Review of The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse

"Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse" is a German black-and-white film from 1964, so this one is already way over half a century. It runs for slightly under 1.5 hours and looking at the crew list you will see that actually quite a few people worked as writers and directors here. The outcome for that is quite disappointing, so it is probably a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. But there is another major problem here, namely that this film delivers zero creativity as a stand-alone movie. It is a bit of everything that was popular around that time in Germany: a touch of Edgar Wallace (Rialto) films, a touch of James Bond (the death ray obviously) and a touch of Mabuse and the older films about the criminal mastermind. The only thing missing is probably Winnetou-related stuff. But there is absolutely nothing in here that somehow warrants the film as a stand-alone creative achievement. It is also a waste of actors, even if Gert Fröbe isn't on board this time. Peter van Eyck is a much better actor than he is allowed to show us here for sure and he is just as forgettable as the rest basically. The script is very forgettable. Every time the film seems to head in a direction where it could actually made an impact, it is thrown back by random Mabuse references and honestly this film could have turned out clearly superior without the evil doctor being in the center of it. but I guess it is the name that lured so many people into cinema, so they did not want to do without it. It cost them as by today's standards the film has not aged well at all. I'd say the rating here on IMDb is accurate, but then again it is not worse than several previous Mabuse films. Still maybe a good thing the series came to a halt for a while after this one as the subject honestly had been overdone by then. Also the more frequent inclusion of color in the coming years may have hurt the franchise, but you could almost say "helped" as they could not mess it up any further. So yeah, I don't think "The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse" (and there are several other titles out there for this one) is a failure or anything, but it is a film that is basically just a collection of stuff that had been done better and more originally on other occasions. I don't recommend seeing it. Thumbs down.