The Sunday Intertitle: What an odd thing to say

“I’m not doing this anymore! Running around at 200kmph! It’s modern cannibalism!”

A strange intertitle from the pen of a strange woman, Thea Von Harbou. Due to a job I’ve got on, I found myself watching both SPIONE and both parts of DR. MABUSE: DER SPIELER this week, which is quite a lot of espionage to consume at one sitting. But highly enjoyable, as most binges are.

 

The above statement is made here, in the cosy flat of two disgruntled henchmen. I could imagine that being a great premise for a sitcom, except that Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter already nailed that concept. And who IS sending Ben and Gus those baffling orders for scampi &c? Surely it’s the doctor himself, who starts off flesh-and-blood in this film, becomes more of a psychic influence in TESTAMENT, and is a mere principle by the time of 1,000 EYES. By the time he seeps into Pinter he’s a Godot-like abstraction, probably not even a conscious presence…

Post-binge, I found I slightly preferred SPIONE, since by that point Lang’s insert shots have moved on to a new realm of gleaming fetishism, but MABUSE sets out the plan for so much later Lang, it’s like watching the birth of a monster. Horrible yet awe-inspiring. FANTOMAS and his many imitators may have set the pattern, but to the master-criminal scheme is added something fresh, via Norbert Jacques’ novel: while Fantomas worked mostly alone with the occasional foxy accomplice or hired-for-the-occasion goon squad, Mabuse is the leader of a criminal empire, or, as he later calls it, a state within a state. All the Hitler comparisons stem from that one adjustment.

It makes Mabuse both more like a real-world crime boss, and yet also more fantastical, since he seems able to accomplish anything. He has tentacles everywhere, like a naughty Hokusai octopus. One thing I was watching for was some good police interrogation scenes, but the recurring theme of MABUSE is that any time the police clap a perp in irons, Mabuse has the guy offed before he can squawk.

Here’s a Mabuseian insert shot — not quite up to the standard of SPIONE, but very nice.

 

The Sunday Intertitle: Laser Eye Treatment

Last we saw, Harry Houdini had got himself tangled in a fishing net like a prize chump (that’s a species of fish, right?) while the deadly and misnamed Automaton advanced menacingly upon his girlfriend (she would’ve been his wife but for a previous abduction). Now read on ~

Harry escapes the net by removing it. OK, it was tied round with ropes, but this is still not one of his more impressive-looking tricks: a man can’t struggle out of a net without looking somewhat foolish somehow. He then throws the net over the Automaton, who looked foolish anyway. Our heroes escape and join up with Zita, who is in drag again and has sprained her ankle (a sure give-away: she may be dressed as a boy, but only women sprain their ankles in movies).

Corporate maneuvers in the dark: Marguerite gains control of her father’s company while dad is still struck down with the laughing madness (I feel for his ribs). Rather unwisely, Houdini tells corporate scumbitch Balcom that he’s going to have him arrested and gives him 24 hrs to prepare his revenge settle his affairs. He recruits Zita, now back in a frock and still conflicted — she loves Houdini, he keeps rescuing her, but he loves Marguerite… it’s no contest really, Houdini must DIE!

Luring the ever-gullible Harry to his pad on promises of fresh evidence, Balcom sets his scheme in motion (nice pad: particularly dig the halberds). But Zita quits Balcom’s scheme because he’s consistently failed to prove that she’s the illegitimate daughter of the laughing madman. Instead she joins his dapper son Paul at the home of Professor Q — ah-ha, THAT’S the beard guy’s name! So that’s his cave under the laughing madman’s house? How come we never see him in it? I thought the Automaton was Q for several episodes just because he was always described as being in Q’s cave. Oh well…

The villainous and hirsute old codger concocts a new scheme involving an Evil Hypnotist — Houdini breaks into Balcom’s halberd storehouse with the aid of two plainclothesmen who obligingly use him as a battering ram ~

Three… two… one… ARGH!

But there they find Balcom departed, leaving only a cheerful note predicting their imminent death from chlorine gas poisoning. And sure enough, beneath Balcom’s brass Buddha (those murderous Buddhists!) is a steaming censer of noxious vapours ~ Everybody falls down!

(Things I know from film viewing: chlorine gas can bleach the yellow from a canary’s feathers. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. What will it do to his halberds?)

Zita tells Marguerite her Evil Hypnotist friend can cure the laughing madness. Marguerite, bamboozled half to death multiple times by this scheming stenographer, is skeptical. “Please believe me,” argues Zita, compellingly. Marguerite is instantly convinced, and goes optimistically to her doom.

Learning about Balcom’s foul gas-plan, Zita, ever whimsical, rescues Houdini by opening the window. Are the cops OK? Nobody seems to care.

Beard guy looks even more bizarre in daylight and on location than the Automaton.

If the Chinese Temple evoked Fu Manchu, the Evil Hypnotist’s dwelling is more Mabuse. Apparently he’s also an astrologer, and he has an even nicer pad than Balcom. He doesn’t even need halberds to tie the room together. And he has a Hypnotic Machine! Marguerite is soon deep in a trance state, which slows her down and cancels out the effect of the undercranking so she’s suddenly moving like somebody in the 21st century.

The Automaton is now operating out of the Chinese temple, where he’s rigged the God statue with laser-beam eyes. The Hypno-lair is right next to the temple, connected by SECRET PASSAGE (why didn’t Marguerite suspect this? Because women can’t read maps). Mesmerized, bound and gagged, the poor girl is rolled towards the deadly divine laser beams as Harry, arriving after a tip-off from the ever-fickle Zita, is mugged by thugs dressed as monks, roped up and noosed —

Can Harry escape death by hanging, and can Marguerite, not actually a professional escapologist, escape incineration by holy laser beam?

Houdini: The Movie Star (Three-Disc Collection)

Fritz and K.D. Lang

I’ll be posting the results of our Shadowplay Fritz Lang songwriting contest late tomorrow. But it’s not too late for any last-minute entries.

A young man is full of adventure,
and eager to do what he can!
He may be a boy, but don’t send a boy
To do the work of a man!
Get away — get away
Get away, young man, get away!
A young man will come when you call him,
And leave when you tell him to go,
But some day he’ll guess, a woman means yes,
Whenever a woman says no!
Get away…
A woman is only a creature
Of notions and dimples and lies
So learn if you can, this lesson, young man,
And don’t run off when she cries
Get away —get away…..
If you can! 

~ From Ken Darby’s song Get Away, Young Man, from Fritz Lang’s RANCHO NOTORIOUS.

And…

I’m a shadow since you’re gone
Just a shadow in the dawn
That breaks in the sand
A shadow lost in shadowland
My poor heart just flew away
When it realized one day
The dreams that we planned
Would only end in shadowland

~ From Shadowland, by K.D. Lang.