Mabuse was the creation of Norbert Jacques whose serialized story of a master criminal was adapted for the screen by von Harbou. The film opens with the devious Dr. Mabuse reaping an enormous profit at the stock exchange. Disguised as Hugo Balling, he goes to the Folies Bergeres in order to meet Edgar Hall, a wealthy man about town. On stage Cara Carozza, Mabuse's mistress and agent, performs a celebrant dance between two colossal Mardi Gras-like heads decorated with huge phallic noses. Hull observes the performance in his box, unaware he is being hypnotized by Mabuse. Later that evening Mabuse accompanies Hull, now hypnotized, to a Spielklub - a gambling club - where he cheats the young man at cards.

A few days later Hull is visited by Public Prosecutor Wenck who suspects that Mabuse, the Great Unknown, is the man who cheated him. Hull agrees to coperate with Wenck while occupied by amorous thoughts of the exotic Cara Carozza.

dr. mabuse, der spieler
1922

Eventually Wenck, himself disguised, confronts Mabuse in a Spielklub, but successfully resists the power of his hypnotic gaze. Mabuse flees from the club but is resolved to destroy the detective and young Hull. Hull is murdered outside Das Petit Casino by one of Mabuse's agents. Wenck jails Cara as an accessory, but she refuses to reveal the identity of her evil employer and lover. Later, Cara commits suicide in the belief that she has been deserted by Mabuse.

A man of violent passion, Mabuse kidnaps the Countess Told, who has aided Wenck in his investigations. In an effort to destroy the detective, Mabuse, disguised as Professor Weltmann, a pschoanalyst, hypnotizes Wenck at a public lecture and commands him to drive his automobile off an enbankment, but Wenck is saved at the last moment by the police. Mabuse has meanwhile removed Countess Told to his lavish head quarters, where a gun battle ensues with the police. Erich Pommer recalled that he:

"never sensed such a current of excitement in an audience as at the premiere of Inferno, the second part of Dr. Mabuse, when Mabuse's secret hideout was wiped out by the combined efforts of the police and the army. "