The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Michael Koller, Sense of Cinema, March 2004). "...With Testament, Lang extends the themes of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler through the addition of sound. Lang plants details of then recent news items to give credibility to this tale of hypnosis, insanity and mindless mass destruction. The film's incidents of the theft of explosives and poisons from pharmacies, blackmail and a jewel robbery had all been sourced from Berlin's newspapers of the time. Documentary inserts of street-life add a realistic touch, and again, police procedural details abound. Löhmann's discovery of the scratched pane of glass is fully rendered, as is the process for decoding the message that the police photographer uses. However, this realism is counterbalanced by a strong expressionist component that underlines the insanity rampant throughout the film."