Lang's sound follow-up to his 1922 silent Dr Mabuse revives the master
criminal, now confined to a lunatic asylum but spreading chaos by
remote control. The director claimed it as a critique of Nazism, and
fled to France after it was banned by Goebbels; still, it's far more
concerned with pulp fiction plotting than with social context. On the
whole, in fact, it's one of his more over-rated classics. Made two years
after the superb M, it feels a lot creakier, and is marred by moments of
clumsiness and a rather halting pace. But the best scenes still display
his austere style at its most menacing.
