.
Dr. Mabuse was originally created in 1920 by Luxembourgian writer Norbert Jacques for his novel Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, based on a smuggler Jacques had observed on a ferry across Lake Constance shortly after the end of World War I.
In 1922, Norbert Jacques’ novel was adapted for the screen by Jacques’ friend Thea von Harbou and filmed by her then-husband, director Fritz Lang. Dr. Mabuse is a respected doctor specializing in the novel discipline of psychoanalysis. However, Mabuse is also the head of a criminal syndicate, and he uses his hypnotic abilities to manipulate people in key positions and cause a stock market crash.
It is easy to see how a demonic villain masquerading as a pillar of society while trying to cause economic ruin resonated with audiences in Germany’s Weimar Republic, battered by political and economic unrest. And so Dr. Mabuse the Gambler begot a sequel, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in 1933, also helmed by Fritz Lang. After his arrest, Mabuse is locked up in an insane asylum, frantically scribbling his testament. However, he continues to mastermind crimes, even though asylum director Professor Baum assures Inspector Lohmann of the Berlin police (who had debuted in Fritz Lang’s M two years before and was based on Ernst Gennat, head of the Berlin homicide department) that this is impossible. Yet the crimes continue, even after Mabuse is found dead in his cell. Eventually, it is revealed that Mabuse’s spirit possessed Professor Baum. The movie ends as it began, with Mabuse, now in Baum’s body, sitting in a cell, frantically scribbling his testament.
Norbert Jacques’ novels contained science fiction elements, but with Testament, Mabuse made the leap into the speculative realm for good. Testament also paved the way for Mabuse to return again and again. But for now, Mabuse’s career was over. The Nazis banned The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, since a charismatic and manipulative supervillain was a little too reminiscent of Germany’s new Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. Fritz Lang left Germany for Hollywood and Dr. Mabuse was forgotten. Or was he?
In the late 1950s, film producer Artur Brauner lured Fritz Lang back to Germany for three more movies. The first two were The Tiger of Eshnapur and The Indian Tomb, based on a novel by Thea von Harbou. The third movie, finally, heralded the return of Dr. Mabuse after twenty-seven years.
Released in 1960, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse begins with the murder of a journalist. The clues lead to the Hotel Luxor, which is equipped with hidden surveillance cameras in every room, which Dr. Mabuse uses to spy on the guests and blackmail them about their indiscretions. And if indiscretions do not occur on their own, Mabuse and his gang give matters a little push, such as tricking an American businessman into murdering the abusive husband of the beautiful woman in the room next door. It’s a fiendish and yet remarkably realistic scheme, especially since many East European luxury hotels were pretty much the Hotel Luxor during the Cold War.
Thousand Eyes is not a reboot but a sequel to the original Mabuse movies. Mabuse isn’t the only character to return. His nemesis, Inspector Lohmann, is back as well, and indeed it is Lohmann who links this new wave of crimes to the nigh-forgotten criminal mastermind from the Weimar era. In the end, Mabuse is unmasked as the blind medium Peter Cornelius, who reveals that he is psychiatrist Professor Jordan, strongly implied to be the same man whose mind Mabuse took over at the end of Testament.
Fritz Lang retired after Thousand Eyes. However, producer Artur Brauner recognized a lucrative franchise when he saw one and hired Harald Reinl, ski champion-turned-stunt performer-turned Leni Riefenstahl’s assistant-turned-director. Reinl’s sequel, entitled The Return of Dr. Mabuse, opened in international markets in 1961 (though the German title is the far more evocative Steel Web of Dr. Mabuse).
In Return/Steel Web, Mabuse allies with the Chicago mob and uses his hypnotic abilities to make prisoners commit crimes on his behalf. Mabuse seemingly dies at the end, but he would return only a year later in The Invisible Claws of Dr. Mabuse, where the series made a full turn into science fiction territory when Mabuse tries to get his hands on an invisibility device. Also in 1962, a remake of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse appeared, where Mabuse hops bodies once again to possess a psychiatrist.
Mabuse relocates to London for 1963’s Scotland Yard versus Dr. Mabuse, where he uses a hypnosis device to wreak havoc. The following year, Mabuse tries his hand at James Bond villainy in The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse, where he acquires and vacates yet another body.
Death Ray bombed and seemed to be the end of Mabuse’s career yet again—but nothing can keep a good-at-being-bad supervillain down, so he later reappeared in other forms and series. In 1966, Mabuse appeared in the TV series The Green Hornet. Director Jess Franco included Mabuse in The Girl from Rio in 1969 and in The Vengeance of Dr. Mabuse in 1972. The villainous mad scientist from the 1970 British horror movie Scream and Scream Again was called Dr. Mabuse in the German dub. In 1984, Mabuse made an appearance in the Austrian crime series Kottan Investigates. Finally, in 1990, Clause Chabrol remade Dr. Mabuse the Gambler as Dr. M.
Dr. Mabuse also appeared in several comics and audio dramas. The teen detectives of the TKKG YA mystery series tangled with a Mabuse-like character, as did the early twentieth century detective Professor van Dusen. Volker Kutscher’s Gereon Rath mysteries, upon which the TV series Babylon Berlin is based, feature a blatant Mabuse stand-in called Dr. Marlow, though the character was changed for the TV version. And three new Dr. Mabuse movies have appeared in the US since 2013.
And so Dr. Mabuse continues his quest for the global tyranny of crime because it is impossible to keep a body-hopping malevolent spirit quiescent for long. It seems one thing is certain: Mabuse will always return in some form.
https://seattlein2025.org/2025/07/18/fantastic-fiction-return-of-the-body-hopping-supervillain-the-thousand-eyes-of-dr-mabuse/