Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler Part I - The Great Gambler: A Picture of the Time

Mysterious master criminal and master-of-disguise, Dr Mabuse, manipulates the stock market to disrupt the business and lives of those who are abusing and eroding the German economy, controlling the minds of the idle rich who gamble away money, when millions of Germans languish in hunger on the streets outside the gambling clubs. State attorney von Wenk has been working to shut down the illicit gambling casinos, but he has discovered that a great, unknown criminal has been preying upon the very people that von Wenk is trying to prosecute…

One of the legendary epics of the silent cinema — and the first part of a trilogy that Fritz Lang developed up to the very end of his career — Dr Mabuse, The Gambler is a masterpiece of conspiracy, constructing its own dark labyrinth from the base materials of human fear and paranoia. It's also a fascinating reflection of German society in the 1920s and all its criminal-ridden decadence.