THE DEATH RAY MIRROR OF DOCTOR MABUSE (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

The credits say that Wolfgang Preiss reprises his role as the evil mastermind in the film, but the shadowed figure of RAY's villain may not really be Preiss, though IMDB claims that at least some archival footage of the actor can be found. I confess I wasn't moved to watch very closely.

If the film wasn't part of the Mabuse series, I would find it very easy to deem the star to be its leading-man viewpoint character Anders (Peter Van Eyck, returning to the series in a different role). Only one thing distinguishes RAY from the many James Bond knockoffs that Europe would begin deluging viewers with: RAY is all black and white, while every Eurospy I've seen is a color film.

Anders is out to investigate the disappearance of an important scientist, one Larsen. For some reason Anders' superiors decide to saddle the hero with the professor's daughter Gilda Larsen (Yvonne Furneaux of THE MUMMY), even though she's not any sort of agent and has no means of protecting herself. That said, I'm not precisely complaining, because the rather dippy character of Gilds--  constantly trying to court Anders, acting jealous when he pursues other women-- is one of the few fun things about RAY. 

Though I screened the film yesterday I've forgotten the strategies Anders uses to track down the "death ray mirror" with which Mabuse (or his agents) plan to rule the world. I remember  a shootout in an observatory, and the film's only good scene not involving Gilda Larsen: a well-filmed scuba battle between Anders' allies and the minions of Mabuse. Frankly, I found the crisp black-and-white photography of these scenes far superior to anything in THUNDERBALL.

I have not seen the third and fourth non-Lang movies in the series, but this may well be, as other reviews aver, the least impressive entry, though I should note that director Hugo Fregonese did an admirable job remaking 1944's THE LODGER as 1953's MAN IN THE ATTIC.