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Bookmark this pageDr Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)
Director: Fritz Lang
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Lang's introduction to Mabuse is typical of his early work in being disorganised and erratically paced as a narrative, but shot through with flashes of inspiration. The master criminal (taken from a pulp novel by Norbert Jacques) is presented as an overlord of the contemporary social chaos in Berlin: he profits from the ills of the time, and adopts countless disguises to instigate new varieties of exploitation. Lang has said that he intended the film as a kind of social criticism, and his sprawling plot does take glimpses of night-life decadence and themes like economic inflation in its stride. But overall the grasp of social reality is as shaky as the plotting, and the film's interest - certainly by comparison with the later Testament of Dr Mabuse - remains basically historical.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Fritz Lang
Producer: Erich Pommer
Cast: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Alfred Abel, Aud Egede Nissen, Gertrude Welcker, Bernhard Goetzke, Paul Richter full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 270 mins
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