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Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Enjoyable German crime thriller stars Gert "Goldfinger" Frobe as police commissioner Lohmann, faced with a series of crimes perpetrated by convicts. These convicts have been turned into obedient slaves by the nefarious, mysterious mastermind Dr. Mabuse, and are able to escape prison and return there once their deeds are done. Giving Lohmann an assist is American FBI agent Joe Como (Lex Barker); also involved is a sexy female reporter, Maria Sabrehm (the delectable Daliah Lavi).Capably directed by Harald Reinl ("The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism"), this is good, zesty entertainment that gets by due to effective lighting schemes, a swift pace, and a snappy script. The movie rarely stops moving, presumably to keep us focused on the story and prevent us from thinking about it too much. It's a delight to see heavyset, jovial Frobe as a hero, and Barker (just one of many Tarzan performers over the years) is solid as a character about whom you're never quite sure; whose side is he really on? Lavi is appealing while also functioning as major eye candy. The strong supporting cast includes Fausto Tozzi as the sleazy looking Warden Wolf, Werner Peters as his associate Bohmler, Wolfgang Preiss as the slippery Mabuse, Rudolf Forster as a disgraced chemist, Rudolf Fernau as a priest, and Joachim Mock as Detective Voss.Sometimes startlingly violent (one victim is turned into a human torch), but pretty stylish throughout, "The Return of Dr. Mabuse" is just plain fun for any lover of this film series.Seven out of 10.

"Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse" or "The Return of Dr. Mabuse" is a German movie from 55 years ago that continues the story of the famous Dr. Mabuse that was already a crowd pleaser several decades earlier during the silent film era. It mixes once again the usual formula of making a movie about a criminal mastermind and include some film-noir and horror references. Plus there is of course always a beautiful female. The film is like all/most of the others in black-and-white. Unfortunately, the story is usually underwhelming. looking at how Sean Connery's James Bond was born at the same time in the United States, it becomes painfully obvious how inferior German cinema was around that time. The crimes as a whole are fairly uninteresting and the writing is not really inspired. The only thing that kept this from being a total disappointment for me is probably the fact that Gert Fröbe was on board and I am quite a fan. The title is pretty nice too, but nothing in the film lives up to it. Also you can occasionally see references to all the German Edgar Wallace crime films, so if you like these, then you may even enjoy this Mabuse movie. I don't like them either. My favorite scene in here was maybe when the guy sits in the shadows and the cop shoots him before we find out he was just a puppet on Mabuse's strings. But there weren't many more good scenes like this. Certainly not enough, even for a film that is fairly short at 85 minutes. I don't recommend the watch. Thumbs down.

The style and direction of the movie reminded me of the later British Hitchcock films as well as some of the Sherlock Holmes flicks of the 1930's and '40's, even though this German movie was made in 1961. The quality of the print I viewed also seemed to place it as an older film by a couple of decades, but in that regard it added to the atmosphere of the story. I'm not familiar with the prior Mabuse films as most of the other posters on this board are, so my review isn't influenced by those other works.Of course the mystery lies in the identity of the title character, regularly mentioned but never seen, with hints of his previous demise and possible after life as a ghost of some sort. The voice of Mabuse makes contact at various times with Inspector Lohmann (Gert Frobe) and a mysterious contact who could be an undercover policeman or a mob contact from a Chicago based syndicate. It's not enough that Lex Barker goes by Joe Como and Nick Scappio, but later takes on a third guise as Bob Arco. I thought Mabuse figured out his identity just a little too easily with the Maria hostage ruse; I would have thought the character would be more wary of a trick like that.I was a bit surprised to see that gruesome flamethrower death scene near the beginning of the story, particularly involving a woman. When a similar apparatus appeared later on with Maria (Dahlia Lavi) as a target I caught myself wincing a bit. I would have hated to see her go out like that.The story takes enough twists and turns to make it rather hard to follow as it nears the finale, and the payoff as to the identity of Mabuse came off as a downer actually since he wasn't a character introduced earlier in the story. There was enough mis-direction in the picture to suggest Mabuse as any number of people like Warden Wolf, the creepy Bohmler, or even Maria's father the Professor. Come to think of it, the Professor said he WAS Mabuse, and you kept watching for that to play itself out to no avail. So having Mabuse show up as someone else altogether was a bit of a disconnect for me. I did come away though wondering, as did Lohmann, that perhaps Mabuse found a way to escape his fate in a way that Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty managed to do on more than one occasion.

I had heard that Gert Frobe was a pretty good actor. Most of us remember him in "Goldfinger," of course. He plays a multi-dimensional police detective who must pursue the wily Dr. Mabuse (whoever he might be). Working with a man imprisoned for his experimentation, a series of alleyways and twists and turns, leading to prisons, narrow escapes, and death, Frobe stays on the path, even though he doesn't seem to be respected by his adversary. The scientists daughter becomes a pawn in the game and complicates things. The pacing is pretty good and there are some surprises. And, as we know, super villains aren't all that easy to kill. Still, I liked the low key performance of Frobe and the way he is never intimidated by his discoveries.