Yeah, I used to have the same feelings about furrin' films as you do, having been inundated with cheap English and French flickers on Sunday afternoon UHF tee-vee ever since I can recall (two that particularly stick out in my mind are the ones where some people escape to West Germany on a train that busts the barricade that was set up to stop it, and another where some Eyetalian youth with a gun shoots someone else and there's this cop going around asking the street urchins of Rome who they think it was), but dang if this one is pretty tops in and out of its own low-budget class.
I first encountered the DR. MABUSE films back when some of the Fritz Lang silents popped up on PBS in the late-seventies, and to be honest wasn't that thrilled about 'em they being so Teutonic cold and all to the point where Nico woulda come off like a warm electric blanket in comparison. However, this particular pelicula's one that I gotta admit really kept me glued to my seat, and no it wasn't because of the suction my rectum (in consortium with my crack) had created after eating all of those refried beans for dinner!
Yes the cagey criminal mastermind Mabuse didn't die in the previous flick at all, but is alive and well and out to gain control of the whole world (a thankless task!) with this new invention where a ray (usually in the form of a camera) zaps the will of whoever it is pointed at making them do all sorts of crazy things from bashing in the heads of unsuspecting scientists and hanging themselves instead of the condemned on the gallows. Its up to Peter Van Eyck to get to the bottom of this, and it does look as if the handsome leading man's gonna have his work cut out for him considering that not only a good portion of Scotland Yard is under Mabuse's spell but so is Van Eyck's own mother, an elderly lovable who seems to be in the film mostly for comedic relief sorta like Aunt Harriet on the old BATMAN tee-vee show.
And yeah, the film is action-packed 'cept for a few li'l luls and easy enough to follow even if you don't understand any of the German you see via signs or newspapers (guess at it like you did in German class!). There's nothing to lose here (especially your lunch) because it's all done top notch in that crank-out way we can all appreciate and the jazzy soundtrack keeps your heart pumpin' at a pretty fast pace that once again'll have you holdin' your bladder in, even if you know enough to put the dang machine on "pause" and go relieve yerself!
Oh yeah, and watch out for none other'n future cult figure and rather deranged individual Klaus Kinski as a police detective who gets zapped by the camera and attempts to trick Van Eyck and his partner into a pretty nasty murder-suicide!
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