SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our THE LANG CONNECTION/HITCHCOCK'S HITCHCOCK Series, Thursday, June 15, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE ((1933, dir. Fritz Lang, Germany, 124mns, Digital)
9:45pm THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960, dir.Fritz Lang, West Germany, 103mns, Digital)
First up is the last movie Lang made in Germany before fleeing for the United States: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, the second in his Mabuse trilogy.
Lang firmly had the rise of Adolf Hitler on his mind when he made Testament. Here we pick up a decade later from the original movie and find Dr. Mabuse raving in an insane asylum writing his ravings down as a kind of “master plan” for a future “reign of crime”.
When Mabuse dies, his spirit guides his followers from beyond the dead and soon the city is heading back to the lawless days of rampant crime that reigned when Mabuse was the criminal mastermind of the city.
It didn’t take geniuses to see that this story of a lunatic whose ravings begin to infect German society as a whole was really a brilliant veiled swipe at the rise of Adolf Hitler.
As the story goes, when Hitler became chancellor in 1933 (the movie had already been shot and had just been released), Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Goebbels, banned the movie but invited Lang to join the ministry to make propaganda for the Fuhrer.
That night, Lang fled Germany and his wife, Thea von Harbou (who stayed to aid the Nazi effort) and came to America where he would continue to make movies that examined the violence latent and waiting in even the most seemingly normal of human minds.
We follow this up with Lang’s final film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. This final film wraps up many loose threads in Lang’s filmography while simultaneously pointing towards an understanding of a future world connected by global television, computer, internet technology that would be as dangerous as it would be beneficial.
Lang returned from exile to a very changed Germany (now West Germany after the country was split between the capitalist west and the communist east) to make his final picture. He chose, as his topic, that evil Dr. Mabuse who had so affected the course of Lang’s life like a kind of great white whale at times aiding and at times throwing into confusion Lang’s career.
Here, a group of disparate people stay in a hotel outfitted with hidden cameras placed by the Nazis during World War II to spy on everyone in their rooms. Slowly, the guests begin to realize something criminal is underway and that the long thought dead criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse might be behind it all.
The movie was so popular it actually spawned a whole new Dr. Mabuse cycle in Germany after Lang’s death. What’s fascinating is how Lang, even here at the end of his career, was able to identify how video, television, and computer technology in the hands of the amoral, lawless, self-absorbed, and greedy would almost certainly be perverted to destructive and self-serving ends.
A fascinating prophecy left by one of the most insightful of filmmakers. Join us as we close out our Lang series with a bang and celebrate the one filmmaker who had an outsized influence on the work of Alfred Hitchcock: Hitchcock’s Hitchock-Fritz Lang.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
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