watching "Dr Malbuse, the Gambler", 1922 pre Hitler Germany.

Last edited Mon Jan 7, 2019, 03:01 PM - Edit history (1)

On TCM. Reading the plot on Wikipedia I learned the Dr who hypnotizes for monetary gain - as did/does Trump - and complete dominarion of wealthy people and manipulating the Stock Market. It was pointed out by a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher that POTUS was using hypnosis to win the primary. Various techniques. Well Fritz Lang, a long dead German Director foresaw Hitler in this movie as well as POTUS.

Written and Directed by Fritz Lamg. It's another masterpiece . Never heard of it before seeing it on TCM tonight.

According to Wikipedia:

[blockquoteThemes
A key theme of the film is the dissolution of German society after World War I. The film portrays but exaggerates the difficult conditions during the period making the film's world a dystopia. The worthless counterfeit money created by Mabuse reflects the nearly worthless Deutsche Mark during the hyperinflation resulting from the Weimar Republic printing excessive money to pay war reparations. The stock market swings, gambling parlors and miserable living conditions for poor people depicted in the film were also reflections of conditions in Germany at the time.

The character of Dr. Mabuse can also be seen as depiction of "the power of evil or a distorted inner psyche". Lang scholar Paul Jensen interpreted Mabuse as "a symbol to unite all the negative factors in Germany at the time". The film depicts difficult problems such as rampant crime, worthless money and a volatile stock market as thus being under the control of a single man. Bernd Widdig points out that while Dr. Mabuse is not an anti-Semitic film, aspects of Mabuse's character may have reflected contemporary stereotypes of Jews, especially since he acts in stereotypically Jewish roles such as psychoanalyst, banker, peddler and revolutionary, and consistent with the views on Jews of some contemporary Germans his manipulations were responsible for problems in society. A contemporary Nazi critic wrote that Mabuse is "a quintessential Jewish figure" who goes through time with the singular goal of "mastery of the world" regardless of the consequences to others and whose descent into insanity caused his crimes to go unpunished in what the Nazi critic described as "the typical case of the Jewish criminal". On the other hand, Mabuse with his hypnotic power over the masses in pursuit of evil has also been seen as a foreshadowing of Adolf Hitler.

In the 3nd he goes insane, haunted by ghosts of his victims.