Anarchy

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) - Lang





The storyline of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is probably one of the craziest, most subversive things I've ever seen in a movie. A mad hypnotist Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein Rogge of Metropolis) plans an widespread anarchy behind the walls of insane asylum, then beyond the grave. His manifesto influences criminals to commit elaborate fake currency scam, blow up a chemical plant, poison water system to bring about the end of civilization. There are some truly mesmerizing expressionistic, creepy cinematography (I can see where Lynch got some of his ideas) and gritty gunfight sequences. Lang combines many genres in one: noir, horror, police procedural, romance, action. But the film's stretched out way too long and gets very tedious. Some tight editing would make it a much more effective, concise movie. I'd like to checkout Dr. Mabuse the Gambler now.

Keep That Coffee Hot

The Big Heat (1953) - Lang

Gloria Grahame, ooh la la. Who does she remind me of? Julietta Macina if she was ever young and sexy, maybe? It's a very difficult task to make a ditzy girl sexy and she does it here.

The big heat tells a tough cop, Bannion (Glenn Ford) in a sewer city. While investigating a cop's suicide, for some reason, Bannion can't keep his big mouth shut so everyone around him ends up dead, including his wholesome beer and steak dinner sharing wife, blown up by the bigwig Lagana's goons.

Enter Debbie (Grahame), a pretty young thang that belongs to Lagana's right hand man Vince (Lee Marvin). She sticks with the busyhand because she likes money and mink coats. But after Vince gets a shakedown by Bannion, Debbie walks up to Bannion and they 'talk'. Vince in turn throws a hot coffee in her pretty face.

Morally mucky film by Lang where its straight-shooting protag unknowingly direct everyone to their demise in order for him to get to the big fish, The Big Heat is perhaps the dirtiest noir I've seen so far. And Grahame is there to make guys think dirty. Bravo.

Let Them Eat Cake

Ministry of Fear (1944) - Lang

Steve Neil (Ray Milland) is having a strange day. He gets released from an asylum after serving 2 years for poisoning his terminally ill wife. It was a mercy killing. Then he accidentally gets embroiled in a complicated Nazi plot involving a cake he won at a fair while waiting for a train to go to London 'to lead a normal, quiet life' and for some reason, everyone wants his cake: at first the ladies at the fair want it back, then on the train, it gets stolen by a man who pretends to be blind, who then dies in an air-raid. What the hell is going on?

This tight Graham Greene espionage thriller has great atmosphere and tension throughout with air-raid prone rainy London as a backdrop. The noir lighting in this film is just as sharp as Milland's hawky features. Highlights are the one involving the séance table and the night rooftop gunfight in the rain. I wish Lang could've elaborated on the nature of hypnosis in the beginning and the wall clock pendulum and séance element a little more because most of the time Ministry of Fear feels very much like a good Hitchcock film. One can easily see the film's influence on Coen Brothers. Anyone care for this slice of cake?