Following The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and The Return of Dr. Mabuse, Gert Fröbe’s Inspector Lohmann is nowhere to be found, presumably off to grab a hoagie or four. Also nowhere to be found: Dr. Mabuse! Well, if he can get his German grabbers on the invisibility machine invented by the aptly named Professor Erasmus (Rudolf Fernau, The Mad Executioners), that is.
Whereas Mabuse (the returning Wolfgang Preiss) desires the doohickey for his usual world-domination agenda, the academic utilizes it to spy on the stage actress he’s obsessed with (Karin Dor, The Bellboy and the Playgirls) incognito. This gives us several amusing shots of hovering binoculars from a box seat at the opera … although he could just walk onstage, being unseeable and all.
The third film of producer Artur Brauner’s six-flicks revival of the German supervillain, The Invisible Dr. Mabuse largely plays out at the trapdoor-laden theater, where returning FBI agent Joe Como (Lex Barker) joins commissioner (Siegfried Lowitz, The Sinister Monk) investigates a poison-gas murder committed by Bobo the Clown (Werner Peters, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) and eventually learns of Mabuse’s dastardly scheme, aka Operation X.
And X marks the entertainment. From multiple drops of a guillotine to someone’s face melting like Velveeta, director Harald Reinl (Chariots of the Gods) throws a ton at the screen. Lucidity may not result, but the pulp-science antics make for a fun break in the series — something of a one-off. —Rod Lott