When gambling, no one looks like a saint!!
From Fritz Lang's last film -- in which he only played director -- to one of his first as director. 1922's Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler is an epic two-part film -- so epic that I'm only watching the first half of it this afternoon. Part One: The Great Gambler, A Picture of Our Time is 2:35 by itself, but it's so full of incident (thanks to Thea von Harbou's script) and Lang's direction is so dynamic that one can't help but get swept up in it.
As we're introduced to rogue psychoanalyst and criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rugge, who would reprise the role a decade later in Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse), he is shuffling photographs like a deck of cards in order to choose his disguise for the moment. He has his plots planned down to the second and insists on punctuality from his underlings, but he still has to throw in an element of chance for himself to keep things interesting.
Part One is comprised of six acts, the first of which prefigures Trading Places by six decades, and the second introduces the character of Cara Carozza (Aud Egede Nissen), a famous dancer who is somehow in thrall to Mabuse. He uses her to get at rich young heir Edgar Hull (Paul Richter), the first of many people he demonstrates his power of will over. Also thrown into the mix are state prosecutor von Wenk (Bernard Goetke) and bored socialite Countess Told (Gertrude Welcker), who can't even find amusement in a bogus seance (even if everybody else present appears to be taking it very seriously).
Part Two to follow, possibly as early as this evening.