die 1000 augen des doktor mabuse

Premiering on this day in 1960 at the Gloria-Palast in Stuttgart, The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse was Fritz Lang’s (*1890 – †1976) final directorial effort, reusing a character that appeared in two previous screenplays and whose plot was based on author Jan Fethke’s 1931 Esperanto language novel—also a trilogy—called Mister Tot Buys a Thousand Eyes (Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojm).
The only lead to a myster- ious death of a reporter comes from an informer and confidant of the police inspection who is a blind fortune-teller, who had a vision of the murder but not the killer—prompting an ensemble of connected characters to engage in detective work that suggest the return of the long presumed dead titular villain—a Svengali-type figure, combining elements of horror, spy films and dragnet surveillance in a nihilistic milieu with a legacy of sequels, pre-quels and reboots spanning across the ensuing decade, the seventh and final instalment The Vengeance of Dr Mabuse screened in 1970.