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!"
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!"