Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (1963)

The former Hamburg Police Headquarters. The spirit of Dr. Mabuse has completely taken possession of the neurologist Professor Pohland. Under the compulsion of the sinister criminal, the scientist continues his work of spreading chaos and terror. Meanwhile, at Hamburg Police Headquarters, Inspector Vulpius is working on reconstructing the surviving fragments of Dr. Mabuse’s will when they are irretrievably destroyed in an attack. Shortly afterward, Pohland, alias Mabuse, causes a train to derail in order to free the English prisoner George Cockstone. The former doctor was dishonorably discharged from the British occupation forces and sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter and other offenses. After his appearance has been completely altered by surgery, he wins Professor Laurentz’s trust on Pohland’s orders and becomes his assistant. The Hamburg scientist has developed a device that can impose another person’s will on someone. Inspector Vulpius, meanwhile, is investigating Cockstone’s escape and contacts Major Bill Tern of Scotland Yard, who had been assigned the case at the time and promptly travels to Hamburg. Meanwhile, Professor Laurentz falls victim to his own invention when Cockstone and his accomplice Ernest Hyliard use the device to hypnotize a postman and compel him to commit a grisly murder of the scientist. Bill Tern, who has since returned to London, gets a tip from his mother that there is a connection between the murdered scientist and the missing Cockstone. He sets off for Hamburg once again to meet Inspector Vulpius. When the two visit the professor’s laboratory, an explosion occurs. At the scene, the investigators find a body burned beyond recognition, carrying Cockstone’s papers. However, a witness identifies the dead man as the plastic surgeon Dr. Whiteman. On Professor Pohland’s orders, the laboratory’s essential components were smuggled to England in time, where the scientist is working to further develop the device, entirely in the spirit of Dr. Mabuse. Because precious stones are needed to make more devices, Cockstone and Hyliard hypnotize Princess Diana’s fiancé. Against his own will, he steals a valuable necklace and even hands it personally to the criminals. Bill Tern wants to enlist the help of the physicist Professor Masterson in his investigation, but at Masterson’s estate in Doncaster he finds only his corpse. Masterson had to die because he possessed an invention that renders the control devices ineffective. Before long, Pohland/Mabuse is able to bring several people under his command, including Sir Robert Allingham, Inspector Joe Rank, and two helicopter pilots, who lead Bill Tern onto a false trail. But both Bill Tern’s mother and Inspector Vulpius are immune to the electronic control of people’s wills. Tern discovers that both wear hearing aids that protect them from Mabuse’s device. At the last moment, Vulpius and Tern manage to prevent a coup and arrest the criminals, including Professor Pohland. But Pohland appears to have been abandoned once again by Mabuse’s spirit and knows nothing about what has happened. Filming on Scotland Yard chases Dr. Mabuse began shortly before the mail-train robbery in England. The film had already sketched out a crime very similar to the one that actually took place at Ledburn before the premiere.