Fritz Lang directed three films based on Norbert Jacques’ Dr. Mabuse character, but only the last one fits in the time frame of this collection: 1960’s Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (US: The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse). The film is sometimes classified as part of the German krimi (short for kiminalfilm) genre, a series of formulaic, over-the-top crime films produced in the 1960’s and based primarily on the fiction of British author Edgar Wallace and, later, his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. Here, Lang gives a nod to classic German expressionist aesthetics, notably in the fortune telling sets, but unlike his two earlier Mabuse films from the 1930’s, 1,000 Eyes introduces automatic doors, two-way mirrors, and surveillance technologies that hint more at American 60’s television like Get Smart or Mission: Impossible. (Mabuse’s mission is even to get his hands on nuclear weapons.) When a news reporter is murdered, Inspector Kras (Gert Fröbe) traces suspicion to the Nazi-established Luxor Hotel and three unrelated characters: spiritualist Peter Cornelius (Wolfgang Preiss), insurance salesman Hieronymus Mistelzweig (Werner Peters), and suicidal beauty Marion Menil (Dawn Addams), all of whom may be related to puppet master Mabuse. It’s not a Lang masterpiece, but it’s fantastically entertaining and feels like the maestro was having fun; note, for example, a technically astonishing scene in which the camera slow zooms out from a restaurant conversation to reveal that the diners are being watched on a video screen and then slow zooms back in.