... and it makes me want to buy the Criterion version with the commentary to see if it answers my questions. I watched it on TCM the other night, and there were wrap-around comments, but nothing that really touches all of the questions I have about this work.

Was Fritz Lang, who directed and co-wrote this film, anticipating the Nazis, or were some of the attitudes of the characters just coincidences? We know Lang detested the Nazis, because he left Germany in 1933 and did not return for 26 years.

The story picks up where the earlier Mabuse film left off, with master criminal Dr. Mabuse in an insane asylum where for years he was comatose, but then his hand began to make scribbling motions. He was given paper. The scribblings turned to words over time. The words then turned to sentences that grew more logical with time, outlining the plans for a crime wave. At the same time, there is a crime wave going on in the city that seems to mirror Mabuse's scribbling. But with nobody but caretakers entering or exiting Mabuse's cell, how are these crimes being coordinated? Thus enters police commissioner Lohmann, to solve the crime wave.

Lohmann is an interesting character. He picks up on details, but fails to pick up on something that will be obvious to the viewer and even to Police Squad's Frank Drebin. When Mabuse dies but the crime wave continues, and then somebody who has seemed fascinated by Dr. Mabuse the entire time practically stands on a chair and talks about "Mabuse the genius" in glowing terms, you'd think it would set off alarm bells in Lohmann's brain. It does not. Then there is the reaction of the criminals to the name "Lohmann". When some members of the gang are cornered in an apartment, they are brazen enough to shoot it out with what they think is a whole squadron of police. Lohmann arrives, gets impatient with this shootout, and just climbs the stairs with bullets still flying - one shoots off his hat. He pounds on the door with his cane and announces himself. "IT'S LOHMANN!!" cry the now panicked gang members, and they surrender. Huh?? They are not afraid of the police and their bullets but they ARE afraid of one man with a cane??? Then there is the criminal gang, always referring to "the boss". They themselves scratch their heads at the lack of profit in their crimes- for example pulling jewel robberies, taking the money to buy dope and then just giving it to people rather than selling it, per the instructions of "the boss. But when one fellow mentions it, another is quick to pipe in - you're getting a steady paycheck, why should you complain? This simplistic logic seems to keep the gang in check and carrying out orders to commit crimes they do not understand that are fraught with danger without question.

Then there is the injection of circumstantial criminal gang member Kent. He was sent to prison for five years for killing his girlfriend and the man he thought was his best friend, the implication being he caught them having sex. Out of prison, the only job he can get is with "the boss" and his gang. Then another head scratching moment. When at the unemployment office, prior to joining the gang, he rants about the pointlessness of looking for jobs that are not there, and a girl who works there follows him out of the office and gives him some money - she practically has to force it into his hands - and with only a brief conversation between them, she shows up at his apartment probably weeks later claiming she loves him? Why??? Well, all of these characters come together in a suspenseful and satisfying conclusion, I will tell you that much. It does seem that Lang is trying to say much about the folly of unquestioning respect given to strong authority figures both good and bad - Lohmann and Mabuse, the importance and scarcity of a paycheck in Weimar Germany, and maybe even the redeeming power of love. I highly recommend this complex little film that gives us a fantastic tale with Germany immediately pre Third Reich as a setting.

Even today The Testament of Dr Mabuse is refreshingly original and at times startling to watch. Lang was truly one of the greats of cinema and along with Alfred Hitchcock basically invented the suspense film. This film is also the reason Lang left Germany, as it wasn't viewed kindly by the newly elected government.

For all its excitement, action, fantasy, this film would for me live in the history of the cinema just for one short scene…

It deals with a killing at traffic lights as a driver is shot from a car that has pulled alongside his, the sound of the shot obliterated by the sound of the horns of the other impatient drivers… But Lang never takes us right 'into' the incident…

At the payoff we look down from an overhead angle on the cars packed together at the signals: then they all pull away – all but one, which remains motionless and alone in the middle of the road after the lights have changed… No violence, no blood, is needed for us to be eerily aware that a man who was alive when the lights were at red is dead now they are at green