Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (1963) User Reviews (7)

Mother knows best

[feindlicheubernahme · 4/10 · 6 September 2023]

Honestly, when the hero's mum is 10 times better at putting together clues about the case at hand than he is, maybe he should just quit. The routine seems to be that Major Tern's mother makes a deduction, he dismisses it and then, five minutes later, realizes she was right.

Major Tern basically has the appearance of a 50-year-old Ken doll, only with half the personality and a quarter of the intelligence. He's never even realized that his own mother, whom he lives with, wears a hearing aid. And when he discovers that hearing aids can somehow neutralize the effects of the mind control machine (this is the kind of dirty, gritty plot that would taken The Wire to a whole new level of realism), it doesn't occur to him to order a bunch of them for the good guys. Mumsy has to think of it later.

(Hang on a second. What's the military doing in Scotland Yard anyway? Oh, well, the Wallace Sr. Films have all the English bobbies running around packing shooters, so why not?) I'm not too sure what Mabuse's plan is, apart from stealing a few million pounds from a train. I do know he's very lucky that Princess Diana (my god, these scriptwriters can see the future!) just so happens to have a collar containing the exact rare minerals or something that he needs to make something. Okay, I confess. I kind of started zoning out and doing other stuff, like online shopping on my phone, so parts of the film slipped by mercifully quickly.

On the positive side, a big shout out to my boy Werner Peters. He da man. He lends a sheen of class to the Wallace films, many of which don't deserve it. As a super rare treat, Klaus Kinski plays a fully paid-up good guy - well, until he goes bad for a bit. But then he goes good again, so the treat is intact. However, ol' Klausy seems to be being paid by the word and the budget is low, so he doesn't actually say much.

I won't spoil the ending for you, except to tell you that the good guys win. And the bad guys lose. Got that? At least Peter van Eyck has the good grace to look embarrassed when it's time for the cheesy kiss with the much younger woman that normally serves as the final shot for this kind of film.

No, seriously, have a look. Right at the end. Nancy, having totally gotten over the death of her beloved uncle a day or two ago, and having known Tern for the same length of time, has just (only half-jokingly) suggested she'd like to marry him tomorrow. Now van Eyck's supposed to go in for the kiss. The poor guy's blushing like a 10-year-old whose parents have taken him to their nudist camp for the first time. He kisses her on the hand, on the cheek, anywhere but on the lips and then he just holds on to her for dear life and prays to God that the director yells "Cut!"

B Movie.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 14 January 2010]

I'm not familiar with the whole Dr. Mabuse series but I did recently watch "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" and didn't find it especially interesting -- Fritz Lang or no Fritz Lang. This one is, if anything, an improvement, though the metric is a just-noticeable-difference.

Dr. Mabuse is at large again, though he's supposed to be dead, and this time he's haunting London. German detectives join Scotland Yard inspector Peter Van Eyck to track him down.

Well, they certainly OUGHT to track him down. He and his kidnapped British scientist have developed a secret ray that operates like a flash camera. But instead of taking the subject's picture, it hypnotizes him into obeying Mabuse's orders. The spell lasts until the victim wakes up. This is not meant, I hope, as some kind of allegory involving the Third Reich.

The print on my DVD was tacky -- really fuzzy -- and the score was terrible, 1950s jazz with blaring trumpets during the exciting moments and vibes during the suspenseful ones.

What is Dr. Mabuse's agenda, anyway? He has hypnotized just about everybody who counts, including a member of the Royals. Under his spell, there is talk of "a new government." In a James Bond movie, such a Napoleon of Crime would want to rule the world. Here, Mabuse just wants to rob the Royal Mail.

There were hundreds of these movies ground out as second features by Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s -- Boston Blackie, Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, The Falcon, Mr. Moto, The Man in the Brown MacKintosh, The Cowardly Lion, Sherlock Holmes, The Wizard of Oz, Philo Vance, Philo Logy, The Thin Man, The Fat Man, The Mesomorph, The Logical Positivist. They came and went without much notice except that they wound up somehow in the stash of Turner Movie Classics. That, alas, is the only immortality this movie deserves.

Hypnosis ray, my foot!

West German DOKTOR MABUSE Franchise (Part 5) with Peter van EYCK, Sabine BETHMANN and Klaus KINSKI

[ZeddaZogenau · 6/10 · 24 March 2024]

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.

The eternal hunt for the criminal mastermind

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 9 July 2016]

"Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse" or "Scotland Yard in Pursuit of Dr. Mabuse" is a West German movie from the years 1963 and there are actually a handful more German and English titles for this one. The original language in the film is German and even if there are German films from the decades before that have color, this is still a black-and-white film. Like most of the other Mabuse films from the 1960s, this one runs for 90 minutes. The director is Paul May and two writers adapted the story by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of the famous Edgar Wallace. The main character is not played by Gert Froebe this time, but by Peter van Eyck, who also should not be unknown to Mabuse film lovers. And there are more familiar faces such as Borsche, Peters, Windeck, Preiss and Klaus Kinski of course. The components in this film are the usual. It is once again police vs Mabuse as the title already says. They can never be sure where he is or if he is even alive. Technology plays a role in here and Mabuse also manages to control people's minds again, which is also a common occurrence in these crime films about him. As a whole, I cannot say I enjoyed the watch very much. Then again, I have never been the biggest fan of these Mabuse films and the absence of Froebe who I always like is not helping either. I do not recommend the watch.

Dr Mabuse may just defeat Scotland Yard this time.

[evilskip · 7/10 · 5 January 2000]

The Dr Mabuse series was revived in 1960 by none other than Fritz Lang(1000 Eyes Of Dr Mabuse).A total of six were released from 1960 to 1964.This is the fifth entry.

Dr Mabuse has taken over the mind of a professor.It's confusing as heck but Mabuse is dead.However his spirit keeps bouncing from body to body.Mabuse is plotting his next anarchist move against society.

Using his henchmen he steals an electronic device that can manipulate a person's will.Mabuse can control an army with this device.Testing it out he makes an innocent postman commit murder.A hangman commits suicide.The device is in perfect working order.

Mabuse plots to do no less than overthrow the English government.(He hasn't had much luck previously in Germany which may explain the move to England). Mabuse begins to subvert the will of many key government officials.Even Scotland Yard isn't immune to this fiendish device. Can anybody defeat Dr Mabuse or will England be his?

There is a flaw or two with this movie.You don't have to watch any of the previous movies to enjoy this one.However it would help.The comic relief is the hero's doddering old mother.She fancies herself as a detective.While she does provide some helpful answers you really would like to throttle her.

On the plus side this is a great plot.It moves along at a breakneck pace and is well directed.The photography is top notch.The acting is fine(or as fine as dubbing allows).This is a worthwhile entry in the series.

This one is boring!

[RodrigAndrisan · 2/10 · 3 October 2017]

A very young Klaus Kinski which is silent almost all his screening time, he has just a few lines so, he can't show his talent too much. But, even his silence is great! Peter van Eyck is a very talented and full of charm actor but, in this one, almost half of the film, he's talking with his mother... The script is bad and boring. Watch it if you're crazy about Mabuse... or film in general!

The hunt for Dr. Mabuse continues.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 23 February 2008]

It's a good thing they tried to change things around about and picked a different approach again. After all, this was the seventh Dr. Mabuse movie that was made, so everything had basically already been done before. It's not that the came up with a terribly originally concept are anything like that but at least they changed the settings and went along with different characters again, except for the villainous Dr. Mabuse of course, who is still as evil as ever and unfolds a new plan to take over the world, starting with London this time, using yet again mind controlling technologies.

The story is of course quite ridicules but at the same time it also works out rather well, also especially when being compared to some of the other '60's Dr. Mabuse movies. The whole crime/mystery elements of the movie are being handled quite well.

So out of all the Dr. Mabuse movies, this one really ain't among the worst, although it obviously also doesn't come noway close to the first three Dr. Mabuse movies, directing by Fritz Lang.

The acting in the movie really varies. The one moment it is great, the other its simple poor. The movie also features Klaus Kinski, in a quite early role and also yet AGAIN Werner Peters. He had appeared in 4 Dr. Mabuse movies before, each time in a totally different role, to which this movie also forms no exception. How confusing do you want things to be? Also Wolfgang Preiss reappears again in this movie as the villainous Dr. Mabuse again, for the fifth and last time, though only as the 'ghost' of Dr. Mabuse this time.

It's a quite funky movie. It has a typical funky '60's style, that all of the previous '60's Dr. Mabuse movies also had. Still the movie is shot in atmospheric black & white, which also provides the movie with a certain type of old fashioned atmosphere and overall style.

Yet another fine, perfectly watchable Dr. Mabuse movie entry.

7/10

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