Doctor Mabuse is a fictional character created by Norbert Jacques, made famous by the three films Austrian director Fritz Lang made about him over a period of almost 40 years. Although the character was designed to deliberately mimic pulp-style villains in the mold of Dr. Fu Manchu and Fantômas, the latter of which was a direct inspiration, Jacques' aim was both to capture the commercial success of such pulp tales and to make political comment on the establishment of the day, in much the same way that the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) had done just a few years previously.