"Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse" or "The Return of Dr. Mabuse" is a German movie from 55 years ago that continues the story of the famous Dr. Mabuse that was already a crowd pleaser several decades earlier during the silent film era. It mixes once again the usual formula of making a movie about a criminal mastermind and include some film-noir and horror references. Plus there is of course always a beautiful female. The film is like all/most of the others in black-and-white. Unfortunately, the story is usually underwhelming. looking at how Sean Connery's James Bond was born at the same time in the United States, it becomes painfully obvious how inferior German cinema was around that time. The crimes as a whole are fairly uninteresting and the writing is not really inspired. The only thing that kept this from being a total disappointment for me is probably the fact that Gert Fröbe was on board and I am quite a fan. The title is pretty nice too, but nothing in the film lives up to it. Also you can occasionally see references to all the German Edgar Wallace crime films, so if you like these, then you may even enjoy this Mabuse movie. I don't like them either. My favorite scene in here was maybe when the guy sits in the shadows and the cop shoots him before we find out he was just a puppet on Mabuse's strings. But there weren't many more good scenes like this. Certainly not enough, even for a film that is fairly short at 85 minutes. I don't recommend the watch. Thumbs down.
Review of The Return of Dr. Mabuse
