Fifth part of the Doctor Mabuse film series
After the previous part THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE was not so successful at the box office, the West German film producer Artur BRAUNER and his CCC FILMKUNST had to make some changes to the franchise. For the first time, the Mabuse series is crossed with the Bryan Edgar WALLACE series, using the crime novel THE WORLD IS AT THE GAME / THE DEVICE by Edgar WALLACE's son as a template. This enabled the German villain Dr. Mabuse also extends his criminal feelers to the United Kingdom. There was also a change from CONSTANTIN film distribution to the competing GLORIA film distribution run by the busy Ilse KUBASCHEWSKI. So there was a lot going on behind the scenes.
Doctor Mabuse (GERMAN FILM AWARD winner Wolfgang PREISS) is physically dead, but his ideas live on and have now been taken over by Dr. Pohland (Walter RILLA) taken possession. Together with his helpers (GERMAN FILM AWARD (h.c.) winner Dieter BORSCHE and Wolfgang LUKSCHY) he tries to get possession of a mysterious camera. With this device you can make other people do the craziest things, up to and including murder.
But the other side is also wide awake: Inspector Vulpius (GERMAN FILM AWARD winner Werner PETERS) from Hamburg and Major Tern (Peter van EYCK) from Scotland Yard team up. They also get help from the secret service (GERMAN FILM AWARD winner Klaus KINSKI) and from the major's smart mother (Agnes WINDECK), who likes to combine reading crime novels with tea time. And then there is the enchanting scientist's daughter Nancy (Sabine BETHMANN), who is so wonderfully helpless and in need of protection...
Good ideas for the plot do not make a successful crime film. The production by director Paul MAY (08/15 film series // AND THE FORESTS SING FOREVER / VIA MALA) is all too lame. You can tell that Lex BARKER is missing, who provided plenty of action in the second (THE RETURN OF DOKTOR MABUSE) and third part (THE INVISIBLE DOKTOR MABUSE) of the West German franchise. The character played by Sabine BETHMANN also seems all too out of date because of her annoying helplessness. Even Agnes WINDECK seems too sedate, just think of her famous torture performance in DER ZINKER (1963).
Hans NIELSEN and Ady BERBER can be seen in other roles. Ruth Barbara WILBERT plays Princess Diana, so someone must have had a prophetic gift... ;-)
A rather weaker horror crime thriller from the heyday of the genre! There would then only be one more film in the Doctor Mabuse franchise, THE DEATH RAY OF DR. MABUSE.
