About

The Testament of Dr Mabuse will screen from an archival 16mm print.

Following on from the silent crime epic Dr Mabuse the Gambler 1922, The Testament of Dr Mabuse finds a city terrorised by a series of seemingly inexplicable criminal attacks. The only culprit who could possibly orchestrate such dastardly offences: the diabolical Dr Mabuse. Tenacious detective Inspector Lohmann must get to the bottom of the sinister spectral implications of the mystery.

The Testament of Dr Mabuse would be Lang's final German film before he fled to Paris to escape the Nazi regime. In the film, Lang puts the perfidious slogans of the Nazis in the mouths of its arch-criminals, creating a parable for the terror he saw growing around him in Germany. These political parallels would result in the film being banned from release by Joseph Goebbels; it would not screen publicly in Germany until 1961. With its carefully crafted crime narrative and timeless shadow-drenched visuals, the film remains an engrossing thriller and one of Lang's most influential achievements.