Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse" or "The Invisible Dr. Mabuse" is another German black-and-white movie from the 1960s about the notorious criminal mastermind created by Fritz Lang several decades ago. Sadly, I must say these "new" films were all fairly disappointing in terms of the story and even if the actors are sometimes good, it is not sufficient to elevate the mediocre material. They are not scary, they are not edge-of-the-seat material, they are just there. What hurts this movie from almost 55 years ago even more for me personally is that Gert Fröbe is not in it. Instead Lex Barker, as an American agent, takes over, shortly before he left the franchise again to become a star next to Pierre Brice in the Winnetou franchise. Fittingly, this is also what Harald Reinl, the director, is most known for today and I guess he worked well and in harmony with Barker here, so he picked him again for future projects. As for this Mabuse sequel here it does not really offer anything refreshing or new and I don't recommend the watch. Difficult to understand for me why even more films were made afterward. Thumbs down.
CommandoCody
Dr. Mabuse, the nefarious supercriminal who regularly confounds the authorities with his ill-conceived and far-fetched world domination schemes, is ready to do battle once more with the forces of good. This time he's after a invisibility gizmo invented by a disfigured scientist seeking to hide his ugliness. One time Tarzan, Lex Barker, plays Mabuse's nemesis--FBI Agent Joe Como. The scientist likes to hang out at a theater where he can spy on the actress of his dreams. Apparently, he thought that by making himself invisible she wouldn't be frightened of him. Evidently, it never occurred to him that moving things around and touching her while he's invisible might frighten her. Is this guy a loser or what?
Eventually, Mabuse gets his evil hands on the device and creates a small army of transparent thugs. The plan is for them to wreak havoc and plunge the world into chaos. It's up to Joe Como and his band of incompetent German cops to thwart the scheme.The writing for this film is incredibly bad. For example, since when did the FBI's jurisdiction extend to Germany? How did Mabuse know about the invisible man's obsession for the actress? In fact, how did Mabuse know there was an invisibility gadget? I also don't know how the scientist knew that Mabuse knew. Since the scientist was invisible why didn't he use that advantage to locate Mabuse and thwart his plans? Or better yet, since he allegedly cared so much for the actress why didn't he just make another device for her? She could then become invisible if Mabuse's goons threatened her? In my opinion, Dr. Mabuse isn't half as crazy as the folks who produced this turkey.
Vigilante-407
This movie really marked the decline in the fabled Dr. Mabuse series, at least for me. I think it was the inclusion of the invisibility schtick...Dr. Mabuse works much better with realism and realistic devices (his multitude of video and audio pick-ups, his mind control drugs, etc.) than fanciful items out of science fiction. This film also suffered for not having Gert Frobe in the picture as Commissioner Lohmann to counterpoint Lex Barker's suave FBI agent (who this time does not even attempt to confuse us as to which side of the law he is on).Still, there is a lot of good action in this film, and the cinematography is excellent as well. Definitely worth a look.
evilskip
This is the fourth in the 1960 west German Dr Mabuse series.While it is above average for the series it does mean that it is a cut above most other thrillers of the time. A young actress (Karin Dor as Liane)in a Grand Guigonol/circus troupe seems to be haunted by a ghost.A government operative is investigating the troupe and meets his end via a killer clown.The FBI sends in Joe Como(Lex Barker from the 2nd in the series,The Return of Dr Mabuse).Joe and Liane cross paths. Liane's former boyfriend had created an invisibilty gadget.But he presumably was killed in a car accident.Dr Mabuse and his gang think that Liane knows the whereabouts of the invisibilty device.The boyfriend is in fact not dead but horribly mangled due to the crash.He is using the gadget to stay near his love. Mabuse & Joe Como both attempt to wrest the gadget from the boyfriend.But it looks like Mabuse may have the upper hand and chaos will reign supreme.An invisible gang of super criminals would be hard to beat. In the series of Mabuse thrillers this one grades out at #5 of the 6 but way above the stinker Death Ray Of Dr Mabuse.It would be nice to see this film get the dvd treatment.
AD
