

After the lights go out at a fancy party, Jack Donovan (John Roche) turns up dead. Inspector Killian (Jack Holt) is called to the scene. As part of the investigation, he calls for a re-enactment of the events leading up to the murder. The lights go out, and another person turns up dead. Inspector Killian again calls for a re-enactment.

Inspector Delzante (Bela Lugosi), investigates a series of murders near a British mansion in Calcutta. The murders are pinned on a young runaway named Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) who is taken in by a well-intentioned fake Irish medium, Madame LaGrange (Margaret Wycherly).

Geoffrey West and Marion Ferguson (Grant Withers and Loretta Young), two American tourists in London, meet each other at a London hotel while eating breakfast. Both are reading the personal columns of The Times. The next day Withers inserts an ad, under the alias of Lord Strawberries, which requests her friendship. Ferguson, using the alias of Lady Grapefruit, places an ad in reply which suggests that he write a series of five letters proving himself worth knowing. West makes up a fabulous story about a murder mystery based on the things he has heard his upstairs neighbors arguing about. Ferguson's aunt, who disapproves of West, suspects West is the murderer and contacts Scotland Yard. West's neighbor (the one he mentioned in his letters) is found dead and the police immediately suspect West and Ferguson as being involved in the murder. The real murderer, when he hears they are prime suspects, then attempts to frame them.

A womanizing matinée idol is found strangled in his dressing room. The door is locked from the inside and there is no other way into the room. He had been having an affair with his leading lady, while his actress wife is doing the same with the stage manager. Everyone, including a young actress who had been fired from the play, and an old actor now relegated to a stage-doorman, has a motive.The explanation for the murder lies within the script of the play.

Buck Buchanan plays football for State, but his criminal brother Slip Buchanan has placed a whopping $350,000 wager on University defeating State in the upcoming big game.
Slip attempts to coerce his brother into drugging a star teammate, Wally Clark, so he is unable to play. Buck refuses to do so, but is distracted on the field of play by his suspicions that Slip will find another way to do Wally harm.
Sure enough, just as Wally is about to score a State touchdown, he collapses at the 5 yard line. As 70,000 spectators look on, Wally is carried from the field and expires. A doctor rules the death accidental, but a police detective, Dan McKenna, is so convinced of foul play, he has the players reassembled and the entire football play re-enacted, solving the case.

Charlie Chan is attending a police convention in New York City; he is an intended murder victim here, but avoids death by chance. To find his would-be-killer(s), Charlie must outguess police reps from both Scotland Yard and New York City Police.

During the filming of a death scene of The Death Kiss, leading man Myles Brent is really shot and killed. Tonart Studios manager Joseph Steiner (Lugosi) is assigned to handle the situation. The studio wants to pass it off as a simple accident, but screenwriter Franklyn Drew (Manners) digs a bullet out of a wall and tells Homicide Detective Lieutenant Sheehan that it is a .38 caliber, while the guns used in the film are all .45s.
Sheehan finds a letter in the dead man's pocket, in which Brent wrote to his lawyer that Marcia Lane (Ames), his co-star and ex-wife, would not sign a release as beneficiary of his $200,000 life insurance policy. Chalmers, an alcoholic extra with a self-admitted grudge against Brent for getting him fired as head gaffer (electrician), is spotted trying to dispose of a loaded .38, but Drew points out that the gun has not been fired.
Drew suggests they view the footage of the fatal scene for clues, but somebody knocks out the projectionist and burns the print using a cigarette with rouge on it. It is a special rouge normally used by only two women. One was away on location, making Lane the prime suspect. Before another print can be made, the negative is destroyed with acid.
While snooping around on the set, Drew finds a derringer mounted inside a lamp and electrically wired to be fired remotely, but he is knocked out and the gun taken. He goes to question Chalmers, but finds him dead beside a glass of poison and a written confession. However, Drew finds several clues that make him suspicious. Through more detective work, he discovers that the new battery of Lane's car is dry, and battery fluid is poisonous. Meanwhile, Goldsmith comes to see Lane; she rejects his advances once again.
In Brent's dressing room, Drew finds a letter from a love-stricken married woman named "Agnes" and a hotel room key. Later, in Steiner's office, Sheehan takes Lane into custody; Drew spots a photo of a woman on the desk; the inscription reveals that Steiner's wife is named Agnes. When Drew goes to the hotel, he finds out from a bellhop that Brent had been there with a woman; her husband was waiting, and the two men got into a fight.
The studio decides to finish the film (only the last, fatal scene needs to be shot), using a double for Brent and arranging for Lane's temporary release. Drew finds out from the prop man that the guns were originally supposed to be .38s, but he made an unauthorized substitution. Drew takes him to Sheehan. Just as he is about to reveal who ordered the guns, the lights go out. (The murderer had overheard the conversation through a studio microphone.) After a gunfight and chase, the killer falls to his death. It is Avery, the director.



Gwen Parker (Mae Clarke) meets her former boyfriend Philip Seymour (Donald Cook) at the local aquarium and asks him for some money so she can leave her husband, stockbroker Gerald Parker. However, Mr. Parker receives an anonymous telephone call tipping him off to the rendezvous. When he confronts the pair, Seymour knocks him out with a punch. As there are no witnesses to the altercation, he hides the unconscious man in the room behind an exhibit.
Schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers (Edna May Oliver) takes her class on a field trip to the aquarium. Shortly after tripping up fleeing pickpocket "Chicago" Lew (though he gets away), she loses her hatpin; one of her students finds it. Then Miss Withers sees Parker's now-dead body falling into a pool housing a penguin. Police Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gleason) arrives and uncovers several suspects: the widow and Seymour; Bertrand Hemingway (Clarence Wilson), the head of the aquarium, who had financial dealings with the deceased; Chicago Lew, found near the scene; and even Miss Withers herself, as it is later determined that her hatpin was driven through the man's right ear into the brain. Bystander and lawyer Barry Costello (Robert Armstrong) catches Gwen Parker when she faints, and acquires a client when she is taken in for questioning.
Seymour confesses to protect Mrs. Parker, but Miss Withers does not believe him. She convinces Piper to notify the press that the murder was committed with a thrust through the left ear.
Later, Costello passes along a message from Chicago Lew, in which he claims to know the identity of the killer. However, when Piper and Miss Withers go to see him at the jail, they find him dead from hanging. Costello concocts a way in which Seymour could have escaped from his nearby cell using a duplicate key (which is found), strangled Lew, and hanged him with wire without entering Lew's cell.
At the murder trial of Philip Seymour and Gwen Parker, while questioning Miss Withers, Costello slips up, showing that he knew that Gerald Parker was killed via the right ear. The motive is that he is Gwen Parker's current lover.
When Gwen Parker is released, the waiting Seymour slaps her in the face, to the amusement of Piper and Miss Withers. Piper then unexpectedly asks Miss Withers to marry him. She accepts. (However, in the sequel, Murder on the Blackboard, they are still single.)

Ricardo Cortez plays Gary Curtis (alias Farnsbarns), a PI in New York who is known for skirting the law. Curtis is sent to get some letters from Jenny Wren (Karen Morley), who is a courtesan. Wren tells Priam Andes (H. B. Warner) to have some of her former lovers come to a gathering at Crestwood. At the gathering, she tells her former lovers that she is leaving but wants money from all of them, and explains that a boy she was trifling with committed suicide. Later that night Jenny Wren is killed. A road washed out keeps everyone at Crestwood. Now Gary Curtis must find out who the murderer is before the police arrive and pin it on him.


As described in a film magazine, Laura Bruce (Frederick) is divorced from her husband following an unpleasant matrimonial term. She then marries Paul Ramsey (Bowers), whom she has always loved. Dick Turner (McKim), his employer and enamored of Laura, sends her husband away on a business trip. A murder is committed and detective John Bruce (Clary) seeks to fasten the crime upon Paul. After he fails to do so, a happy ending results.

Kay Curtis (Glenda Farrell) and June Dale (Mary Brian) are two showgirls living in the Palm Beach hotel. When June refuses one of her wealthy male friend's sexual advances, he chooses to let June and Kay pay for their own hotel bills. They decide to ask Daisy Bradford (Peggy Shannon), who is engaged to millionaire Henry Gibson (Ben Lyon), for help paying the bills because Daisy used to be a fellow showgirl. However, Daisy pretends not to know them. Kay tries to win some money gambling, but ends up losing all their money instead. When they run into Daisy's former boyfriend Raymond Fox (Lyle Talbot) in the hotel, he offers them some money to leave town, but June and Kay accidentally miss the train.
Later, Henry and Daisy are married, but Daisy goes missing, and a gangster named Jim Hendricks is found dead in the hotel's garden. Henry offers a large reward to the public for any information about Daisy. Kay and June decide to find Daisy and claim the reward. After Henry, Kay, and June survive a near fatal car accident, Kay suggests that they wreck the car and declare Henry dead from the automobile accident. When Daisy returns to the hotel after Henry's assumed death, she claims that Henry had drugged and kidnapped her and killed Jim Hendricks. However, Kay pulls a gun on Daisy and she confesses that she was going to run away with Raymond, and when Jim Hendricks tried to stop them, Raymond killed him. Raymond and Daisy are arrested by the police, and Henry gives the reward to Kay. Later, Henry decides to marry June, who he has fallen in love with.

In France, United States State Department employee Donald Free (William Powell) is caught trying to steal French state papers. Free is released from his job and is deported. Back in the US, Free has a hard time finding another job due to the Great Depression. Free convinces Dan Hogan (Arthur Hohl), the crooked and incompentent owner of the Peerless Detective Agency, to partner with him. Without Free's knowledge, Hogan becomes financed with gangster Tony Bandor (Gordon Westcott) and business booms.
Bandor complains that a society woman, Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay), is winning too much at his gambling tables and hires Hogan to find some scandal he can use to prevent her from collecting her winnings. Hogan assigns Free, without telling him the truth behind the request. But, while keeping an eye on Janet, Free falls in love with her. When Janet informs Bandor that she wants to collect her winnings, Hogan suggests to Bandor that they make Janet think she has killed Bandor under suspicious conditions. Hogan then double-crosses Bandor by hiring a thug to shoot him after Janet leaves the apartment. Janet not knowing what to do, asks Free to help her. Free learns the identity of Bandor's actual killer and traces him back to Hogan. Meanwhile, Hogan tries to blackmail Janet. After Free has Hogan arrested, he is offered his old job again, but tells Janet that it is not the sort of life he could ask anyone to share with him so he leaves. As he is leaving, Janet proposes to him and he accepts.

A woman's suitor challenges his two rivals to each spend a night in a room in which several murders occurred years before at 1 a.m. The suitor, Tommy, sleeps there on the first night but disappears at 1 a.m. Then the second man sleeps there on the second night. At 12:30 a.m, he starts playing the piano, but is shot half an hour later.
As these events occur, a police investigation leads to several answers to several mysteries. On the fifth night, the third man sleeps in the Blue Room. However, he places a dummy in an armchair and conceals himself behind a coat. At 1 a.m, a revolver pokes round the door and fires at the dummy. The man and several police officers jump out of their hiding places. After a furious gunfight, the villain is apprehended and it turns out to be none other than Tommy, the first suitor, who had ostensibly disappeared.


When a young English man is convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, his sister and her fiance, convinced of his innocence, ask visiting detective Charlie Chan to investigate the crime and find the real murderer. In order to solve the mystery, he must visit a lavish country manor house in England where the suspects vary from the housekeeper to a lawyer. Events soon indicate that the murderer is still actively trying to avoid capture, but Charlie Chan must set a trap to reveal the criminal's identity.

Chan is hired to transport a pearl necklace. When his employer is murdered, he sets out to unmask the killer.

Arlene Bradford (Bette Davis) is a spoiled, bored, wealthy socialite who finances her extravagant lifestyle by exploiting her fiancé Spencer Carlton's (Lyle Talbot) access to her stepfather's brokerage firm and using her connection to steal security bonds for crime boss Jake Bello (Irving Pichel).
When Arlene disappears, her step-sister Val (Margaret Lindsay) steps in to discover what happened to her with the help of society reporter Tony Sterling (Donald Woods) and photojournalist Izzy Wright (Hugh Herbert).

On a stormy night, a theatrical producer, his secretary, and playwright Prescott Ames are stranded when their car skids off the road and gets stuck. The three take refuge in the nearby home of Dr. Kent, a friend of Ames. One of Kent's patients, who is staying at the house, is acting strangely, and the others in the house tell the newcomers that she is behaving this way because it is the anniversary of her husband's murder. At dinner, the group begins exchanging accusations about the murder, when suddenly the lights go out, and soon afterwards comes the first in a series of mysterious and fearful events.
The producer thinks all the strange occurrences are part of a ploy to get him to produce a play for Ames. In a great line, one of the other characters exclaims "These fools think we are putting on a play for their benefit!"
The usual homespun collection of storm effects, sliding panels, bumps in the night and mysterious prowlings. The standard mixture of comedy and terrors, The Ghost Walks is more competently staged than scripted.

Bela Lugosi stars as Mr. Wong, a "harmless" Chinatown shopkeeper by day and relentless blood-thirsty pursuer of the Twelve Coins of Confucius by night. With possession of the coins, Mr. Wong will be supreme ruler of the Chinese province of Keelat, and his evil destiny will be fulfilled. A killing spree follows in dark and dangerous Chinatown as Wong gets control of 11 of the 12 coins. Though played up as a Tong war, ace reporter Jason Barton and his girl Peg are hot on his trail as is the Chinese Secret Service. All parties soon find themselves in serious trouble when they stumble onto Wong's headquarters.

Charlie Chan is brought in when an archaeologist disappears while excavating ancient art treasures in Egypt. Charlie must sort out the stories of the archaeological team, deal with the crazed son of the missing scientist, learn why priceless treasures are falling into the hands of private collectors, and battle many seemingly supernatural events.

Chan is on his way back from completing the London case—they always mentioned the previous case—to go on "vacation" to Paris, but this is just a way to make people think that he is innocently there. He is on a case for some London bankers and customers who say that some bonds from the Lamartine Bank in Paris are forged, so they hired Chan to solve the case. The suspects Chan meets include; Max Corday, a local artist who wants to reap the financial rewards of fame; Albert Dufresne, the assistant to the bank president who is living beyond his means; Henri Latouche, a bank officer who has access to financial bank records; Yvette Lamartine, the daughter of the bank president who is determined to recover old love letters from the bank vault; and Marcel Xavier, a crippled and blind beggar and "crazed World War I veteran who thinks that the bank is cheating on him and wants his money.
After various murder attempts on Chan and other killings, including that of his assistant, Nardi, and the ex-boyfriend of Yvette. Chan realizes that the murders were staged by Xavier. But it turns out not to be the case.
The murderer was Xavier, but he is actually not real; he has alternately been played by both Corday and Latouche; with Latouche appearing as Xavier when Corday was with Charlie, and Corday appearing as Xavier when Charlie meets Latouche at the Bank. Chan takes young Victor Descartes with him to find Xavier, and while they search Corday's and LaTouche's lair where they have been printing the counterfeit bonds, Latouche (as Xavier) arrives. Chan and Descartes kill the lights, and Latouche shoots at Chan's flashlight, apparently hitting him. But Chan has mounted it on a broomstick to decoy Latouche, and Descartes is able to capture Xavier/Latouche. Then the police arrive (summoned by Chan's son Lee), giving Chan a chance to explain how Corday and LaTouche created alibis for each other by alternately playing Xavier.

Charlie Chan arrives in Shanghai at the behest of the U.S. government to help stop an opium smuggling ring. He receives a warning aboard ship not to stop in Shanghai. He is met by his Number One Son, Lee Chan, as well as Philip Nash and his fianceé, Diana Woodland. Charlie is the guest of honor at a banquet held that evening, hosted by Sir Stanley Woodland (David Torrence in an uncredited role). When Sir Stanley opens a box to give a handwritten scroll to Charlie, he is shot and killed by a gun inside the booby-trapped box. Charlie meets with Colonel Watkins, the commissioner of police, and agrees to investigate the crime. The next day, American FBI man James Andrews arrives in Shanghai, accompanied by his valet, Forrest (Gladden James in an uncredited role). That night, an assassin shoots what seems to be a sleeping Charlie Chan in bed. But Charlie, suspecting another attempt on his life, rigged a dummy and escaped death.
Watkins, Nash, and Woodland try to meet with Andrews. Nash sneaks off and goes through Andrews' briefcase, suitcase, and other papers. Charlie arrives, and while he is speaking with Andrews is nearly shot. Charlie and Andrews managed to retrieve the gun, but the assassin escaped. A fingerprint on the gun reveals that Nash is the likely suspect, and he is arrested. A letter Nash had stolen from Andrews' things seem innocuous, but Charlie takes it as evidence. Charlie returns to his hotel and meets with Lee. They receive a note from Col. Watkins asking them to come to an office downtown. They check with police headquarters, which assures them the note is genuine. Charlie goes, but Lee realizes the note is fake when Col. Watkins calls soon thereafter. Charlie is kidnapped and taken into a room to meet with a mysterious Russian (Ivan Marloff). Lee tries to save his father, but is caught. The two bluff their way out of danger, and after a brief fight manage to escape.
That evening, Charlie and Andrews meet with Col. Watkins. Diana Woodland arrives and asks to see Nash; her request is granted. But Diana sneaks Nash a pistol, and the two escape. Later that day, Andrews and Charlie return to the house where Charlie was held. The gang has left, but Charlie finds an ink pad in the fireplace and takes it as evidence. Lee shows up dressed as a beggar, and Charlie sends him home. Oddly, Charlie arrives at the hotel first. Lee shows up later, and reveals that he saw their kidnapper in a taxi on the street and followed him to the Cafe Versailles. Moments later, Andrews calls and summons Charlie to his apartment. Before he leaves, Charlie sends Lee off on a secret mission. Charlie arrives at Andrews' apartment, where the FBI agent has caught a gangster involved with the Marloff gang. After a punch to the jaw, the gangster reveals that the Cafe Versailles is where the opium gang is hiding out. Andrews calls the police, and asks them to meet them at the club. Charlie and Andrews leave for Cafe Versailles. After Charlie and Andrews depart, Andrews' valet, Forrest, frees the gangster and the two leave. At the club, Nash (disguised as an able seaman) sees some of the Marloff gang heading toward the basement and follows, but is captured. Charlie and Andrews arrive moments later, and follow a gang member into the basement as well. The basement is where opium is being shipped out via riverboat, reached by a trap door. Andrews urges Charlie to go first, but Charlie hesitates when his flashlight mysteriously refuses to work. The police arrive by boat, and after a brief shootout capture the gang.
Charlie surprises everyone by arresting James Andrews. Lee Chan reveals that his father sent him off to cable America, and he has just received a reply which indicates that the real Agent Andrews was murdered in San Francisco three weeks earlier. The false "James Andrews" is really the leader of the Marloff gang, and intended to have the gang murder Charlie in a shoot-out when they descended through the trap door. Charlie knew Andrews did not really call the police, and had Lee summon them instead. Nash's escape from police custody was planned by Charlie. Charlie reveals that Forrest used the ink pad to put Nash's thumbprint on the revolver to frame him. Nash is declared innocent, and Andrews and Forrest go to jail.

The film opens with a trio of explorers in Africa who are hiding in a cave. One of the explorers, a pregnant woman, is bitten by a vampire bat.
The film then cuts forward in time to a small European village where a series of mysterious murders are taking place. The villagers readily assemble in mob form, with torches, at the house of Professor Kristan (Ralph Morgan) after every murder. The villagers suspect that a giant bat is to blame for the murders. Kristan gives the villagers advice on staying safe, and assures them a scientific explanation exists.
However, in subsequent scenes, Kristan himself is revealed to be the murderer. He is seized by attacks (triggered by darkness) which transform him into a trance-like state of murderousness. After he commits a murder, he awakens from the trance with no memory of the deed, believing himself merely to have fainted. Kristan's obliviousness is further enabled by the intervention of his loyal hunchback Zan, the only person aware of Kristan's condition. Zan follows Kristan when he is in his trances, ensuring the professor is not discovered.
An old friend of Kristan's named Dr. Bizet arrives to visit, and soon suspects what is happening. Bizet discloses to Kristan that his mother was bitten by a vampire bat, and that traits of vampirism have likely been passed down to him per Lamarckism. (The audience now understands the pregnant explorer in the opening flashback to have been Kristan's mother.)
After Kristan's fiance (Maxine Doyle) is attacked by an entranced Kristan, the mob of villagers assumes Zan is culpable and chases him to the edge of a cliff inside a cave. Kristan arrives and confesses to the murders, despite Zan's protestations (aimed at saving the professor) that he, the hunchback, is in fact the murderer. As the mob watches, Kristan throws himself over the edge of the cliff and Zan follows.

An African-American man is framed of the murder of a white woman, but a white man is found to be responsible.

On a short flight to Catalina Island off the California coast, a passenger named Roswell T. Forrest (Brooks Benedict) gets sick. Hildegarde Withers (Edna May Oliver) and the others aboard are startled when he is found dead upon landing. It appears to be murder to Miss Withers, but she has a tough time convincing local Police Chief Britt (Spencer Charters) and coroner Dr. O'Rourke (Arthur Hoyt).
When she contacts her friend, Police Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gleason), for more information about the deceased, he recognizes the name: the man was a vital witness in a case against a crime syndicate and had a price on his head of $10,000. He flies from New York to assist her in investigating the case and protect her from mob retribution.
When he arrives, the pair argue over which of the people aboard the plane is the killer:
Joseph B. Tate (Leo G. Carroll), a famous Hollywood director
struggling actress Phyllis La Font (Lola Lane), who is angling for a part in Tate's next movie
honeymooners Kay (Dorothy Libaire) and Marvin Deving (Harry Ellerbe)
Captain Beegle (DeWitt Jennings), a retired, self-confessed former rum runner, and
pilots Dick French (Chick Chandler) and Madden (Matt McHugh).
Withers suspects poisoning – Forrest had been given a drink, a cigarette, and even a dose of smelling salts by Withers herself – but before this can be confirmed, the body is stolen. While Piper questions those involved, Withers discovers that McArthur (Morgan Wallace), the gangster who had offered the reward for Forrest's death, has registered at the hotel under the flimsy alias of Arthur Mack. When she eavesdrops on his telephone conversation, she learns that he will be leaving an envelope for someone. She purloins it from the mailbox and finds $10,000 inside.
More murders occur. Marvin Deving is shot and killed just before he can reveal some information to Piper. Meanwhile, Withers and Piper learn that the first victim was not Forrest, but his bodyguard Tom Kelsey. He and the real Forrest (George Meeker) had switched identities. After McArthur confronts Withers at gunpoint, trussing her up and putting her in the closet, from which she is rescued by Piper, McArthur is also found dead. Although it is staged to look like a suicide, Withers notices that the pistol in his hand is not his own.
When an employee complains that the fish in the hotel pond are all dead, Withers finds a pack of cigarettes discarded nearby; one of the cigarettes had fallen into the water, poisoning and killing the fish. With the murder weapon found, all the pieces come together. Withers takes Piper to see the grieving Kay. She offers the widow a cigarette, then casually mentions where she got it. When Kay refuses to smoke it, Withers tells Piper that McArthur's gun must be in the room. Kay pulls it out and tells them that she will have to kill them both now, but Withers manages to distract her, enabling Piper to disarm her. It turns out that the Devings thought they had been doublecrossed by McArthur when they did not receive their reward, unaware that Withers had taken it. When Marvin tried to betray McArthur in return, he was killed by his employer, and Kay then did in McArthur.

To celebrate their six-month anniversary, Long Island socialites Tony and Carlotta Milburn arrange a wild drinking party with friends, culminating in a stop at the restaurant owned by Faronea. They are unaware that Faronea is conspiring with Baptiste Bouclier, the chauffeur of party host Vic Huling, to kidnap Vic. The next morning the Milburns awake hung over to find Vic dead from a gunshot through the heart and his wife Bette missing. Tony calls his friend, district attorney Danny Harrison to investigate. Bette arrives with Billy Arliss at whose home she had slept. Because of their excessive drinking, no one can remember anything about what had happened the night before. As circumstantial evidence mounts against Tony, he calls in hypnotist Professor Karl Jones to help everyone try to recover their memories. Just as the professor is about to reveal the murderer, he is murdered.
Next to be killed is restaurateur Faronea. After Tony and Carlotta eavesdrop on him conferring with an accomplice at his restaurant, Faronea discovers them. Tony bluffs that he knows about the kidnapping plot and the accomplice murders Faronea. The couple returns home to find Bouclier murdered in his quarters. Friend Jake Whitridge responds to a frantic telephone call from Billy. Tony and Danny arrive, as they had planned with Billy, moments after Jake. Jake attacks Billy and knocks him out. When he regains consciousness Billy attempts to shoot Jake but Tony saves him. After the various spouses arrive, Tony announces he has solved the mystery.
Billy borrowed money from Vic on behalf of Jake, using a false name. Jake altered the check to be for $150,000 instead of $50,000 and Vic forced Billy to reveal he had borrowed the money for Jake. Jake shot Vic at Jake's home and brought his body to the party, where everyone assumed he was just passed out. Jake paid Bouclier to remain quiet, which is why Bouclier had to kill Professor Jones. Bouclier, Faronea's accomplice, killed Faronea after Tony spoke to him about the kidnapping plot. Jake then shot Bouclier. Danny places Jake under arrest and extracts a pledge from Tony and Carlotta to quit drinking. They agree and drink a toast to it.

New York lawyer and playboy Clay Dalzell (William Powell) is asked by old friend Tim Winthrop to locate his girlfriend Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in Chicago a year ago. Winthrop cannot stop thinking about her and believes she is in New York.
Along with Donna Mantin (Ginger Rogers), who has romantic designs on him, "Dal" attends a hit stage show called "Midnight" that stars a masked actress, Mary Smith, who vanishes in mid-performance when Winthrop recognizes her and blurts out the name Alice.
Gossip columnist Tommy Tennant claims to have discovered a vital clue to the mystery, but before he can reveal it, he is shot in Dal's suite. Dal is the main suspect, but Inspector Doremus does not believe him to be guilty, and gives the resourceful lawyer the freedom to investigate on his own.
Dal negotiates with gangster Kinland to retrieve letters embarrassing to Donna. When he gets them (using a bit of blackmail), he is annoyed to discover that they actually belong to a friend of Donna's.
Dal runs into an old flame, Jerry, now wed to a lawyer named Classon. Classon, it turns out, is also searching for Alice; she can provide an alibi for his client, convicted of a murder in Chicago.
Dal sets up a trap in a Greenwich Village apartment, pretending to have located the missing Mary there and notifying each of the suspects that she is leaving there to meet him at his suite. He reasons that those who are innocent will go to his suite, while the murderer heads to the apartment to silence Mary.
The killer indeed turns up, in disguise, putting Dal and Donna in grave danger. Fortunately, Dal and Inspector Doremus are able to subdue the culprit. It is Robert Classon. It turns out that Jerry had carried on affairs, first with the Chicago murder victim, then with his accused killer. Robert Classon killed one of his wife's lovers and tried to frame the other. To achieve the latter, he also needed to silence Alice, unaware that she had fled to avoid testifying. She hated the convicted man for ruining her father.
With everything wrapped up, Dal finally gives in and marries Donna.

Nick and Nora Charles return from vacation to their home in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, where Nora's stuffy family expect the couple to join them for a formal dinner. Nick is despised by Nora's Aunt Katherine, the family matriarch, as his immigrant heritage and experience as a "flat foot" are considered below Nora. The true reason for their invitation is that Nora's cousin Selma's ne'er-do-well husband Robert has been missing. Nick is coerced into a little quiet detective work for the family.
They easily find Robert at a Chinese nightclub, where he's been conducting an affair with Polly, the star performer. Robert tries to extort money from Selma's unrequited love, David Graham (James Stewart): $25,000 and Robert will leave Selma alone permanently. Unknown to Robert, Polly and the nightclub's owner, Dancer, plan to grift the money and dispose of him. After being paid off, and returning home for some clothes, Robert is shot at the stroke of midnight. David finds Selma standing over Robert and hurriedly disposes of her gun. Despite this, the police determine that she's the prime suspect, and her fragile mental state only strengthens the case. Selma insists that she never fired her gun, and Nick is now obliged to investigate and determine the true murderer.
As suspects pile up, schemes and double-crosses are found and two more murders occur, including Polly's brutal brother. Lt. Abrams (Sam Levene, making his series debut) readily accepts Nick's assistance. Nick follows a trail of clues that lead him to the apartment of a mysterious "Anderson". As in the previous film, the film climaxes with a final interrogation and denouement featuring all the suspects. The murderer is revealed to be David (the mysterious "Anderson"), who has harbored a vengeful hatred of Selma after she passed him over to marry Robert. The case solved, and once again traveling by train, Nora reveals to Nick that they are expecting a baby, although Nick has to be prodded into putting the "clues" together and she comments: "And you call yourself a detective."

Mason is summoned to the Laxter mansion in the dead of night to write granddaughter Wilma out of invalid Peter Laxter's will, to keep her from marrying suspected fortune hunter Doug. Peter dies in a mysterious fire and Laxter's two grandsons, Sam Laxter and Frank Oafley, inherit his estate on the condition old caretaker Schuster and his cat Clinker are kept on. When cat-hating Sam threatens Clinker, Perry steps in and learns Laxter's death was suspicious and the family fortune and diamonds are missing.

Charlie Chan takes his wife and twelve children on an outing to a circus after receiving a free pass from one of the owners, Joe Kinney. Kinney wants Chan to find out who is sending him anonymous threatening letters. Nearly all of the circus workers are suspects, since Kinney is very unpopular. However, when Chan goes to meet him during the night's performance, he finds the man dead, seemingly killed by a rampaging gorilla who somehow escaped from his cage.
Lieutenant Macy takes charge of the investigation, assisted by Chan and his overzealous eldest son Lee, who also takes the opportunity to (unsuccessfully) romance Su Toy (Toshia Mori, credited as Shia Jung), the contortionist. On Chan's advice, Macy lets the circus continue on to its next stop, with the trio tagging along. During the train ride, an attempt is made to murder Chan with a poisonous cobra.
Then someone tries to break into the circus's safe, but nothing is missing. Macy finds a marriage certificate inside, showing that Kinney supposedly married circus wardrobe lady Nellie Farrell in Mexico. However, Kinney's fiance Marie Norman claims that she can prove Kinney was not in Mexico the day indicated on the certificate. Before she can prove it, during her act, someone shoots one of the ropes of her trapeze swing and she falls to the ground, seriously injured, but still alive.
A doctor is summoned. Chan states that Marie is too badly hurt to move, so the doctor must operate on the spot. Chan asks everyone to keep quiet and clear the area, so as not to cause a potentially fatal distraction for the medical staff during the delicate operation.
Meanwhile, Chan has noticed a newspaper article about a crime committed at a casino the day of Kinney's alleged marriage. He sends his son to phone for a description of the crooks involved from the police. When Lee returns, he sees a man slug the policeman guarding the gorilla's cage and let the ape out again. He struggles with the man, but is knocked out.
The gorilla reaches the tent where the operation is in progress and tries to cause trouble. Fortunately, the operation is a fake, as is the gorilla. He is shot to death by policemen masquerading as doctors. It is revealed to be snake charmer Tom Holt in a costume, trying to pin a second death on the escaped animal. He and Kinney had robbed the casino and hidden out at the circus. However they had had a falling out over the division of the money, leading to Kinney's murder. Nellie Farrell and her brother Dan are also arrested for trying to use a forgery to gain half interest in the circus. Charlie Chan agrees to obtain a lifetime pass to the circus for his family. He sees Lee Chan and Su Toy having some romance together wondering if any future grandchildren will be able to see the circus, too.

Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) gets to watch a performance that's to die for. For seven years, opera star Gravelle (Boris Karloff) has been locked in an insane asylum, his identity a mystery - even to himself. But when his memory unexpectedly returns, he begins to recall that his wife and her lover tried to murder him - and now he's determined to make them face the music. Gravelle escapes from the asylum and makes his way to the San Marco opera house and begins hiding out in the various rooms and passageways. Soon, members of the opera company are being murdered one by one.
Chan soon investigates the killings and despite the presence of Gravelle, there are other suspects who may be the real killer. They suspects, excluding Gravelle, include Lilli Rochelle, the opera company's prima donna who has been having a secret affair with Enrico Barelli, the baritone; Mr. Whitely, Madame Rochelle's husband who has warned Barelli to stay away from his wife; Anita Barelli, the opera company's number two soprano who has learned of her husband's affair with Lilli Rochelle; and Phil Childers, the fiancee of Lilli's unacknowledged daughter who has been refused permission to marry the daughter.
Clues found by Chan to apprehend the killer include a torn newspaper, a charred note, a heel mark on a newspaper picture, and a bloodstained belt. Among the questions asked are who has been threatening Lilli Rochelle's life, the mystery man in Barelli's dressing room before he is murdered, and why does Chan insist that the opera be formed twice in one evening?

When a prominent racehorse owner winds up dead-allegedly kicked to death by his prized stallion, Charlie Chan is called in to investigate. But when the indomitable detective discovers evidence of foul play, he's soon hot on the hooves of an international gambling ring with an evil plot to turn the racetracks of the world into a trifecta of terror!

Alan Colby, heir to a vast fortune, reappears after a seven-year absence, only to be murdered before he can claim his inheritance. The Lowells have been living off the Colby fortune, and now someone is trying to kill Henrietta Lowell, matriarch of the family. Among the suspects are:
Fred and Janice Gage, who live off the Lowell (Colby) fortune, which would have gone to Alan Colby, the murdered man
Prof. Bowen, who is paid handsomely by the Lowells for his valuable psychic research
Mr. Phelps, the executor of the Lowell estate
Ulrich, the caretaker who had a longstanding grudge against Alan Colby
Henrietta Lowell, the aunt of Alan Colby who wants to continue psychic research.
Charlie Chan is called to investigate Alan Colby's murder where clues include:
A clock deliberately set to the wrong time
The old house has secret passageways
A medieval dagger used to commit the murder
A rifle rigged to fire by itself

Inspector Gallagher (Willard Kent) of the United States Department of Commerce views a number of crashes and disappearances of Goering-Gage Aviation Corporation aircraft as suspicious. With United States Army Reserve test pilot Jerry Blackwood (John Carroll), Gallagher visits the Goering-Gage company. Jerry test flies Goering-Gage aircraft but finds nothing wrong. When a severely injured passenger from a crash, claims a mystery aircraft attacked them, the owner, Henry Goering (Henry Hall) hires psychiatrist, Dr. Norris (John Elliott), to question the man. Dr. Norris believes a psychotic ex-World War I flying ace, whom he dubs "Pilot X," may be behind the attacks.
With the help of Blackwood, Goering and Norris assemble a group of five ex-flying aces living in the area who may have a connection with the mysterious Pilot X. He recruits German Lieutenant Baron von Guttard (Hans Joby), French Lieutenant Rene Le Rue (Gaston Glass), British Captain Roland Saunders (Pat Somerset), Canadian Lieutenant Douglas Thompson (Wheeler Oakman) and American Lieutenant John Ives (Reed Howes). The group meets in a mansion to plan how to confront the mysterious Pilot X.
One pilot, however, von Guttard comes under immediate suspicion when Goering is uneasy with son Carl (Leon Ames), an ex-German prisoner of war. On their first patrol, Pilot X attacks, killing von Guttard . Later that day, Le Rue is killed by Pilot X and the next day, Saunders has a mental breakdown. Blackwood receives a note from Pilot X, asking him to meet him in the sky at six o'clock the next morning. Thompson, meanwhile, receives a similar note but Pilot X, who is on the airfield, paints an "X" on Thompson's aircraft.
Blackwood mistakes Thompson for Pilot X, and kills the Canadian. When a paint can is found in Ives' locker, all accuse the American ace of being Pilot X. That night, Dr. Norris calls the elder Goering, telling him that he knows who is Pilot X, but is murdered. Gallagher believes Blackwood is Pilot X, and sends Ives and Saunders after him.
Helen Gage (Lona Andre), Henry's ward, however, first finds part of Saunders' goggles near Norris' dead body, then finds the other half in his aircraft. Crazed, Saunders, takes off after Blackwood with Helen trapped on his aircraft. Once in the sky, Pilot X appears and attacks Saunders, wounding him.
In a fierce dogfight, Pilot X attacks Blackwood but is shot down. In the wreckage of Pilot X's aircraft the body of Carl Goering is discovered along with a photograph of Carl in a German uniform. He was not a prisoner of war, but deserted and joined the German Air Force. With the mystery solved. Blackwood and Helen realize that they are attracted to one another and embrace.


A Coast Guardsman must rescue his kidnapped girlfriend.

When millionaire New York City businessman Aaron Lampier (Charley Grapewin) receives a death threat in the mail, he sends for his offspring. Ernie Hyams (Bruce Cabot), a newspaper reporter turned lawyer, is dispatched by MacKelvey (Stanley Ridges), his former editor, to track down Lampier's daughter Lorraine (Margaret Lindsay). She does not appreciate being dragged away from the nightclub/casino of Frank Penny (Joseph Calleia). She and her perpetually drunk brother Stephen (George Lynn) have also received similar mail. When their brother David is killed in a car crash that night, Ernie soon discovers it was not an accident; a wire cable strung across the road was used to cause it. Ernie is pressured into investigating.
Lampier's will leaves everything equally to his children. If they predecease him, the estate goes to various charities.
Stephen is the next victim. An associate of Penny's is driving Stephen's car when he is stopped by the police. They find Stephen's body inside with six shots to the head; the driver claims he did not know it was there when he stole the automobile. Captain Bill Royce (Edward Pawley) of the Homicide Squad arrests Penny, but has to release him for lack of evidence. It turns out that Stephen is still alive and in hiding. By the time Ernie and MacKelvey track him down, though, he has been stabbed to death.
Next is Aaron Lampier. A man climbs down to his suite and, after a struggle, flings him over the terrace to his death.
To protect Lorraine (to whom he has become attracted), Ernie sets a trap. He spreads the word that she is flying away at midnight, then gathers all the prime suspects at Penny's nightclub to see her off. Her drink is poisoned, but a doctor is standing by and she is saved. Ernie sadly identifies the killer; MacKelvey was the only one who had the opportunity to slip poison into the liquor. The editor confesses that he needed more money to keep his wife Alicia (Vivienne Osborne) happy. He figured that with the Lampiers all dead, he would be put in charge of one of their businesses. Afterward, Ernie and Lorraine get married.

When Chan's oldest son, Lee (Keye Luke), is chosen to compete in the Olympics, Chan is proud as can be. Meanwhile, over the skies of Chan's Honolulu, the "Hopkins plane" is demonstrating an improvement of remote radio control to the US military. However, the aircraft is hijacked by a concealed stowaway, the device stolen, and the test pilot murdered. When Chan, followed by his astute second son, Charlie Jr. (Layne Tom Jr.), tracks down the stowaway, he finds only the man's body.
On the passenger list of the only aircraft to leave Honolulu for the mainland after the incident are Richard Masters (Allan Lane) and Yvonne Roland (Katherine DeMille). Masters was the intended test pilot, only he injured his shoulder and had to be replaced. It turns out, however, he left on the Pan Am Clipper to travel to the Olympics himself as a competitor. Perusing the list, Hopkins (Jonathan Hale) recognizes the name of arms dealer Arthur Hughes (C. Henry Gordon). Several of the suspects head for Germany by steamship. Chan, Hughes and the inventor Cartwright manage to arrive ahead of them by taking the Zeppelin Hindenburg.
Aboard the ship Manhattan, Lee Chan suspects Roland of being an "adventuress". He spots her putting a piece of paper in her book, and Hughes taking it. He confides in fellow Olympian Betty Adams (Pauline Moore), Masters' girlfriend.
When the ship docks, German Inspector Strasser, Chan and Hopkins go to question Roland, only to find her gone and her cabin rifled. Chan is reunited with his son Lee when the latter sneaks into the cabin through a porthole to play detective.
On the train trip to Berlin, Chan learns that Lee saw Roland borrow a camera from Adams. Hughes overhears the pair speculate that the invention was smuggled off the ship in it. Hughes advises Chan to stop investigating, then spots a gun barrel in a passing car and pushes the pair to safety. A shot strikes their compartment window. Later, Hughes arranges for Adams' camera to be stolen, but finds nothing inside.
A hotel maid tries to steal the invention, hidden in Adams' candy box, but is foiled by Chan and Strasser. When she runs to the window to warn her accomplices, Charlie substitutes a book for the device without being noticed. Hopkins insists on keeping the candy box in his hotel suite, where he is visited by Hughes. Chan and a policeman break in when they hear gunfire. They find Cartwright on the floor. He claims Hughes accused Hopkins of taking the device to double-cross the stockholders of his company, then after Hughes left, Hopkins took the invention at gunpoint and slugged him.
Roland takes the candy box to her employer, diplomat the Honorable Charles Zaraka (Morgan Wallace). When they discover the substitution, Roland surmises that Chan has the device. Zaraka sends Chan a ticket to the opening ceremony. While Chan verbally spars with him and Roland, Lee is kidnapped.
Chan allows himself to be taken to Zaraka to exchange the device for his son. Hopkins is brought in to verify it is the invention; he does (even though it is an imitation with a radio beacon inside). Satisfied, Zaraka orders his men to dispose of the Chans when Hughes and his men burst in. Hughes threatens to kill Lee if Chan does not produce the real equipment, but the police arrive just in time to rescue the detective. Hopkins is found unconscious from a gunshot in another room. Cartwright accuses Hughes of the shooting, but Chan proves that Cartwright was responsible for that and also the murder of his accomplice back in Honolulu. Afterward, Lee wins the 100 meter swim.

While Charlie Chan and his number one son, Lee, are aboard a New York-bound transatlantic liner returning from Germany in their previous adventure (Charlie Chan at the Olympics), they have a run-in with a mysterious woman, named Billie Bronson, who secretes a package in the trunk of the Chans. After the liner docks, Chan and Lee are met at the pier by Inspector Nelson and two rival reporters, Joan Wendall and Speed Patton. Bille, having left the country hurriedly a year ago when sought as a material witness in a political scandal, has returned to "blow the lid off the town." She follows the Chans to their hotel and attempts to regain her package from the trunk, only to be interrupted by Lee. She then goes to the "Hottentot Club", where "candid-camera night" is in full progress, followed by Lee. Already present are Joan and Speed. Billie is mysteriously murdered and Charlie is summoned from a police banquet in his honor. Present in the room with the body are club manager Johnny Burke; club dancer and Burke's girl-friend Marie Collins and the two reporters. While seeking a motive for the murder, a second killing is discovered in Charlie's hotel room, the package is missing from Charlie's trunk and it is realized that it must have contained her diary. Charlie neatly puts together a few scattered clues and then springs a trap to confirm the identity of the killer.


After his brother is killed on the ice during a hockey game, Alex Ferguson, convinced it was no accident, goes undercover as a new player to discover the truth.
Alex falls for Betty Holland, the coach's daughter. He ultimately learns that team owner Maxwell is in cahoots with gamblers, as are a couple of his players, and coach Joe Holland is in debt to them. Betty takes a job at a newspaper and endeavors to clear her dad's name while Alex survives a dangerous game, followed by a confrontation with the crooks.

Grant Naylor is unhappy because the woman he loves, Ann Randall, wants to instead marry Stephen Danby, a scoundrel. All are surprised during a performance of The Great Gambini when the magician predicts Ann and Danby will never be wed.
His prediction comes true when Danby's dead body is found. Sgt. Kirby questions all of Ann's family and Grant, and a piece of evidence points them to a man who was using a disguise. Grant believes the detective has the wrong man and discovers it's been Gambini himself all along. Gambini confesses on stage, but remains confident because Kirby's handcuffs might not be able to hold him.

A southern town is rocked by scandal when teenager Mary Clay is murdered on Confederate Memorial Day. A district attorney with political ambitions, Andrew Griffin, sees the crime as way to the Senate if he can find the right scapegoat to be tried for the crime. He seeks out Robert Hale, Mary's teacher at the business school where she was killed. Even though all evidence against Hale is circumstantial, Hale happens to be from New York (Leo Frank was a Southerner from Texas, but he was Jewish and had been raised in New York), and Griffin works with reporter William Brock to create a media frenzy of prejudice and hatred against the teacher. The issue moves from innocence or guilt to the continuing bigotry and suspicion between South and North, especially given the significance of the day of the murder.
The film shows the immense pressures brought to bear on members of the community to help in the conviction - the black janitor who is induced to lie on the stand for fear he himself will be convicted if Hale is found innocent; the juror who is the sole holdout to a guilty verdict; and the barber who is afraid to testify to something he knows because it could exonerate Hale. Michael Gleason, Hale's lawyer, does his best, but Hale is convicted and sentenced to death.
The governor of the state, with the support of his wife, decides to commit political suicide by commuting Hale's death sentence to life imprisonment because the evidence is simply insufficient to send a man to his death. The townsfolk are enraged, and the murdered girl's brothers, who have been threatening all along to take matters into their own hands if Hale is not executed, plot and carry out Hale's abduction and lynching with the help of a vengeful mob.
Afterward, Hale's widow goes to Griffin's office to return a check he had sent her to help her out, telling him he cannot soothe his conscience that way. As he and Brock watch her leave the building, Brock wonders if Hale was guilty. Griffin replies without much concern, "I wonder."

The film opens with Mr. Moto in disguise as a street salesmen and selling goods to passers-by. He sees a man leaving a shop with a tattoo of the British Flag on his arm. Moto enters the shop to sell a rare diamond to the owner. However, Moto sees a body stuffed into a wicker basket in the store, and using his mastery of judo takes down the shopkeeper. Later, he reserves a berth on a freighter headed for Shanghai. Also on the freighter is Bob Hitchings Jr., son of the owner of the freighter. Before leaving, Hitchings Sr. gives his son a confidential letter for the head of the Shanghai branch of the company. Hitchings and Moto become friends (Moto notices the letter), and Moto helps Hitchings cure a hangover. Hitchings complains to Moto that he has not met any beautiful women on board. After a stop in Honolulu, a beautiful woman named Gloria Danton boards the ship, and she and Hitchings fall in love. But Gloria is a spy for Nicolas Marloff, who runs a smuggling operation out of Shanghai. She periodically sends him notes and leaves without saying goodbye to Hitchings. Moto finds a steward looking for Hitchings’s letter, and confronts him, knowing he was the person who killed the man in the wicker basket, as he wears the tattoo. Moto throws the man overboard and takes the letter.
At Shanghai, Hitchings meets with Joseph B. Wilkie and gives him the letter, but later learns that it is a blank sheet of paper. He calls his father, who tells him the letter said to watch out for smugglers. Hitchings is adamant on finding Gloria, and he learns from an unknown person that she is at the “international club”. Both he and Wilkie go there, as well as Moto and his date, Lela Liu. Hitchings finds Gloria performing at the club and goes to her dressing room. However, the club owner Marloff, discovers them together, and, knowing that Hitchings knows too much, locks them both up. Moto tells Lela to call the police, and seeks out Marloff. Posing as a fellow smuggler, he tricks Marloff into leading him to Gloria and Hitchings. Lela is shot while contacting the police, but manages to tell them where she is. Wilkie finds Marloff, and demands that Gloria and Hitchings be released. Marloff finds out that Moto is not a smuggler, then Moto apprehends him. Moto tells Wilkie to get Marloff’s gun, the gun explodes as Wilkie tries to grab it, killing Marloff. Police storm the building, and Moto tells them the Wilkie headed the smuggling operation. Wilkie replaced the letter and shot Lela. Moto gave Wilkie the opportunity to kill Marloff, who knew he was in on the plot, and he did. Wilkie is arrested, and things go back to normal.

Inspector Delzante (Bela Lugosi), investigates a series of murders near a British mansion in Calcutta. The murders are pinned on a young runaway named Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) who is taken in by a well-intentioned fake Irish medium, Madame LaGrange (Margaret Wycherly).

The film opens with Detective Chan rushing to the hospital to be with his daughter as she prepares to give birth to his first grandchild. While Charlie Chan waits at the hospital, his "number two" son Jimmy intercepts a message intended for Charlie about a murder on board the freighter Susan B. Jennings.
The freighter is on its way from Shanghai to Honolulu under the leadership of Captain Johnson (Robert Barrat). Jimmy wants to prove his investigative skills to his father and so boards the Jennings pretending to be Charlie Chan, with his younger brother Tommy (Layne Tom Jr.) in tow. The ruse doesn't last long and soon the real Chan arrives on board, interrogating a motley assortment of crooks, heiresses and crew as he works to solve a crime whose only witness is secretary Judy Haynes (Phyllis Brooks).

A Hollywood actor is accused of murder and attempts to scheme his way out of it.

At 3:00 am, Melsa (Barbara Stanwyck) takes her little dogs for a walk. Near a subway construction site, she sees Ronnie Belden run out of a house and drive away. The house is for sale by Sheila Lane (Leona Maricle), the wife of George Lane, a wealthy banker. Inside, Melsa finds a diamond brooch and Mr. Lane's dead body. As she runs for help, her cloak falls off with the brooch inside it. When the police arrive, the body, cloak, and brooch are gone. Melsa and her friends are notorious pranksters, so the detective, Lieutenant Mike Brent (Levene), does nothing to investigate the murder. Ames writes an editorial decrying Melsa's "prank", and she sues him for libel.
Melsa and her friends decide they must find the murderer in order to defend their reputation. The resulting manhunt includes searches of the Lane house, Belden's apartment, Lane's business office, and all of the local beauty shops; two attempts to intimidate Melsa; two shooting attempts on her life; a charity ball; and a trap set for the murderer using Melsa as bait. During this time, the women twice attack Ames and tie him up, Melsa's friend Myra enthusiastically flirts with Ames, and their friend Pat eats incessantly. In the course of these events, the following facts emerge:
George Lane has been out of town for a week.
Sheila Lane hasn't been seen since the day of the murder.
Sheila and Belden may be having an affair.
Belden's apartment contains the brooch, a knife just like one used to intimidate Melsa, and Belden's dead body.
Lane's body is found in Belden's car.
George Lane left an insurance policy with his business partner Mr. Thomas as beneficiary.
Thomas has been going broke.
Someone may have been blackmailing Lane.
Sheila was once married to a convict named Edward Norris.
Norris was at a hockey game at the time of the murders, but left the game for ten minutes.
Norris has a job working for the subway.
Traveling from the hockey rink to the Lane house and back requires more than ten minutes using all standard forms of transportation.
George Lane recently lost money gambling.
Sheila Lane was hiding from the killer.
Sheila and Belden met at the Lane house after Lane was killed. They couldn't call the police without exposing their affair, and Belden was killed while moving Mr. Lane's body.
While Brent repeatedly accuses innocent people based on incorrect theories, Melsa deduces that Belden removed the body and cloak from the Lane house before the police arrived. Near the end of the film, an escaping would-be killer leaves behind a piece of tar paper, which reminds Melsa of the subway construction site. Returning to the site, she finds a fast electric cart on the track. This is how Norris made his way to and from the crime scene in ten minutes. Norris is captured after confessing to the murders and briefly holding Melsa and Ames at gunpoint.
During the film, the relationship between Melsa and Ames evolves from sharp animosity to love and marital engagement. Melsa appears to be hostile toward Ames during most of the film, while he almost immediately decides that he's going to marry her and begins to woo her aggressively. She stabs him in the leg with a fork in retaliation for a treacherous trick he played on her, but they have a friendly chat early in the story, and a longer, more heart-to-heart conversation later. After the police rescue them from Norris, the film ends with Melsa and Ames planning their honeymoon.

Jobless and destitute from his gambling, former newspaper reporter, Barry Gilbert breaks into a house that belongs to John Clark Reitter, Jr., son of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher. Discovering that the house will be empty for months, Barry decides to impersonate young Reitter.
A neighbor, Patricia Hammond, develops an interest in Barry, while a showgirl, Peggy, wife of Reitter Jr., tells him her husband is being framed for the murder of a political bigshot. Barry lands a job on Reitter Sr.'s paper under an assumed name and is assigned to investigate the case. He helps discover the real killer and ends up romantically involved with Patricia.

In San Francisco, policeman Lieutenant Riggs (Harold Huber) takes Mr. Moto, a detective and Lee Chan (Keye Luke), a student, to a prizefight between Bill Steele (Dick Baldwin) and Frank Stanton (Russ Clark), where the winner will take on the champion, Biff Moran (Ward Bond). However, the fight is fixed and gangster Nick Crowder (Douglas Fowley) bets big money that Stanton won't make it to the fifth round. He goes down in the fourth and dies shortly afterward.
Bookie Clipper McCoy (Bernard Nedell) loses a fortune. Moto proves that it was murder and it is revealed that $100,000 was won in bets around the country against Stanton. Moto works with Lt. Riggs to solve the murder as the championship fight looms.
Comedy is provided by Wellington (Maxie Rosenbloom), a kleptomaniac, and Lee Chan. Moto promised to reveal the murderer's identity on the night of the big fight, but the murderer has plans, too, with a concealed gun, to kill Moto.


Three boys, Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine, and Dave Boyle, play hockey in a Boston street in 1975. Spotting wet concrete, they start writing their names into it when a car pulls up and two men, pretending to be police officers, get out, berate the boys for their actions, and tell Dave to get into the car. The men hold Dave captive and sexually abuse him for four days, until he escapes.
Twenty-five years later, the boys are grown and, while they still live in Boston, have drifted apart. Jimmy is an ex-con running a neighborhood store, while Dave is a blue-collar worker, still haunted by his abduction. The two are still neighbors and related by marriage. Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter Katie is secretly dating Brendan Harris, a boy Jimmy despises. She and Brendan are planning to run away together to Las Vegas.
Katie goes out for the night with her girlfriends and Dave sees her at a local bar. That night, Katie is murdered, and Dave comes home with an injured hand and blood on his clothes, which his wife Celeste helps him clean up. Dave claims he fought off a mugger, "bashed his head into the concrete", and possibly killed him. Sean, now a detective with the Massachusetts State Police, investigates Katie's murder. His pregnant wife, Lauren, has recently left him.
Over the course of the film, Sean and his partner, Sergeant Whitey Powers, track down leads while Jimmy conducts his own investigation using his neighborhood connections. Sean discovers that the gun used to kill Katie was also used in a liquor store robbery during the 1980s by "Just Ray" Harris, the father of Katie's boyfriend. Harris has been missing since 1989, but Brendan claims he still sends his family $500 every month. Brendan also feigns ignorance about Ray's gun but Sean believes it was still in the house. Sergeant Powers suspects Dave as a possible perpetrator because he was one of the last people to see Katie alive. He also has a wounded hand and, although he continues to tell his wife he got it while being mugged, he tells the police a different story – soon Jimmy becomes suspicious of it. Dave continues to behave strangely, which upsets his wife to the point she is afraid he will hurt her. While Jimmy and his associates conduct their investigation, Dave's wife eventually tells Jimmy about Dave's behavior, the bloody clothing, and her suspicions.
Jimmy and his friends get Dave drunk at a local bar. When Dave leaves the bar, the men follow him out. Jimmy tells Dave that he shot "Just Ray" Harris at that same location for ratting him out and sending him to jail. Jimmy informs Dave that his wife thinks he murdered Katie and tells Dave he will let him live if he confesses. Dave repeatedly tells Jimmy that he did kill someone but it was not Katie: he beat a child molester to death after finding him having sex with a child prostitute in a car. Jimmy does not believe Dave's claim and threatens him with a knife. When Dave finally admits to killing Katie thinking he can escape with his life, Jimmy kills him and disposes of his body in the adjacent Mystic River.
While Dave is being killed, Brendan (having found out about his father's gun during questioning) confronts his younger brother Ray Jr. and his brother's friend John about Katie's murder. He beats the two boys and threatens to kill them if they do not admit their guilt, but when John takes the gun and is about to shoot him, Sean and Powers arrive just in time to stop it.
The next morning, Sean tells Jimmy the police have Katie's murderers – who have confessed. She was killed by Brendan's brother, "Silent Ray" Harris, and his friend John O'Shea in a violent prank gone wrong: The kids got hold of Just Ray's gun and saw a car coming which happened to be Katie's. John aimed the gun just to scare her but the gun went off by accident. The car veered onto the curb and Katie got out and ran into the park. Silent Ray and John pursued her so she wouldn't tell anyone. The beating Katie received was from Silent Ray, who had a hockey stick. Once she was beaten, John shot her again, killing her. Sean asks Jimmy if he has seen Dave, because he is wanted for questioning in another case, the murder of a known child molester. A distraught Jimmy thanks Sean for finding his daughter's killers, but says, "if only you had been a little faster." Sean asks Jimmy if he's going to "send Celeste Boyle $500 a month too?"
Sean reunites with his wife and his daughter Nora, after apologizing for "pushing her away". Jimmy goes to his wife, Annabeth and confesses. She comforts him and tells him he is a king and kings always make the right decision. At a town parade, Sean sees Jimmy, and mimics shooting him, to let Jimmy know he is watching.


Bill Reardon's (Melvyn Douglas) private detective agency isn't making enough money, so he closes it and takes a job with the district attorney's office. Because the bills keep piling up, wife Sally (Joan Blondell) decides to try being a private eye herself.
Sally is hired by a socialite, Lola Fraser (Mary Astor), to find out if Lola's husband Walter (Lester Matthews) is having an affair with Anne Calhoun (Frances Drake), as she suspects. At a nightclub owned by Nick Shane (Jerome Cowan), pretending to be out with Bill for pleasure rather than business, Sally observes that Anne's angry fiancé Jerry Marlowe (Robert Paige) is threatening Walter Fraser, and before long Walter ends up dead.
Jerry is the prime suspect. Mr. Ketterling (Pierre Watkin), who is Jerry's employer, hires Sally to prove him innocent. Shane could be behind it, she figures, but Shane's murdered body is found as well, and Sally catches a whiff of a familiar perfume, Lola's.
With her husband's help, Sally proves that Lola decided to kill Walter to become a wealthy widow because he was planning to divorce her. Lola gets her just deserts, and Sally becomes a first-rate sleuth.

New York City newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan relates the story of crime boss Phil Daley's rise and fall. To the disappointment of his parents but delight of younger brother Danny, crime has paid off handsomely for Phil, but he isn't able to discourage Danny from following in his footsteps.
Danny bribes a prizefighter to take a dive, costing rival gangster Mike Luger a lot of money in bets. Danny ends up dead, and Phil needs to lay low because Luger's looking for him, too. He manages to kill Luger, but ends up arrested, convicted and sentenced to die.

In London, a shape charge-wielding master criminal comes up with a foolproof plan for robbing a bank and outwitting Scotland Yard's pursuit, but during the getaway he hides his haul in a radio set in the new flat of Capt. Bulldog Drummond (John Howard) and his to-be wife Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel), leading to a murder, punch-ups, an expedition to France, a night in a French jail cell and a break-out, in a race to reach Bulldog's fiancee.
Phyllis is waiting for Drummond in a French village with her aunt Blanche Clavering (Elizabeth Patterson (actress)), to be married the next day. She has sent a telegram, asking him to send her the radio, both unaware of its content. The villains meet their end in a roof-top fight and Bulldog finally ties the matrimonial knot in an explosive finale to his bachelorhood.

An absent-minded Professor Downie (Forrester Harvey) makes a call upon Capt. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (John Howard) as he is making plans for his much-delayed wedding to fiancee Phyllis Claverling (Heather Angel) in his ancestral home Temple Tower.
The professor informs Drummond that a fortune was buried in one of the walled off storerooms underneath his estate, and that Downie was in possession of a book written in code that would lead them to discover the treasure. Unfortunately for the professor, someone else also wanted the riches and Drummond once again is dragged into the plot as the code book is stolen, Professor Downie is murdered, and Phyllis is kidnapped.

Dr James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate the death of his friend, Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles was found dead on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, Baskerville Hall, and Mortimer now fears for Sir Charles's nephew and sole heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is the new master of Baskerville Hall. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but Mortimer is suspicious, because Sir Charles died with an expression of horror on his face, and Mortimer noticed "the footprints of a gigantic hound" nearby. The Baskerville family has supposedly been under a curse since the era of the English Civil War when ancestor Hugo Baskerville allegedly offered his soul to the devil for help in abducting a woman and was reportedly killed by a giant spectral hound. Sir Charles believed in the curse and was apparently fleeing from something in fright when he died.
Intrigued, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from Canada. Sir Henry has received an anonymous note, cut and pasted from newsprint, warning him away from the Baskerville moors, and one of his new boots is inexplicably missing from his London hotel room. The Baskerville family is discussed: Sir Charles was the eldest of three brothers; the youngest, black sheep Rodger, is believed to have died childless in South America, while Sir Henry is the only child of the middle brother. Sir Henry plans to move into Baskerville Hall, despite the ominous warning message. Holmes and Dr Watson follow him from Holmes's Baker Street apartment back to his hotel and notice a bearded man following him in a cab; they pursue the man, but he escapes. Mortimer tells them that Mr Barrymore, the butler at Baskerville Hall, has a beard like the one on the stranger. Sir Henry's boot reappears, but an older one vanishes.

The Lone Wolf (Warren William) is determined to remain reformed for the sake of his daughter Patricia (Virginia Weidler), but a gang of foreign spies abducts Lanyard and force him to steal the blueprints for a secret anti-aircraft gun. Ever the ladies' man, Lanyard has two lovelies to contend with here: pretty heiress Val Carson (Ida Lupino} and seductive spy Karen (Rita Hayworth)

Mr Moto arrives in Puerto Rico to investigate the murder of an American agent and uncovers a smuggling ring.

The second in the series of Mr. Wong features starring Boris Karloff finds wealthy gem-collector Brandon Edwards gaining possession of the largest star sapphire in the world, the 'Eye of the Daughter of the Moon', after it has been stolen in China. Edwards, at a party in his home, confides to Mr. Wong that his life is in danger. During a game of Charades, Edwards is mysteriously shot dead and the gem disappears. Unknown to Wong, the jewel is in the possession of Edwards' maid, Drina, who intends to return it to China, but she is murdered also, and the gem is taken again. After one more murder—the suspect list is dwindling—Wong exposes the killer, turns him over to Police Inspector Street, and Wong orders his manservant Willy to return the gem to China.

Nancy Drew, competing in the local newspaper's amateur reporter contest, clears a girl named Eula Denning of murder charges.


On behalf of Senator Baldwin (Henry O'Neill) the owner of the world's largest Chinese jade collection, detective Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) investigate a death threat involving the priceless jade tablets that were brought to the United States by three adventurers, who are now on the hit list of an oriental gang. A note written in Chinese warns the impending doom at midnight unless a ransom is paid for the valuable jades, which have been stolen. Steve is put on the case to protect the people who were involved in smuggling the jades into the country.
That night, Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) joins Steve at the Adventurers Club where he and his assistant Gahagan (Tom Kennedy) are guarding the threatened victims, Fitzhugh, Mr. Mansfield (James Stephenson) and Captain Condon (Patric Knowles). Once midnight has passed, they leave, but Fitzhugh is machine-gunned in his car and killed. A note found in the car warns that Mansfield will be the next to die. He is later found dead after smoking a poisoned cigarette, and his body vanishes mysteriously before the coroner arrives at the crime scene.
Senator Baldwin's daughter Janet Baldwin and her fiancé Dick Staunton, are ordered by the mysterious killer to deliver $250,000 ransom to the last buoy in the New York city harbor. Torchy discovered that Fitzhugh's fingerprints and those of the body in the morgue do not match. She joins Steve in a US Navy submarine as Dick rides out to pay the ransom. At the appointed place, Torchy and Steve surface in the submarine, just in time to save Dick and prove that the murders were all part of an elaborate plot by Fitzhugh, Mansfield, and Condon to extort money from Senator Baldwin.

Torchy Blane (Jane Wyman) is covering a bank robbery, one of a series committed by Denver Eddie. Returning to her newspaper, Torchy is stopped by a policeman for speeding, because she doesn't have her driver's license with her, he takes her to court. While in court for her traffic ticket, Torchy encounters Jackie Maguire (Sheila Bromley) who is the girlfriend of notorious bank robber Denver Eddie and is sentenced to jail for shoplifting. After Torchy's boyfriend, Lt. Steve McBride (Allen Jenkins) identifies her, Torchy is released. However, Torchy ask Steve to put her back in jail, after realizing that Jackie is Denver Eddie's girlfriend.
Torchy gets herself thrown into jail so that she can befriend Jackie and use her to get a lead on Eddie. Torchy has no luck with her plan until she helps subdue another prisoner who tries to stab Jackie. Jackie suggests that she and Torchy escape from jail. Steve agrees to cooperate with Torchy's plan when she explains that the reward money for Eddie's capture will enable them to get married. With the help and collusion of the police and her boyfriend Steve, she escaped the women's prison with Jackie to San Francisco, where Jackie is meeting her boyfriend. After Torchy and Jackie escapes, they are followed by Steve and his assistant Gahagan (Tom Kennedy). Steve hopes to capture Denver Eddie to collected the $5000 reward as a down payment for a house for him and Torchy. He decides not notify the local police of Eddie's expected arrival, but his actions are so suspicious that the police think he and Gahagan are criminals. Jim Simmons (Edgar Dearing) a San Francisco policeman follows them, but Steve succeeds in convincing him that Gahagan is a wrestler and that he is his manager.
Meanwhile, Torchy has arranged to signal Steve when Eddie arrives by hanging her stockings on the fire escape. Gahagan sees Jackie hang her stockings out to dry and they burst into the room, only to find that Eddie has not arrived yet. Torchy quickly makes up a story to explain their presence. When Eddie finally arrived, one of his men recognizes Steve as a policeman but pretended that Steve is another criminal. Steve, not knowing that they recognize him, invites Eddie to join him in robbing the wrestling stadium. Eddie agreed to the plan but arranged for his men to kidnap Steve on the way there. At the wrestling arena, another reporter recognizes Torchy and reveals her identity. After getting rid of Eddie's men, Steve rushes to the arena where Gahagan, posed as a wrestler named Harry the Horse, gets thrown out of the ring just in time to land on Eddie who is trying to escape. Steve and Gahagan are credited with the arrest, and Torchy and Steve now have the money to marry.

Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) writes a series of articles criticizing the mayor John Saunders, accusing him of colluding with local crime boss Dr. Dolan (John Miljan) and Dolan's illegal activities. Torchy is getting all her information straight from the mayor's office, using a listening device. Torchy's boyfriend, detective Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) is concerned about the articles, believing that they are placing her in danger. Dolan asks his allies to withdraw advertising from Torchy's newspaper and pressure her editor into canceling her articles. Torchy is determined to prove that her articles are correct. She overhears Dolan telling the mayor about his "little red book" with all of his transactions and illegal payoffs and finds the book after breaking into Dolan's house. Dolan reports the burglary to police and demand the return of his book.
Torchy writers more article exposing Dolan, but her story is rejected by her newspaper editor, fearing more syndicate will pull advertising from the paper. She goes to all other newspapers, who all refused to print the story. When she encounters Hogarth Ward (Irving Bacon) the publisher of a small and relatively unknown newspaper. She decides to print the story herself and distributed the publication around the city with the help of Gahagan (Tom Kennedy). After Torchy revealed the mayor's corruption, the resultant publicity forces a recall election with the citizens chose Hubert Ward as the new candidate running against the corrupt mayor.
However, during the election, Hubert Ward is murder by Dolan with a fatal injection. Steve, who is annoyed at Torchy's interference, writes her name as the new candidate as a joke. To his dismay, Torchy decides to run for mayor seriously and is winning voters. Dolan's man kidnaps Torchy and drugged her. Steve threatens Dolan to no avail but found an address where he believes Dolan is keeping Torchy. Steve and Gahagan track down the house and fights Dolan and his man and saves Torchy. A half dozen policeman arrived at the house arresting them. Dolan manages to escape in Gahagan's police car but is killed when the car explodes. Torchy wins the election but decided that she didn't want to be the mayor.

Chan's testimony results in a death sentence for convicted murderer Steve McBirney (Marc Lawrence). However, he escapes and heads to a wax museum, a secret Mob hideout run by Dr. Cream (C. Henry Gordon). Cream, a crooked "facial surgeon", operates on McBirney, changing his appearance.
Chan is lured to the wax museum on the pretext of sparring over an old case with Dr. Otto Von Brom (Michael Visaroff) on a radio broadcast arranged by Cream. Based on Von Brom's testimony, Joe Rocke had been to be executed, but Chan is convinced that Rocke was innocent. In fact, it is all a setup so that McBirney can have his revenge, but Chan already suspects it. His son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) sneaks into the museum to investigate (without Chan's knowledge).
When everyone gathers at the museum, Carter Lane barges in, representing Mrs. Joe Rocke. His client also sneaks in. When the principals gather around a table to reenact a scene from the Rocke case for the broadcast, Cream makes sure Chan is in the seat wired for an electrocution. However, Von Brom insists on changing seats. Museum night watchman Willie Fern is tricked into throwing the switch. The lights go out, and Von Brom dies ... but not from electricity. (Lily Latimer, Cream's assistant, had cut the wire in an attempt to keep the museum's other function a secret.) Chan finds a small puncture wound in the dead man's neck and a bamboo blowgun dart.
Chan becomes certain that "Butcher" Dagan framed Rocke, his business partner, and that he killed Von Brom as well. Dagan was supposedly murdered by McBirney, another business partner and a friend of Rocke's. With Cream having operated on Dagan, no one knows who among those gathered at the museum is him (Jimmy even suspects Mrs. Rocke). Dagan kills McBirney and makes an attempt on Chan's life, before the detective finally unmasks and captures him.

Charlie Chan must stop a spy from destroying the Panama Canal, trapping a Navy fleet on its way to the Pacific after maneuvers in the Atlantic. As the U.S. fleet prepares to navigate the waters of the Panama Canal, Panama City becomes rife with spies.
A new group of suspects appears with the arrival of a sea plane bound for Balboa. Among the suspects are novelist Clivedon Compton, matronly school teacher Miss Jennie Finch, sinister scientist Dr. Rudolph Grosser, café proprietor Manolo, singer Kathi Lenesch (real name Kathi von Tzardas), cigarette salesman Achmed Halide, government engineer Richard Cabot and government agent Godley.
Upon landing, Godley goes to a hat shop owned by Fu Yuen, alias Charlie Chan, to enlist the sleuth's help in unmasking the deadly spy known only as Reiner. Just as Godley is about to divulge Reiner's real identity, he falls to the ground, dead, leaving Chan to expose Reiner before the spy can sabotage the canal.
As the other suspects are murdered, one by one, first Compton, then Manolo, Chan learns that the canal's Miraflores locks are to be blown up at ten that night. Chan then sequesters the suspects at the plant, forcing Miss Finch to expose herself as Reiner in order to escape death. With Reiner under arrest, the fleet sails safely through the locks to protect democracy.

The famed detective seeks to unmask a killer on a voyage across the Pacific Ocean.

Larry Abbot (Wilder) and Vickie Pearle (Radner) are performers on radio's "Manhattan Mystery Theater" who decide to get married. Larry has been plagued with on-air panic attacks and speech impediments since proposing marriage. Vickie thinks it is just pre-wedding jitters, but his affliction could get them both fired.
Larry's uncle, Dr. Paul Abbot, decides that Larry needs to be cured. Paul decides to treat him with a form of shock therapy to "scare him to death" in much the same way someone might try to startle someone out of hiccups.
Larry chooses a castle-like mansion in which he grew up as the site for their wedding. Vickie gets to meet Larry's eccentric family: great-aunt Kate (DeLuise in drag), who plans to leave all her money to Larry; his uncle, Francis; and Larry's cousins, Charles, Nora, Susan, and the cross-dressing Francis Jr. Also present are the butler Pfister and wife Rachel, the maid; Larry's old girlfriend Sylvia, who is now dating Charles; and Susan's magician husband, Montego the Magnificent.
Paul begins his "treatment" of Larry and lets others in on the plan. Unfortunately for all, something more sinister and unexpected is lurking at the Abbot Estates mansion. The pre-wedding party becomes a real-life version of Larry and Vickie's radio murder mysteries, werewolves and all.

On a flight to New York for an annual police convention, Chan encounters his old Scotland Yard friend, Hugh Drake (Frederick Worlock). Drake is now a member of military intelligence trying to track down what he believes is a sabotage ring led by a Paul Narvo. A bomber and its pilots crashed the day before. Chan offers his assistance.
Chan is welcomed at the airport by New York Police Inspector Vance (Donald McBride) and, to Chan's surprise, his number two son Jimmy Chan (Sen Yung).
Chan goes to see Drake the next day at the apartment of George Kirby (Ricardo Cortez), where a dinner party is in progress. He finds his friend dead of poison gas in Drake's library, where he had gone to do some work. Drake's briefcase, containing all the information he had gathered about the sabotage ring, is missing. The window is latched, so Chan concludes one of the guests is responsible. Chan discovers that Drake asked that his Oxford classmate Herbert Fenton (Melville Cooper), actress June Preston and Ralph Percy, chief designer at the Metropolitan Aircraft Corporation, be invited to the party. Kirby himself is the company president. The lost bomber crashed at the company's plant. Also present is stockbroker Keith Jeffery (John Sutton). A servant (Clarence Muse) reports chemist David Elliot (Robert Lowery) insisted on seeing Drake, so he showed him in.
Chan learns that Preston also spoke with Drake that night, on behalf of a friend, Patricia Shaw (Marjorie Weaver). Shaw, it turns out, married Narvo in India. When she found out Narvo was involved in sabotage, she fled, only to be pursed by her husband and his assistant, Ramullah.
Ramullah is eventually tracked down, with Shaw's help, and taken into custody. (During a police lineup of Indians, Shorty McCoy, aka "The Canarsie Kid", [Shemp Howard] is revealed to be a faker, not a fakir.) Before Ramullah can be questioned, however, he is shot and killed. Shaw narrowly avoids the same fate.
A coatroom attendant shows up and states Drake checked his briefcase at the club where he works. Chan and Vance wait to see who will claim it. It is Boggs, Kirby's butler. He claims that Kirby left him a note instructing him to get the briefcase. Upon close inspection, Chan concludes it is a forgery. He then discovers Kirby's body.
Chan decides to gather all the suspects at the airport the next day. The airplane, rigged the night before to release poison gas when it dives, takes off for a test flight with nearly everyone aboard. As the bomber starts to descend, Fenton grabs the falling glass globe containing the gas. When they land, he smashes the globe, gets out and locks the door. However, the police are waiting to apprehend him, and Chan and the rest emerge unscathed (the trap had been found during an inspection and rendered harmless). Fenton cannot be Narvo, as the latter is known to be a younger man. He refuses to identify his leader. When Chan asks for a glass of water for Fenton, Jeffrey gets it for him, falling into Chan's trap. The detective samples the water and identifies the same poison that was found in Kirby's brandy.

After participating in an extensive archaeological expedition in the Mongolian desert, Dr. John Benton is in San Francisco to hold a presentation of the findings to his colleagues. The film material shows how the archaeological team discovered the long sought ancient tomb of an Emperor of the Ming dynasty.
In the tomb, the team found a scroll, telling of a secret Temple of Eternal Fire. The temple is believed to be hiding a previously unknown oil reserve, and would be of great financial importance to the Chinese people were it to be discovered.
During the expedition, when the tomb was opened, a forceful hurricane took the life of Mason, the co-pilot. The storm was predicted by an ancient curse guarding the tomb. Unfortunately, as Benton is about to reveal the contents of the scroll during the presentation, he starts choking and ultimately dies from suffocation.
After the presentation, it turns out that the scroll is missing from Benton's safe in his office, and his secretary, Win Len, claims she has no knowledge of its whereabouts. One of Benton's students, James Lee Wong, does his own investigation into the death of his professor, and finds out that Benton must have been poisoned with what another man, Street, identifies as an oriental vegetable poison. James finds a pitcher and a glass cup containing traces of this poison. Another member of the expedition team, camera man Charles Fraser, is attacked in his home, and is found injured by James and Street. They are both unaware of that Mason faked his own death at the tomb, and that he and Benton's butler, Jonas, are planning to lay their hands on all artifacts found in the tomb.
Street manage to trace Fraser's attacker to a hideout near the waterfront, where both Mason and Jonas are hiding. Mason escapes through a secret door, but James and Street find an artifact identifiable from the tomb. They also find Jonas' dead body in a coffin, and it turns out he has been poisoned, then stabbed.
The two amateur sleuths manage to get an article published in the paper, saying Jonas is sick with yellow fever in a hospital, to lure the killer there. James wears a wire and impersonates Mason at the hospital. Mason himself turns up at the hospital, and also Fraser. James and Mason fight each other, but Street and the police interrupt them.
It turns out Fraser has worked together with Mason, but tried to double-cross him and break into Benton's safe to steal the scroll. Fraser also killed Benton to keep the secret of the oil reserve to himself. He continued to kill Jonas.
The original scroll has now been destroyed by Fraser, but there is still a photo of it left. After Fraser is arrested, the photo is given to the Chinese government so that they can try to find the oil reserve.

Whilst attempting to prove a beautiful immigrant innocent of murder, detective Nick Carter ends up exposing the leaders of the Fifth Column.

Radio mystery script writer Sally Ambler is about to be married, then gets into a quarrel with her intended Kirk Pierce after he finds the story she wrote too contrived. The wedding is put off when a telegram from her Aunt Maggie arrives from Atlanta to let Sally know that her Uncle Charlie has died.
Sally is followed to Atlanta after a phone call from a Dr. Benedict warns Kirk of danger lurking for Sally when she gets there. Sally discovers that her uncle's corpse is missing and he might have been murdered. Sally is the sole heir after Aunt Maggie is strangled, and her cousin Eve ends up dead as well after finding a secret room.
A cache of priceless jade jewelry is involved as it is revealed how Dr. Benedict has been behind the plot. After he is apprehended just in time, Sally and Kirk return home, then begin arguing again during their wedding ceremony over what kind of mystery plot is too unbelievable.

Aboard a ship, newspaper reporter Jim Moore falls for passenger Sandy Vantine and meets her Uncle Paul, who is in possession of a small wooden chest that he believes could be a copy made by the mysterious Black Parrot, a notorious art forger. Scotland Yard inspector Colonel Piggott is also aboard, presumably on the Parrot's tail.
Jim proposes to Sandy and meets her relatives and family acquaintances. They include Madame de Charierre, the chest's rightful owner, whose maid Julia had been trying to retrieve it because a secret drawer contained compromising love letters. A police constable, Grady, arrives, so Jim gets in touch with Piggott as well. Paul and another guest quickly end up dead, Piggott quickly declaring that everyone in the house a suspect.
A second hidden compartment contains priceless diamonds. Jim and Sandy realize just in time that Piggott himself is the Black Parrot, after the jewels all along.

In the beginning of the film, detective Charlie Chan is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, along with his son, Jimmy, and the Rio chief of police, Chief Souto, to arrest singer Lola Dean, whom Chan suspects killed a man in Honolulu. After a performance, Lola’s boyfriend, Carlos, asks her to marry him, which she accepts. Her personal assistant, Helen Ashby, then reminds Lola she has an appointment with a Hindu psychic, Marana. Lola visits the psychic, who puts her in a semi-comatose state using coffee and cigarettes laced with a special natural herb. Lola reveals in this state that she did kill a man, Manuel Cardozo, after he refused to marry her in Honolulu. The psychic records the conversation. When Lola wakes up, the psychic tells her what she told him, but assures her that it will be kept confidential between them. On the way home, a worried Lola convinces Carlos to elope instead of marry at a later date. When she arrives home, she begins packing.
Later, Chan, Jimmy, and Chief Souto arrive at Lola’s house to arrest her, but instead find her dead in her room. The three conclude that Lola was murdered, and spot many obvious clues which they realize were left there on purpose to throw them off. They also notice Lola’s jewelry missing. Chan then informs Lola’s guests, who were there to celebrate her engagement, of her death, and brings in two suspects, the psychic and Paul Wagner. Wagner reveals that he was married to Lola, but they had separated. The psychic plays back his conversation with Lola, and reveals himself to be Alfredo Cardozo, the brother of the man Lola killed. Chief Souto asks everyone to stay in the house while the murder is being investigated.
Later, Jimmy witnesses a conversation between Lola’s butler, Rice, and maid, Lilly. Rice tells Lilly to stay quiet about something she saw earlier. Chan and Souto find scratch marks on the floor where Lola was murdered. Chan suspects that the scratch marks were from the brooch Lola was wearing, and that a pin on that brooch would still be stuck in the murderer’s shoe. Chan then finds similar scratch marks under one of the chairs at the dinner table where all of the guests had dined. Jimmy hides in Rice’s room and finds Lola’s jewelry there. He then takes Rice to Chan. Rice explains that he has the jewels but did not kill Lola. Before he can tell Chan who did, the lights go out and he is shot.
Chan then asks all of the guests to go back to their original positions at the dinner table. He reveals to them that the scratch marks he found were under Helen’s chair. When Helen protests her innocence, Chan suggests Cardozo put her in the semi-comatose state. When she still says she did not kill Lola, Chan asks that he go under the same treatment using the same cigarette. But when he does, Chan is unaffected. Cardozo tries to admit to killing Lola, but Helen stops him, revealing she did it. She further explains that she was the wife of Manuel Cardozo. After hearing of Alfredo’s conversation with Lola, Helen learned Lola was going to elope. Realizing that Lola was going to leave and escape justice, Helen killed her. When Rice walked in on the act, she offered him the jewels to keep him quiet, and later shot him. Chief Souto then arrests Helen and takes her to jail. Jimmy asks to take Lilly back to Honolulu with him, but Chan tells him he has been drafted in the United States Army.

Diane Parrish (Harriet Hilliard) is impatient for the sale of her statue of Augustus Caesar, as she needs the money to help her sick brother. Joe Buchanan, one of the art dealers handling the auction, asks her to stay away, claiming that an emotional attachment to the work might cause her to make a scene. She shows up anyway, and notices that the statue is not hers, but a fake. When Buchanan pulls out a gun to silence her, Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) spots him and fires his own pistol. Parrish is only grazed, but Buchanan accidentally kills his partner and the replica's sculptor, Eric Allison.
When Police Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) arrives, he automatically assumes that Blackie is guilty and takes him into custody. Buchanan hides in the hollow fake statue. Then when the coast is clear, he puts Allison's body (and the incriminating bullet) inside and makes his escape. The replica is purchased by Blackie's wealthy friend, Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan). Despite lacking a corpse, Farraday keeps Blackie in jail, but not for long. Blackie switches places with an unfortunate ice cream man (William Benedict) and escapes.
He goes to see Diane in the hospital to obtain information. To get in undetected, he once again appropriates the unlucky ice cream man's uniform and pretends to be Diane's doctor. When he learns why she needs the money so badly, he arranges for his assistant, the "Runt" (George E. Stone), to masquerade as an insurance adjuster to give her $6000 he borrowed from Manleder. The money had initially been intended to pay off a blackmailing Mona (Joan Woodbury), who claims she is Blackie's wife. When Mona shows up and demands the money, Diane realizes that Blackie is her benefactor.
Buchanan arranges to buy the statue from an unsuspecting Manleder. Blackie learns about it, and sees a way to unravel the mystery. He follows the movers back to their lair. Sneaking inside, he overpowers Caulder (Kenneth MacDonald), one of Buchanan's henchmen. However, Buchanan returns, with Diane as his prisoner, resulting a Mexican standoff. Meanwhile, both Manleder and the Runt are picked up by the police. Farraday has them released, hoping they will lead him to their friend. The Runt is too experienced to be taken in, but Manleder does return to the crooks' secret underground workshop, where they copy artworks. In the ensuing gunfight, Buchanan is killed, but the shots destroy the electrical circuits controlling the only way in, trapping them all in the soundproof chamber. Fortunately, Blackie comes up with the idea to start a fire in the ventilation shaft, and firemen arrive to let them out.


Ladies' man and amateur crime solver Gay Laurence (George Sanders), the "Gay Falcon", reluctantly agrees to give up both habits to mollify his fiancée, Elinor Benford (Nina Vale). He and his uncouth sidekick, Jonathan "Goldie" Locke (Allen Jenkins), become unenthusiastic stockbrokers. When Elinor asks him to attend a party given by Maxine Wood (Gladys Cooper) to mingle with potential clients, he refuses to go to that much trouble.
However, when Wood asks for his help via pretty assistant Helen Reed (Wendy Barrie), he cannot resist. It seems that Wood's soirées have been plagued by jewel thefts, and she is particularly worried about the diamond of her guest, Vera Gardner (Lucile Gleason).
At the party, Elinor becomes annoyed when she figures out why Gay changed his mind about attending, and retaliates by dancing with Manuel Retana (Turhan Bey). In frustration, she grabs the flower from Retana's lapel and flings it at Gay. He calmly picks it up and attaches it to his lapel. Vera Gardner then insists on dancing with Gay; she hands him her diamond secretly, much to his puzzlement, then leaves the room. Moments later, a shot rings out, and she is dead. The killer is seen by Goldie as he makes his getaway.
Police Detectives Bates (Edward Brophy) and Grimes (Eddie Dunn) take Goldie to the police station on suspicion of murder. Gay persuades Inspector Mike Waldeck (Arthur Shields) to release Goldie so he can flush out the real murderer. Then he and Helen go to see Maxine, leaving Goldie in the car. While they are gone, Goldie is abducted by Noel Weber (Damien O'Flynn), Gardner's killer. Weber orders Goldie to call Gay to offer to trade Goldie's life for the diamond. However, Weber is shot, and once again, Goldie is found by the police near a dead body.
By this point, Gay suspects Gardner arranged to have her diamond "stolen" so she could collect on the insurance. The flower was a signal, indicating to whom Gardner was to give the jewel. It should have been Retana. Gay and Helen break into his apartment, but have to hide when the owner enters. He realizes someone has been there and opens a secret compartment to check if it has been found. Relieved, he leaves the room. Gay sneaks in and takes a gun he finds in the compartment, fairly certain it was used to shoot Weber. The police confirm it is the murder weapon.
Meanwhile, Gay calls Elinor to warn her to stay away from the killer, but she believes he is lying out of jealousy and tells Retana so. Forewarned, Retana goes to Gay's apartment, ties up his servant Jerry (Willie Fung), and demands the diamond at gunpoint when Gay returns. Fortunately, he is frightened off when he mistakes Helen at the door for the police.
Now certain about his theory, Gay goes to see Maxine, taking Inspector Waldeck along. She tells them she has been receiving threats, so they stand guard in the living room while she sleeps. Retana enters through her bedroom window, but when he lunges at her, Gay and Waldeck charge in. They are puzzled when Retana collapses and dies. Then Gay finds a hypodermic needle on the floor. Gay stops Maxine from stepping on it and destroying the incriminating fingerprints. He reveals that she, her husband Weber, and Retana were responsible for the thefts. The Webers decided to betray Retana, but he found out. Gay realized she must be involved when Goldie was kidnapped; nobody else knew where Goldie was at the time.

After adding a rare Cuban stamp to his coveted collection and admonishing his butler Jamison (Eric Blore) for winning money in a rigged dice game in Havana, retired jewel thief and unofficial private detective Michael Lanyard (Warren William) (a/k/a "The Lone Wolf"), flies off to Miami, meeting gorgeous Patricia Lawrence (Frances Robinson) on board the flying boat. Initially reserved, Lawrence decides to confide in Lanyard about her troubles — one of her mail-sender boyfriend Scotty's (Bruce Bennett) clients was killed some time ago, after retaining Scotty to send a package stuffed with $100,000 in bank notes. Descending at the Miami airport, they are ambushed by kidnappers Chimp (Edward Gargan), Mr. Lee (Lester Matthews), employees of Big Joe Brady (Don Beddoe). The Lone Wolf swiftly outruns the criminals with Lawrence. He hides the retrieved stack of money in a hotel safe, but he's is discovered by Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) and his annoyingly buffoonish assistant Detective Sergeant Wesley Dickens (Fred Kelsey), along with goofy Miami police Captain Moon (Jed Prouty). Lanyard evades capture and sets out to expose the three villains on his own. The detective also realizes that his prized stamp collection has also been swiped by Big Joe Brady. He manages to track them down and has the police arrest them. After myriad chases, double-crosses and switches, The Lone Wolf exonerates himself and mulls over missing an important philatelist's convention with his finally retrieved prize collection.


Returning to New York City from Europe, Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) tries unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation with attractive fellow ocean liner passenger Marilyn Howard (Constance Worth). He later rescues her when she is accosted by a man. However, when he tries to follow her, he runs into his friendly nemesis, police Inspector Faraday (Richard Lane), who wants to take him in on suspicion of stealing some pearls. Knowing that Blackie's word is good (and that handcuffs are useless against him), Faraday merely confiscates his Landing Card.
However, when Blackie discovers the body of the man who had bothered Marilyn Howard deposited in his suite, he has to break his word and debark to clear his name. He trails Howard to the Coney Island amusement park. She has been followed by two men and is struck by a poisoned dart. Before dying, she tells him enough to send him to the Mechanical Man (Michael Rand), a midway performer whose act is pretending to be a robot or automaton. Soon after, the two killers show up to report to their boss, the Mechanical Man, forcing Blackie to flee once again.
He hijacks the car belonging to Cecilia Bradley (Rochelle Hudson), and manages to lose his pursuers after a high-speed chase. Cecilia decides to help Blackie, despite his attempts to keep her out of his troubles. They learn from a radio news broadcast that Howard was a spy.
Blackie eventually discovers that an espionage ring led by the Mechanical Man is trying to take a stolen navy bombsight out of the country. Faraday and his men follow Blackie to the midway to arrest him and prove handy in apprehending the spies. As a reward, Faraday decides to forget about the evidence linking Blackie to the theft of the pearls.

The relatives of Cassandra "Cassie" Denham, an old unmarried lady living in New York who is reputedly good for three million dollars, try to make a judge declare her unable to take care of herself financially. The attempt fails, and in charge of handing in the petition is Cassie's nephew Garson Denham, a lawyer. Instead he summons a newspaper reporter, Bob White (Wallace Ford), and his girlfriend, Nora O'Brien (Marian Marsh), and tells them he has been invited to stay a week at Cassie's estate up in the mountains.
The invitation states that any relative not arriving at the specified time will be excluded from the will. Garson believes his aunt is mentally unsound and plans to kill them all during the stay. Despite this Garson and his wife, his brother's Tom and Larry and their mother Martha keep the appointment.
As they arrive Cassie tells them that they are there so that she can learn which one of them should inherit the bulk of her fortune. She also tells them that she keeps of all her money at the house.
That night Garson is stabbed to death in the library. Bob and Nora receive the news of his death and show up at the estate with a photographer to write about the killing. Sheriff Boggs is already questioning everyone at the house about their whereabouts during the night, and Bob, Nora and the photographer are all invited to stay at the estate by Cassie.
The next night, Larry is killed again in the library, and the sheriff continues his investigation. The dead bodies disappear and turn up again in Bob's closet, but they disappear before he is able to show them to the others.
Later, Eddie sees the bookshelf in the library open revealing a secret doorway and as Cassie comes out from one side, he walks in via the reverse side of the bookshelf unseen by her into a secret passage. Cassie asks Eddie to guard a small box with her valuables, offering him $10,000 to do so, and says she suspects her neighbor, Trowbridge Montrose, of being involved in the killings. The neighbor is supposedly in love with Cassie.
Tom is the next stabbed whilst he is talking to Mary in the garden. However the assailant is unknown as everyone present in the property appears to possess an alibi for the time of the attack. Cassie is determined to catch the killer and tells Bob of a plan she has, saying she will see to it that everyone is outside and then set the house on fire to see who tries to run in and save the money within from destruction..
When the house is in flames Mary, Cassie's house servant, suddenly panics and angrily confronts her employer, stating that she should have the money for working for her for several years and tolerating her imperiousness, saying she was entitled to inherit something, and hysterically admits committing the murders, implicating also her accomplice, Michael, the chauffeur, whom she announces that she has secretly married. She is arrested, and after a chase through the woods the chauffeur is also apprehended by Bob armed with a revolver.
Trowbridge then proposes to Cassie; Eddie presents the box to Cassie and gets his money, but the twist in the tale is that it turns out to be old Confederate States of America currency, and quite worthless. Cassie then reveals that all of her 'fortune' is in the same denomination, but Trowbridge announces that it is unimportant as he has enough for them both to live upon. The film ends with Bob also getting the girl in the form of Nora.

A nurse (Lee Patrick) moves into a mansion after an apparent suicide to care for the old mother. The mother is kind of spooky, but so is the butler, and the girlfriend, and the doctor. After the insurance policy is found, the plot thickens.

Married only a few hours, small-town girl Alice makes her first visit to New York with new husband Wally Williams, a hotshot reporter for the Globe.
A body falls from a building. Williams steals the identification and calls in the story to city editor MacEwen, who makes Wally follow it up. Reporters' wives warn Alice to expect this kind of thing.
A personal ad leads Wally to a second corpse. The police read about in the Globe and angrily haul Wally in for questioning. Alice's irritation grows, as does that of reporters from other newspapers at Wally's continued scoops.
Evildoers from an anti-American organization kidnap Wally, and when he won't reveal how he gets his information, they grab Alice as well. Sparrow McGraun runs a numbers racket but likes Wally better than these foreigners, so he saves the newlyweds. A grateful Wally gives this scoop to every paper except the Globe.

Nick and Nora Charles are looking forward to a relaxing day at a racetrack, but when a jockey accused of throwing a race is found shot to death, Police Lieutenant Abrams requests Nick's help. The trail leads to a gambling syndicate that operates out of a wrestling arena, a murdered reporter, and a pretty secretary whose boyfriend has been framed. Along the way, Nick and Nora must contend with a wild wrestling match, a dizzying day at a merry-go-round (accompanied by Nick, Jr.), and a table-clearing restaurant brawl.

In the midst of World War II, Harvey Leeds, working as secretary for the highly reputed British criminologist Sir Stafford Hart in London, is lobbying for legislation ordering the immediate arrest of all foreign agents staioned in Britain. Harvey is engaged to Sir Stafford’s daughter, Pamela, and is visiting the Hart mansion. He is about to leave the mansion to be with Pamela, who works at an air raid shelter, when he happens upon a briefcase in the foyer. He looks through the briefcase that belongs to Sir Stafford’s assistant, Kent Wells, before heading out in the night. He doesn’t get far though, and is knocked out by air raid warden Anton Schugg and thrown into the back of the warden’s ambulance.
Kent Wells happened to see Harvey go through his briefcase, and when he goes upstairs to the mansion’s top floor, he sees someone opening Sir Stafford’s safe in the library. Before Wells has any chance of stopping him, the man is off with the plan for the government’s new secret weapon - the beam detector. The man drops a cufflink with the letter ”L” on it.
Sir Stafford involves Scotland Yard in the investigation of the stolen plans. Two American Inspectors, Crane and Dickens, are visiting the Yard and are invited by the chief investigator on the case, Inspector J. Stephens of Scotland Yard. The three men go to the Hart mansion and conclude that the ”L” must mean that notorious jewel thief Michael Lanyard is responsible for the theft. He is also known as the ”Lone Wolf”.
An air raid hits London, and during the commotion that ensues, the Lone Wolf meets with his valet Jamison. The building closest to them begins to topple, and the Lone Wolf saves a man from being crushed by it. The man, air raid warden George Barrow, expresses his gratitude and grants Lone Wolf a favor.
During the rest of the raid, the Lone Wolf and his valet hide out in the same air raid shelter as Pamela works in. The Lone Wolf tries to hide the plans he has stolen, but Inspector Stephens soon arrives and arrests him for espionage. Stephens doesn’t find the plans though, and Jamison manages to get them back after the Lone Wolf is taken away.
During interrogation of the Lone Wolf, he manages to grab a gun and take Sir Stafford hostage. He escapes from custody, and happens to meets air raid warden Schugg outside, who gives him a ride, although not oblivious of his crime. Schugg then stops the car and offers the Lone Wolf a deal. He wants to buy the plans on behalf of the German agents in London. In charge of the Germans is the undercover agent Gustave Sossel. When the Lone Wolf is taken to the German agents’ hideout, he also discovers that the Germans hold Harvey prisoner. The Lone Wolf explains that he doesn’t have the plans, but he can retrieve them in a few days. Kent appears at the hideout and explains that he captured Harvey because he was too nosy. He also explains that the Germans intend to reveal the plans to Berlin through a radio broadcast from a radio transmitter at the hideout. The Lone Wolf is then let out in the street with instructions to inform Schugg when he has the plans.
The newspapers report that Sir Stafford has died in the air raid. When Inspector Stephens visits the Hart mansion, he discovers a secret document sanctioning the Lone Wolf to work undercover for British Intelligence to disclose and catch a ring of spies in the country. Later, the Lone Wolf also makes contact with the Hart mansion, thus leading the police away from the mansion and to his own apartment. The Lone Wolf then go off in search for the German hideout, but discovers that Pamela is following them.
Lanyard tricks her into phoning Stephens so that there will be police reinforcements in the district surrounding the spies's headquarters. Pamela alerts the police of their whereabouts, and they come to surround the German hideout, believeing they are close to catching the thief. The Lone Wolf escapes the ring of police by riding in Barrow’s ambulance. The Lone Wolf then returns to where he believes the hideout is, under the Blue Parrot Café, and finds Pamela there. They are both apprehended by the German agents and taken to Sossel. It turns out Kent’s real name is Kurt Weil, and that he’s an agent for the Germans. The three police inspectors, who have tracked the Lone Wolf, are also apprehended by the Germans. When the Germans start broadcasting the plans, Barrow arrives and pretends to hold a stick of dynamite in his hand. The German agents throw down their guns, and the Lone Wolf explains to the Germans that the plans were fake, in order to find the ring of German spies. The Lone Wolf then produces the real plans to the police and is freed of all suspicion.

Scientist Waldo Samson (Alec Craig) has discovered how to manufacture cheap synthetic diamonds that are nearly identical to actual diamonds, as he demonstrates to diamond industry representatives and New York Police Inspector Mike O'Hara (James Gleason). Samson only wishes to provide them for the American defense effort, but O'Hara insists on providing him with a police guard.
Ruthless criminals, however, abduct Samson to gain his secret. O'Hara recruits a reluctant amateur sleuth Gay Lawrence (George Sanders), known as the "Falcon", to search for him. Meanwhile, Helen Reed (Wendy Barrie), the Falcon's fiancée, becomes increasingly frustrated as the crime solving interferes with her marriage plans. Lawrence meets exotic jewel thief Rita Mara (Mona Maris) and suspects she is involved in Sampson's disappearance. Rits pulls a gun on Lawrence, and forces him to accompany her. Helen finds Rita's purse and inside, the address of Rita's hotel.
Lawrence escapes but learns from his sidekick, Jonathon "Goldie" Locke (Allen Jenkins) that Helen has gone to Rita's hotel, looking for him. Learning that Sampson is also registered there, Lawrence breaks into his room and finds the scientist, dead. The police arrive shortly after and attempt to arrest Lawrence, who asks O'Hara for a 12-hour reprieve to find the real murderer.
When Lawrence asks Helen to meet him at a nightclub, he knows follow Helen and Goldie will be followed. At gunpoint, Rita abducts Lawrence once again and takes him to her accomplice in a warehouse where Max Carlson (Victor Kilian) is holding the real Waldo Sampson captive. After obtaining the secret formula, Max decides to kill Sampson and Lawrence. Rita knocks out Lawrence, and turns on her partner, killing him, but does not locate Sampson's formula.
When the police arrive at the warehouse, they find Lawrence. arresting him for murder with O'Hara taking him to headquarters, where Helen has been arrested as Lawrence's accomplice. Rita and the remainder of the gang is brought in, and when Goldie produces the secret formula which he had taken from Max, Lawrence explains that it was Herman, Waldo's twin who was killed in the hotel and that Rita killed Max for the formula.
Lawrence and his fiancée finally are able to resume their romantic getaway, but once on board their aircraft, a beautiful young woman greets Lawrence, arousing Helen's jealousy.

After foiling a phony suicide attempt by Connie Madigan, an aspiring actress seeking publicity by stepping onto a ledge, Dr. Tim Kane, who practices medicine in the Broadway district of New York City, vouches for her to keep Connie from being arrested and hires her as his assistant.
Doc is warned by his Broadway cronies about gangster Vic Telli being released from prison. Doc's testimony had put Vic behind bars. Vic turns up, but impressed by Doc's honesty, says he is dying and asks Doc to find his long-missing daughter, Margie Dove, so he can bequeath her his fortune.
Vic ends up dead with rival racketeer Jack Venner trying to get his money, assisted by a woman pretending to be Margie. In the end, Doc's life is saved by Connie going back out onto the ledge, tossing a shoe at the people below. The police nab the villain and Doc helps Connie back inside, but not before kissing her.


New York private detective Duncan MacLain (Edward Arnold) is blind but has keenly developed all his other senses. He pursues his work assisted by his faithful guide dog Friday, his butler, Alistair (Mantan Moreland), and his assistant, Marty (Allen Jenkins). Retired actress Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), an old friend, comes to Mac seeking advice. Her headstrong 17-year-old step-daughter Barbara (Donna Reed), herself a promising actress, is enamored with her leading man in a small theater production, the much older Lothario Paul Gerente. Paul, who had once been Norma's lover, has convinced Barbara that Norma actually wants Paul for herself and has only married her father Stephen for his money. At Mac's urging, Norma tried to reason with Paul, but he insists that he loves Barbara and laughs her off. Barbara is equally disdainful of her and agrees to meet Paul for dinner that night at his apartment.
Norma's husband Stephen Lawry (Reginald Denny) is a scientist leaving that night on a trip to test a secret invention on which he has been working for the government and the war effort. Worried about Barbara, she uses a pretext not to accompany Stephen and goes to the apartment. When Barbara arrives, she finds Paul's dead body and thinks that Norma has killed him, even though Norma insists that he was dead when she arrived. Barbara threatens to call the police unless she leaves Stephen. Fearing that a scandal will hurt him, Norma agrees. Norma then turns to Mac, who goes to Paul's apartment with Friday and Marty, only to find the body and the rug under it missing. A man (Stephen McNally) arrives to replace the rug and Mac hides in a closet, overhearing a telephone call to Norma's number from "Gabriel" to "Vera." Mac accidentally gives himself away, but with Friday's help overpowers Gabriel, who refuses to talk. Mac has Marty hide him to keep him under wraps.
Norma returns to her country home unexpectedly, which discourages an espionage ring that includes her butler, Hansen (Stanley Ridges), from breaking into Stephen's safe and stealing his plans. They have killed Gerente, who was also an agent, and hidden the body. Mac arrives with Friday at Norma's house and pretends to be her curmudgeonly "Uncle Mac" who has come for a visit. His blindness lulls any suspicions Hansen might have about him. Shortly thereafter, Barbara comes home from an "emergency rehearsal", called to get her out of the house by her director, Cheli Scott (Katherine Emery), who inveigles an invitation to spend the night at the Lawry home. Unknown to Barbara and Norma, Cheli is the ringleader of the spies. Cheli ordered Paul killed because his affection for Barbara was beginning to limit his effectiveness, and she immediately suspects Mac is not what he seems.
Gabriel's wife Vera (Rosemary DeCamp), the Lawrys' maid, is also a part of the plot. When Gabriel does not return home, Vera becomes hysterical with worry. Mac secretly asks Vera to meet him in the greenhouse, using her worry about Gabriel as a lure. She is observed by the others, however, and is killed by Hansen before she can reach Mac. The spies cut the house's telephone wires so that Mac and Norma cannot call the police, and Cheli has Mac locked up under guard. Using his blindness as a distraction, Mac overpowers his guard and releases Friday out a window with instructions to "go home and get Marty." Stephen arrives home and Cheli threatens his family if he does not give her the final step in creating his invention, which was not in the safe. Barbara finally realizes how much Norma actually cares for her. Mac tries to stall for time, but is locked in the cellar. When Hansen goes to kill him, Mac has broken the light bulb and his advantage of total darkness helps him overcome the spy. Marty and Friday return with the police. When Friday is spotted by a lookout, Mac overpowers him and is saved from being shot by another lookout by Friday. After the spies are captured, Stephen and Norma are off to Washington, D.C., with Barabara remaining behind to care for her new "Uncle Mac."

Sleuth Gay Lawrence (George Sanders), known as "The Falcon," with his assistant, "Lefty" (Don Barclay), arrive at dockside to meet a Latin American cruise ship. On board is Lawrence's brother, Tom (Tom Conway) who is pronounced dead, a victim of suicide by homicide inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark). Diane Medford (Gwili Andre), Tom's shipboard companion offers sympathy, but Lawrence has Lefty tail her, as he already knew the body in the cabin was not his brother.
Tracking Diane to a fashion show at the salon of her employer Madame Arlette (Charlotte Wynters), Diane is greeted by her fiancé, fashion editor Paul Harrington (James Newill). Two other ship passengers, Latin American dancers Carmela (Amanda Varela) and Valdez (George J. Lewis) are there. Reporter Marcia Brooks (Jane Randolph) recognizes the Falcon, who follows Diane into her office. A shot rings out and Diane falls dead. The Falcon runs into the alley behind the salon and encounters his brother, Tom.
Inspector Donovan arrives at the scene and arrests Lefty while the Falcon is run down by a speeding car. Tom takes his unconscious brother to his apartment, where Marcia seeks information about the murder. Lefty is released with a suspended sentence, and learns that his boss will soon recover. Marcia informs Tom that the murder weapon is missing, prompting Tom to return to Arlette's salon to investigate.
Seeing Arlette at a nightclub, Tom informs her that the police have gun from the murder scene and are tracing its serial number. Arlette phones the Police Inspector and gives them Tom's whereabouts. Tom and Lefty search Arlette's, where they find the missing gun hidden in a mannequin. Donovan tracks them down at the salon, and when Tom introduces himself, the inspector arrests him for false impersonation, believing Tom Lawrence is dead.
After proving his identity, Tom is freed and directs Marcia to investigate Harrington's photographer, Savitski (Andre Charlot). Tom confronts Arlette with the gun, forcing her to admit that she hid the weapon to protect her love, Harrington who denies murdering Diane and is exonerated by a ballistics expert. Marcia discovers that Savitski is an illegal alien. After smoking a cigar, and about to reveal a clue about mass murders to Tom and Lefty, Savitski falls dead, dropping a pile of magazines.
Deducing that Savitski was killed by a poisoned cigar, the same way the suicide victim on the ship, was killed, Tom instructs Lefty to pose as the photographer when Valdez and Carmela enter his office with guns drawn. When Tom steps out of the shadows, the pair identify themselves as Mexican counter-espionage agents and explain that Diane was killed because she knew too much. After Tom notifies Donovan of Savitski's murder, he brings back the photographer's magazines. Certain that Harrington is involved in the murders, Tom and Lefty realize a magazine cover dated December 7, prophesying the Pearl Harbor attack and another magazine cover indicates an incident will take place that day at a New England inn.
Tom and Marcia speed off to stop the sabotage, while The Falcon regains consciousness and joins Lefty on a trip to New England where German agents have been preparing for an attack, and Harrington is one of them. After capturing Tom and Marcia and locking them in a bell tower, the agents go ahead with their plan to assassinate a Latin American envoy as his aircraft lands. Tom manages to ring the bell, just as his brother steps in front of the diplomat, sacrificing his own life for that of an ally. With the spy ring smashed, Tom takes up where his brother left, becoming the new Falcon.

An axe murderer stalks Chicago. After six murders, the police identify six suspects, all of whom are lunatics not responsible for the crimes. Only one victim, socialite Edwina Brown (Laraine Day), has survived; she was rescued by actor Oliver Duffy (Lew Ayres).
After a second attempt on Edwina, Oliver deduces that the crimes are not random. He believes that someone is hypnotizing different people to commit each murder, but his far-fetched hypothesis leaves the police and Edwina skeptical.

Convicted murderer "Turk" (Stephen McNally) escapes from police custody, crashing through a washroom window as a train pulls into Grand Central Station in New York. He telephones his former girlfriend, Broadway star Mida King (Patricia Dane), and threatens to kill her. She leaves her show between acts and hides in a private train car on a siding at the station, planning to leave town and marry her rich, high society fiance, David V. Henderson (Mark Daniels). However, her body is found by David and his ex-fiancee, Connie Furness (Cecilia Parker).
Police Inspector Gunther (Sam Levene) is called in to solve the crime. The doctor at the scene is unable to determine the cause of death. Turk is recaptured, and wisecracking private detective "Rocky" Custer (Van Heflin), whom Turk had hired, is also brought in, as he had helped his client evade the police. Other suspects are rounded up: Mida's greedy phony psychic stepfather Ramon (Roman Bohnen); her ex-husband Paul Rinehart (George Lynn), who works at the station; and her producer Frankie Ciro (Tom Conway). Also mixed in are Mida's maid, ex-burlesque singer Pearl Delroy (Connie Gilchrist) and her daughter "Baby" (Betty Wells), Mida's understudy. Then Roger Furness (Samuel S. Hinds), Connie's magnate father and chairman of the board of the railroad, shows up to guard his daughter's interests. Gunther gets each to tell what they know, with the unwelcome assistance of Rocky.
It turns out that the victim was a calculating gold digger. Like the inspiration of her stage name, King Midas, everything (or rather every man) she touched, turned to gold for her purse. She had used each successive boyfriend as a stepping stone, then discarded each in turn, in her climb up the social ladder. Landing millionaire David was to have been her crowning achievement, the fulfillment of her lifelong ambition. Frankie finds her, but she calms his anger at the prospect of losing the star of his expensive production by telling him that she plans to get a rich divorce settlement in about six months, more than enough to finance an even more lavish show. This conversation is overheard by David, giving him a motive. During the investigation, Ramon dies, apparently of a weak heart.
Rocky is able to solve the case and show that Ramon too had been murdered. The killer electrocuted Mida while she was in the shower of the locked railway car by connecting the plumbing to the electrified third rail. When he went to return the wiring to the storage locker, he was spotted by Ramon. The murderer paid Ramon off, but later got rid of the loose end with poison. Rocky identifies the man as Roger Furness, who breaks away and jumps aboard a departing train, but falls to his own death on the third rail.



When "Diamond" Ed Barnaby (an uncredited Walter Baldwin) is paroled, he sets out to give $100,000 worth of diamonds to his daughter, Betty (Ann Savage). Aware that several shady characters know he has the jewels, he stashes them in a safe deposit box in the Arcade Building. Betty later receives a call asking her to meet him there, but he never shows up. She contacts her father's only real friend: Horatio Black, better known as Boston Blackie. He agrees to help and drops Betty off at the apartment of his wealthy friend, Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan), for safekeeping. His sidekick, "the Runt" (George E. Stone), has to postpone his wedding to statuesque bubble dancer Dixy Rose Blossom.
Blackie discovers which deposit box Barnaby rented. Meanwhile, crooks Joe Herschel, Sammy Walsh and Marty Beck (Cy Kendall, Al Hill and George McKay respectively, all uncredited), force their prisoner, Ed Barnaby, to reveal where he hid the diamonds. When the trio leave, Barnaby manages to telephones the police, but is killed by Herschel. Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) learns enough from the call to rush over to the Arcade Building with Sergeant Mathews (Walter Sande, uncredited). He apprehends Blackie on suspicion of murdering Barnaby just as he is about to open the box. The box turns out to be empty.
Blackie manages to escape. When he returns to Manleder's apartment, he finds that Betty has been kidnapped. A note offers to exchange her for the diamonds. Blackie has the Runt "borrow" a brooch from Dixy, and pries off the fake diamonds.
He then heads to the Flamingo Club, run by Herschel and his associates. Slipping inside undetected, he spies through the keyhole of the door to Herschel's office and sees the crook put the diamonds in his safe. After Herschel leaves, Blackie enters, cracks the safe and takes the jewels. However, before he can leave, Walsh and Beck enter. Thinking quickly, Blackie drops the diamonds in a pitcher of water. Unaware that Herschel double crossed them and had the real diamonds, Walsh and Beck exchange Betty for the fakes. Herschel returns too soon and exposes the fakes, but Blackie and Betty eventually manage to escape, aided by a citywide wartime practice blackout.
Walsh figures out that Herschel is out for himself. When he cannot produce the diamonds, Herschel is shot and killed by Walsh. Blackie returns to retrieve the stones, and witnesses the murder. Afterward, he offers to give the jewels to Walsh for the location of Barnaby's body. When the police close in, the pair sneak out and steal Inspector Farraday's car. Blackie sets the radio to "send" without Walsh noticing, then gets him to confess all with the police listening in. Eventually, Blackie is able to turn the tables and turn Walsh over to the authorities.
The Runt's wedding is interrupted once more, this time by Farraday and Mathews when they arrest Dixy for bigamy.

In 1942, Nazi Germany attempts to bring neutral Turkey into the war on its side by staging an assassination attempt on Franz von Papen, its own ambassador to the country. Much to the annoyance of Colonel Robinson (Sydney Greenstreet), von Papen survives and the Russians that his agent provocateur was trying to frame have solid alibis, forcing him to turn to another scheme to inflame Turkey's traditional rivalry with Russia.
Meanwhile, American machinery salesman Joe Barton (George Raft) boards the Baghdad-Istanbul Express train at Aleppo and is attracted to another passenger, Ana Remzi (Osa Massen). She is worried about being searched by customs agents once they reach the Turkish border; she asks Joe to hold on to an envelope containing some securities, all that remains of her inheritance. Joe obliges, but when he later examines the envelope, he finds maps of Turkey with writing on them.
When they stop in Ankara, he goes to her hotel to return her property, only to find she has been fatally wounded. He hides when someone else approaches the room. He watches unobserved as Soviet spy Nikolai Zaleshoff (Peter Lorre) searches the dead woman's luggage. Then, Joe exits through the window. Leaving the scene, he is seen by Tamara Zaleshoff (Brenda Marshall), Nikolai's sister and partner in espionage.
The Turkish police take Joe in for questioning, only it turns out that they are German agents. They take him to their leader, Colonel Robinson. Robinson wants the maps. Joe refuses to cooperate, and is taken away to be interrogated by Mailler (Kurt Katch). Before the Germans get very far, Joe is rescued by Nikolai.
When the Zaleshoffs reveal that they are Soviet agents, Joe agrees to fetch them the documents. Unfortunately, he finds his hotel room has been ransacked and the documents stolen.
Joe, it turns out, is also a spy (for the United States). When he reports to his boss, McNamara (Willard Robertson), he is assigned an assistant, Hassan (Turhan Bey).
The pair head to Istanbul. There, Robinson has bribed a newspaper publisher to print an article claiming that the documents are secret Russian plans for the invasion of Turkey. When Joe barges in by himself, he is quickly taken prisoner. The Zaleshoffs have also been captured. Joe and Tamara get away, but Nikolai is killed during the escape.
Joe kidnaps a German embassy official and learns where Robinson has gone. Joe heads to the newspaper. There he forces the Nazi ringleader at gunpoint to burn the maps. Robinson is handed over to the Turkish police and then to his greatly displeased superior. He departs by airplane, knowing he is doomed for his failure. Joe and Tamara head to Cairo for their next assignments.

Barry Craig (Allyn Joslyn), a crime fiction writer, and his wife Jane (Evelyn Keyes) are approached by Jane's friend, Julie Taylor (Anita Louise). Julie works for fashion photographer Ralph McCormick (Edmund Lowe), and she believes the studio is being stalked by a murderer. Soon after, a wealthy socialite, Isabel Fleming (Mary Forbes), is murdered during a photo session. The police become involved and the investigation takes its course.

Jane Harris (Amelita Ward), a student at the Blue Cliff Seminary for Girls, asks Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka the Falcon, for his help to investigate a death predicted by her unstable roommate, Marguerita Serena (Rita Corday), a clairvoyant. Professor Jamison has recently died. Was it suicide or homicide?
Posing as an insurance investigator, the Falcon meets the Dean, Miss Keyes (Barbara Brown); the school's Psychology teacher, Dr. Anatole Graelich (George Givot); the Drama teacher, Vicky Gaines (Jean Brooks); and the Music teacher, Mary Phoebus (Isabel Jewell). Inspector Donovan (Cliff Clark) and Detective Bates (Edward Gargan) are also looking at the local Coroner's verdict of suicide.
Tom begins his investigation at the dead professor's room, and then goes to the undertaker's (Ian Wolfe), where he finds out it is assumed Professor Jamison committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Believing the death was a murder, a group of suspects are carefully watched, including Marguerita, who thinks she has inherited her father's insanity, and a love triangle involving Graelich, Mary and Vicky, all with a motive to kill.
Before Tom can confront the killer, Dean Keyes is murdered; and, when Marguerita tells Mary that she saw her standing over the dead body of Miss Keyes, Mary tries to force the hysterical girl to jump from the cliffs by the school. Tom races to the cliffs and startles Mary, who topples over the cliffs to her death. She had been behind all the murders, starting with Jamison who was killed in a jealous rage, and the Dean, who would have dismissed Graelich, whom Mary had married in secret, as married couples could not work at the school.
When Jane's mother, a famous actress, arrives at the school with another actress, she asks the Falcon to solve a murder at the theater.

At a New York airport, a passenger aircraft coming in from Washington D.C., crash-lands at a crowded airport, however nobody is on board the jet. The aircraft had been hijacked at its previous stop with all but the pilot and two leading industrialists left behind. In addition to the three men, $100,000 worth of securities is also missing.
Although he promised his "fiancée" from Texas, Bonnie Caldwell (Amelita Ward), that he will give up solving crime, Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka The Falcon, can't resist the lure of a fresh mystery. When she receives a ransom note, Nancy Palmer (Elaine Shepard) asks for his help in locating her father (Clarence Kolb), one of the missing industrialists. One of the Falcon's prime suspects is Nancy's jealous cousin Iris (Jean Brooks).
Police Inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) and his assistant, Bates (Edward Gargan), are called to investigate the mystery. Later, all the passengers, except for Nancy's father, Stanley Harris Palmer, and his assistant, Wally Fairchild (Robert Emmett Keane), are found stranded at a rest stop. Nancy is told to leave $25,000 at a drinking fountain on Park Road, while Iris tells Tom that she suspects Nancy's fiancé, Ken Gibson (Richard Davies), told the kidnappers that Fairchild was carrying $100,000 in securities.
Tom accompanies Iris and Nancy to the Palmer's house and later sees Nancy leave a box by the drinking fountain. When two men collect the box, Tom follows their car on horseback and finds it belongs to an antique store owned by George Morley (Richard Martin). Donovan announces that Palmer has returned home alive; he and Fairchild stayed on the aircraft but strangers robbed Palmer at gunpoint, ordered him to parachute from the aircraft while the pilot set the controls on autopilot. More clues to the mystery appear, Tom finds a piece of junk that appears to be part of the aircraft and the missing securities which he turns over to Donovan.
Donovan suspects Fairchild but state troopers report the missing pilot and Fairchild have been found dead in a field. Morley becomes the next likely culprit but disappears. As he unravels the mystery, Tom reconstructs the second part of the flight. With other passengers gone, Palmer killed Fairchild who had proof of Palmer's cheating the government, then after take off, had also killed the pilot and dumped the bodies.
Palmer's dog attacks Morley in the antique store. Just then, Donovan arrives in time to see Tom shoot and kill Palmer in self-defense. Later at the airport, Bonnie tells Tom she is going home to Texas by herself. Dejected, Tom declares that he is forsaking all women, until a pretty co-ed approaches him, asking for his help.

Amateur sleuth Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway) known as "The Falcon," is approached by Mia Bruger (Rita Corday) to help in finding her brother, who had gone missing. When Tom goes to a cocktail bar, he is attacked and knocked unconscious. When he revives, he finds himself in his car on a country road. A motorcycle police officer stops him and arrests him, because Police Inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) has put out a "all-points" bulletin for his arrest in the case of a murdered bank official and the theft of $250,000 in war bonds.
Although the Falcon has an alibi with his fiancée, reporter Marcia Brooks (Jane Randolph) and assistant, "Goldie" Locke (Cliff Edwards) supporting him, Donovan is skeptical and attempts to incarcerate Tom, who makes his escape. Returning to the bar, it is now the headquarters of a woman's knitting society, run by Geraldine Lipton (Wynne Gibson). When the trio of sleuths head off to Lipton's resort hotel, they find a number of suspicious individuals, hotel manager Gwynne Gregory (Harriet Hilliard), former criminal Rickey Davis (Erford Gage), a nurse to invalid Bruno Steffen (André Charlot) and Mia.
When Tom approaches Mia, she pretends that she doesn't know him and dives into the pool but as she hits the water, she is killed by a gunshot. Looking for the killer, Tom runs into puppeteer Smiley Dugan (Edgar Kennedy), who alerts Donovan that the Falcon is at the hotel. Picking up a cigarette case that might be a clue to the murderer, Tom has to work quickly before Donovan arrives.
Marcia reports that the fingerprints on the cigarette case belong to a notorious thief known as "the Duchess". Tom phones his houseboy, Jerry (Richard Loo), telling him to pose as the Chinese Trade Commissioner wanting to buy war bonds. After Steffen confides to Jerry that he plans to buy war bonds from Gwynne, Tom exposes Mrs. Lipton as the Duchess, and accuses her of stealing the bonds, but Donovan, with a warrant for murder, arrests Tom, Marcia, Goldie and Jerry instead.
Finding a way to escape once again, Tom returns to the hotel, and confronts Mrs. Lipton, who was being blackmailed by Rickey into selling the war bonds. When Rickey is killed, a terrified Gwynne confesses that she was involved because Rickey was her husband. When he is trapped in an elevator with Gwynne, Tom realizes that the killer is still in the hotel. Findng a way out, Tom rushes to Mrs. Lipton's room to find the puppeteer threatening the hotel owner. When Tom tries to apprehend him, Dugan falls to his death. Donovan, now convinced in Tom's innocence, arrives to arrest Mrs. Lipton for the theft of the war bonds.

At a warehouse in Los Angeles, trucks are loaded with stacks of tires to be delivered to a San Francisco warehouse. On a country road under cover of darkness, the tires are transferred to Joe Wembley (Frank M. Thomas), an underworld figure and operator of a nightclub at the beach. With the $50,000 earned from the transaction, Evelyn Harris (Doris Lloyd), who inherited the tire business from her late husband, plans to marry Eddie Moore (Jerome Cowan), a singer at Wembley's café. The two lovebirds head for New York City, but Moore insists on stopping at an unoccupied cottage he notices from the road.
In San Francisco private detective Jess Arno (William Gargan) succeeds in clearing actress Dolly Adair (Phyllis Brooks) of a murder charge and becomes a media sensation. After the trial is over, Jess rushes to phone his sweetheart, June Terry (Margaret Lindsay), a real estate agent at the shore. June, jealous of Dolly, is upset when Jess informs her that he plans to shield Dolly from the reporters by hiding her at his beach cottage.
Randy Brooke (Dick Purcell), a reporter and a rival for June's affections, convinces her to play a practical joke. They take a wax model to Jess's cottage and stick a knife in the figure's throat. Jess and Dolly arrive at the cottage and are horrified to find blood stains and a body of a woman in the cellar. Hurrying to Wembley's café nearby, they telephone Capt. Baker (Thomas E. Jackson) at police headquarters. When the officers arrive, accompanied by Randy and June, the body is missing and the dummy lies in its place. Believing that it is all a publicity hoax, the police ridicule Jess as a "front page detective."
After the police leave, June admits her involvement in placing the dummy and offers to help Jess discover the identity of the murdered woman. A dress label found on the body leads them to an exclusive shop in Los Angeles, where they discover that the dress was sold to Evelyn. After an argument, Jess and June go their separate ways to solve the mystery. Upon learning that Evelyn left town to marry Moore, their investigation leads to Wembley's café. June begins to question Moore about Evelyn, whereupon he flees the café with the $50,000. His escape is aided by the sound of air raid sirens and a blackout at the beach.
By pretending to be an air raid warden, Jess corners Moore at his apartment. After Moore denies killing Evelyn and accuses Wembley of engineering the murder and hijacking the tires, Jess phones Capt. Baker, but before he can relay the information, Moore knocks him unconscious and locks him in a closet. Moore is then confronted by Wembley and his henchman, Mario (Edward Norris), who have followed him. When the police arrive, they find Moore's body, beaten to death, and accuse Jess of the crime.
After recovering from a blow to his head, Jess eludes the police and goes to the café, where he confronts Wembley and Mario with evidence of murder. In the ensuing fight, Mario and Wembley chase Jess into a banquet room where the hijacked tires are stored. The police then arrive and, seizing the tires as evidence, arrest Wembley and Mario. With the murder solved, Jess and June leave for their wedding and honeymoon.

Former jewel thief and reformed detective Michael Lanyard (Warren William), or the Lone Wolf, is driving to a party with his butler Jamison (Eric Blore). Halfway through the journey, they come across Eve Andrews (Marguerite Chapman), who requests that they bring her to Harry Cooper (Gerald Mohr)'s residence. Meanwhile, Cooper, an unprofessed criminal, is carrying out a scheme to loot the jewelry of select wealthy persons — namely, Jane Merrick (Mona Barrie), Sonia Budenny (Tala Birell) and Andrews. Cooper is killed before he can finish his plans by an unknown assailant. Lanyard, who happens to be at the scene, is pinpointed by the suspicious police as the perpetrator. He escapes but is found by magazine writer Sidney Shaw (Warren Ashe), who agrees not to rat Lanyard out in exchange for a scoop.
The Lone Wolf interrogates the women at the murder scene but is unable to find a lead. He is then captured by two criminals working under Arthur (Louis Jean Heydt), Cooper's right-hand man. Lanyard breaks free and flees, reuniting with Jamison and Shaw. The trio sneak into Cooper's house and decide to tail Arthur, who is leaving for the airport. The criminal turns out to be meeting a female teen named Patricia Blake (Margaret Hayes). Unaware of Cooper's death, she becomes distressed when the news is broken to her.
Arthur and Blake later leave for a hotel. In the middle of his confidence trick on Blake, Arthur is halted by Lanyard, Jamison, and Shaw, who rush into the hotel room. A heated fight ensues, with Arthur managing to escape. Blake injures herself and is quickly attended to by Shaw. When she admits her love for Cooper, Shaw seethes in infuriation. Lanyard realizes that Blake is Shaw's spouse and by piecing two-and-two together, he concludes that Shaw was Cooper's killer. The police arrive in time to arrest the jealous lover and the Lone Wolf is exonerated from all charges.

Michael Lanyard (Warren William), the Lone Wolf, agrees to go to Alexandria to help the Allied cause during World War II. There, he and his valet, Llewellyn Jamison (Eric Blore), are met by his old friend, nightclub owner Johnny Booth (Sheldon Leonard).
Fritz (Lloyd Bridges) comes to drive him, supposedly to see Sir Robert Wembley (Frederick Worlock), head of the British secret service in the region. However, he is actually taken to meet Karl (Gavin Muir), the leader of a Nazi spy ring. Karl threatens to kill Jamison (whom he has kidnapped) unless Lanyard does some as yet unspecified work for him. When Lanyard reluctantly agrees, the two men are released. After they leave, Karl reveals to Fritz that he expects the Lone Wolf to try to trap him, but that is all part of his plan. When Lanyard meets with Wembley, the spymaster makes clear that he does not want an amateur's help, but reluctantly agrees to let the Lone Wolf play along in order to gather more information.
Complicating matters further, Lanyard and Jamison encounter the latter's son Donald (Robert Stanford), a British naval officer, and his fiancée, reporter Valerie King (Ann Savage) in Booth's nightclub. Lanyard soon suspects that she is not all she appears to be. In Booth's private office, he also meets freelance spies or informers (more or less on friendly terms with Booth), who call themselves "Rembrandt" (Louis Merrill) and "Cezanne" (Jay Novello). Cezanne shows him that the lace King was knitting contains a secret message. When the two spies leave, Rembrandt shoots Cezanne; he dies in front of the nightclub, at King's feet.
When King returns to her hotel room, Karl is waiting for her. She is one of his agents, currently extracting information from Donald for their real goal: the plans for the minefields and defences of the Suez Canal.
Meanwhile, the Lone Wolf is approached by "Whistler" (Sig Arno), yet another unscrupulous man with information to sell. Whistler sells him lace that King had sent to a laundry; the hidden message indicates that whatever the Nazis plan to do is to be finished by midnight.
Karl visits Lanyard and gives him his assignment: break into a safe at British Intelligence and steal some documents. However, it eventually becomes clear to all that Lanyard's part is merely a distraction. The plans have already been stolen. Wembley orders the arrest of the Lone Wolf for treason, but Lanyard escapes.
He and Jamison head for the laundry. Along the way, they come upon the unconscious Donald. They revive him and take him along. Inside, they find secret rooms and overpower Karl. They also discover the body of Whistler and a clue, shards of a distinctive watch crystal, just like the one King has, microfilming equipment, and ashes of the defence plans. Lanyard deduces that the plans have been transferred to King's watch. When she telephones, Lanyard pretends to be Karl and learns that she is at the hotel. Before they get there, however, Rembrandt kills her and takes the watch to Karl.
Fortunately, Booth has an aircraft armed with machine guns. Lanyard pilots it, finds the speeding car taking Karl and Rembrandt to the submarine, and guns them both down.

Dr. Watson is serving as resident doctor at Musgrave Hall in Northumberland, a stately home which is also used as a hospital for a number of servicemen suffering from shell shock.
When Sally Musgrave displays her feelings for one of the wounded American fighter pilots, Captain Pat Vickery, who is currently recovering at the family estate, her brothers Geoffrey and Phillip are quick to show their dismay.
Then one of the physicians working at the estate, Dr. Sexton, is assaulted by an unknown assailant when out on a walk. Dr. John Watson, who is in charge of the medical facility, goes to fetch his dear friend Sherlock Holmes to bring some clarity to the case of the attack.
Upon his arrival to the estate, Sherlock Holmes discovers the dead body of one of the brothers, Geoffrey. Inspector Lestrade of the Scotland Yard is put on the case to solve the murder, and immediately arrests the captain as a suspect.
Holmes is of another opinion about the flyer's guilt and continues to investigate on his own. Phillip is formally made the new head of the estate the next day with the aid of his sister. But after only one day of ruling the estate, Phillip too is found murdered, lying in the trunk of the car.
Lestrade suspects the family butler, Alfred Brunton, to be the murderer because Phillip had just fired the butler. Trying to arrest the butler, Lestrade gets lost in the manor's secret passageways. Meanwhile Holmes and Watson look into the special "Musgrave Ritual" that the family uses to appoint the new head of the family. They find the words used in the ritual hidden in Sally's room and try to copy the ritual, which involves replaying a giant chess game on the checkered floor of the house main hall. As pieces in the game they use the household staff.
The game gives them clues to the family's secret burial crypt underneath the house, and there they find Brunton murdered, clutching a case containing an old document. Holmes examines the body for clues and sets a trap for the murderer. After the others have retired for the day, Holmes sneaks back into the crypt and waits for the murderer to reappear. Before long, Sexton appears, where Holmes confronts him with the evidence that he has found and observed throughout the investigation. Sexton, however, manages to overpower Holmes and takes his revolver. Then Sexton confesses that he indeed is the one responsible for the murders. When he tries to shoot Holmes he discovers that the bullets are blanks. Lestrade and Watson come to the rescue and arrest Sexton.
Explaining the meaning of the document found in the crypt to Sally, Holmes suggests that Sexton had discovered the old land grant that made the Musgraves worth millions of pounds, and then killed both brothers and implicated Capt. Vickery, hoping to marry Sally who would inherit the estate. Sexton also tried to frame the captain so that he could not marry Sally. Sally destroys the document, not wanting to be rich at the cost of others' lives.
Driving away with Watson, Holmes muses on Sally's selfless act:

Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) pretends to be a Nazi spy to aid scientist Dr. Franz Tobel (William Post Jr.) and his new invention, a bombsight, in escaping a Gestapo trap in Switzerland. Holmes and Franz fly to London, where Holmes places him under the protection of his friend, Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce). The scientist slips away against Holmes' instructions for a secret reunion with his fiancee, Charlotte Eberli (Kaaren Verne), and gives her an envelope containing a coded message. He tells Charlotte to give it to Holmes if anything should happen to him. Leaving Charlotte's apartment, an attempt to abduct him by German spies is foiled by a passing London bobby.
Tobel successfully demonstrates the bombsight for Sir Reginald Bailey (Holmes Herbert) and observers from Bomber Command. Tobel, now under the protection of Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) and Scotland Yard, tells Sir Reginald that, although willing to provide the British with his bombsight, only he will know its secret and has a complex plan for its manufacture to keep the secret safe. He separates his invention into four parts and gives one to each of four Swiss scientists, known only to him, to construct separately and whose names are unknown to each other. Soon after, Holmes receives a call from Lestrade telling him that Tobel has disappeared. Holmes goes to Charlotte's flat, where he receives Tobel's envelope. Rather than the coded message, the message inside is from Holmes' nemesis, master criminal Professor Moriarty (Lionel Atwill).
Disguising himself as Ram Singh, one of Moriarty's old henchmen, Holmes searches the Soho district for information. He encounters two henchmen Peg Leg (Harold De Becker) and Jack Brady (Harry Cording), but is captured by Moriarty. Holmes is put into the false bottom of a sea chest, but is rescued when Watson and Lestrade observe the henchmen struggling with its unusual weight. Holmes returns to Charlotte's flat to search for clues to the message's contents. He finds impressions of the message left on a notepad page by immersing it in "fluorescent salts... and then photograph(ing) it by ultraviolet light." Holmes breaks the first three lines of a cunningly modified alphabet substitution code, which are the identities and locations of three of the scientists, but unable to break the fourth line, which has been altered as an added precaution, soon learns that Moriarty has murdered all three and stolen their parts. Meanwhile, Moriarty, also unable to break the fourth line, tortures Tobel for the name of the fourth scientist. Holmes deduces the change in the code and breaks the fourth line, identifying the scientist as Professor Frederick Hoffner (Henry Victor).
Moriarty accidentally deciphers the code. He sends agents to abduct Hoffner, who has the brilliance to put the four parts together should Tobel not recover from torture. The German agents bring the scientist, who is actually Holmes in disguise again, to Moriarty's seemingly undetectable stronghold. Unknown to Moriarty, Holmes had the real Hoffner attach an apparatus to their car that drips luminous paint (which Watson helped prepare) at regular intervals. Holmes uses Moriarty's vanity and pride to trick him into slowly bleeding Holmes to death "drop by drop", to stall for time. Holmes is saved at the last minute, however, by Watson and Lestrade, who with Hoffner's help, successfully followed the drops. Scotland Yard apprehends the spies, but Moriarty escapes. When he attempts to complete his escape through a secret passageway, he falls sixty feet to his death; Holmes has discovered the criminal's hidden trap door and left it open. With Tobel saved and the bombsight recovered, Watson notes that things "are looking up... this little island is still on the map".

British secret agent Alfred Pettibone carrying a vital secret document is murdered on his way to deliver it in the USA. The British government turns to Holmes for help. He deduces that Pettibone converted the document to microfilm. Avoiding an assassination attempt, he hurries to Washington with Watson to retrieve it before it falls into the hands of an "international spy ring". Holmes is certain that the spies do not yet possess the document, as people who were in contact with Pettibone on his journey have been harassed. Pettibone's body was then delivered to Holmes by the spies as means to throw Holmes off the track.
Before his death, the agent managed to pass the microfilm, hidden inside a "V for Victory" matchbook, into the unwitting hands of Washington debutante and bride-to-be Nancy Partridge. The matches get passed from hand to hand at a party unknowingly and end up in the inadvertent possession of the chief spy, Heinrich Hinkel (known as the seemingly respectable Richard Stanley in Washington), when he has Partridge kidnapped.
Holmes tracks down the ring to an antiques shop, where he confronts Hinkel. During their cat-and-mouse conversation, he even tells the spy that "the man who has it doesn't know he has it", with the matchbook in plain sight. Holmes is taken prisoner, but just as he and Partridge are about to be murdered, the police, summoned by Watson by prior arrangement with Holmes, break in and, after a gunfight, rescue the pair. Hinkel gets away, along with the matchbook, however. Holmes races to the office of Senator Henry Babcock, having led Hinkel to believe the microfilm is under a stamp of a letter in the senator's possession. Holmes arrives first and, as Hinkel eavesdrops, reveals the importance of the letter. Hinkel takes the letter at gunpoint, only to have the police capture him. Holmes then takes the matches and sets fire to the letter, before revealing that the microfilm was in the matchbook all along.

Successful attorney Mark Latham neglects his wife, Erica, so she leaves him. Mark tries to win her back, but finds that she is now dating Tony Clair, an artist.
Julie Arden, jealous and upset that boyfriend Tony is stepping out on her, intends to shoot him. Mark wrestles away the gun, which goes off and kills her. An eyewitness mistakes Mark in a dark hallway for Tony, who is arrested and charged with the crime. Erica pleads with Mark to defend Tony in court.
As the trial proceeds, witnesses begin to realize that it was Mark, the attorney, and not the defendant who was in the hallway that night. He even shows that a pair of Tony's gloves fit himself. The gloves fit, the jury acquits and Erica, realizing how clever her husband is, returns to him.


While on vacation in Los Angeles, Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka The Falcon, meets Inspector McBride (Emory Parnell) at the Hollywood Park Racetrack, asking him about casino owner Louie Buchanan (Sheldon Leonard). Tom helped put Louie away but does not know about his present whereabouts.
Returning to his seat, Tom finds Louie seated one row behind. Seated next to Tom is actress Lili D'Allio (Rita Corday); and, when she leaves to make a bet, Peggy Callahan (Barbara Hale), Louie's girl friend, takes her spot and accidentally takes Lili's purse. Tom hails a cab, driven by wisecracking Billie Atkins (Veda Ann Borg), trying to catch up to Peggy who is an actress at the Sunset Studio.
Hearing a gunshot, Tom rushes to a deserted sound stage where he finds a corpse; but, by the time the police arrive, the body is missing. After finding the missing body in a prop room, Billie identifies the deceased as leading man Ted Miles, who was married to Roxanna (Jean Brooks), the studio's costume designer. Bringing autocratic director Alec Hoffman (Konstantin Shayne), whom she says we will marry, Roxanna exhibits no emotion when shown her former husband's body.
Everything seems to be tied to a current production produced by neurotic studio executive Martin Dwyer (John Abbott). Accompanied by Billie, the Falcon pokes around a studio. Suspects are starlet Peggy Callahan, haughty prima donna Lili D'Alio or shady "businessman" Louie Buchanan.
Police Inspector McBride (Emory Parnell) questions Martin Dwyer, who seems to have a rock-solid alibi, until his gun shows up in the model shop, hidden in a plaster head. When he produces proof that his gun was reported as stolen, suspicion falls on Hoffman, who is arrested but gets out on bail. The "jinxed" film goes back into production, with a scene set at Lili's pool.
When a prop gun is mysteriously loaded with live ammunition, Peggy shoots Hoffman at poolside. While McBride questions the crew about the shooting, Tom finds Peggy and Louie conferring in secret, with Louie promising to deliver the killer the next day at the Los Angeles Coliseum. When Louie arrives, he begins to stumble and dies on the steps. Tom finds a poisoned ring, like the one once owned by Dwyer. With the police homing in on him, Dwyer makes a break for the studio soundstage, where he is confronted by Tom and, after a furious gun battle, is shot and apprehended.
Tom concludes that Dwyer has sold eight investors a 25% interest in the film. He murdered Ted Miles and Louie Buchanan because they knew too much.

Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka the Falcon, helps Dolores Ybarra (Cecilia Callejo) enter an art gallery late at night to supposedly recover a painting that belongs to her. The Falcon discovers that the woman is the model for the artist's painting, however, the artist, Humphrey Wade (Bryant Washburn) has been dead for 15 years. The body of the owner of the gallery lies murdered on the floor. When the security guards arrive, alerted by a burglar alarm, they try to arrest Tom but he escapes with the painting and goes to the home of Winthrop "Lucky Diamond" Hughes (Emory Parnell), a collector of Wade's work.
Wanted by the American police for murder, the Falcon finds Barbara (Martha Vickers), the late artist's daughter and they travel to Mexico City. At the airport, Barbara is met by a car from the La Casa Del Laga Inn and slips away. After she drives away, Tom hires taxi driver Manuel Romero (Nestor Paiva) and his son, Pancho (Fernando Alvarado) to follow her.
The La Casa Del Laga Inn, located in a country village was where her father lived and worked. Barbara introduces Tom to her stepmother Raquel (Mona Maris), a dancer, and Raquel's partner and new husband Anton (Joseph Vitale) who warns Tom to leave Barbara alone and get out of Mexico.
At the inn, desk clerk Paula Dudley (Mary Currier), shows the Wade studio, where Tom finds a drawing done in Wade's style, with its paint still wet. Dolores, searching for her portrait in Tom's room, is surprised by his early return but when he pursues her into the hallway, she make her getaway. When he returns to his room, an unknown assailant knocks him unconscious and steals the painting.
Don Carlos Ybarra (Pedro de Cordoba), searches for his daughter but when her body turns up drowned in the lake, Tom thinks she has been murdered. Hughes arrives at the hotel without his famous diamond ring, a piece of jewellery he always wears. At dinner, Barbara collapses, the victim of poisoning, leaving Tom with a puzzling mystery that may be linked to the disappearance of Humphrey Wade. If Wade is still alive, who stands to gain from that?
At the lake, Tom finds Paula, dead in a boat. Manuel appears and reveals that he is an undercover Mexican police officer, who also needs to find the killer on the loose. Back at the inn, they discover Barbara is missing and on her way to an island, where her father's grave is located. When Tom removes the headstone, however, a masked man approaches Barbara and reveals himself to be her father. He explains that his disappearance came about when his alleged suicide made his paintings valuable.
As Wade warns Barbara that their lives are in danger, he is shot dead. Tom deduces that the killer must be Hughes, and he sets a trap for him. Wearing Wade's disguise, Tom walks onto the plaza and before Hughes can shoot from a balcony, Manuel fires. With the killer brought to justice, Tom bids farewell to his Mexican friends and boards an aircraft bound for home.

When Mrs. Irwin (Joan Barclay), asks Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka the Falcon, to prevent the marriage of her ex-husband, Tex Irwin (Lyle Talbot) to his fiancée, gold digger Vanessa Drake (Carole Gallagher), The Falcon becomes involved in murder. Rich cattle baron Irwin is murdered in a New York City nightclub, dying from the venom of a rattlesnake. When suspicion falls on various members of his family and business associates, The Falcon and the police, led by Police Inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) and his assistant, Homicide Detective Bates (Edward Gargan) travel west following Vanessa, to the Irwin ranch in Texas to try and solve the mystery.
At the ranch, when Lawrence is out riding, someone takes a pot shot at him and when Tex's lawyer Steven Hayden (Donald Douglas) is killed in the same way that Tex died, a snake bite, there are many suspicious individuals to consider. Dusty, Tex's foreman was in the nightclub when Tex had died. Tex's partner, Dave Colby (Minor Watson) and his daughter Marion (Barbara Hale) and Vanessa, and Mrs. Irwin, who turns up at the ranch, are all suspect. An Indian scalp is hung on Lawrence's door as a Comanche death warning for him not to go on with the investigation.
An apparent attack on Vanessa complicates matters. With Mrs. Irwin and the Colbys trying to stop her marriage, the police focus on Colby as the main suspect, but the Falcon is not sure. When Lawrence finds an Indian medicine bag containing the deed to Tex's ranch and a poison ring in the shape of a snake, he knows how the murders were committed.
Confronting Vanessa, she tries to use a poison ring to stab Lawrence but Dusty intervenes, pulling a gun on the Falcon. Dusty had been Vanessa's love interest and now reveals himself as her accomplice in murder. Colby's ranch hands and the police surround the house forcing the two killers to surrender.
At the train station, Tom and Marion watch Donovan and Bates board their train when a beautiful woman steps from the train and asks for help.

A musical mystery about a young couple's attempt to solve a mysterious murder that occurred at their house.

Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes fakes his own death in Scotland in order to investigate a number of bizarre apparent suicides that he is convinced are part of an elaborate plot by "a female Moriarty". Returning to his assistant Watson in secret, Holmes notes that all the victims were wealthy gamblers, so disguised as "Rajni Singh", a distinguished Indian officer, he stalks London's gaming clubs.
It is not long before he encounters the villain of the piece, Adrea Spedding. Holmes discovers that she seeks out men short of money, persuades them to pawn their life insurance policies with her accomplices, then kills them. Holmes sets himself up as her next victim, discovering that she uses the deadly spider, Lycosa Carnivora, whose venom causes such excruciating pain that the victims kill themselves. Holmes also finds the footprint of a child nearby.
Searching for evidence Holmes and Watson visit eminent arachnologist Matthew Ordway, who may have supplied the deadly creatures. Holmes soon realizes that the man he is speaking to is an impostor, but the villain makes his escape. Searching the premises, Holmes finds the corpse of the real Ordway, as well as his journals, which allude to something or someone from Central Africa immune to the spider venom. This baffles Holmes until he finds the model skeleton of a child. However, Dr. Watson points out that the relation of the skull and the circumference of the chest prove it is not a child, and Holmes deduces that the Central African thing described in the journal is a pygmy.
Holmes and Watson continue their investigations at a nearby fairground, where Holmes allows himself to fall into the clutches of Spedding and her gang. Bound and gagged, Holmes is tied behind a moving target in a shooting gallery, at which Lestrade and Watson take pot shots with a .22 rifle. However Holmes manages to escape, and Lestrade and the police arrest Spedding, her gang, and the pygmy.

Boston Blackie's wealthy friend, Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan), purchases an upscale bookstore from aged Wilfred Kittredge (George M. Carleton), but retains his services as a book expert. However, when Kittredge becomes ill just before an important auction he was to conduct, Blackie proves that he can impersonate him, fooling everyone, including Police Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane).
With the assistance of store employee Gloria (Lynn Merrick), Blackie runs the auction without a hitch. The centerpiece is a rare first edition of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, which goes for $62,000. However, the purchaser discovers that the book is a fake and demands his money back. $50,000 had already been sent to the book's owner/forger, Porter Hadley. Blackie tracks him down, but arrives just too late. Hadley's partner, Gloria, finds him packed and ready to leave. She shoots him and takes the money. Blackie hears the gunfire, forcing her to flee; in her haste, the money gets stuck in the other doorway. Blackie takes the envelope of cash. By sheer bad timing, Farraday and Sergeant Matthews (Frank Sully) arrive while Blackie is examining Hadley's body, and arrest him for murder.
Blackie has little difficulty escaping. Still unaware of the identity of the real murderer, he takes Gloria into his confidence. He puts the money in the store's safe while she watches with interest. That night, she and her husband, escaped safecracker Jack Higgins (Steve Cochran), break into the shop, but are forced to leave without the cash when Blackie and Arthur arrive.
When Jack arranges to meet Blackie, Blackie recognizes him. He agrees to give Higgins half the proceeds, but Blackie's sidekick "the Runt" (George E. Stone) informs Gloria that he will not be bringing real cash, and that the $50,000 is stashed in Arthur's home safe. Jack and an accomplice tie Blackie up. Jack then leaves to get the money. Blackie gets free, phones Farraday and heads to Arthur's suite. There, he and the Runt capture and bind Jack. Then Blackie forces Gloria to write out a confession, convincing her how coldblooded he can be by pretending to shoot her husband dead (the unseen Runt just knocks him out). Jack regains consciousness and control of the situation, allowing Gloria to burn her confession. When Farraday and his men break in, Blackie presents the inspector with a blank sheet of paper, claiming he switched the pages. Gloria incriminates herself and is arrested and taken away with her husband, Jack Higgins.

Rosalind (Margaret Lindsay) returns to her Miami home following a divorce to see her boyfriend Johnny Norton (Don Douglas). They visit nightclub Club Havana, where Johnny tells Rosalind that he has fallen in love with another woman. Saddened, Rosalind tries to kill herself, but Bill Porter (Tom Neal) prevents her from doing so. Meanwhile, Jimmy (Eric Sinclair) has discovered that Joe Reed (Marc Lawrence), who murdered club performer Julia Dumont, has been released as the police believe there is not enough evidence that Joe killed her. Although Jimmy witnessed the killing, he is afraid to see police, fearing that Joe will go after his girlfriend Isabelita (Lita Baron). Jimmy instead decides to phone the police, but Myrtle (Sonia Sorel) listens in on the phone call and informs Joe of Jimmy's actions. Joe gets a hired killer to murder Jimmy, but the killer accidentally shoots Myrtle while Jimmy ends up hitting the gunman in his car. As Jimmy goes to the police station to testify, Johnny and Rosalind decide to get back together and go home.

A blind detective, Duncan Maclain, with a seeing-eye dog is asked to help by Jean Hampton after a number of mysterious murders are committed, including ones of her wealthy father and uncle.
Jean's fiance, Barry Gifford, falls under suspicion at first, but Maclain and bodyguard Marty Corbett ultimately conclude that a family lawyer, Treadway,is masterminding a murder and moneymaking scheme. Gifford is about to be framed for the killings when Maclain solves it, after which the detective is asked to be best man at Jean's wedding.

During the final months of World War II, a young man is hitchhiking to the small town of Plainfield. After several failed attempts, he finally steps in front of a car driven by a young woman. She tries to go around him, but crashes and blows out a tire. He changes the tire in exchange for a ride from the hostile woman. They reveal their odd names, but nothing else about themselves: he is Marion and she is "Willie". Wilhelmina "Willie" Hammond is actually a member of a wealthy high society family, running from an arranged marriage to another socially prominent type, stolid Alvin Bailey.
Acting on the reported theft of Bailey's car, the police stop the pair and put them in jail. After the police talk to Bailey on the telephone, the two are released. Willie takes Marion to the family mansion, telling him that she is the family's secretary. Having lost her key, she has him crawl through a window, causing the pair to be taken into custody again. Reporters at the police station eventually recognize her, revealing her identity to Marion. They are again released.
Willie initially thinks that Marion is an Army deserter, but after he explains he received a medical discharge, she gives him a job as the family chauffeur, even though Wiggins, the eccentric old caretaker of the estate, has misgivings.
Willie's widowed mother, Mrs. Hammond, "old maid" Aunt Harriet and younger sister Patricia all return from New York, along with Alvin Bailey and Bailey's physical trainer and sidekick, Champ. Mrs. Hammond and Bailey strongly disapprove of Willie's association with a presumed gold digger. Mrs. Hammond tries to buy Marion off, while Bailey sends Champ to get the police. Marion, however, is determined to win Willie's heart.
After a series of family arguments and complications, Marion is revealed to be a nationally known war hero. He was hitchhiking simply because he does not like publicity. He is warmly welcomed by the mayor and the governor, and honored with a parade by Plainfield. His killed-in-battle friend described his hometown so vividly to Marion and later bequeathed it to him, so, having no real ties to any other place, he decided to settle there. As Marion is being driven away, Willie sets out after him in her wedding dress, and, in a role reversal, he gives her a ride.

Peter Marshall (Fred MacMurray), who works for the Trotter Poll ("like the Gallup Poll, but not as fast"), is sent out to find a missing co-worker, Hector Smedley. He goes to see the last family the man was supposed to interview, the nutty and murderous Fleagles. There he runs afoul of Mert and Bert Fleagle (both played by Peter Whitney), the gun-toting twin sons of Mamie Fleagle Smithers Johnson (Marjorie Main).
As matriarch of the clan Mamie insists that Peter, to escape death at the hands of Mert or Bert, pretend to be the boyfriend of jailed Bonnie Fleagle in order to gain the confidence of her dying grandmother (Mabel Paige). Grandma Fleagle has hidden $70,000 stolen by Bonnie and her now-executed father, but refuses to divulge where to her unwanted relations for a very good reason: she tells Pete that she has been poisoned by them. Before she dies, she teaches Pete a nonsensical song which is also known to Elany Fleagle (Jean Heather), Mamie's dimwitted daughter.
The Fleagles are sure Grandma told Pete where the money is hidden and keep him captive. Then, a woman claiming to be Bonnie shows up, also looking for the loot. When she gets Pete alone for questioning, she reveals she is actually Claire Matthews (Helen Walker). Her innocent father was maliciously implicated by Bonnie's father in the bank robbery. Pete wants to escape, now that they are alone, but Claire insists on staying. If she can retrieve the money, she can exonerate her father.
The Fleagles try to poison Claire at dinner, but Pete accidentally discovers that all but one of their plates have been poisoned (the poison glows in the dark); only the dish in front of Mamie's third husband, Mr. Johnson (Porter Hall), is safe to eat. Johnson slips away, but is soon found glowing and dead.
The uneasy situation is further complicated when the real Bonnie Fleagle (Barbara Pepper) breaks out of prison and comes for her money. She makes Pete sing the song and understands the seemingly meaningless lyrics. Pete gets away, and deciphers the clues hidden in the words, from which Claire finds a key to the safety deposit box. Soon, all of the Fleagles, including Mr. Johnson (who only faked his death), are chasing Pete and Claire through the various secret passageways of the house. Fortunately, the plucky pair are able to drop each of their pursuers into a hay baling machine, from which they emerge safely secured.

Dix plays an amnesiac who learns about his name and past through the help of amateur fortune teller Jean Lang (Janis Carter).
The fortune teller sees the mysterious-looking man when she is in a restaurant with her sister and the sister's boyfriend. Without meeting him, she predicts that he will be near death twice in the coming day. Outside the restaurant, she saves him from being struck by a car. It is then that he realizes he has no memory of his past.
Charmed by his pleasant, cultured manner, she resolves to help him uncover the mystery of his life. She continues to do so, even as she encounters signs that they may find something scary.

About to leave London for a much-needed vacation, Holmes and Watson receive a cryptic invitation. Intrigued, Holmes accepts and is met by the prime minister (Frederick Worlock) of the fictional country of Rovinia, who begs him to escort Prince Nikolas (Leslie Vincent) home. It turns out that his father has been assassinated, and Nikolas is the heir. Holmes agrees.
Arrangements have already been made for an airplane. When it develops problems, a smaller replacement only has room for the prince and Holmes, leaving Watson behind. When Watson protests, Holmes suggests he follow on a passenger ship bound for Algiers.
On the voyage, Watson reads that the airplane has crashed in the Pyrenees and that it is unlikely that there are any survivors. Fortunately, Holmes has an aversion of plans made by others and is aboard the ship with Nikolas. He instructs Watson to introduce the prince to the other passengers as his nephew. Though Watson suspects everyone, from American singer Sheila Woodbury (Marjorie Riordan) to exercise fanatic Agatha Dunham (Rosalind Ivan) to a secretive pair who later turn out to be archeologists, of being killers, it is not until the ship makes an unscheduled stop at Lisbon that the real Russian agents come aboard: Gregor (Rex Evans), circus knife thrower Mirko (Martin Kosleck), and a hulking mute named Gubec (William 'Wee Willie' Davis).
First, Mirko tries to kill Holmes with a knife thrown through a porthole, then Gregor substitutes an explosive party favor, but Holmes foils both attempts. Finally, the villains succeed in kidnapping the prince when they dock at Algiers, only for Holmes to reveal that the "prince" was a decoy; the real prince had been posing as a steward, hidden in plain sight the whole time.

Nick and Nora visit Nick's parents (Lucile Watson and Harry Davenport) in Nick's hometown, Sycamore Springs, in New England. The residents are convinced that Nick is in town on an investigation, despite Nick's repeated denials. However, when aircraft factory employee Peter Berton (Ralph Brooks) seeks out Nick and is shot dead before he can reveal anything, Nick is on the case.
An old childhood friend, Dr. Bruce Clayworth (Lloyd Corrigan), performs the autopsy and extracts a pistol bullet. Then, when Nick searches Berton's room for clues, he is knocked unconscious by Crazy Mary (Anne Revere), a local eccentric.
Nora's innocent purchase of a painting for Nick's birthday present turns out to be the key to the mystery. When she shows it to her husband, it brings back unpleasant memories for him, so she donates it to a charity bazaar. When Edgar Draque (Leon Ames) offers Nora a large sum for the painting, Nick wonders why it is so valuable. Nick learns that Draque's wife Helena (Helen Vinson) bought the artwork, but she is knocked out and the painting disappears. Nick discovers that Crazy Mary is Berton's mother and goes to see her, only to come across her lifeless body. Nick and Nora's dog Asta finds the painting in her shack.
Nick puts the pieces together and has the police bring all the suspects to his father's house. (Early on, it is revealed that Nick's father, Dr. Bertram Charles, has never been overly impressed with his son's unusual career choice, so this gives Nick an opportunity to change his father's mind.) Using Dr. Charles's fluoroscope, Nick shows that there is a blueprint hidden underneath the paint. Several people identify it as part of the specifications for a new aircraft propeller worth a great deal to a "foreign power". Berton had copied the blueprints and concealed the copies under five paintings. He had a change of heart and was going to confess all to Nick, but was killed by the spies he was dealing with. Nick has a souvenir World War II Japanese sniper rifle belonging to Dr. Clayworth's brother brought in, and claims it was the murder weapon. Then, after proving that the Draques are members of the spy ring, Nick reveals the identity of its leader: Dr. Bruce Clayworth. Clayworth's first slip was the bullet he showed Nick. Nick knew a handgun bullet would not have the power to penetrate as far into Berton's body as the real one went. Clayworth grabs the rifle. He confesses to the murder, and also to a deep hatred for Nick for always being better than him in their youth. He tries to shoot his nemesis, only to find that Nick had taken the precaution of removing the firing pin. Nick's father is very impressed.

A dying millionaire, trying to do good, marries his penniless young nurse so she can inherit his wealth and live in comfort. He then miraculously recovers, but the troubles for both husband and wife are just beginning.

When several women are murdered and their forefingers severed, Holmes and Watson are called into action, but Holmes is baffled by the crimes at the start. Widower Sir George Fenwick (Paul Cavanagh), after a romantic night alone with his girlfriend Lydia Marlowe (Hillary Brooke), is hypnotized into believing that he is responsible for the crimes. He is certain that he is guilty after he awakes from a stupor and finds a woman's forefinger in his pocket. His daughter comes to Holmes and Watson without realizing that Moriarty's henchman is following her. She tells Holmes and Watson that she found her father burying a forefinger under a pile of soil. She has dug up the forefinger and shows it to them.
Fenwick is then found dead, obviously murdered by someone to keep him from talking. Holmes theorizes that Moriarty, who was supposed to have been hanged in Montevideo, is alive and responsible for the crimes. Watson is then called to help a woman who fell over while feeding her pet bird. He leaves, and minutes later, Moriarty appears and explains that he faked the phone call so he could talk to Holmes. When Moriarty leaves, Watson arrives. Holmes explains what Moriarty did, notices that a window shade that was shut in the empty house across the street is now open, and tells Watson to investigate.
Inside the empty house Watson, looking through the window, believes that he sees a sniper shoot Holmes in his apartment. Holmes then appears at the house and explains that he put a bust of Julius Caesar there because of the bust's resemblance to his own face (Holmes realized that as soon as he sat there, Moriarty would have him killed). Inspector Gregson takes the sniper, a hypnotized ex-soldier, away, but the sniper is later killed on Holmes's doorstep.
Holmes now realizes that Moriarty's plan involves:
1) killing women and cutting off their forefingers,
2) making rich, single men believe they have committed the crime,
3) using this fake information to blackmail them, and
4) counting on the victims being too terrified to expose the scheme.
He befriends Lydia, whom he had seen with Sir George at a restaurant, suspecting that she is in cahoots with Moriarty. She takes him to her house, where he is apparently hypnotized. Moriarty enters and has one of his men cut Holmes with a knife to verify that he is hypnotized. He then tells Holmes to write a suicide note (which he does), walk out of Lydia's apartment onto the ledge, and jump to his death.
Watson and the police then appear and grab the criminals. Holmes then reveals he was never really hypnotized, but secretly ingested a drug to make him appear as if he had been hypnotized and also insensitive to pain. Moriarty then escapes from the hold of a policeman and jumps from the top of Lydia's house to another building. However, he hangs onto a pipe which becomes loose from the building, causing him to fall to his death.

When Boston Blackie performs magic tricks at a Thanksgiving Day party for the inmates of a women's prison, Dinah Moran (Constance Dowling) volunteers to enter a booth. She disappears after he draws the curtain, but as a former magician's assistant, uses the opportunity to escape. Police Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) takes Blackie into custody as an accomplice, but Blackie easily gets away himself.
A trip to the library reveals that Dinah was sent to prison for three years for a robbery that netted $100,000 (which was never recovered) and a dead victim. Her magician former husband, John Lampau, was acquitted. Blackie tracks Lampau down, still performing magic, but now under the name of Jani, to warn him. Dinah shows up minutes later, having heard that Jani intends to marry his new assistant, Irene (Trudy Marshall). Dinah has come to make sure she gets her half of the loot. In a scuffle, she grazes Jani's right hand with a gunshot before fleeing. Blackie arranges to impersonate Jani, while the magician hides in Blackie's absent friend's apartment.
That night, Blackie is awoken by sounds in Jani's apartment. When he investigates, a woman runs out of the unlit room.
Blackie eventually locates the money in Jani's safety deposit box and takes it, still disguised as Jani. Outside, Dinah forces him at gunpoint to give her the envelope containing the loot, but when she opens it, it is empty. Blackie had taken the precaution of pocketing the money. In the meantime, Blackie's friend returns home from a trip early and finds Jani's body in the closet. Farraday corners and arrests Blackie and his sidekick, "the Runt" (George E. Stone), for murder. Blackie easily escapes from his cell.
Returning to the theatre where Jani performed, he finds an armed Irene over Dinah's lifeless body. She admits she herself was after the money all along. She makes Blackie hand it over, before calling the police. When Farraday and his dimwitted assistant, Sergeant Matthews (Frank Sully), arrive, Blackie tells them he recorded Irene's confession when he turned on the radio for some music. When he plays it for them, Irene tries to run, but is caught and taken away. Blackie then informs Farraday that there was no recording; he merely used ventriloquism to reenact his part of the prior conversation to fool Irene.

Ignoring Inspector Farraday's (Richard Lane) friendly advice to stop helping women, Boston Blackie goes to the rescue of a female being attacked by two men. She turns out to be Geraldine "Gerry" Peyton (Lynn Merrick), an old flame of his. She begs him to help protect her baby from her husband John (an uncredited Mark Roberts), who has just been paroled.
When John finds them together, he assumes the child is Blackie's and pulls out a gun. A fight breaks out, during which an unseen third party shoots John. Acting on an anonymous tip, Farraday arrives soon after and assumes Blackie is responsible for the dead body. Blackie has his sidekick, "the Runt" (George E. Stone), hide the baby at the apartment of the latter's girlfriend, Mamie Carleton (an unbilled Claire Carleton).
Blackie escapes from dimwitted Sergeant Matthews (Frank Sully). An investigation soon arouses his suspicions. It turns out that Gerry and Smiley Slade are trying to swindle her wealthy father-in-law, Cyrus Peyton. The child is actually her brother Hack Hagen's (an unbilled Charles Lane). They framed Blackie in order to get rid of John. When Hagen tries to back out, worried that he will not get his son back, Smiley guns him down.
Disguised as Cyrus, Blackie goes to see the pair. He manages to overcome Smiley, only to have Farraday break in, arrest him, and let Gerry and Smiley go free. However, it is all a joke on Blackie. For once, Farraday has figured out who the real crooks are; when Blackie goes downstairs, he sees the pair in handcuffs.

Aboard an ocean liner in the South Pacific, US Treasury agent Scott Pearson confidentially asks Charlie Chan for help. There have been two attempts on his life. Chan rescues him from a third, but not the fourth (a knife in the back). The captain asks Chan to complete the dead man's mission and find out who is responsible for the recent surfacing of counterfeit dollars and stolen art. Chan declines, citing urgent business in Australia, but sets out to find the murderer.

Thomas Harley, an ex-convict who served time in prison eight years ago, is wrongfully arrested for a bank robbery he didn't commit. The police have found fingerprints on the crime scene, incriminating Harley, even though he was present at the Carey Theatrical Warehouse at the time of the crime.
The policemen do not believe Harley's explanation, partly because he claims to have been called to the warehouse by a note from an old cell mate by the name of Dave Wyatt, a man that has been dead for eight years. Subsequently, Harley is sentenced to death for the robbery. He goes off to prison to wait for his execution.
Harley's daughter June asks private investigator Charlie Chan for help to prove her father's innocence. Hearing about the suspicious circumstances, Chan immediately agrees to take the case.
With only 9 days before Harley's execution, Chan starts investigating the suspicious note to Harley, and find out that it was written on a typewriter belonging to Mrs. Foss, Harley's landlady, who often rents to ex-cons. He talks to the other tenants in the building: the poor Miss Petrie, bookkeeper Mr. Johnson, salesman Mr. Danvers and showgirl Emily Evans, whose work costume was found in warehouse near the crime scene. Curiously enough, both Danvers and Evans had been in other cities at the time of bank robberies there. When Chan, his son Tommy and the chauffeur Birmingham goes to the prison to see Harley, they are shot at. This makes Chan sure that they are on the right track and believes that the fingerprints on the crime scene must have been placed there by someone else.
When Chan looks into the other robberies he finds that the modus operandi was always the same, and the perpetrators ended up in the same prison. It also turns out the quiet Miss Petrie is married to a convict who works in the prison's fingerprint department.
Later Miss Petrie is overrun and killed by a truck outside the warehouse, and Johnson is at the scene when Chan arrives. Chan returns to the prison to check out the fingerprint department, and discovers that someone has exchanged the print cards. Miss Petrie's husband hears of Chan's suspicions and attempts to escape, but is shot and wounded.
Petrie's husband dies from his wounds, and Chan demands new prints from everyone living in Harley's building, including Johnson. He discovers that Johnson's prints are all over one of the print cards in the prison.
Chan returns to the warehouse again, and finds the tools used to forge fingerprints in the truck that ran Petrie over. Chan is discovered by Danver at the warehouse. It turns out Danver has killed Johnson to stop him from talking, and now he tries to kill Chan for the same reason. He fails and is arrested for all the robberies. Harley us released from prison. Chan tells Harley that June's boyfriend Kenzie was the leader of the robbers, and that he framed Harley because he did not consent to him marrying June.

Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), known as the Falcon, is about to go on a fishing holiday with his sidekick Goldie Locke, with Goldie getting Tom to swear off thinking of women or crime. He breaks his vow when he sees a woman abducted in a taxicab. The Falcon rescues the damsel in distress, Louise Bragaza (Madge Meredith), and she tells him that she was the target of kidnappers due to her father's invention of a process to manufacture synthetic diamonds.
The Falcon and Goldie end up traveling to Miami, Florida to rescue her father.

When gunshots are heard next door, the three children of widowed mystery novelist Marian Carstairs try to help the police, help their mother solve the case or solve it themselves.
Polly Walker, an actress, runs from the neighbors' house, telling police lieutenant Bill Smith that she had gone there to see Flora Sanford and found her dead. Flora was an agent who represented Polly as well as Marian, whose books feature a detective character with the same name as Bill's.
Various suspects are considered, including other neighbors and Flora's hiding husband, who had fallen in love with Polly and wanted a divorce. The children begin sending anonymous letters, believing they are helping the investigation, until Bill finally persuades them to let him handle the case. He solves it, then expresses a romantic interest in Marian, pleasing the kids.

Businessman John Earl observes a piece of artwork in a museum, gazing at it reverently. He asks the museum curator how much it costs, and the curator says that it is not for sale. The artist, James Harlan Corbin [Lederer], does not wish to sell the painting. Nonplussed, Earl returns to his office and phones Corbin with his proposal to sell. Again, Corbin refuses. Earl continues his pursuit to find out who the model for the painting was. He learns it is Helen North, a young woman who looks nothing like the woman in the painting. He visits with her to learn his location, but she refuses, telling him that she will be singing at a local nightclub, where Corbin frequents. Earl finds both of them in the museum, and again confronts Corbin. Becoming clearly annoyed, Corbin invites the singer out for a night in his yacht. She agrees, but is later found washed ashore. Although Police Lt. Roberts initially questions Helen's suitor Hunt Mason, Mason implicates Corbin as the last person who saw Helen North. John Earl works with the police department to arrange for Helen's sister Linda to apply for modeling, in order to spy on Corbin. The two return to Corbin's boathouse. While there, Linda calls for Earl and tells his chef that she is in danger and to notify the police. There, she learns that Corbin did not murder her sister. Thereafter, she falls in love with Corbin and agrees to support him against the district attorney's allegations he killed both Helen and another model, Madonna. Although Corbin has visions that he did so, Linda tells him to make sure he is telling the truth before confessing such heinous crimes. Linda returns home with Corbin's mother, who poisons her tea and tries to inject her with a lethal substance before police shoot. Corbin had suddenly recognized who it was that had planted evidence at the boathouse to implicate him. Police arrive just in time to save Linda from death but not Mrs. Corbin, who dies in her son's arms.

Christine Allen administers lie detector tests for the district attorney, Les Ashton, but wants to become a prosecutor in court. Frustrated, she leaves Les to work for lawyer Bill Crane, whose unhappy wife Marsha, a photographer, makes large bets with bookie Johnny Lacka and openly flirts with model Peggy's husband.
Les is in love with Chris and wants her back. He fools Bill into believing Marsha wants to reconcile, but instead Paul Marvin turns up, telling Bill he and Marsha have become romantically involved. Marsha then is found dead. Les and the police naturally suspect Bill.
Lacka refuses to pay the $20,000 that Marsha won with her bet. Peggy is then killed. At a party, Chris convinces her guests to take one of her lie detector tests. From the answers she gets, she deduces that Paul is the killer behind it all. She is saved from being his next victim by Les, with whom she is now in love.


Charlie Chan (Roland Winters) is a private investigator living in San Francisco. One day a Chinese princess comes to visit him in his home. She has just arrived from the East by boat. The princess manages to give Chan’s butler Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) an artifact - an ancient heirloom ring - before she is shot an killed by a poisoned arrow through the window. She leaves a note behind, with the name ”Captain K”. Chan calls for the police to investigate this murder. Bill Davidson (Warren Douglas) with the SFPD comes to Chan, but his friend, the reporter Peggy Cartwright (Louise Currie), also arrives uninvited to the scene.
By examining the ring, it turns out the princess’ name was Mei Ling (Barbara Jean Wong). She arrived in San Francisco weeks earlier with two men, Captain Kong (Philip Ahn) and Captain Kelso (Thayer Roberts), to try and acquire fighter planes to fight off an enemy back home. For this purpose she had brought a substantial amount of money, $1,000,000, with her on the journey. A search for the money ensues, but it soon turns out there are more people looking for the lost money. Peggy helps out in the hunt, and she meets the princess’ maid, Lillie Mae (Chabing), and a deaf-mute boy living in the princess apartment. When Chan comes to talk to the maid, he finds her murdered in the apartment, and the deaf-mute boy manages to tell him that a man came to visit the apartment shortly before the maid was found dead.
Chan continues his search for the money, visiting the banker in charge of handling the princess’ assets abroad, Armstrong (Byron Foulger). While they are talking, Kong and Kelso, eager to get their share of the money, break in and kidnap both men and hold them for ransom. They are taken to the Chinese cargo vessel, but Birmingham manages to track them to the ship. Together with Chan’s son Tommy (Victor Sen Yung), they manage to free Chan and Armstrong, and when Bill and Peggy arrive to the ship with the police, Kong and Kelso are captured and arrested. Chan discovers that Armstrong is guilty of the princess’ murder, and of stealing her money. Armstrong also killed the maid to cover his tracks.

Former jewel thief Michael Lanyard (The Lone Wolf) (Gerald Mohr) along with his butler, Jamison (Eric Blore), go to Mexico on vacation. Lanyard, once a thief has been working as a private investigator. Liliane Dumont (Jacqueline deWit), one of the Lone Wolf's old flames, and Mrs. Van Weir (Winifred Harris) invite Lanyard and Jamison to dinner at Henderson's (John Gallaudet) El Paseo nightclub . They meet Sharon Montgomery (Sheila Ryan), a jeweller's spouse and gambling addict, who has lost a fortune at the casino.
Leon Dumont (Bernard Nedell), deWit's husband, tries to enlist Lanyard in a jewel theft. Jamison takes Montgomery home, but when he is not looking, she slips a valuable compact into his coat pocket. After the Lone Wolf steals a necklace, he discovers it is a fake and replaces it back in the nightclub safe.
When Dumont is murdered, Montgomery accuses Lanyard of the murder and Jamison of stealing her compact. Mrs. Van Weir is also heavily in debt with Henderson demanding her precious necklace to clear her gambling losses. Montgomery blackmails Henderson and tries to warn Lanyard but is also murdered, leaving him no alternative, he must track down the criminal mastermind behind the murders.
Mrs. Van Weir plots with Henderson but her worthless necklace is what gives her away and Lanyard calls in the police to bring Hnederson and Van Weir, the real murderer to justice.

A charity benefit sponsored by David Thayer is staged aboard the S.S. Fortune, Phil Brant's gambling ship. The entertainment is provided by a jazz band led by Tommy Drake and featuring singer Fran Page and talented but unstable clarinetist Buddy Hollis.
After a set, Drake informs a displeased Brant that he is quitting, having gotten a much better booking through Mitchell Talbin. However, Drake has a problem; he owes gangster Al Amboy $12,000. When Amboy (who is at the party) hears the news, he demands full payment that very night. Drake begs Talbin to give him an advance, but Talbin is unwilling to part with such a large sum. In desperation, Drake sneaks into Brant's office and opens the safe. However, he is shot from behind and killed.
Brant and socialite Janet Thayer elope, since her father David disapproves of Brant's lower-class background. The next morning, they show up at Nick and Nora Charles's apartment, having learned that Brant is the prime suspect in the murder. When a bullet narrowly misses Brant, Nick turns him in to the police, having decided it is safer for all concerned. Then Nick starts investigating.
Sneaking aboard the Fortune, Nick discovers on the back side of a sheet of music a receipt signed by Amboy acknowledging that Drake's debt had been paid. Nick then runs into Drake's band, allowed back on board to collect their instruments. When he questions them, he learns that the bandleader had many enemies, among them Buddy Hollis. Musician Clarence "Clinker" Krause agrees to help Nick track Buddy down, but they have no luck.
Nick and Nora visit a hostile Janet. The bullet that killed Drake likely came from an antique gun, and Nick knows Janet's father is an avid collector. Sure enough, he finds one gun missing from Mr. Thayer's collection. Janet leaves after getting a telephone call. Nick and Nora follow her to Fran's apartment. There they find Fran's body; she was stabbed in the back very recently. Janet claims Fran called to sell her some information, but that she got there after Fran was killed.
Nick finds a matchbook from a hotel in Poughkeepsie. That eventually leads him to a rest home where Buddy is undergoing treatment. The musician is too badly shaken up to answer Nick's questions, though Nora's presence seems to calm him down. When Nora sneaks back later by herself, Buddy becomes agitated, confesses to the murder, pulls out the antique gun, and tries to shoot Nora. Fortunately, he misses. Nick does not believe the deranged man's confession; Drake was slain by a well-aimed shot.
Nick decides to gather all the suspects together by arranging a party on the reopened Fortune and announcing that Buddy has fully recovered and will reveal the real murderer's identity that night. It is Nora who notices the vital clue. Amboy's wife shows up wearing a valuable necklace that matches the earrings of Mitchell Talbin's wife Phyllis. Sometime later, the necklace mysteriously reappears on Phyllis's neck. When Nick confronts Mitchell, Phyllis reveals that it was she who paid off her lover Drake's debt using the necklace. As Nick prompts Buddy to finger the killer, Mitchell finally confesses to both killings and pulls out a gun. An enraged Phyllis shoots him first, but her husband is only wounded. Then, despite Nick's pleas, she fires again and again, finishing the job.

Private detective Michael Shayne is puzzled when newspaper publisher Gil Madden offers him money to not take a case, whereupon Mayme Martin tries to hire him. He goes to see Mayme, exasperating secretary-girlfriend Phyllis Hamilton, who was counting on a vacation with Shayne and promptly quits.
After learning from Mayme that something's amiss at Santa Rosita racetrack, Shayne is ambushed and beaten by a pair of thugs. Newspaper reporter Tim Rourke is sent by Shayne to see Mayme and finds her dead.
Shayne learns of a counterfeit-ticket racket that is costing the racetrack a lot of money. He speaks with track manager John Hardeman and encounters Ben Edwards, a printer who does the track's tickets. Edwards turns out to be an escaped convict from Joliet whose fellow former inmate Theodore Ross is now a fugitive as well.
Hardeman is shot, as is Edwards. In the end, Shayne proves to Detective Pete Rafferty that it was Ross, now going by the alias Madden, who was behind the scheme. Phyllis forgives the private eye and begins planning their vacation.

Calvin Cooke, a principled but stubborn judge, presides over a murder case in which lawyer David Douglas is unsuccessful in proving that his client's state of mind was a mitigating factor. (Later, though, Cooke grants Douglas's motion for a mistrial on the grounds that he may have unconsciously shown prejudice.)
Cooke's daughter Ellie complains to her mother Cathy about how unyielding her father can be; Cathy insists that he is a loving husband. Anyway, it is their 20th wedding anniversary and she is planning to celebrate with friends at their house. Cooke does not know that Ellie (herself a law student) and Douglas are romantically involved until Douglas arrives during the party to take her on a date. Cooke and Douglas exchange sharp words of disagreement about their philosophies of the law.
At the party, Cathy talks to Dr. Morrison, an expert neurologist and friend of the family, about her intermittent symptoms of weakness and headaches. At his office, Morrison performs a series of tests and then consults other experts. Rather than tell her the truth, Morrison contacts her husband. Cathy has an inoperable brain tumor and will suffer increasingly until it kills her. Cooke agrees, rather than spoiling her remaining days, to keep the information secret. The doctor gives him a bottle of pills called Demarine for pain relief, strongly warning him about the maximum dosage, and a prescription for more.
Cooke, who previously said he was too busy with cases to take Cathy on a second honeymoon as she wished, now agrees to go at once. But her condition worsens rapidly, including excruciatingly painful headaches. Cooke gives her a dose of Demarine, pretending it is aspirin. While he is calling the doctor from a pay phone so Cathy will not hear, a dog is run over in the street, and a police officer ends its suffering with a gunshot. Cooke, evidently feeling disgust at similar thoughts of his own, discards the remaining pills.
Cathy, looking through their luggage for toiletries, accidentally discovers the doctor's written diagnosis and prescription. When Cooke returns to the room, she says she is feeling better but would like to return home. In the car, her symptoms return. They stop at a gas station to have a car problem repaired and Cooke asks urgently about the nearest drugstore. Back on the road, Cathy collapses in the car. Cooke can stand it no more. He deliberately drives off an embankment, not caring if he is also killed. He survives, confesses that he crashed on purpose, and in keeping with his philosophy, demands to be prosecuted for murder.
At Ellie's request, Douglas agrees to defend Cooke. He requests an autopsy in case Cathy had actually died from her illness before the crash. The finding is a surprise: she did die before the crash, but from a Demarine overdose. Douglas shows that she had had the prescription filled before the drive home, and taken the drug while at the gas station.
The trial judge then dismisses the murder charge, but declares that Cooke knew very well that what he tried to do was wrong, and should consider himself morally guilty. Cooke agrees, and announces that in expiation, if allowed to remain a judge, he will now rule on the basis that similarly a person can be legally guilty but morally innocent—just what Douglas and Ellie have been asking for.

Manning, owner of the Golden Eye Mine in Arizona, persuades Charlie Chan to help him. To avoid alerting Manning's murderous enemies, Chan registers as a guest at a nearby dude ranch along with his number two son, Tommy, and his black servant, Birmingham Brown. There he meets San Francisco Police Lieutenant Mike Ruark, posing as drunken fellow guest "Vincent O'Brien" to investigate why the mine has suddenly become valuable.
When Chan goes to see Manning, he finds that he has supposedly fallen down a mineshaft, leaving him in a coma. While there, he is recognized by assayer Talbot Bartlett, who knows him from a previous case.
Later, Chan guesses that prospector Pete is stealing ore from the mine, and persuades him to guide him, Tommy and Birmingham to the mine through his secret passageway. However, when they arrive, Tommy and Birmingham find Pete's body.
Chan eventually surmises that much cheaper Mexican gold is being smuggled in and sold in the US at a huge profit by Driscoll and his men. When Driscoll makes a break for it, he is shot in the back by Bartlett. Then Chan reveals that it is Bartlett who is the boss of the smuggling ring and the killer of both Manning and Pete.

A Navy Lieutenant on shore leave and his wife of one year can't find a hotel room to enjoy their first night alone since they eloped a year earlier. An oddly dressed women in the lobby gives up her room in "an act of charity". The Navy Lieutenant then has his white uniform stolen while he is in the steam bath: and is given a civilian suit by the house dick. Shortly thereafter, sitting at the bar together, the Navy Lieutenant and his wife are approached by a somewhat distinguished fellow guest who confuses Iris Duluth with "her cousin Mona" whose picture had appeared in that morning's paper.

Vaudeville dancer Tom Quinn (Castle) is convicted for murder after his shoe prints are found at the scene of the crime. His wife Ann (Knox) follows the trail of clues to the real killer.

As Victor Armstrong visits his uncle, Judge Wesley Armstrong, in San Francisco, he is knocked unconscious by an unknown attacker. When he wakes up he finds out his uncle has been stabbed to death. The judge's private secretary, Phyllis Powers, finds the two men and calls the police to the scene. When Victor wakes up he has the knife that stabbed his uncle in his hand.
In another part of the city, Tommy Chan and his chauffeur Birmingham, discover a man trying to burglar his way into a house as they are walking home from the movies. They make a citizens arrest of the man, who turns out to be the house owner, district attorney Frank Bronson, trying to climb in through the window. Tommy, Who is the son of private detective Charlie Chan, and his chauffeur are put in jail because of their unlawful action.
Bronson is head of investigating the judge's murder, and hears from the judge's butler, Bates, that Victor wasn't allowed into the judge's home, and had to climb in through the window in the same way Bronson did. In an interview with the police, Phyllis also tells them that she her Victor, who is her boyfriend, argued with the judge about the purchase Victor had made of some stock worth $30,000.
Phyliis also heard how the judge contacted his lawyer Ed Seward and asked for a meet the following day, in order to update his will, to exclude Victor. This information gives Victor the most plausible motive for murdering the judge.
Famous detective Chan visits Bronson, his old acquaintance, to apologize for his son and Birmingham and their behavior the other night. At his visit, Chan overhears that two sets of fingerprints were found on the knife used to kill the judge; one set belonging to Victor and one to hardened criminal Tony Pindello.
Chan happens to know that Pindello was executed for another murder at San Quentin six months earlier. Pindello got his death sentence from Judge Armstrong. Chan is then asked by police investigator Ruark to help the police out on the case.
When district attorney Bronson is shot and killed soon after, Pindello's fingerprints are again found on the scene, on Bronson's desk. While investigating the case at judge Armstrong's office, Chan and Ruark catch the judge's clerk Walter Somervale looking through the judge's files.
The two men also find out that Seward, the judge's attorney, defended Pindello in the trial which ultimately sent him to the gallows. From the judge's documents they find that Seward is also working on a commission against racketeering.
A letter addressed to Victor, to be opened in case the judge died, states that the judge had found evidence that Pindello may have been innocent of the murder for which he was convicted, and that Bronson was to be informed of this.
Chan and Ruark go to find Tony's buried body, but finds his coffin has been dug up and removed. Fearing that Pindello's murder trial is connected to the judge's murder and racketeering, Chan sees to it that all the jurors involved in the ruling is taken into protective custody for the time being. They locate everyone but one, Thomas Cartwright, who is attacked in his home and killed before the policemen get there. Pindello's fingerprints are once again found on the murder scene.
Chan looks into the fingerprints and learns that it is in fact possible to forge someone else's prints. He gathers Phyllis, Victor and Seward at the judge's home to confront them about the fake fingerprints.
When all are gathered in the judge's study, the power is cut and everything turns dark. They are locked in by an unknown man holding a gun, but manage to break out again, and find all documents related to the racketeering, insurance fraud and Pindello gone.
Chan discovers that Pindello has a brother, Joseph, who got a letter from Tony when he was in jail, saying he was about to be sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit. Chan tells everyone that Joseph, to revenge his brother, Joseph was planning on killing everyone involved in the wrong sentencing of his brother, and dug up his brother's coffin.
While Chan explains this, Joseph enters the room with a gun and explains that his real purpose for digging up the coffin was simply to give his brother a proper burial. Joseph is then overpowered by Seward, who grabs Joseph's gun.
Chan goes on to explain the real murderer is Seward, because he was involved in an insurance scam with Pindello and wanted all the money for himself, thus framing Pindello for a murder to get rid of him.
Seward, sure to get away now that he has a gun, explains how he copied Pindello's prints to lead the police on a false trail. Chan tells Seward that the gun isn't loaded, since he gave it to Joseph earlier, and that it was all part of a set-up. Seward tries to flee but is stopped by Birmingham and arrested.

Henry Maurier rebounds from the death of wife Emily by marrying his brother-in-law's mistress, upsetting another woman who is in love with him. Suspicions grow that Henry might have hurried along his wife's death with poison.

Lorraine Connors manages the famous wrestler, Gorgeous George. Taking a special interest in George's match is a police lieutenant, Ron Peterson, who is keeping an eye on everybody: mobster Al Merlo, his moll Colette LaRue and another wrestling star, Sammy Menacker, who is dating Lorraine.
A quarrel between the wrestlers erupts and Peterson suggests they settle it in the ring. So much publicity ensues that the match is televised live. Sam is confident he will win, as is Colette, who requests his autograph. Sam is getting the better of George for a while, but is suddenly pinned, defeated and does not get up. He is dead.
George is clearly the prime suspect if this is a murder, while Peterson gets in hot water at the police department for proposing the match in the first place. Merlo is the detective's best guess as the culprit until he views a rebroadcast of the whole evening on TV. He finds the pen Colette used to get Sam's autograph and realizes what happened: It's been poisoned.

The much-valued Tahara diamond is looted during its opening showcase. A suspicious Inspector Crane (William Frawley) suspects reformed jewel thief and current private detective Michael Lanyard (Ron Randell), alias "the Lone Wolf", to be the perpetrator and promptly arrests him. In actuality, the true masterminds are Steve Taylor (Robert H. Barrat) and Joe Brewster (Philip van Zandt).
An eagle-eyed Jamison (Alan Mowbray), Lanyard's butler, spots the two criminals' hideout. It is revealed that they are involved with precious stone cutter Myriber Van Groot (Steven Geray). Nearby news anchor Grace Duffy (June Vincent) decides to join Jamison and the Lone Wolf, who has evaded capture, in storming the jewel thieves' hiding spot. Taylor and Brewster are handcuffed but in the middle of the scuffle, the Tahara is accidentally flung out of the window. Upon retrieval by Duffy, the jewel is found to be a fake. Lanyard deduces that Van Groot took away the real diamond and has the police capture him.

A young postman becomes involved in the theft of rare stamps featuring inverted images of the Statue of Liberty. Along the way he encounters attractive criminal Clara Kelso, double-crossing gang members, and Post Office Inspectors, before finally capturing the crooks.

Attractive newlywed Ruth (Stanton) Bowman (Jeanne Crain) joyously starts a honeymoon cruise to Europe with her husband John (Carl Betz), only to have him go missing shortly after they check into their room on board. Compounding her confusion, Ruth finds that she is registered solo under her maiden name in a different cabin and that none of the crew members who could have seen her husband on the ship remember him. These include the ship's purser, (Gayne Whitman), stewardess Anna Quinn (Mary Anderson), and second officer Jim Logan (Max Showalter). When she talks to the captain (Willis Bouchey), he notices that Ruth isn't even wearing a wedding ring, and the crew begins to suggest that she is mentally unbalanced.
That night, John calls Ruth with a cryptic warning not to trust anyone. A divorcee traveling solo (Marjorie Hoshelle) and the stewardess take an interest in Ruth. And Dr. Manning (Michael Rennie) spends time with her, assuming a clinical demeanor and getting her to open up about the recent death of her father, a wealthy steel executive.
Ruth decides to put on an act and agrees that she's been foolish, but mysterious things continue to happen. Ruth and Dr. Manning get closer, and a man who walks with a cane seems to stalk her.
Then the stewardess is revealed as conspiring with someone (by phone) to make Ruth seem unstable. Dr. Manning confronts Ruth over the fact that her marriage was either secret or non-existent. She explains that John wanted it to be quick and quiet and talks about an uncle who might scheme to get her inheritance.
John calls again and asks to meet Ruth on deck but runs into the fog when he hears others approach. When Ruth escapes from the ship crew chasing her, ending up in the dance room where she is trapped and making a scene of despair, the captain demands that she be locked in her cabin. She is sedated and a strict nurse prevents her from demanding anything.
Then John is revealed to be Barlowe, the third mate, under Dr. Manning's care all along for a claimed illness. When he learns Ruth has been locked in, he asks the stewardess to enable her escape. When they meet again, John attempts to throw Ruth overboard (mentioning the money of the inheritance he would get as a motive) but is stopped by Dr. Manning, who has followed her. It is John who goes overboard in the fight.
Later, Dr. Manning comforts Ruth, and the captain apologizes in the name of all who didn't believe her and explains that the stewardess confessed.

A lodge in Kanab, Utah is where Los Angeles lawyer David Hewson goes for a peaceful vacation. He quickly is attracted to Beth Dixon, a switchboard operator and a former personal assistant to lodge owner Edmund Parry.
The murder of playgirl Marsha Morgan, her throat cut, disrupts the peace and quiet. Sheriff Holmes begins the investigation, starting with the wheelchair-bound Parry, who admits to hating the dead woman, and Parry's possessive sister Julia, who helps him run the lodge. It turns out David once dated Morgan as well.
A new guest, Joseph Felton, checks in. The sheriff's suspects also include guests Norman Grant, a drunken actor, and his ambitious girlfriend, Harriet Ames. A missing kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon is found by Indian Joe, who works at the lodge.
Beth eavesdrops on a phone call Felton makes from his room. Felton is later found killed by a gunshot, and it turns out he was a private detective. David becomes more and more convinced that the Parrys are behind all this. Ames is seen kissing Edmund Parry, which does not please Edmund's sister or Grant.
To his shock, David arrives as Beth holds a knife to Julia Parry's bloody throat, claiming to have stabbed her in self-defense. It turns out, however, that Edmund had hired the investigator Felton to follow the psychologically disturbed Beth, who is responsible for all the murders.

The Man (Edmond O'Brien) is the accomplice of Marian Forbes (Laraine Day), the spurned mistress of a tycoon. She coaches The Man in impersonating the voice and appearance and habits of the intended victim and when he has been taken care of The Man begins his masquerade in a Mexican resort. Here he meets Corey Scott (Julie London) and moves on to contemplating the murder of his tutor. But things begin to go awry.

A mystery novelist, played by Denholm Elliott, discovers a plan to murder an American heiress, played by Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role, while on vacation in Spain. He enlists the help of a taxi driver, played by Peter Lorre, to travel across the Spanish countryside in order to thwart the crime. Some scenes were designed to highlight the Smell-O-Vision's capabilities. In one, wine casks fall off a wagon and roll down a hill, smashing against a wall, at which point a grape scent was released. Other scenes were accompanied by aromas that revealed key points to the audience. The assassin was identified by the smell of a smoking pipe, for example.
The screenplay was adapted from the 1947 novel Ghost of a Chance by Kelley Roos, the pen name of husband and wife mystery writers Audrey Kelley and William Roos. The novel was set in locations in New York City. Kelley Roos also wrote a 1959 paperback novelization of the screenplay, reset in Spain.

The reader discovers that Hammer has been a drunk living in gutters around New York City for the past seven years. Hammer's secretary and fiancee, Velda, is believed to be dead after a botched protection job involving a Chicago socialite and her new husband. Then, Hammer is apprehended and taken to an undisclosed location, where he is interrogated by former friend Captain Pat Chambers. Chambers, who blames Hammer for Velda's death, pummels him repeatedly, but slacks off. Richie Cole, a dock worker, is dying of severe gunshot wounds at City General Hospital and has insisted on talking to Hammer exclusively to reveal the identity of his killer. Hammer, upon interviewing the victim, discovers that Velda is still alive and facing execution by a top level Soviet assassin dubbed "The Dragon," her only chance being Hammer finding her first. The man tells Hammer that he has left clues to her location, but dies immediately afterwards.
The alarming news causes Hammer to sober up and prepare to go out on his own, despite being out of commission. He soon discovers the pressure is on from Pat to discover the killer's identity. Despite many threats, Hammer successfully brushes off Chambers, but then finds himself being muscled by a Federal Agent named Art Rickerby. Rickerby reveals to Hammer that Richie Cole was a field agent and his former protégé. In order to gain information and gun carrying privileges, Hammer makes deals with Rickerby, the condition being that Hammer brings him the Dragon alive.
Hammer's investigations lead him to Laura Knapp, the widow of a Senator also murdered by the Dragon. Whilst gaining more clues from Laura and death attempts by the Dragon, Hammer hurries to find Velda, as the clock is ticking, and time is not on his side.

-Spoiler Alert - an important aspect of the film is the use of make-up to render some of the actors unrecognizable - proof that the villain of the piece could have in fact impersonated the different people that he did in the story. Their identities are revealed herein. --
A writer named Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) believes a series of apparently unrelated "accidental" deaths are actually linked murders. He asks his friend Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), recently retired from MI5, to help clear up the mystery. However, Messenger's plane is bombed while he is en route to collect evidence to confirm his suspicions and, with his dying breath, he tries to tell a fellow passenger the key to the mystery.
The passenger survives and turns out to be Raoul Le Borg (Jacques Roux), Gethryn's old World War II counterpart in the French Resistance. They join forces to investigate Messenger's list of names, and decode Messenger's final cryptic words. They establish that all on the list were together in a prisoner of war camp in Burma, where a Canadian sergeant, George Brougham, betrayed his fellow prisoners, foiling their escape attempt. Each has a reason to kill Brougham. It evolves that Brougham is their killer, but why? They deduce that he is about to come into prominence and cannot risk being recognised. Gethryn and Le Borg establish that he stands in line to an inheritance of the Bruttenholm family, landed gentry who are friends of Gethryn and the late Messenger, and who avidly engage in fox hunting.
Having disposed of all possible witnesses to his wartime treachery, Brougham (Kirk Douglas) appears at a Bruttenholm estate fox hunt and introduces himself as a member of the family (he has previously been seen only in disguise). It then becomes clear to the visiting Gethryn and Le Borg that Brougham's next victim is to be the young heir, Derek. In an attempt to divert Brougham, Gethryn makes known his investigation of Messenger’s list, calculating to set himself up as the next victim.
That night, Brougham sabotages the next morning’s hunt by laying a drag with a fox in a sack over the fields. He especially marks a blind spot behind a high wall, and moves a large hay tedder behind, intending for Gethryn (who has been given the honour of leading the hunt) to be impaled upon its lethal tines. Unbeknownst to Brougham, his plan goes awry when a farmer repositions the tedder early the next morning. The hunt commences but comes to a halt at the specified spot. Gethryn reveals to the gathered crowd that he discovered and removed the hay-tedder booby trap earlier that morning and, with the help of the lead fox hound, will detect the scent of the culprit amongst a group of hunt saboteurs. Brougham, once again disguised, is identified and runs off, mounting Derek's horse. When Derek shouts a command to the horse, the animal stops short, throwing Brougham and impaling him on the very same machine he intended for Gethryn.

Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman), a US physicist and rocket scientist, is traveling to a conference in Copenhagen with his assistant and fiancée, Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews). Armstrong receives a radiogram to pick up a book in Copenhagen; it contains a message which says, "Contact π in case of emergency." He tells Sherman he is going to Stockholm, but she discovers he is flying to East Berlin and follows him. When they land, he is welcomed by representatives of the East German government. Sherman realizes that Armstrong has defected, and is appalled that, given the circumstances of the Cold War, if she stays with him, she will likely never see her home or family again.
Armstrong visits a contact, a "farmer" (Mort Mills), where it is revealed that his defection is in fact a ruse to gain the confidence of the East German scientific establishment, in order to learn how much their chief scientist Gustav Lindt (Ludwig Donath) and by extension, the Soviet Union, knows about anti-missile systems.
Armstrong has made preparations to return to the West via an escape network, known as π. However, he was followed to the farm by his official guard, Hermann Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling), an East German security officer. Gromek realizes what π is and that Armstrong is a double agent, and as Gromek is calling the police, a tortuous fight scene commences that ends with Gromek being killed by Armstrong and the farmer's wife (Carolyn Conwell). Gromek and his motorcycle are then buried. The taxicab driver (Peter Lorre Jr., uncredited) who drove Armstrong to the farm, however, reports on Armstrong's behavior to the police.
Visiting the physics faculty of Karl Marx University in Leipzig, Armstrong's interview with the scientists ends abruptly when he is questioned by security officials about the missing Gromek. The faculty try to interrogate Sherman about her knowledge of the American "Gamma Five" anti-missile program, but she refuses to cooperate and runs from the room, even though she has agreed to defect to East Germany. At this point, Armstrong secretly confides to her his actual motives, and asks her to go along with the ruse.
Armstrong finally goads Professor Lindt into revealing his anti-missile equations in a fit of pique over what Lindt believes are Armstrong's mathematical mistakes. When Lindt hears over the university's loudspeaker system that Armstrong and Sherman are being sought for questioning, he realizes that he has given up his secrets while learning nothing in return. Armstrong and Sherman escape from the school with the help of the university clinic physician Dr. Koska (Gisela Fischer).
The couple travel to East Berlin, pursued by the Stasi, in a decoy bus operated by the π network, led by Mr. Jacobi (David Opatoshu). Roadblocks, highway robbery by Soviet Army deserters, and bunching with the "real" bus result in the police becoming aware of the deception, and everyone fleeing. While looking for the Friedrichstraße post office, the two encounter the exiled Polish countess Kuchinska (Lila Kedrova) who leads them to the post office in hopes of being sponsored for a US visa. The group are spotted by a member of the public and Kuchinska trips the guard, allowing Armstrong and Sherman to escape to their next destination.
Two men approach them on the pavement – one is the "farmer". He gives them tickets to the ballet; the plan is to travel in the luggage of the troupe to Sweden that evening. While attending the ballet and waiting for the pick-up, they are spotted and reported to the police by the lead ballerina (Tamara Toumanova), who flew to East Berlin on the same airplane as Armstrong.
Armstrong and Sherman escape through the crowd by shouting "fire". They hide in two crates of costumes, and are ferried across the Baltic Sea to Sweden on a freighter. The ballerina, desperate to reveal the fugitives' hiding place, identifies the wrong crates, which are machine-gunned while they are already dangling over the pier. Meanwhile, Armstrong and Sherman have escaped by jumping overboard and swimming to a Swedish dock.


A Pennsylvania executive, Tom Gruneman (played by Robert Milli), has disappeared. The police reveal that an obscene letter was found in Gruneman's office, addressed to a prostitute in New York City named Bree Daniels (Fonda), who had received several similar letters from him. After six months of fruitless police work, Peter Cable (Cioffi), an executive at Gruneman's company, hires family friend and detective John Klute (Sutherland) to investigate Gruneman's disappearance.
Klute rents an apartment in the basement of Daniels' building, taps her phone, and follows her as she turns tricks. Daniels appears to be liberated by the freedom of freelancing as a call girl, but in a series of visits to her psychiatrist (Vivian Nathan), she reveals the emptiness of her life and that she wants to quit. Daniels refuses to answer Klute's questions at first. After learning that he has been watching her, Daniels says she does not recall Gruneman. She acknowledges being beaten by one of her johns two years earlier, but cannot identify Gruneman from a photo.
Daniels takes Klute to meet her former pimp, Frank Ligourin (Scheider), whose prostitute Jane McKenna passed the abusive client on to Bree and to another prostitute, Arlyn Page (Dorothy Tristan). McKenna committed suicide and Page became a drug addict and disappeared.
Klute and Daniels develop a romance, though she tells her psychiatrist that she wishes she could go back to "just feeling numb." She admits to Klute a deep paranoia that she is being watched. They find Page, who tells them the customer was not Gruneman but an older man. Page's body then turns up in the Kill Van Kull. Flute connects the "suicides" of the prostitutes, surmising that the client probably also killed Gruneman and might kill Daniels next. He revisits Gruneman's contacts. By typographic comparison, the supposed obscene letters of Gruneman are traced to Cable, to whom Klute has been reporting on his investigation.
Klute asks Cable for an additional $500 to buy the "black book" of the first prostitute, telling Cable he is certain it will reveal the identity of the abusive client. Cable corners Bree and reveals that he sent her the letters, explaining that Gruneman had interrupted him when he was attacking a prostitute. Certain that Gruneman would use the incident as leverage against him within the company, Cable attempted to frame Gruneman by planting the letter in his office. Cable confesses to the killings. After playing an audiotape he made as he murdered Page, he attacks Daniels. Klute rushes in, and Cable jumps or is thrown out a window to his death (the conclusion is ambiguous).
Daniels moves out of her apartment with Klute's help, though her voiceover with her psychiatrist reveals her fear of domestic life and a likelihood that the doctor will "see me next week."

Mrs. Emily Pollifax of New Jersey goes to the CIA to volunteer for spy duty, being in her own opinion, expendable now that the children are grown and she's widowed. And being just what the department needed (someone who looks and acts completely unlike a spy), she's assigned to simple courier duty to pick up a book in Mexico City. She finds this easier said than done. The film's tagline summizes the person of Pollifax: 'Before she joined the CIA, Mrs. Pollifax thought Red China was a set of dishes'.

Handsome young artist Quentin Collins arrives at his newly inherited estate of Collinwood with his beautiful wife Tracy. They meet the housekeeper Carlotta Drake and the caretaker Gerard Stiles. Quentin happens upon a 19th-century portrait of a blonde woman with captivating green eyes that seem to mesmerize him. Carlotta informs him that the woman is Angelique, who had lived there over 100 years earlier. The Collins's friends Alex and Claire Jenkins, who have co-written several successful horror novels, move into a cottage on the estate.
Quentin soon begins to be troubled by startling visions and haunting dreams about one of his ancestors, Charles Collins, and his ancestor's mistress Angelique—who had been hanged as a witch in a past century. Carlotta eventually reveals to Quentin that she is the reincarnation of Sarah Castle, a little girl who had lived at Collinwood over 150 years ago, and that Quentin himself is the reincarnation of Charles Collins. Charles had had an affair with Angelique, wife of his brother Gabriel, resulting in her being hanged—and Charles being sealed alive in the family crypt with Angelique's corpse.
On a trip to New York, the Jenkins's discover a painting of Charles Collins, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Quentin. Convinced that their friends are in grave danger, the couple hurry home to Collinwood, where they are attacked by the ghost of Angelique.
Meanwhile, Quentin has become possessed by the spirit of Charles Collins, and attempts to drown Tracy in a disused swimming pool on the estate. Alex and Claire arrive in time to revive her, but Quentin, having no memory of his actions, refuses to believe their wild tale.
Carlotta and Gerard conspire to eliminate Quentin's loved ones. Quentin, seeing the scratches on his wrist where Tracy had tried to fend him off, realizes the truth of Alex's warning and rushes to rescue his friends. Gerard has managed to take Tracy prisoner (despite his having been shot in the face by Claire), and Quentin fights with him high atop a train trestle. Quentin defeats Gerard, who plunges to his death.
The group rush to confront Carlotta, but she jumps from the top of Collinwood when the ghostly Angelique beckons her from below.
In the end, Quentin and Tracy are about to leave Collinwood when Quentin goes back inside the house. Tracy follows to find him now completely possessed by Charles Collins—and Angelique reborn in the flesh. The camera freezes on Tracy's faces as she screams as Quentin and Angelique advance on her. A newspaper caption at the end reveals that Alex and Claire Jenkins have been killed in a car accident. Witnesses reported seeing a ghostly fog filling the car as it veered off the road.

The film, which claims to be a true story, details the existence of the "Fouke Monster," a seven foot tall Bigfoot-like creature that has reportedly been seen by residents of a small Arkansas community since the 1940s. It is described as being completely covered in reddish-brown hair, leaving three-toed tracks and having a foul odor.
Several locals from the small town of Fouke, Arkansas recall their stories, often appearing as themselves, claiming that the creature has killed many large animals over the years. One farmer claims that the beast carried off two of his 200lb hogs with little effort, leaping a fence with the animals tucked under its arm. In one scene, a kitten is shown as having been "scared to death" by the creature. The narrator informs the audience that while people have shot at the creature in the past, it has always managed to escape. In another sequence, hunters attempt to pursue the creature with dogs, but the dogs refuse to give chase. A police constable states that while driving home one night, the creature suddenly ran across the road in front of his car.
In a later sequence, culled from the actual newspaper accounts inspiring the film, the creature is shown menacing a family in a remote country house. After being fired upon, the creature attacks, sending one family member to the hospital.
The creature was never captured, and is said to still stalk the swamps of southern Arkansas to this day.

Abel Marsh is a sarcastic, thick-skinned police chief in a small West Coast seaside town — the fictional Eden Landing, located somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where everyone knows each other. When one of its citizens is killed under mysterious circumstances many rumors arise, the most notorious of them being that the victim was killed by her own Doberman Pinscher.
The police chief is initially inclined to believe this scenario, but new facts discount this hypothesis. New developments complicate the investigation, especially when crucial evidence starts to disappear. The county sheriff is also trying to take control of the investigation, igniting conflict with Chief Marsh.

Dina Hunter (Barbara Eden), wealthy and unstable, takes a Mexican holiday with her husband Jerry (Robert Vaughn) in order for her to recover from a traffic accident. An artist named Paul Carter (Stuart Whitman) becomes intrigued by Dina and wants to paint her portrait. Dina's interest in him leads her to uncover clues that he is more than just an artist — she discovers that he may possibly be a jewel thief and murderer. She tries to convince her husband and the local authorities but no one will believe her story.

On a one-week Mediterranean pleasure cruise aboard the yacht of movie producer Clinton Greene (Coburn), the guests include actress Alice Wood (Welch), her talent-manager husband Anthony (McShane), talent agent Christine (Cannon), screenwriter Tom Parkman (Benjamin), Tom's wife Lee (Hackett), and film director Philip Dexter (Mason).
The trip is, in fact, a reunion. All were together at Clinton's home one year before, on the night a hit-and-run accident resulted in the death of Clinton's wife, gossip columnist Sheila Greene. (Yvonne Romain, a former Hammer horror actress, appeared as Sheila Greene in a cameo performance.)
Once the cruise is under way, Clinton, a parlor game enthusiast, informs everyone that the week's entertainment will consist of "The Sheila Greene Memorial Gossip Game." The six guests are each assigned an index card containing a secret (in Clinton's words, "a pretend piece of gossip") that must be kept hidden from the others. The object of the game is to discover everyone else's secret while protecting one's own.
Each night the yacht anchors at a different Mediterranean port city, where one of the six secrets is disclosed to the entire group. The guests are given a clue, then sent ashore to find the proof of who among them holds the card bearing that night's secret. The game for that night ends when the actual holder of the subject secret discovers the proof. Anyone who has not yet solved the clue receives no points on Clinton's scoreboard for that round. Following the revelation of the first card, "YOU are a SHOPLIFTER," suspicion begins that each guest's card does not contain "pretend" gossip but in fact an actual, embarrassing secret about each guest.
When Clinton does not return from the second evening's installment of the game, where the second card was revealed to be "YOU are a HOMOSEXUAL," the guests return ashore and discover Clinton's corpse. Before contacting authorities, one reveals that his card reads, "YOU are a HIT-AND-RUN KILLER." This begins a macabre game of musical chairs of sorts, with guests jousting over who lays claim to which dirty little secret. Paranoia grows over the obvious implication that both Sheila and Clinton were killed by somebody on this yacht.
The game being played is actually just a portion of a more elaborate puzzle created by Clinton, including additional clues that are ever-present and the suggestion that any guest could win the game without even leaving the yacht, "If you're smart enough," Clinton taunted. Although his own diabolical game did not end as Clinton planned, characters continue to discover these clues, resulting in another death aboard the ship and the revelation of the identity of the guest who killed the host.

Harry Caul is a surveillance expert who runs his own company in San Francisco. He is highly respected by others in the profession. Caul is obsessed with his own privacy; his apartment is almost bare behind its triple-locked door and burglar alarm, he uses pay phones to make calls, claims to have no home telephone and his office is enclosed in wire mesh in a corner of a much larger warehouse. Caul is utterly professional at work but finds personal contact extremely difficult because he is intensely secretive about even the most trivial aspects of his life. Dense crowds make him feel uncomfortable and he is withdrawn and taciturn in more intimate social situations. He is also reticent and obsessively secretive with colleagues. His appearance is nondescript, except for his habit of wearing a translucent grey plastic raincoat almost everywhere he goes, even when it is not raining.
Despite Caul's insistence that his professional code means that he is not responsible for the actual content of the conversations he records or the use to which his clients put his surveillance activities, he is racked by guilt over a past wiretap job which resulted in the murder of three people. This sense of guilt is amplified by his devout Catholicism. His one hobby is playing along to jazz records on a tenor saxophone in the privacy of his apartment.
Caul, his colleague Stan and some freelance associates have taken on the task of bugging the conversation of a couple as they walk through crowded Union Square in San Francisco, surrounded by a cacophony of background noise. Amid the small-talk, the couple discuss fears that they are being watched, and mention a discreet meeting at a hotel room in a few days. The challenging task of recording this conversation is accomplished by multiple surveillance operatives located in different positions around the square. After Caul has merged and filtered the different tapes, the final result is a sound recording in which the words themselves become crystal clear, but their actual meaning remains ambiguous.
Although Caul cannot understand the true meaning of the conversation, he finds the cryptic nuances and emotional undercurrents contained within it deeply troubling. Sensing danger, Caul feels increasingly uneasy about what may happen to the couple once the client hears the tape. He plays the tape again and again throughout the movie, gradually refining its accuracy. He concentrates on one key phrase hidden under the sound of a street musician: "He'd kill us if he got the chance". Caul constantly reinterprets the speakers' subtle emphasis on particular words in this phrase, trying to figure out their meaning in the light of what he suspects and subsequently discovers.
Caul avoids handing in the tape to the aide of the man who commissioned the surveillance. Afterward, he finds himself under increasing pressure from the client's aide and is himself followed, tricked, and bugged. The tape of the conversation is eventually stolen from him in a moment when his guard is down.
Caul is tormented by guilt over what he fears will happen to the couple, and his desperate efforts to forestall tragedy fail. To his surprise, it turns out that the conversation he had obsessed over might not mean what he thought it did: the tragedy he had expected is not the one that eventually occurs. He is led to believe that his apartment has been bugged and goes on a frantic search for the listening device, tearing up walls and floorboards and destroying his apartment to no avail. He sits amid the wreckage, playing the only thing in his apartment left intact: his saxophone.

An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications. These are "The Final Problem", in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof. James Moriarty, and "The Empty House", wherein Holmes reappeared after a three-year absence and revealed that he had not been killed after all. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution's Watson explains that they were published to conceal the truth concerning Holmes' "Great Hiatus".
The novel begins in 1891, when Holmes first informs Watson of his belief that Professor James Moriarty is a "Napoleon of Crime". The novel presents this view as nothing more than the fevered imagining of Holmes' cocaine-sodden mind and further asserts that Moriarty was the childhood mathematics tutor of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. Watson meets Moriarty, who denies that he is a criminal and reluctantly threatens to pursue legal action unless the latter's accusations cease. Moriarty also refers to a "great tragedy" in Holmes' childhood, but refuses to explain further when pressed by Watson.
The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes' recovery from his addiction. Knowing that Sherlock would never willingly see a doctor about his addiction and mental problems, Watson and Holmes' brother Mycroft induce Holmes to travel to Vienna, where Watson introduces him to Dr. Freud. Using a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis, Freud helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty, but neither he nor Watson can revive Holmes' dejected spirit.
What finally does the job is a whiff of mystery: one of the doctor's patients is kidnapped and Holmes' curiosity is sufficiently aroused. The case takes the three men on a breakneck train ride across Austria in pursuit of a foe who is about to launch a war involving all of Europe. Holmes remarks during the denouement that they have succeeded only in postponing such a conflict, not preventing it; Holmes would later become involved in a "European War" in 1914.
One final hypnosis session reveals a key traumatic event in Holmes' childhood: his father murdered his mother for adultery and committed suicide afterwards. It was Moriarty who informed Holmes and his brother of their deaths, and his tutor then became a dark and malignant figure in his subconscious. Freud and Watson conclude that Holmes, consciously unable to face the emotional ramifications of this event, has pushed them deep into his unconscious while finding outlets in fighting evil, pursuing justice, and many of his famous eccentricities, including his cocaine habit. However, they decide not to discuss these subjects with Holmes, believing that he would not accept them, and that it would needlessly complicate his recovery.
Watson returns to London, but Holmes decides to travel alone for a while, advising Watson to claim that he had been killed, and thus the famed "Great Hiatus" is more or less preserved. It is during these travels that the events of Meyer's sequel The Canary Trainer occur.

Somebody's running a takeover on crime lord King Lathrop's (Owen Watson) operation using bogarts in Hannibal Lector lookin’-like masks. Clueless, King Lathrop calls private detective Velvet Smooth (Johnnie Hill) for help. With the help of her friends Ria (Elsie Roman), a lawyer, and Frankie (René Van Clief), she infiltrates the criminal underworld to investigate.
Velvet finds this may be an inside job led by King Lathrop's man Calvin (James Durrah). When Velvet reports this to Lathrop, he denies it at first but the problems come closer to Calvin. Hurt by it all, Lathrop fires Calvin. Although Lathrop thinks Calvin masterminded the take-over on his own, Velvet remains unconvinced and seeks further to find out who was the man behind the man.

Two bicyclists cycling on a canyon are followed by a mysterious matte black car down the road. At the bridge, the car proceeds to crush one cyclist against the wall, and ram the other from behind, catapulting him off the bridge. A hitchhiker, hoping to get a ride, encounters the car and insults it after it purposefully tries to run him down. In response, the car runs over him several times and leaves. The local sheriff's office, called to the first of a series of hit and run deaths, gets a lead on the car that appears heavily customized and has no license plate, as pointed out by Amos Clemens (R. G. Armstrong) after he sees it run over the hitchhiker.
That night, in an apparent bid to kill Amos, the car instead runs over the sheriff, leaving Chief Deputy Wade Parent (James Brolin) in charge. During the resulting investigation, an eyewitness to the accident states that there was no driver inside the car, furthering Wade's confusion. Wade asks his girlfriend, Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd), who is a teacher at the local school, to cancel the upcoming marching band rehearsals for their safety. Lauren and her friend, who is Wade's deputy Luke Johnson's (Ronny Cox) wife, ask him to let them rehearse, to which Luke unwittingly agrees.
The car enters the town and attacks the school marching band as it rehearses at the local show ground. It chases the group of teachers and students into a cemetery. Curiously enough, the machine will not enter onto the consecrated ground as Lauren taunts the purported driver that any of the townsfolk have yet to see. Seemingly in anger, the car destroys a brick gate post and leaves. The police chase the automobile along highways throughout the desert before it turns on them, destroying several squad cars and killing five of Wade's deputies in the process. Wade confronts the vehicle and is surprised to see that none of his bullets put a dent on the car's windshield or tires. After trying to open the door (when it is revealed that the car has no door handles), Wade is knocked out and the car escapes.
That evening, Lauren, on her way home to pick up her things, is killed when the car jumps driving straight through her house and rams her, right when she is speaking to Wade over the phone. Luke puts forward to a grief-stricken and maddened Wade the theory that it acted in revenge for the insults hurled on it by Lauren and notes it cannot enter hallowed ground. Wade concocts a plan to stop the car by burying it beneath a controlled explosion in the canyons that lie outside of town. After discovering it waiting for him in his own garage, he is forced to carry out his plans post haste. He is pursued by the car into a mountainous canyon area where his remaining deputies have set a trap for the machine. In a final confrontation, Wade and Luke, at the edge of a cliff, bait the car into running straight at them, then jump aside as it goes over the cliff. With the dynamite detonated and the rubble falling on it, a monstrous demonic visage appears in the smoke and fire of the explosion, shocking the deputies.
The final scenes show Wade refusing to believe what the group saw in the flames, despite Luke's insistence about what he saw. The film concludes, in some cuts, with the car prowling the streets of downtown Los Angeles, clearly having survived.

A former 1960s student activist turned private detective searches for a missing Berkeley activist with whom he shared "the barricades."
Former campus activist turned private investigator Moses Wine (Dreyfuss) is contacted by Lila, an old girlfriend from his radical college days. She wants him to work for Miles Hawthorne, who is a candidate running for governor of California. Moses is told about a flyer being distributed around the state; this bears a doctored photo of Hawthorne standing beside a 1960s radical named Howard Eppis (Abraham), who had been convicted in absentia for inciting violence against the government and has been living as a fugitive since, libelously claiming that Eppis is supporting Hawthorne for governor in a clear attempt to destroy Hawthorne's chances for being elected.
Moses sets out to find out who is responsible--with deadly results.

English tourist Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) arrives at the "Gasthof Petrus" inn in the country of Bandrika, "one of Europe's few undiscovered corners". Iris is returning to Britain to marry a "blue-blooded cheque chaser", but an avalanche has blocked the railway line. The stranded passengers are forced to stay the night at the inn, including Charters and Caldicott, cricket enthusiasts who want to return to England to see the last days of the Test match.
That evening, Iris complains about loud folk music coming from the room above her. She has the guilty musician, Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), thrown out of his room, only to have him move into hers, forcing her to capitulate.
Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a former governess and music teacher, listens to a tune performed by a folk singer under her window. Unseen by her, the singer is killed.
The next morning, before catching the train, Iris is hit on the head by a planter apparently aimed at Miss Froy, who then helps Iris onto the train. Also on board are Charters and Caldicott, Gilbert, a lawyer named Todhunter and his mistress "Mrs. Todhunter". As a result of her injury, Iris blacks out. After the train is moving, Iris wakes up in a compartment with Miss Froy and several strangers. She joins Miss Froy in the dining car for tea. Unable to be heard above the train noise, the elderly lady writes her name on the window with her finger. Soon after, they return to their compartment, where Iris falls asleep.
When Iris awakens, Miss Froy has vanished. The strangers in her compartment say they know nothing about an English lady. Even Todhunter, who spoke with Miss Froy earlier, pretends not to remember her in an attempt to avoid any possible scandal. Iris searches, but cannot find her. She meets up with Gilbert, who agrees to help. Dr. Hartz (Paul Lukas), a brain surgeon, says Iris may be suffering from concussion-related hallucinations. Charters and Caldicott also claim not to remember Miss Froy, because they are afraid a delay would make them miss the cricket match.

In 1953 in the English village of St. Mary Mead, home of Miss Jane Marple (Angela Lansbury), a big Hollywood production company arrives to film a costume drama about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I with two famous movie stars, Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor) and Lola Brewster (Kim Novak). The two actresses are old rivals. Marina is making a much heralded comeback after a prolonged "illness" and retirement (due to what was really a nervous breakdown when her son was born with severe brain damage). She and her husband, Jason Rudd (Rock Hudson), who is directing the film, arrive with their entourage. When she learns that Lola will be in the film as well, she becomes enraged and vents her anger. Lola then arrives with her husband, Marty Fenn (Tony Curtis), who is producing the film.
Excitement runs high in the village as the locals have been invited to a reception held by the film company in a manor house, Gossington Hall, to meet the celebrities. Lola and Marina come face to face at the reception and exchange some comically potent insults, as they smile and pose for the cameras.
At the reception Marina is cornered by a gushing, devoted fan, Heather Babcock (Maureen Bennett), who bores her with a long and detailed story about having actually met Marina in person during the Second World War. After recounting the meeting they had all those years ago, when she arose from her sickbed to go and meet the glamorous star, Heather drinks a cocktail that was made for Marina and quickly dies from poisoning. Everyone is certain Marina was the intended murder victim. Not only has Marina been receiving anonymous death threats made up of newspaper clippings, once shooting begins on the film she discovers that her cup of coffee on the set has also been spiked with poison, sending her into fits of terror. The police detective from Scotland Yard investigating the case, Inspector Dermot Craddock (Edward Fox), is baffled. He asks his aunt, who happens to be Jane Marple, who recently injured her foot at the reception and is therefore confined to her home, for help. The suspects are Ella Zielinsky (Geraldine Chaplin), Jason's assistant who is secretly in love with him and would like Marina out of the way, and the hotheaded actress Lola.
The main suspect, Ella Zielinsky, after going to a pay phone in the village where she telephoned and threatened to expose the murderer, is then killed by a lethal nasal spray substituted for her hay-fever medication.
Miss Marple, now back on her feet, visits Gossington Hall, where Marina and Jason are staying, and views where Heather's death occurred. Working from information received from her cleaning woman, Cherry Baker (Wendy Morgan), who worked as a waitress the day of the murder, Marple begins to piece together the events and solves the mystery. By that time, however, another death occurs at Gossington Hall, which explains who was the killer: Marina Rudd has apparently committed suicide.
Miss Marple explains that Heather Babcock's story was Marina's motive. Heather suffered from German measles, a rather harmless disease to most adults, but dangerous for a pregnant woman. Heather innocently infected Marina when she met her during the Second World War while Marina was pregnant: she had caused Marina's child to be born with mental retardation. Upon hearing Heather cheerfully tell this story, Marina was overcome with rage and deliberately poisoned her. She then spread the idea that she was the intended victim, concocting the death threats and poisoning her own coffee. Ella, who in fact made phone calls to various suspects from a phone box, accidentally guessed correctly, prompting Marina to murder her. As Marina is now dead, she will not be brought to justice. Jason confesses to Miss Marple that he had put poison in his wife's hot chocolate to save her from being prosecuted; however, the drink has not been touched. Marina is nonetheless found dead, seeming to have poisoned herself.

Retired detective Charlie Chan is asked for his help by the San Francisco police to solve a new series of murders. But this time his usual sidekick, Number One Son, has been replaced by Lee's own son, Lee Chan, Jr.
The prime suspect in the killings is a shady lady known as the Dragon Queen, but soon Chan's suspicions fall elsewhere. Among those at risk are Lee's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Lupowitz, and even though Charlie Chan's son is, as is usually the case, rarely accurate in reading clues, he has the full love and support of Cordelia, his beautiful fiancee.

One rainy night, Richard Bone's (Bridges) car breaks down in an alleyway. He spots a large, mysterious car in the distance. A man dumps something into a garbage can. At first, Bone thinks nothing of it and proceeds to meet his friend, Alex Cutter (Heard). The next day, a young girl is found brutally murdered in the same alleyway where Bone abandoned his car. He becomes a suspect. When Bone spots the man he thinks is the murderer in a parade later that day – local tycoon J.J. Cord (Stephen Elliott) – Cutter begins to take an interest in the mystery that unfolds. His interest soon becomes a conspiracy theory that develops into a troublesome investigation with his skeptical friend and the dead girl's sister (Ann Dusenberry) along for the ride.

In 1955, Harry Angel, a New York City private investigator, is hired by Louis Cyphre to track down Jonathan Liebling, a crooner known professionally as "Johnny Favorite" whom Cyphre had helped become successful. Cyphre stands to benefit from unspecified collateral on Favorite's death and suspects that a private upstate hospital, where the war invalid Favorite was receiving psychiatric treatment for shell shock, is issuing false reports. Angel goes to the hospital and discovers that a backdated transfer record has recently been added by a physician named Albert Fowler. After Angel breaks into his home, Fowler admits that 12 years ago he was bribed by a man and woman to allow Favorite to leave while maintaining the fiction that he was still a patient at the hospital. Believing that Fowler is still withholding information, Angel locks him in his bedroom. Hours later, he finds the doctor murdered.
Unnerved, Angel tells Cyphre that he no longer wants the job, but agrees to continue after Cyphre offers him $5,000. He soon discovers that Favorite had a wealthy fiancée named Margaret Krusemark but had also begun a secret love affair with a woman named Evangeline Proudfoot. Angel travels to New Orleans and meets with Margaret, who divulges little information, telling him that Favorite is dead. Angel then discovers that Evangeline is also dead, but is survived by her 17-year-old daughter, Epiphany Proudfoot, who was conceived during her mother's love affair with Favorite. When Epiphany is reluctant to speak, Angel tracks down Toots Sweet, a blues guitarist and former Favorite bandmate. After Angel uses force to try to extract details of Favorite's last-known whereabouts, Toots refers him back to Margaret. The following morning, police detectives inform Angel that Toots has been murdered. Angel returns to Margaret's home, where he finds her murdered, her heart removed with a ceremonial knife. He is later attacked by enforcers of Ethan Krusemark—a powerful Louisiana patriarch and Margaret's father—who tell him to leave town.
Angel returns to his hotel and finds Epiphany on his doorstep. He invites her into his room, where they have aggressive sexual intercourse, during which Angel has visions of blood dripping from the ceiling and splashing around the room. He later confronts Krusemark in a gumbo hut, where the latter reveals that he and Margaret were the ones who helped Favorite leave the hospital. He also explains that Favorite was actually a powerful magician who sold his soul to Satan in exchange for stardom, but then sought to renege on the bargain. In 1943, Favorite kidnapped a young soldier and performed a Satanic ritual on the boy, murdering him and eating his still-beating heart in order to assume his identity and hide from the Devil. Favorite was supposed to drop out and resurface as the soldier he murdered, but was unexpectedly drafted into the war, injured, then sent home with amnesia. Hoping to jar his memory, the Krusemarks took Favorite from the hospital and released him into Times Square, never to be seen again. Angel has a panic attack and runs into the bathroom. He returns to find Krusemark drowned in a cauldron of boiling gumbo.
Angel goes to Margaret's home, where he finds a vase containing a clue to Favorite's true identity: a set of dog tags with Angel's name stamped on them. Angel is in fact Johnny Favorite. Cyphre then appears, and Angel deduces that "Louis Cyphre" is a homophone for Lucifer. Cyphre confirms that he is the Devil and proclaims that he can at long last claim what is his: Favorite's immortal soul. In a fugue state that Cyphre induces, it is revealed that Angel/Favorite has murdered Fowler, Toots, the Krusemarks, and Epiphany.
A frantic Angel/Favorite returns to his hotel room, where the police have found Epiphany raped, brutally murdered and wearing Angel's dog tags. When Angel/Favorite reveals that Epiphany was his daughter, a detective tells him that he will "burn" for what he has done to her, to which Angel/Favorite replies, "I know. In Hell." During the end credits, Angel is seen standing inside an iron Otis elevator which is descending. It soon stops, with an immobile Harry inside. As the screen fades to black, Cyphre can be heard whispering, "Harry" and "Johnny", announcing his dominion over both their shared souls.

On New Year's Eve, Manhattan socialite Alison Hawkins returns home from the evening's festivities. As she feeds her fish before going to bed, she is strangled to death by an undetected intruder with a blue ribbon. It is the latest murder by a serial killer who has been terrorizing New York for 11 months.
New York Mayor Flynn is frustrated with the lack of progress in tracking down the killer, and tells NYPD commissioner Frank Starkey to "get [his] brother, and get him now," as they both know Nick is the only man brilliant enough to catch this killer. This is a controversial assignment for Frank, as two years ago, Nick was disgraced in a scandal, and expelled from the force. Frank goes to the scene of a raging fire to find Nick, who has become a firefighter. Frank talks Nick into returning, but only on the condition that he be able to cook dinner the next night for Frank's wife, Christine, who is Nick's ex-girlfriend. After a press conference announcing Nick's reinstatement, Christine and Nick have dinner. Old wounds are opened, including mention of a canceled check that had been evidence that Frank was involved in the scandal that got Nick fired.
Police Captain Alcoa is not happy with Nick's return, having despised his attitude but respected his abilities as a detective, but has to go along with the mayor's demand that he give Nick anything he needs to solve the case. After reporting for work, Nick takes a different office than the one he was assigned because the light was not to the liking of his painter friend, Ed. After getting Alcoa to add Ed to the payroll as his assistant, Nick begins work on the case. His first lead is to speak to the mayor's daughter, Bernadette, who was a friend of Alison Hawkins. After Nick and Bernadette visit Alison's apartment, Nick decides to let Bernadette stay at his apartment, because she is too frightened to return to her own.
Nick realizes that all of the 11 previous murders occurred on dates that are prime numbers, all of which are among the 12 prime numbers possible up to the number 31. Because 5 is the only one of the 12 prime numbers that has not been used, he knows that the next murder will take place the next night, the fifth of the month.
Nick appears to have been proven wrong when a woman is strangled one day ahead of Nick's prediction, after which the killer leaps out the window to his death. Nick believes that this is a copycat killing, especially when he learns that the man broke a window, as opposed to picking a lock to gain entrance as in the other murders. To Frank and Flynn, however, it is a closed case, and they are content to be done with Nick.
Nick and Ed figure out that the position of the victims' buildings, when seen on a map of Manhattan, forms the constellation Virgo. They also realize that all the rooms in which the murders took place have windows on the front of the building, and that when the exterior positions of the windows are lined up together according to which floor they are on, they correlate to 11 notes in the chorus of the song "Calendar Girl". This enables them to identify where "The January Man" will next strike.
Nick sets a trap with Bernadette as bait, outfitting her with a neck guard to prevent the killer from strangling her. The trio stake out the room in a supply closet and witness the killer picking the lock to get into the apartment. They intercept the apartment's resident and send Bernadette in, where she is attacked. Nick breaks in and, after a prolonged struggle with the killer, subdues him. He then wraps him up in the hall carpet and delivers him to the police outside the building.

Ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" Collins is a drifter and an escapee from a mental hospital. In a desert town near Palm Springs he meets Fay Anderson, a widow, who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her ex-husband left. She nicknames him "Collie" and lets him sleep in a trailer out back, near her dying date palms.
Her acquaintance "Uncle Bud" shows up. Calling himself an ex-cop, he has long been hatching a scheme to kidnap a rich man's child and needs somebody like Collie to help carry it out.
Reluctant in the beginning, Collie tries to leave and encounters Doc Goldman, who immediately can tell the young man needs to be under medical observation. Doc takes a personal interest in Collie that might include a physical attraction as well. He intrudes on Collie's relationship with the alcoholic Fay.
Resenting this interference, Collie is persuaded by Uncle Bud to execute the kidnap plan. But things go wrong from the very beginning, including Collie snatching the wrong kid. It goes downhill from there, with tragic consequences for all involved.

When Bessie Faro's (Andie MacDowell) husband Johnny (Viggo Mortensen) dies in a plane crash in Veracruz, Mexico, she finds that his air cargo business is deeply in the red. When she visits the airline's terminal in Veracruz, she finds a packet of baseball cards that have been marked up by Johnny. Recognizing his system for marking betting slips at race tracks, she decodes the cards and realizes that they indicate a bank account. When she tries to withdraw money from the account, she is denied. She realizes that the account is in the name of the player on the card, Onix Concepción.
Back home, Bessie uses an International bank directory at the local library to decode Manny Sanguillén's Pittsburgh Pirates' card to find another bank account in Panama. She obtains durable power of attorney and begins a whirlwind trek to recover her husband's money. After Panama, she visits the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, recovering tens of thousands of dollars from each account. In Germany, she closes Don Mueller's account from Berliner Bank, but the cashier only hands her only 750 DM. He explains that 74,000DM worth of cashier's checks have been paid out to a company called EDK Technik in the former East Berlin. At EDK Technik, a manager informs Bessie that they make ink for ball point pens.
Bessie leaves the office confused as to why Johnny would be buying so much ink. The manager waits for her to leave and then ushers in some men who have been following Bessie on her journey. Her next stop is Athens, where she finds out that Johnny's account has already been closed. The teller takes Bessie to a safe deposit box which only contains a Bill Mazeroski card. Bessie's growing suspicion that Johnny is alive is confirmed by the sight of the card. When the teller sees how distraught Bessie is, she confides in her that a local shipping company cashed out some of Johnny's money and that the rest was wired to Cairo.
She visits Kolatos Shipping Company and finds that one of their boats is headed to Cairo with grain for a food aid effort. She rides with the cargo to Egypt, and notices that one of the dock workers is being stained green by a bag of grain. She sneaks onto the truck where he loaded the bag, opens it, and finds, hidden beneath the grain, containers of thionyl chloride manufactured by EDK Technik.
Bessie soon befriends the coordinator of the relief effort, Fergus Lamb (Liam Neeson). She explains what she found in the bag, and Fergus confronts his Operations Manager, who reveals that he allowed the smuggling to finance the grain shipments. Fergus is irate because he knows that the thionyl chloride is being used to manufacture chemical weapons.
Fergus and Bessie quickly fall in love, but she continues her journey, now intent on actually finding Johnny. A local Immigration Agent teams up with Bessie and helps her find Johnny. He admits to Bessie that he had been skimming from the chemical weapons traders, which is why he had to disappear. When Bessie leaves, Johnny runs after her and tries to make her stay with him, holding her at gunpoint in a crowded square. The men who have been following Bessie throughout the film now have Johnny in sight, and they immediately kill him.
The film ends with Bessie happily back at home with her family, just as Fergus arrives to reunite with her.

Dr James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate the death of his friend, Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles was found dead on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, Baskerville Hall, and Mortimer now fears for Sir Charles's nephew and sole heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is the new master of Baskerville Hall. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but Mortimer is suspicious, because Sir Charles died with an expression of horror on his face, and Mortimer noticed "the footprints of a gigantic hound" nearby. The Baskerville family has supposedly been under a curse since the era of the English Civil War when ancestor Hugo Baskerville allegedly offered his soul to the devil for help in abducting a woman and was reportedly killed by a giant spectral hound. Sir Charles believed in the curse and was apparently fleeing from something in fright when he died.
Intrigued, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from Canada. Sir Henry has received an anonymous note, cut and pasted from newsprint, warning him away from the Baskerville moors, and one of his new boots is inexplicably missing from his London hotel room. The Baskerville family is discussed: Sir Charles was the eldest of three brothers; the youngest, black sheep Rodger, is believed to have died childless in South America, while Sir Henry is the only child of the middle brother. Sir Henry plans to move into Baskerville Hall, despite the ominous warning message. Holmes and Dr Watson follow him from Holmes's Baker Street apartment back to his hotel and notice a bearded man following him in a cab; they pursue the man, but he escapes. Mortimer tells them that Mr Barrymore, the butler at Baskerville Hall, has a beard like the one on the stranger. Sir Henry's boot reappears, but an older one vanishes.

The story is set in 1888. The Sign of the Four has a complex plot involving service in India, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four convicts ("the Four" of the title) and two corrupt prison guards. It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way that had not been done in the preceding novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887). It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary Morstan.
According to Mary, in December 1878, her father had telegraphed her upon his safe return from India and requested her to meet him at the Langham Hotel in London. When Mary arrived at the hotel, she was told her father had gone out the previous night and not returned. Despite all efforts, no trace has ever been found of him. Mary contacted her father's only friend who was in the same regiment and had since retired to England, one Major John Sholto, but he denied knowing her father had returned. The second puzzle is that she has received six pearls in the mail from an anonymous benefactor, one per year since 1882 after answering an anonymous newspaper query inquiring for her. With the last pearl she received a letter remarking that she has been wronged and asking for a meeting. Holmes takes the case and soon discovers that Major Sholto had died in 1882 and that within a short span of time Mary began to receive the pearls, implying a connection. The only clue Mary can give Holmes is a map of a fortress found in her father's desk with the names of Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan and Dost Akbar.
Holmes, Watson, and Mary meet Thaddeus Sholto, the son of the late Major Sholto and the anonymous sender of the pearls. Thaddeus confirms the Major had seen Mary's father the night he died; they had arranged a meeting to divide a priceless treasure Sholto had brought home from India. While quarreling over the treasure, Captain Morstan—long in weak health—suffered a heart attack. Not wanting to bring attention to the object of the quarrel—and also worried that circumstances would suggest that he had killed Morstan in an argument, particularly since Morstan's head struck a table as he fell—Sholto disposed of the body and hid the treasure. However, he himself suffered from poor health and an enlarged spleen (possibly due to malaria, as a quinine bottle stands by his bed). His own health became worse when he received a letter from India in early 1882. Dying, he called his two sons and confessed to Morstan's death and was about to divulge the location of the treasure when he suddenly cried, "Keep him out!" before falling back and dying. The puzzled sons glimpsed a face in the window, but the only trace was a single footstep in the dirt. On their father's body is a note reading "The Sign of Four". Both brothers quarreled over whether a legacy should be left to Mary Morstan, and Thaddeus left his brother Bartholomew, taking a chaplet and sending its pearls to Mary. The reason he sent the letter is that Bartholomew has found the treasure and possibly Thaddeus and Mary might confront him for a division of it.
Bartholomew is found dead in his home from a poison dart and the treasure is missing. While the police wrongly take Thaddeus in as a suspect, Holmes deduces that there are two persons involved in the murder: a one-legged man, Jonathan Small, as well as another "small" accomplice. He traces them to a boat landing where Small has hired a steam launch named the Aurora. With the help of dog Toby that he sends Watson to collect from Mr Sherman, the Baker Street Irregulars and his own disguise, Holmes traces the steam launch. In a police steam launch Holmes and Watson chase the Aurora and capture it, but in the process end up killing the "small" companion after he attempts to kill Holmes with a poisoned dart shot from a blow-pipe. Small tries to escape but is captured. However, the iron treasure box is empty; Small claims to have dumped the treasure over the side during the chase.
Small confesses that years before he was a soldier of the Third Buffs in India and lost his right leg in a swimming accident to a crocodile. After some time, when he was an overseer on a tea plantation, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred and he was forced to flee for his life to the Agra fortress. While standing guard one night he was overpowered by two Sikh troopers who gave him a choice of being killed or being an accomplice to waylaying a disguised servant of a Rajah who sent the servant with a valuable fortune in pearls and jewels to the British for safekeeping. The robbery and murder took place and the crime was discovered, although the jewels were not. Small got penal servitude on the Andaman Islands, and after twenty years he overheard that John Sholto had lost money gambling. Small saw his chance and made a deal with Sholto and Arthur Morstan: Sholto would recover the treasure and in return send a boat to pick up Small and the Sikhs. Sholto double-crossed both Morstan and Small and stole the treasure for himself. Small vowed vengeance and escaped the Andaman Islands with an islander named Tonga. It was the news of his escape that shocked Sholto into his fatal illness. Small arrived too late to hear of the treasure's location but left the note which referred to the name of the pact between himself and his three Sikh accomplices. When Bartholomew found the treasure, Small planned to only steal it but claims a miscommunication led Tonga to kill him as well.
Mary Morstan is left without the bulk of the Agra treasure, although she will apparently receive the rest of the Chaplet. John Watson falls in love with Mary, and we learn at the end that he has proposed to her and she has accepted.


In 1930, Diana Baring (Norah Baring), a young actress in a travelling theatre troupe, is found in a daze with blood on her clothes, standing by the murdered body of another young actress, Edna Druce. The poker used to commit the murder was at Diana's feet, but she has no memory of what happened during the minutes the crime was committed. The two young women were thought to have been rivals, and the police arrest her. Diana withholds some important information deliberately, to protect something about the identity of a man that she will not name.
At her trial most of the jury are certain she is guilty. One or two feel that she may have a severe mental illness which meant that she really did have no memory of killing the other woman, but they are convinced that she should still be hanged lest she strike again. One juror, Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall), a celebrated actor-manager, seems sure she must be innocent, but is brow-beaten into voting "guilty" along with the rest of the jury. Diana is imprisoned, and awaiting hanging.
Sir John feels responsible, as he was the one who had recommended that Diana take the touring job in order for her to get more life experience. It also turns out that Diana has been a fan of his since childhood. She is beautiful, and seems far too honest and straightforward to be a criminal of any kind. Using skills he has learned in the theatre, Sir John investigates the murder with the help of the stage manager Ted Markham (Edward Chapman) and his wife (Phyllis Konstam). They narrow the possible suspects down to one male actor in the troupe, Handell Fane (Esme Percy), who often plays cross-dressing roles.
Sir John tries to cleverly lure a confession out of Fane, by asking him to audition for a new play that Sir John has written, on the subject of the murder. Fane realises that they know he committed the crime, as well as understanding how and why he did it. During the interaction we learn Fane's secret: he is a half-caste, only passing as white. Fane leaves the audition without confessing, and goes back to his old job; he is a solo trapeze performer in a circus. Sir John and the others go there to confront him again. During his performance, from his high perch he looks down and sees them waiting. Despairing, he knots his access rope into a noose, slips it over his head and jumps to his death.
We then see Diana, free, and gloriously dressed in white furs, entering a beautiful room and being welcomed warmly by Sir John, who receives her as if he loves her. The camera pulls back and we realise we are watching the very last scene of a new play, possibly the new play, in which Diana stars opposite Sir John.

Sherlock Holmes goes on the trail of a Rembrandt painting, stolen by a drug-addicted artist.

A man tries to clear the name of his uncle who is wrongly convicted of a murdering the squire in a picturesque English village.

When the boy monarch of an East European state arrives at an English boarding school, a science master is found murdered. Suspicion falls on everyone, until the killer is exposed as a revolutionary, attempting to depose the young king.

At a retreat on the English coast, Christine Clay (Pamela Carme), a successful actress, argues passionately with her jealous ex-husband Guy (George Curzon). Not accepting her Reno divorce as valid, he accuses her of having an affair. His eyes twitch violently as they argue. Finally he leaves.
The next morning, Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) happens to be walking along the seaside when Christine's dead body washes ashore. Tisdall recognizes her, and runs for help. Two young women arrive just in time to see him racing away from the corpse. The police quickly decide that he is the only suspect. Christine was strangled with the belt from a raincoat; Tisdall's raincoat is missing and he says it was recently stolen. He admits knowing the victim from three years ago when he sold her a story, but they assume the two have been having an affair. When they learn that she left him money in her will (unknown to him), Tisdall is arrested.
Tisdall is grilled all night by Scotland Yard detectives until he faints. He is revived by the aid of Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam), daughter of the local police Chief Constable. Tisdall is assigned an incompetent barrister, and is taken into court for his formal arraignment. Doubting if his innocence will ever be established, he takes advantage of overcrowding in the courthouse to escape, wearing the barrister's eyeglasses as a disguise. He gets away by riding on the running board of Erica's Morris car, revealing himself to her after the car runs out of petrol.
He helps push the car to a filling station and pays for petrol, and convinces her to give him a ride. Though she was initially fearful and unsure about her passenger, Erica eventually becomes convinced of his innocence and elects to help him in any way that she can. They are eventually spotted together, forcing both to stay on the run from the police. Tisdall tries to prove his innocence by tracking down the stolen coat: if it still has its belt, the one found next to Christine's body must not be his.
The duo succeed in finding Old Will (Edward Rigby), a sociable china-mender and homeless man who has Tisdall's coat. But Will was not the thief; he was given the coat by a man with twitchy eyes. And when Will received the coat, its belt was missing.
Separated from the group, Erica is taken in by the police. Upon realizing that his daughter has fully allied herself with a murder suspect (in fact, they are in love), her father chooses to resign his position as Chief Constable rather than arrest her for assisting him. Tisdall sneaks into their house to see her, intending to surrender next, but she mentions that the coat had a box of matches from the Grand Hotel in a pocket. Tisdall has never been there: perhaps the murderer has a connection to the hotel.
Erica and Will go to the Grand Hotel together, hoping to find him. In a memorably long, continuous sequence, the camera pans right from their entrance to the hotel and then moves forward from the very back of the hotel ballroom, finally focusing in extreme closeup on the drummer in a dance band performing in blackface. His eyes are twitching. He is Guy.
Recognizing Old Will in the audience, and seeing policemen nearby (actually they have followed Will in the hopes of finding Tisdall), Guy performs poorly due to fear. He takes medicine to try to control the twitching, but it makes him very sleepy, and he is berated by the conductor. Eventually, Guy faints in mid-performance, drawing the attention of Erica and the police. Immediately after being revived and confronted, he confesses his crime and begins laughing hysterically.
Erica then tells her father that she thinks it is time they invited Tisdall to their home for dinner.

A notorious killer, long believed to have died in Australia, returns to England seeking revenge for the death of his sister. The "Ringer" threatens to murder the criminal mastermind Maurice Meister. Detective Inspector Alan Wembury is assigned to the case and despite his strong dislike for Meister attempts to protect him with the reluctant assistance of another criminal, Sam Hackett, who has been released from prison as he is the only man able to identify the "Ringer". Even with his help Wembury struggles to unmask their target before the time at which Meister is due to be killed.

English tourist Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) arrives at the "Gasthof Petrus" inn in the country of Bandrika, "one of Europe's few undiscovered corners". Iris is returning to Britain to marry a "blue-blooded cheque chaser", but an avalanche has blocked the railway line. The stranded passengers are forced to stay the night at the inn, including Charters and Caldicott, cricket enthusiasts who want to return to England to see the last days of the Test match.
That evening, Iris complains about loud folk music coming from the room above her. She has the guilty musician, Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), thrown out of his room, only to have him move into hers, forcing her to capitulate.
Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a former governess and music teacher, listens to a tune performed by a folk singer under her window. Unseen by her, the singer is killed.
The next morning, before catching the train, Iris is hit on the head by a planter apparently aimed at Miss Froy, who then helps Iris onto the train. Also on board are Charters and Caldicott, Gilbert, a lawyer named Todhunter and his mistress "Mrs. Todhunter". As a result of her injury, Iris blacks out. After the train is moving, Iris wakes up in a compartment with Miss Froy and several strangers. She joins Miss Froy in the dining car for tea. Unable to be heard above the train noise, the elderly lady writes her name on the window with her finger. Soon after, they return to their compartment, where Iris falls asleep.
When Iris awakens, Miss Froy has vanished. The strangers in her compartment say they know nothing about an English lady. Even Todhunter, who spoke with Miss Froy earlier, pretends not to remember her in an attempt to avoid any possible scandal. Iris searches, but cannot find her. She meets up with Gilbert, who agrees to help. Dr. Hartz (Paul Lukas), a brain surgeon, says Iris may be suffering from concussion-related hallucinations. Charters and Caldicott also claim not to remember Miss Froy, because they are afraid a delay would make them miss the cricket match.

This is not a Bulldog Drummond picture despite the title playing off Jack Buchanan and his previous association with the character. Here he plays the role of Test Pilot 'Bulldog' Bill Watson. His friend Derek Sinclair (Sebastian Shaw) is convinced that the new man in his love's life is collaborating with the Nazis by sabotaging an armaments plant.

A series of murders in the West End of London baffle the officers of Scotland Yard and draw the interest of a crime reporter to the case.

Boyhood friends and comrades in the Army, Ted Peters (Richard Attenborough) and Dave Robinson (Bill Rowbotham) are back in civvies. Ted becomes a taxi driver and hopes to marry Joy Goodall (Sheila Sim), a pretty chorus girl. Dave, seeking easy money, joins a gang which has its headquarters in a suburban palais-de-danse. The gang is headed by a man called Gregory (Barry Jones), and includes Paul Baker (Barry K. Barnes), and petty crooks Sniffy and Pogson. Ted refuses to join them.

When a bus crashes due to faulty steering, passenger Jim Ackland (John Mills) sustains a serious brain injury and a young girl under his care is killed. Guilt ridden, he attempts suicide twice during his recovery.
He starts a new job as an industrial chemist and gets a room in a hotel. When he reluctantly accepts an invitation for a night out, he meets Jenny Carden (Joan Greenwood), the sister of his co-worker, Harry (Patrick Holt). They begin seeing each other quite regularly. Things reach the point where he confesses he wants to marry her, but he tells her he wants to be sure he has fully recovered first.
Molly Newman (Kay Walsh), one of the other hotel residents, asks to borrow £30 from him, a rather substantial sum. As he doesn't have that much on him, Jim good-naturedly writes her a cheque. She is found strangled the next night. Wilcox (Jack Melford), a married businessman Molly had been seeing, has an alibi. Jim admits to have been walking in the vicinity of the murder site; that plus the recovered cheque from the crime scene and his head injury make him the prime suspect. Police Inspector Godby (Frederick Piper) suspects he was another of Molly's boyfriends and that, after falling in love with Jenny, he wanted to rid himself of a possible blackmailer.
When Jim learns that Mr. Peachy, the person who lived in the room directly below Molly's, had told the police that Jim was in her room every night, Jim confronts him in his room. Peachy brazenly admits killing Molly, confident that there is no evidence against him. Peachy had regularly given her money; when Jim made her a loan, it had given rise to an insane jealousy, with fatal results.
Jim goes to the police, but they do not believe him. When they come to take him into custody, Jim flees. He follows Peachy to Paddington Station, then discovers from a tag on Peachy's luggage that he intends to flee the country by plane. He phones Godby with the flight information, but when that appears to have no effect, contemplates suicide again. Fortunately, a letter Molly had posted to Wilcox just before her death incriminates Peachy who's arrested. Jenny finds Jim and gives him the good news.

In a seaside guest house, a nervous piano player, Cosmo Vaughan (Esme Percy), tells a tale of how he read the palms of passengers on board a train and forecast their deaths. But is Mr Vaughan quite what he appears?

Private detective Doctor Morelle, who is intrigued by a case of a wealthy young woman who has mysteriously vanished, visits her gloomy mansion to investigate...

When the Rev. Simon Cherry (Hugh Moxey) sets off for a much needed holiday, his car breaks down and he is forced to stay overnight in a manor house belonging to Lady Harling (Courtney Hope). The following morning, the body of Lady Harling's invalid daughter (Jeanette Tregarthen) is discovered, apparently murdered, and the Rev. Simon Cherry must bring his crime solving skills to the case.

Opportunistic racketeering thrives in a damaged and impoverished Allied-occupied Vienna, which is divided into four sectors, each controlled by one of the occupying forces: American, British, French, and Soviet. These powers share the duties of law enforcement in the city. American pulp Western writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) comes to the city seeking his childhood friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job. Upon arrival he discovers that Lime was killed just hours earlier by a speeding truck while crossing the street. Martins attends Lime's funeral, where he meets two British Army Police: Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), a fan of Martins' pulp novels; and his superior, Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), who says Lime was a criminal and suggests Martins leave town.
An official of the British occupying forces (Wilfrid Hyde-White) subsequently approaches Martins, requesting that he give a lecture and offering to pay for his lodging. Viewing this as an opportunity to clear his friend's name, Martins decides to remain in Vienna. He receives an invitation to meet from Lime's friend, "Baron" Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch), who tells Martins that he, along with another friend, Popescu (Siegfried Breuer), carried Lime to the side of the street after the accident. Before dying, according to Kurtz, Lime asked Kurtz and Popescu to take care of Martins and Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), Lime's actress girlfriend.
Hoping to gather more information, Martins goes to see Anna at her theatre, where she suggests in passing that Harry's death may not have been accidental. She then accompanies Martins to question the porter at Lime's apartment building. The porter claims Lime was killed immediately and could not have given any instructions to his friends before dying. He also states that Kurtz and Popescu did not move the body out of the street alone, but were helped by a third man. Martins berates him for not being more forthcoming with the police about what he knows. Concerned for his family's safety, the porter indignantly tells Martins not to involve him. Shortly afterwards the police, searching Anna's flat for evidence, find and confiscate her forged passport and detain her. Anna tells Martins that she is of Czechoslovak nationality and will be deported from Austria by the Russian occupying forces if discovered.
Martins visits Lime's "medical adviser", Dr. Winkel (Erich Ponto), who says that he arrived at the accident after Lime was dead, and only two men were present. Later, the porter secretly offers Martins more information but is murdered before their arranged meeting. When Martins arrives, unaware of the murder, a young boy recognizes him as having argued with the porter earlier and points this out to the gathering bystanders, who become hostile, and then mob-like. Escaping from them, Martins returns to the hotel, and a cab whisks him away. He fears it is taking him to his death, but takes him to the book club. With no lecture prepared, he stumbles until Popescu, in the audience, asks him about his next book. Martins replies that it will be called The Third Man, "a murder story" inspired by facts. Popescu tells Martins that he should stick to fiction. Martins sees two thugs approaching and flees.


Agnes Huston, an English widow, is found murdered at her house. Superintendent Lodge, the detective on the case, and Inspector Butler start questioning people closely associated with her. Her neighbour Mrs. Finch, tells Lodge that Agnes is a gentlewoman, and throughout her rendition Agnes is shown in a pleasant looking, smart and well-mannered light. She explains that Agnes’ sister Catherine Taylor is a rude, obnoxious woman.
According to Mrs. Finch, once before Agnes’ husband Charles died, Catherine made an unpleasant entry. Agnes and Catherine had an argument about Agnes’ husband having an affair with Catherine. Catherine then left after hurting Agnes’ feelings. On another occasion, Bob Baker, Catherine’s boyfriend once tried to make advances to Agnes and got censured for it. A few days later, Baker and Catherine barged into their apartment and forced their way to see Agnes. Finch ran to get the help of Mr. Pollard, a timid pet store owner opposite the building, who came in but withdrew in fear. Catherine and Baker threatened to kill everyone and left. This leads Lodge to question Catherine.
Catherine tells that the day she visited her sister, Mrs. Finch gave a bad welcome to her. According to Catherine’s rendition, Agnes is a drunk, not-very-pleasant-looking woman, who is also rude in her manners. Catherine told Agnes, in a nice way, that she went to visit Charles; however, Agnes accuses her and Charles of having an affair. They then end up in an argument and Catherine leaves in contempt. She admits to dating Bob Baker and getting engaged with him. After Charles’ death, Catherine and Baker visit Agnes but are intercepted by Mrs. Finch at the door. The two politely insist their way in. Baker arrives at Catherine’s and Lodge and inspector start questioning him after sending Catherine off. He admits to meeting Agnes at her workplace — she is a fortune teller named Astra. He, being a marketer by profession, gave her an ad script to go through. He tells Lodge that he went to her place another day, to ask about it but Agnes hardly showed any concern to it and meets Catherine there. He visited her two days later, where Agnes attempted to seduce him. When he refused, Agnes got mad and shouted at him to get out. The day when Catherine and he went to visit Agnes because she was interfering with Bob’s divorce with his former wife, she treated them disrespectfully and asked them to get out.
Lodge and the inspector go to meet Andrew Pollard, the pets and birds seller opposite Agnes’. He starts to narrate with a very happy and thoughtful face. He portrays Agnes as a nice, sensitive and ever-smiling woman. She once came into his shop to ask for help with her bird. He visited her another day to tell her that her bird is dead but offered a parrot to replace it. On the day Catherine visited, Mr. Pollard comforted Agnes. Another day, he was politely sent away from her place due to the arrival of one Michael Murray, a naval officer and friend of Charles. On the day Catherine and Baker barged in and Pollard was called for help, he bravely repelled both of them and sent them out (completely opposite to what Mrs. Finch said earlier). He admits that he had fallen for Agnes and she accepted to marry him the previous night but was unfortunately found dead in the morning.
Superintendent Lodge and the inspector visit Agnes’ residence with few others once again and catch Murray as he enters. Lodge questions him. He also admits to have met her at her fortune-telling place. He gives her a bird he won. They immediately date and go to Astra’s (Agnes's) house to sleep together. He then set sail and returned after about three months. She immediately welcomes him and they kiss. Just then Pollard the bird-seller enters and immediately leaves after seeing them kiss. The parrot he gave is behind them, and Murray asks about him. On another night, when to Murray comes to see Agnes, he sees her with Pollard. He questions her again about him and she answers to him dismissively, angering him. After three more months of sailing, he comes to see her but she is with another man. She presumed he had forgotten about her. He gets furious, manhandles her and leaves in rage.
Lodge remarks that they have seen the central character – Agnes/Astra – only through the eyes of others. Each of these people has seen her differently. He further says that Pollard’s version of the story is the most unlikely of all. They question again a newspaper boy they talked to in the beginning. The boy says that the parrot said “Merry Christmas”, and immediately Lodge deduces the killer. Lodge and the inspector go to Pollard's pet store and Lodge asks Pollard to imagine a situation where Murray could have gotten drunk and entered Agnes' house to kill her. Pollard agrees that it must have happened that way. But, when the killing happens Lodge switches the killer with Pollard, provoking a confession. Pollard confesses uncontrollably, and Lodge and Butler arrest Pollard.

A convicted female blackmailer is found murdered in her flat and suspicion falls on three men, all of whom the police believe may have had reason to wish her dead: struggling author Hugh Allen (Edward Underdown) who had previously been involved in a relationship with the dead woman; Allen's publisher Ronald Parker (Henry Kendall), who had been blackmailed out of several thousand pounds while she was in his employ, and arrogant playwright Jonathan Roach (James Robertson Justice) who clearly knew the woman, but is evasive about the exact nature of their acquaintance. None of the three can provide a verifiable alibi for the time of the murder, so Inspector Thornton (Garry Marsh) decides to shadow them in the belief that sooner or later the guilty party will betray himself.
Allen has fallen in love with Roche's wife Alycia (Valerie Hobson), who is tired of her loveless marriage and frustrated by her overbearing, obnoxious husband, and the pair begin an affair. It transpires that Roche is suffering from a heart condition and is not expected to live much longer. He has written an episodic radio play "The Voice of Merrill", and agrees to Alycia's suggestion that Allen should be the narrator on the broadcasts. Alycia and Allen hatch a plot to pass the work off as Allen's in an attempt to boost his career. Going further Alycia then decides to poison Roche in such a manner as to pass undetected as murder, trusting that his death will be attributed to his medical condition and will not arouse suspicion. Roche dies, and Alycia is horrified to be informed that an autopsy will be necessary. Allen tells her that he will confess to the murder rather than see her charged, and she attempts to dissuade him. However the autopsy results come back clear – Roche did not die from poison, and the couple believe that they are off the hook.
Unbeknownst to Alycia and Allen however, prior to his death Roche had discovered what was going on. Knowing that Parker is in severe financial trouble and bribing him with a large amount of cash, he has set up an elaborate posthumous revenge on the couple. Meanwhile, as the episodes of "The Voice of Merrill" are broadcast, Thornton begins to suspect that the storyline is pointing him in the direction of the blackmailer's killer.

Two criminals do a deal with a suicidal man, who will confess to crimes they have committed before killing himself. However he subsequently has a change of heart.

A biographer researching a book on a pilot who died during the test flight of a new plane falls in love with the pilot's sister. As he uncovers more about the test flight, people connected with the case begin to die. The author naturally becomes nervous, until two Scotland Yard inspectors take on the case.

Beautiful fledgeling actress Stephanie Blake (Lois Maxwell) is starring in playwright Otto Kellner's (Eric Pohlman) latest theatrical hit. Unbeknownst to her, the writer is in love with her, and is jealous of any competition. Stephanie is ambitious for a part in a new play by American Bill Lang (Dale Robertson), but Kellner refuses to release her from her contract. When Kellner is found stabbed with a pair of Stephanie's scissors, Bill Lang fears she is being framed and so aids her in moving the body. But when the police discover the corpse, everyone becomes a suspect.

A young couple gets beat up by some punks. They are saved by a seemingly nice older couple and taken back to the house of the older couple. While there, the wounded woman begins to realize that some frightening things are occurring within the "Last House in the Woods".

While playing tennis at a posh club in a town near London called Oakley Park, young and flirty Molly Stevens attracts considerable interest. The men ogle her and the women detest her. She is later found dead, strangled with a stocking. The local police chief requests the help of Scotland Yard, so Detective Superintendent Mike Halloran is sent to investigate. The locals, however, resent having an outsider poking into their affairs.
A book of love poems, including an inscription from a Peter Crowley, is found in the victim's flat. There is also a photo of a group of men together with Molly and Fiona Dixon, a young woman from the prominent Dixon family. Her father, although chocked to learn that his daughter knew the "trashy" Molly, will not let Halloran question her.
Halloran eventually learns that Molly left Peter Crowley for a married man, Mark Roper, who is the club's secretary. Roper denies any involvement, and also claims that he was giving nurse Elizabeth Fenner a lift to the hospital at the time of the murder.
The coroner reveals Molly was two months pregnant. Dr. John Fenner, the local Canadian expat physician who certified the death, is asked by Halloran why he neglected to report that fact. Fenner claims he was trying to avoid a scandal for Roper and the club.
Elizabeth turns out to be the doctor's niece and also a Canadian expat. She confirms that Roper gave her a lift, but this later turns out to be a lie - a result of her attempts to protect the reputation of her uncle, who left his practice in Toronto after a misdiagnosis led to a patient's death. This is something the locals are unaware of, but Roper knows and is using this secret to blackmail the doctor.
Roper, always bragging about his wartime heroics as a RAF fighter pilot, is revealed by Halloran to have been nothing but a lowly ground crew member, who was dishonourably discharged after theft and is currently heavily in debt. The club demands Roper's resignation. He turns up at a party, gets drunk and starts a fight. Leaving the party and going for a walk, Fiona is ambushed and strangled to death. Her body is placed in the trunk of Dr. Fenner's car.
Halloran finds out that Peter Crowley has been treated for schizophrenia. Peter flees to a church, climbing to the top and threatening to jump. Halloran ascends to the steeple to prevent the suicide, risking his own life in the process, and manages to convince Peter not to kill himself. A fire brigade turntable ladder rescues the two just as they are about to fall.

Two swimmers attempt to swim across the English Channel, but, under cover of fog, one of them is deliberately drowned by her lover (Bond) after she demands he leave his rich wife for her or she will tell his wife about their affair. Officially, her death is ruled an accident, but her fellow swimmer is convinced that it was not. His swimming coach (Ireland) is initially doubtful, but when he realizes he has been deliberately lied to, he investigates and brings the villain to justice.

Bobby Gold (Mantegna) is an inner-city homicide detective on the trail of Robert Randolph (Rhames), a drug-dealer and cop-killer on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. En route to nab an accomplice of Randolph, Gold and his partner Tim Sullivan (Macy) happen upon a murder scene: the elderly Jewish owner of a candy store in a black ghetto has been gunned down, reportedly for a fortune hidden in her basement. The deceased woman's son, a doctor, uses his clout to have Gold assigned to the case in the belief that Gold, himself Jewish, might be empathetic to his plight. Gold, however, seems to disregard his ethnicity, and beyond that, he's irritated about being pulled off a much higher-profile case. Ultimately, though, this is offset by interactions with members of the Jewish community that play on Gold's feelings of inadequacy and inability to fit in.
A nighttime survey of the crime scene uncovers an important piece of the woman's past, and Gold's reluctance turns to curiosity, leading to the discovery of a Zionist organization operating in the city. The apparent power and sense of pride these people have is appealing to Gold, and he attempts to become a part of their group. As the film reaches its climax, Gold is thrust into a series of circumstances that test not only his loyalty to the badge, but also his newfound Jewish consciousness.

Dr James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate the death of his friend, Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles was found dead on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, Baskerville Hall, and Mortimer now fears for Sir Charles's nephew and sole heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is the new master of Baskerville Hall. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but Mortimer is suspicious, because Sir Charles died with an expression of horror on his face, and Mortimer noticed "the footprints of a gigantic hound" nearby. The Baskerville family has supposedly been under a curse since the era of the English Civil War when ancestor Hugo Baskerville allegedly offered his soul to the devil for help in abducting a woman and was reportedly killed by a giant spectral hound. Sir Charles believed in the curse and was apparently fleeing from something in fright when he died.
Intrigued, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from Canada. Sir Henry has received an anonymous note, cut and pasted from newsprint, warning him away from the Baskerville moors, and one of his new boots is inexplicably missing from his London hotel room. The Baskerville family is discussed: Sir Charles was the eldest of three brothers; the youngest, black sheep Rodger, is believed to have died childless in South America, while Sir Henry is the only child of the middle brother. Sir Henry plans to move into Baskerville Hall, despite the ominous warning message. Holmes and Dr Watson follow him from Holmes's Baker Street apartment back to his hotel and notice a bearded man following him in a cab; they pursue the man, but he escapes. Mortimer tells them that Mr Barrymore, the butler at Baskerville Hall, has a beard like the one on the stranger. Sir Henry's boot reappears, but an older one vanishes.

"The Octopus," a masked crime lord, is bent on crippling America with a wave of terror. He demands tribute from railroad magnates and other captains of industry. Richard Wentworth (Warren Hull), an amateur criminologist who is friendly with the police and is secretly "The Spider," a masked vigilante, is equally determined to destroy the Octopus and his gang. Pleasant and smiling in civilian life, Wentworth is frequently ruthless as The Spider, using his two .45 semi-automatic pistols against any public enemies who attack him.
Wentworth also masquerades as affable underworld lowlife Blinky McQuade. Disguised as McQuade, Wentworth can infiltrate gangland as a hired gun or getaway-car driver and keep current on the mob's illegal activities.
The only people who know Wentworth's various identities are his assistants Jackson (Richard Fiske) and Ram Singh (Kenne Duncan), his butler Jenkins (Don Douglas), and his fiancée Nita (Iris Meredith).
The Octopus was a pulp villain written by Norvell Page, who also wrote most of The Spider pulp novels. He is garbed completely in white and is only ever seen by his henchmen while sitting in his throne-like chair. Unlike the pulps, where The Spider is dressed in an all black cape, mask, suit, and wide-brimmed fedora, in the serial he is garbed in a black suit and fedora, but with white web-like markings on his lightweight cape and full face mask. The serial follows the standard formula of fights, shoot-outs, Wentworth's friends being kidnapped at various times and needing to be rescued. Each chapter ends with The Spider or his friends in deep trouble, often about to be killed, but the effect is spoiled by a trailer for the next episode which follows, showing them rescued and continuing to fight the villains. The secret headquarters of The Octopus is found by The Spider in the final chapter; he has unwittingly given himself away to Wentworth and realizing this, Wentworth must now die; but as The Spider, Wentworth is triumphant in the end, unmasking The Octopus and ending his national reign of terror.
During the serial The Spider (like Marvel Comics much later Spider-Man) uses his web line a number of times to get out of trouble. Commissioner Kirk (changed from Kirkpatrick in the pulps) suspects that Wentworth is The Spider during one chapter. The Octopus' gang, like their boss, wear robes when they gather together in his presence. The Octopus ruthlessly executes all who failed him; in case of trouble, The Octopus always uses a false arm and hand, which allowed him to conceal a pistol in his real hand hidden beneath his robes.

In an effort to improve relations between a US air force base and the sleepy local English village nearby, airman Sergeant Jimmy Bradford organises a school trip to see the pantomime "Mother Goose". Meanwhile a prowling killer is on the loose and after a night out with the victim, the finger of suspicion points at Bradford.

While traveling by rail, Miss Marple witnesses the strangling of a young woman in the carriage of an overtaking train. The local police can find no evidence to support her story, so she conducts her own investigation and, with the aid of her close friend Jim Stringer (Stringer Davis), comes to the conclusion that the body must have been thrown off the train near the grounds of Ackenthorpe Hall, which adjoins the railway line.
Wheedling her way into a job as housemaid there, Marple copes with her difficult employer, Luther Ackenthorpe (James Robertson Justice), and searches for the missing corpse. She eventually finds it concealed in a stable, much to the chagrin of Police Inspector Craddock (Bud Tingwell).
Miss Marple has Mr. Stringer uncover the details of Ackenthorpe's will: the family fortune will go to his long-suffering, attentive daughter Emma, sons Cedric, Harold and Albert, and grandson Alexander. (A fourth son, Edmund, was killed in the war.) Also, Ackenthorpe's physician, Dr. Quimper (Arthur Kennedy), and Emma are secretly in love. Gardener Hillman and part-time servant Mrs. Kidder (Joan Hickson) round out the establishment (and suspects).
Alexander finds the first clue, a musical compact which plays "Frère Jacques", near where the body must have landed. When Emma reveals that she recently received a letter from a French woman named Martine, who claimed that she had married Edmund shortly before he died (and is therefore an heir), the identity of the dead woman and the motive for the crime seems clear.
Arsenic in the curry duck prepared by Miss Marple herself sickens all who eat it, but only Albert succumbs. Then Harold dies by his own shotgun. The police are unsure if it was suicide by a remorseful murderer or the third victim.
Miss Marple, however, is not deceived, and sets a trap, using the compact as bait. Dr. Quimper is revealed to be the villain. The dead woman was not Martine at all, but his wife. Quimper feared that the compact, a gift to his wife, could be traced back to him. He intended to dispose of the other heirs and marry Emma. He administered a second, fatal dose of arsenic while supposedly attending to Albert.

While Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) and Mr Stringer (Stringer Davis) are soliciting donations for a charity, they visit Mr. Enderby (Finlay Currie), a rich and eccentric recluse. He tumbles down a staircase, apparently the victim of a fatal heart attack. Knowing that Enderby had a pathological fear of cats, Miss Marple becomes suspicious when she finds one in the house. She also finds a piece of mud bearing the print of a riding boot, but when she goes to Inspector Craddock (Bud Tingwell), he is sceptical, believing that Enderby died of natural causes.
Undeterred, Miss Marple eavesdrops when Enderby's family gather for the reading of the Will. There are four beneficiaries: fourth cousin George Crossfield (Robert Urquhart), niece Rosamund Shane (Katya Douglas), nephew Hector Enderby (Robert Morley) and sister Cora Lanskenay. Each receives an equal share of the estate. Cora declares that she believes Enderby was murdered. The next day, when Miss Marple goes to see her, she finds Cora dead, stabbed in the back with a hatpin. Cora's companion of many years, timid Miss Milchrest (Flora Robson), can provide little information.
Miss Marple decides to take a "holiday" at the Gallop Hotel/riding school, as it is run by Hector Enderby and the other two surviving heirs are staying there. When Inspector Craddock questions them and Rosamund Shane's spendthrift husband Michael (James Villiers), none of them can produce a satisfactory alibi for the time of Cora Lanskenay's death.
An attempt is made to do away with Miss Marple, but is foiled by the intended victim (without her even realising it). Miss Marple then discovers that the piece of mud found in Enderby's house came from shady art dealer George Crossfield's riding boot, but her case against him is dashed when she learns that each of the heirs visited Enderby on the day he died, to ask for money. Crossfield has meanwhile found out who the murderer is, but he is locked in a stall with an excitable horse and is trampled to death.
By this point, Miss Marple knows the identity and motive of the killer, but has no definite proof. She therefore lays a trap, pretending to have a heart attack at a dance at the hotel while doing the twist with Stringer. The police doctor places her in a room by herself, declaring it to be too dangerous to move her until morning. During the night, the criminal makes one last attempt to silence her, but Miss Marple is ready. The killer's motive is revealed to be a seemingly worthless painting owned by Cora, which actually was very valuable.
Hector Enderby later proposes marriage to Miss Marple but she turns him down, as she is opposed to blood sports and he is an enthusiastic fox-hunter. After she leaves, he mutters to himself "That was a narrow escape!"

Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote area of Wales, several travellers are admitted to a gloomy, foreboding mansion belonging to the strange Femm family. Trying to make the best of it, the guests must deal with their sepulchral host, Horace Femm, who claims to be on the run from the police, and his religious, obsessive, malevolent sister, Rebecca. Things get worse as the brutish mute butler, Morgan, gets drunk, runs amok, threatens Margaret Waverton and releases the long imprisoned and pent-up brother, Saul, a psychotic fantasist and pyromaniac who gleefully tries to destroy the residence by setting it on fire.

The action takes place mainly on board an old wooden-walled battleship, HMS Battledore, which has been purchased by a Trust for the rehabilitation of young criminals, and intended by the founder to put backbone into young jellyfish.
Shortly after joining the board of management of the Trust, Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) witnesses the sudden death of a fellow trustee, who has just returned from a surprise visit to the ship, much disturbed by something he has discovered there. He dies without being able to reveal his discovery. Miss Marple manages to obtain a small sample of his snuff, which is found to have been poisoned.
Resolving to learn what the murdered trustee had discovered, she visits the ship, while her dear friend and confidante, Mr. Jim Stringer (played by Margaret Rutherford's real-life husband Stringer Davis), investigates on shore. The Captain (Lionel Jeffries) takes an immediate dislike to her, and makes a sarcastic comment to his mate about her outdated formal naval attire, asking "Who does she think she is, Neptune's mother?" His distress intensifies when she announces her intention to remain on board several days, and to sleep in the Captain's own quarters, obliging him to move into his first mate's cabin.
That night, one of the officers is murdered – run through with a sword and then hanged from a mast. As the police investigation proceeds, the assistant matron is killed, apparently by an injection of poison. The investigation interferes with the ship's traditional celebration of Trafalgar Day. Somewhat unreasonably, the Captain blames Miss Marple for this. He begs Chief Inspector Craddock (Charles 'Bud' Tingwell) to find a way to get her off the ship, saying: "She's a jinx! She's a Jonah! She's blowing an ill wind!"
Miss Marple sets a trap: she announces to the crew that she knows that the poison was administered using a mousetrap as a booby-trap. She hints that she intends to reveal the murderer's identity shortly. She persuades Chief Inspector Craddock to allow the crew to go ashore for their Trafalgar Day celebration while she remains on board the deserted ship, with Chief Inspector Craddock and his assistant, Sgt. Bacon (Terence Edmond) secretly hiding in wait for the murderer to attempt to silence her. Sure enough, the first mate, Commander Breeze-Connington (William Mervyn), appears, and informs her that he has embezzled a large sum of money which he feels is owed to him because he was unjustly passed over for promotion, and that he committed the three preceding murders to avoid being exposed, and that he intends to kill her on the spot. Miss Marple calls out to Inspector Craddock to make the arrest, but he and Sgt. Bacon have accidentally been locked in their hiding place, and cannot help. Breeze-Connington draws his sword, intending to run Miss Marple through, but Miss Marple is herself an accomplished amateur fencer. She and Breeze-Connington engage in a ferocious sword-fight. Breeze-Connington succeeds in disarming her. He is about to administer the coup de grace, but Mr. Stringer, who, worried about her safety, had secretly rowed out to the ship in the dark, clubs him over the head from behind with a marlin spike.
The Captain faces a court martial for failing to prevent the embezzlement which occurred under his command. As he enters the state-room to hear the verdict, he sees his sword on the table with the hilt toward him, and mistakenly infers that he has been found guilty. Miss Marple corrects him; the board has found that he was not at fault. Although greatly relieved to have avoided disgrace, he announces that he must resign even so, because he has been having a long affair with the ship's Matron (Joan Benham), in violation of the golden rule of the trust that there should be "no hanky-panky between the sexes" on board ship, and they now intend to get married, which would disqualify him for his position as captain. He makes his farewell and turns to go, but Miss Marple stops him, saying, "I think I speak for my fellow trustees when I say that golden rule is hereby rescinded. You're a fine sea dog captain, but it seems to me the Battledore could do with a woman's hand at the helm." He and Matron embrace joyfully.
As Miss Marple steps into the dinghy to leave the ship, Matron and the Captain wave good-bye from the deck. The Captain turns to Matron and remarks, "You know, the moment I clapped eyes on her, I said to myself, 'What an old darling'!" Matron, remembering his actual first reaction, raises her eyebrows archly.

Margaret McGinty, a barmaid and former actress, is found hanged, and her lodger, Harold Taylor, caught at the scene, seems plainly guilty. Everyone believes it to be an open-and-shut case ... except for Miss Marple. She is the lone holdout in the jury that tries him, leading to a mistrial.
Despite the disapproval of Inspector Craddock (Bud Tingwell), Miss Marple decides to delve into the case. She poses as a gatherer for a church jumble sale to enter and search Mrs. McGinty's home. She finds a newspaper with words cut out and several programs for a murder mystery play, Murder She Said, recently performed in the town. These clues lead her to suspect Mrs. McGinty of having blackmailed a member of the repertory company.
She auditions for the repertory theatre players, the Cosgood Players, under their actor/manager Driffold Cosgood (Ron Moody). Cosgood is unimpressed by her acting ability, but as she is willing to work for free and mentions she is independently wealthy, takes her on. Miss Marple knows she is on the right track when actor George Rowton (Maurice Good) is poisoned moments later. She secures accommodation in the boarding house in which the cast is staying to further her investigation and Cosgood leaves a copy of his play Remember September in her bedroom to read. Narrowly avoiding an attempt to silence her (one which claims the life of another actress by mistake), Miss Marple unmasks the killer. Cosgood appeals to her to finance Remember September, but she says "Mr Cosgood, whatever else I am, I am definitely no angel."

Connery's character Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond (Richardson) by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs (Lollobrigida), to marry him. After his uncle's demise Maria becomes a murder suspect. Lollobrigida's character is the Woman of Straw of the title.

Albert Aachen, a clown with a unique diving act, is found dead, the murder weapon happens to be a poison dart. When a woman named Betty Barnard becomes the next victim, detective Hercule Poirot suspects that Sir Carmichael Clarke could be in grave danger.
As he and Captain Hastings look into the crimes, a beautiful woman with an interesting monogram named Amanda Beatrice Cross becomes the focus of their investigation, at least until she leaps into the Thames.

American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), who recently moved to London from New York, arrives at the Little People's Garden preschool to collect her daughter, Bunny. The child has mysteriously disappeared. An administrator recalls meeting with Ann but claims never to have seen the missing child. Ann and her brother Steven (Keir Dullea) search the school and find a sinister woman living upstairs, who claims she collects children's nightmares. In desperation, the Lakes call the police and Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) arrives on the scene. Everyone become a suspect and Superintendent Newhouse is steadfast, diligently following every lead. The police and Newhouse decide to visit the Lakes new residence.
They find that all of Bunny's possessions have been removed from the Lakes' home. Ann cannot understand why anyone would do this and reacts emotionally. Superintendent Newhouse begins to suspect that Bunny Lake does not exist after he learns that "Bunny" was the name of Ann's imaginary childhood friend. Ann's landlord (Noël Coward), an aging actor, attempts to seduce her. Newhouse decides to become better acquainted with Ann in order to learn more about Bunny. He takes her to a local bar where he plies her with brandy.
On her return home, Ann discovers she still has the claim ticket for Bunny's doll, which was taken to a doll hospital for repairs. Regarding the doll as proof of Bunny's existence, she frantically rushes to the doll hospital late at night and retrieves the doll. Steven arrives later and when Ann shows him the doll, Steven knocks out Ann and burns the doll, trying to destroy it. He takes Ann to a hospital and tells the desk nurse that Ann has been hallucinating about a missing girl who does not exist. Ann is sedated and put under observation.
Later, Ann wakes and escapes from the hospital. She discovers Steven burying Bunny's possessions; he has bound and sedated the child and hidden her in the boot (trunk) of his car. Steven implies an incestuous interest/relationship with his sister and complains that Bunny has always come between them; because he believes Ann loves Bunny more than him, the child threatens Steven's dream of a future with Ann. Realizing that her brother is mad, Ann plays childhood games with him to distract him. Newhouse, having discovered that Steven had lied to the police about the ship that brought the Lakes to England, arrives in time to rescue Ann and Bunny, and apprehend Steven.

Although it is based on Conan Doyle's characters, the story is an original one, which has the famous detective on the trail of Jack the Ripper. In the dark alleys of nineteenth century London, the notorious Jack the Ripper committed a series of gruesome murders. The story of A Study in Terror challenges Sherlock Holmes to solve these horrific crimes. This leads Holmes through a trail of aristocracy, blackmail, and family insanity. Unlike Scotland Yard, and the real-life story, Holmes exposes the identity of the Ripper.

The plot is a day in the life of a glamorous fashion photographer, Thomas (Hemmings), inspired by the life of an actual "Swinging London" photographer, David Bailey. After spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos, Thomas is late for a photo shoot with Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and walks off, leaving the models and production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage girls who are aspiring models (Birkin and Hills) ask to speak with him, but the photographer drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. The photographer then meets his agent for lunch, and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Back at his studio, the woman arrives asking for the film, but he deliberately hands her a different roll. She in turn writes down a false telephone number to give to him. His many enlargements of the black and white film are grainy but seem to show a dead body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. He is disturbed by a knock on the door, but it is the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, he finds they hope he will photograph them but he tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"
As evening falls, the photographer goes back to the park and finds the body of a man, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. The photographer returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. After driving into town, he sees the woman and follows her into a club where The Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar and Keith Relf on vocals, are seen performing the song "Stroll On." A buzz in Beck's amplifier angers him so much he smashes his guitar on stage, then throws its neck into the crowd. The photographer grabs the neck and runs out of the club before anyone can snatch it from him. Then he has second thoughts about it, throws it on the pavement and walks away. A passer-by picks up the neck and throws it back down, not realizing it's from Beck's guitar.
At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, the photographer finds both Veruschka, who had told him that she was going to Paris – when confronted, she says she is in Paris – and his agent (Peter Bowles), whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, the photographer cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone and finds that the body is gone.
Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As the photographer watches this mimed match alone on the lawn, his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends.

A British undercover agent (Burns) is sent to an island in the Mediterranean to identify how a heroin smuggling operation is distributing their product.

Police inspector Holloway (Patrick Wymark) investigates a string of murders where the victims have dolls attached to their bodies. The trail soon leads to a woman named Mrs. Von Sturm (Margaret Johnston), who knows a set of dark secrets that may hold the key to the murders.

English tourist Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) arrives at the "Gasthof Petrus" inn in the country of Bandrika, "one of Europe's few undiscovered corners". Iris is returning to Britain to marry a "blue-blooded cheque chaser", but an avalanche has blocked the railway line. The stranded passengers are forced to stay the night at the inn, including Charters and Caldicott, cricket enthusiasts who want to return to England to see the last days of the Test match.
That evening, Iris complains about loud folk music coming from the room above her. She has the guilty musician, Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), thrown out of his room, only to have him move into hers, forcing her to capitulate.
Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a former governess and music teacher, listens to a tune performed by a folk singer under her window. Unseen by her, the singer is killed.
The next morning, before catching the train, Iris is hit on the head by a planter apparently aimed at Miss Froy, who then helps Iris onto the train. Also on board are Charters and Caldicott, Gilbert, a lawyer named Todhunter and his mistress "Mrs. Todhunter". As a result of her injury, Iris blacks out. After the train is moving, Iris wakes up in a compartment with Miss Froy and several strangers. She joins Miss Froy in the dining car for tea. Unable to be heard above the train noise, the elderly lady writes her name on the window with her finger. Soon after, they return to their compartment, where Iris falls asleep.
When Iris awakens, Miss Froy has vanished. The strangers in her compartment say they know nothing about an English lady. Even Todhunter, who spoke with Miss Froy earlier, pretends not to remember her in an attempt to avoid any possible scandal. Iris searches, but cannot find her. She meets up with Gilbert, who agrees to help. Dr. Hartz (Paul Lukas), a brain surgeon, says Iris may be suffering from concussion-related hallucinations. Charters and Caldicott also claim not to remember Miss Froy, because they are afraid a delay would make them miss the cricket match.

When Bessie Faro's (Andie MacDowell) husband Johnny (Viggo Mortensen) dies in a plane crash in Veracruz, Mexico, she finds that his air cargo business is deeply in the red. When she visits the airline's terminal in Veracruz, she finds a packet of baseball cards that have been marked up by Johnny. Recognizing his system for marking betting slips at race tracks, she decodes the cards and realizes that they indicate a bank account. When she tries to withdraw money from the account, she is denied. She realizes that the account is in the name of the player on the card, Onix Concepción.
Back home, Bessie uses an International bank directory at the local library to decode Manny Sanguillén's Pittsburgh Pirates' card to find another bank account in Panama. She obtains durable power of attorney and begins a whirlwind trek to recover her husband's money. After Panama, she visits the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, recovering tens of thousands of dollars from each account. In Germany, she closes Don Mueller's account from Berliner Bank, but the cashier only hands her only 750 DM. He explains that 74,000DM worth of cashier's checks have been paid out to a company called EDK Technik in the former East Berlin. At EDK Technik, a manager informs Bessie that they make ink for ball point pens.
Bessie leaves the office confused as to why Johnny would be buying so much ink. The manager waits for her to leave and then ushers in some men who have been following Bessie on her journey. Her next stop is Athens, where she finds out that Johnny's account has already been closed. The teller takes Bessie to a safe deposit box which only contains a Bill Mazeroski card. Bessie's growing suspicion that Johnny is alive is confirmed by the sight of the card. When the teller sees how distraught Bessie is, she confides in her that a local shipping company cashed out some of Johnny's money and that the rest was wired to Cairo.
She visits Kolatos Shipping Company and finds that one of their boats is headed to Cairo with grain for a food aid effort. She rides with the cargo to Egypt, and notices that one of the dock workers is being stained green by a bag of grain. She sneaks onto the truck where he loaded the bag, opens it, and finds, hidden beneath the grain, containers of thionyl chloride manufactured by EDK Technik.
Bessie soon befriends the coordinator of the relief effort, Fergus Lamb (Liam Neeson). She explains what she found in the bag, and Fergus confronts his Operations Manager, who reveals that he allowed the smuggling to finance the grain shipments. Fergus is irate because he knows that the thionyl chloride is being used to manufacture chemical weapons.
Fergus and Bessie quickly fall in love, but she continues her journey, now intent on actually finding Johnny. A local Immigration Agent teams up with Bessie and helps her find Johnny. He admits to Bessie that he had been skimming from the chemical weapons traders, which is why he had to disappear. When Bessie leaves, Johnny runs after her and tries to make her stay with him, holding her at gunpoint in a crowded square. The men who have been following Bessie throughout the film now have Johnny in sight, and they immediately kill him.
The film ends with Bessie happily back at home with her family, just as Fergus arrives to reunite with her.

The game begins in Gabriel's store, St. George's Books, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Having suffered a recurring nightmare, Gabriel learns from his assistant, Grace, that his friend Mosely has photos for him to help him with his book based on a spate of killings across New Orleans, dubbed the "Voodoo Murders", mostly because the killings have Louisiana Voodoo overtones. During his visit to the police station, Gabriel discovers his friend is attending another similar murder at Lake Pontchartrain. While there, Gabriel and Mosley spot Malia Gedde, an African-American socialite, pull up to the crime scene. Gabriel becomes infatuated with her, and later has Grace determine where she lives, posing as Mosely to meet her. Gabriel also investigates the voodoo angle of the murders, tracking down more information on a partial pattern, and any snake scales that could be matched with one found at the scene. During his investigations, Gabriel meets a number of individuals connected to the voodoo scene, including a voodoo museum's curator, Dr. John, and a member of a French Creole family. He also meets with a Professor Hartridge at Tulane University, who, upon being shown a reconstruction of the pattern from the crime scene made from additional partials from the other murders, identifies it as a vévé that is used in Voodoo. Hartridge agrees to examine and do more research to discover its origins while Gabriel continues his work.
Mosely brings in a known crook and drug addict named Crash to interrogate for information on the murders, but learns nothing of use. Gabriel manages to get information from Crash after spying him visit a rada drummer in Jackson Square, where he learns that the murders are connected to a Voodoo Cartel. Before he can learn more, Crash dies, forcing Gabriel to look elsewhere for information. To his annoyance, Gabriel learns that Mosley has ended the investigation, claiming it was the work of gangsters from Chicago, though he knows otherwise. Gabriel forces him to reopen the case after recovering plenty of information proving the voodoo element of the murders is real. He demonstrates that the cartel is a threat by showing him a newspaper article from 1810 that describes a murder done in the same manner. He convinces him that the group killed Hartridge because he had uncovered information on the reconstructed vévé; and evidence was found linking Dr. John to the murders - a scale from the python in his museum. Mosley soon disappears, suspecting the cartel might have influence on the police, after learning no-one would help him. Gabriel confirms this chilling truth when he goes to Mosley's office to retrieve a tracking device.
During his investigation, Gabriel learns more about his family while visiting his grandmother. He learns that they originally came from Germany, that his grandfather changed his name, and that his grandfather mentioned something called Schattenjäger. His grandfather's original name helps Gabriel realize that a man named Wolfgang Ritter is a long lost relative; this prompts him to call him. Ritter invites Gabriel to come to Germany, but, after learning that the cartel is having a meeting in the Bayou St. John, he decides to pursue matters in New Orleans first. Gabriel, in disguise, tracks the location of the meeting in the swamp and discovers the cartel is headed by Malia. He realizes that she is possessed by a Loa spirit named Tetelo, who identifies him as a witch-hunter. Gabriel is rescued by Grace before anything can happen to him. Later he calls Ritter about what he has found out. He soon learns that "Schattenjäger" comes from two words meaning "Shadow Hunter", a sort of modern-day inquisitor, and that his family has been involved in it. Worse, Tetelo stole a talisman of immense power from one of Gabriel's ancestors. She had it hidden with her remains, after she was discovered to have been involved in voodoo murders centuries ago, and was burned to death as a result. Unable to find her remains in the Gedde's family tomb in New Orleans, Gabriel travels to Bavaria, Germany to meet Ritter and to research the second possible location where her remains were taken.
In Germany, at Schloss Ritter, the family's home, he meets a German woman named Gerde who tells him that, shortly before Gabriel's arrival, Wolfgang disappeared after visiting his library. She has no idea of its location in the house. Searching the building for it, Gabriel undergoes an initiation ritual for Schattenjägers hoping that it will help him find it. During that night's sleep, he is visited in his dreams by a dragon who initiates him, passing onto him the mantle of Schattenjäger. In the morning, Gabriel discovers the library is attached to Wolfgang's bedroom. He learns from the books that Tetelo's remains are hidden in Benin in a snake mound of a "wheel within a wheel". Travelling to Africa, Gabriel ventures into the snake mound when, upon solving a puzzle, he finds himself dodging mummies. He meets Wolfgang, who helps him to get into the inner chamber of the mound where the pair attempt to open a sacrificial table. In the process, Wolfgang is killed, leaving Gabriel angry at Tetelo and swearing vengeance on the spirit.
Returning to New Orleans, Gabriel learns, from a note left by Malia, that Grace has been kidnapped. In the note, Malia urges him to leave New Orleans or face being killed. Meeting with Mosely at his book store, the pair learn the cartel's power is strong, but decide to shut them down. Gabriel travels to the location he believes their hounfour, a sort of voodoo temple, is hidden, and manages to find Grace. Using disguises, Gabriel interrupts the cartel's latest ritual, and wards off Tetelo, destroying a stone idol that powers the Gedde tribe. During this moment, Gabriel becomes torn between fulfilling his duty as a Schattenjäger, or saving Malia.
The game can end in two ways. If Gabriel fulfills his duty, he is killed by an angered Malia, and both Grace and Mosley reflect on what Gabriel did and whether it could have ended differently. If he chooses to save Malia, Tetelo tries to stop him, but Malia regains control and realizes that Tetelo is a threat, and that the cartel will do more damage if she remains, so kills herself to end the Loa's hold. Both Gabriel and Grace reflect on the former's new status and his future, before Grace notes that, although Gabriel seemed to have changed, a passing remark makes her realize she was wrong.

Disheartened by a dull job and a repetitive life, a lonely telephone operator discovers a new voyeuristic obsession.

In 1947, the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, aged 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his widowed housekeeper Mrs Munro and her young son Roger. Having just returned from a trip to Hiroshima, he starts to use jelly made from the prickly ash plant he acquired there to try to improve his failing memory. Unhappy about his Watson's fictionalisation of his last case, The Adventure of the Dove Grey Glove, he hopes to write his own account, but has trouble recalling the events. As Holmes spends time with Roger, showing him how to take care of the bees in the farmhouse's apiary, he comes to appreciate Roger's curiosity and intelligence and develops a paternal liking for him.
Over time, Roger's prodding helps Holmes remember the case (shown in flashbacks); he knows he must have failed somehow, as it resulted in his retirement from the detective business. About 30 years earlier, after the First World War had ended and Watson had married and left Baker Street, Thomas Kelmot approached Holmes to find out why his wife Ann had become estranged from him after suffering two miscarriages. Holmes followed Ann around London and observed her seemingly preparing to murder her husband - forging cheques in her husband's name and cashing them, confirming the details of his will, buying poison, paying a man, and checking train schedules. Holmes, however, deduced her true intentions: to have gravestones made for herself and her miscarried children (the man she paid was a stonemason) and then commit suicide with the poison. Confronting her, he confessed he had the same feelings of loneliness and isolation, but his intellectual pursuits sufficed for him. Ann asked Holmes if they could share the burden of their loneliness together. Holmes was tempted, but instead advised her to return to her husband. She poured the poison on the ground, thanked Holmes, and departed. Holmes later learned that she killed herself by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Blaming himself, he retires and falls into a deep depression. Watson briefly returns to care for him and, discovering the details of the case, rewrites the tragedy into a success.
A second series of flashbacks recounts Holmes's trip to Japan, where he met a supposed admirer named Tamiki Umezaki who had told him of the benefits of prickly ash. In fact, Umezaki had a hidden motive for meeting Holmes. Years before, Umezaki's anglophile father had traveled to England. In a letter, the father wrote that he had been advised by the brilliant Holmes to remain in England permanently, abandoning his wife and son. Holmes bluntly told Umezaki that his father simply wanted a new life for himself and that Holmes had never met him. Umezaki was crushed.
In the present, Mrs Munro gradually becomes dissatisfied with her work, and Holmes's overall health deteriorates and he spends more time with her son. After he becomes unconscious from an experiment with the prickly ash, he requires more physical care. She accepts a job at a hotel in Portsmouth, planning to take Roger to work there as well. Roger does not want to go. He is unhappy with his barely literate mother and his family's working-class status, and tension develops between mother and son.
Holmes and Mrs Munro later discover Roger lying unconscious near the house, a victim of multiple stings, and he is rushed to a hospital. Distraught, Mrs Munro tries to burn down the apiary, blaming Holmes for caring only about himself and his bees. Holmes stops her, having realised that Roger had been stung by wasps; Roger found their nest and tried to drown them to protect the bees, but they swarmed on him instead. Holmes and Mrs Munro burn down the wasp nest together, and Roger regains consciousness. Holmes tells Mrs Munro that she and Roger will inherit the house and grounds after his death, encouraging her to stay.
Holmes writes his first work of fiction: a letter to Umezaki, telling him that his father was a brave, honourable man who worked secretly and effectively for the British Empire. As Roger begins to teach his mother how to care for the bees, Holmes emulates a tradition he saw being practiced in Hiroshima: creating a ring of stones to serve as a place where he can recall the loved ones he has lost over the years.

Inspector Wenceslas (referred to as 'Wens' for short) Vorobeychik ( in Russian his name means "Sparrow") is assigned the case of a serial killer who leaves a calling card with the name 'Monsieur Durand' on his victims. Wens' mistress is the ditsy struggling actress Mila Malou who is determined to get noticed, and attempts to help Wens find the criminal. Wens discovers that Durand is a tenant at a boarding house at No. 21 Avenue Junot. Wens takes a room at the house in disguise as a Protestant minister. Suspects are arrested, but while each is in jail another Durand murder occurs. Both Mila and Wens discover who is responsible for the murders. Wens is captured, and as he is about to be killed when Mila and the police arrive and rescue him.

In a small French town identified as "anywhere," anonymous poison pen letters are sent by somebody signing as Le Corbeau (the Raven). The letters start by accusing doctor Rémy Germain of having an affair with Laura Vorzet, the pretty young wife of the elderly psychiatrist Dr. Vorzet. Germain is also accused of practicing illegal abortions. Letters are then sent to virtually all the population of the town, but keep getting back at the initial victim, Dr. Germain. The situation becomes serious when a patient of the hospital commits suicide with his straight razor after the Raven writes to him that his cancer is terminal.
Laura Vorzet's sister Marie Corbin, a nurse in the infirmary, becomes a suspect and is arrested, but soon new letters arrive. When one letter is dropped in a church from a gallery, it becomes apparent the Raven must be one of the people seated there at the time. They are gathered to re-write the Raven's letters as dictated by Dr. Vorzet, to compare the handwriting. Germain's lover Denise is suspected when she faints during the dictation, only for Laura to be identified by material contained in her blotter. Germain agrees to sign an order committing Laura as insane, just before he is called away to attend Denise who has fallen down stairs. Before he leaves, Laura protests she wrote the Raven's first letters before Dr. Vorzet began dictating them, making him the true Raven. Just as the ambulance takes Laura away, Germain returns and finds Dr. Vorzet dead at his desk, his throat cut by the cancer patient's mother as he was writing the Raven's final triumphant letter.

Guy Van Stratten (played by Robert Arden) a small-time American smuggler working in Europe, is at the scene of the murder of a man named Bracco. The dying man whispers two names that he claims are very valuable, one of which is Gregory Arkadin. Using this small bit of information and lots of bluffing, Van Stratten manages to meet multi-millionaire business magnate and socialite Arkadin, who then hires Van Stratten to research his own past, of which Arkadin claims to have no memory before 1927.
Traveling across the world, Van Stratten pieces together Arkadin's past from the few remaining people who knew him as a gangster in Europe after World War I, but in each case, the individuals Van Stratten speaks to end up dead. When he ultimately discovers the truth about Arkadin's past, there is a climactic race to Spain between the two, with disastrous consequences.

The murder of a prostitute in German-occupied Warsaw in 1942 causes Abwehr Major Grau (Omar Sharif) to start an investigation, as she was also a German agent. His evidence soon points to the killer being one of three German general officers: General von Seidlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray); General Kahlenberge (Donald Pleasence), his chief of staff; and General Tanz (Peter O'Toole). Grau's investigation, however, is cut short by his summary transfer to Paris at the instigation of these officers.
The case in Warsaw remains closed until all three officers meet in Paris in July 1944. Paris is then a hotbed of intrigue, with senior Wehrmacht officers plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Kahlenberge is deeply involved in the plot, while von Seidlitz-Gabler is aware of its existence but is sitting on the fence, awaiting the outcome. Tanz is unaware of the plot and remains totally loyal to the Führer.
On the night of 19 July 1944, Tanz orders his driver, Kurt Hartmann (Tom Courtenay), to procure a prostitute; Tanz butchers her so as to implicate Hartmann, but offers Hartmann the chance to desert, which he accepts. When Grau, who is now a Lieutenant Colonel, learns of the murder, committed in the same manner as the first, he resumes his investigation and concludes that Tanz is the killer. However, his timing is unfortunate, because the very next day, the assassination attempt against Hitler takes place. So when Grau accuses Tanz face to face, the general kills Grau and labels him as one of the plot conspirators to cover his tracks.
Many years after the war, the murder of a prostitute in Hamburg in 1965 draws the attention of Interpol Inspector Morand (Philippe Noiret), who owes a debt of gratitude to Grau for not revealing his connection to the French Resistance during the war. Almost certain there is a connection to Grau's 1942 case, Morand reopens the cold case and the film begins to shift between the Europe of the 1960s and the Europe of the 1940s.
Years later, Morand begins to tie up the loose ends: he finds no criminal activity from Kahlenberge or Seidlitz-Gabler, but learns of one man who knew which man is the real killer. Morand confronts Tanz at a reunion dinner for Tanz's former panzer division. When Morand produces Hartmann as his witness, Tanz goes into a vacant room and shoots himself.

While confronting a mysterious stalker in sunglasses, rock drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) inadvertently stabs the man when the stalker pulls out a knife. A mysterious masked figure shines a spotlight on the incident and snaps several photographs. Roberto reads about the man's death in the newspaper the next day, and receives a letter identifying the man as one Carlo Marosi. During a recording session with his bandmates, Roberto's maid Amelia catches a glimpse of him with the photographs, but does not intervene.
That night, Roberto begins having recurring dreams of being decapitated in a Persian arena. He awakens to find himself being attacked by a masked person, who tells him that he could kill him now, but won't because he "isn't finished with him." The person knocks Roberto out and flees. When Roberto's wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer) returns home, he confesses to her about the accidental stabbing and subsequent harassment, telling her that he can't go to the police.
Roberto goes to see his beatnik artist friend Godfrey (Bud Spencer), who lives at a shack with his con-artist colleague nicknamed the Professor (Oreste Lionello), confiding in them about his problem. Godfrey (known as 'God' for short) suggests having the Professor keep an eye on him. His tormentor has a flashback of being committed to an insane asylum and being tied down to a bed. When the maid Amelia (whom the tormentor evidently knows) attempts to blackmail Roberto's tormentor, the person locks her inside of a city park after hours and kills her with a straight razor.
That evening, Nina picks up her cousin Dalia (Francine Racette) from the train station. She comes to stay with Nina and Roberto, despite Roberto's reluctance. His bandmate Mikro asks why he skipped rehearsal. Nina receives a phone call informing her of Amelia's murder. Roberto has the same nightmare of being decapitated again and awakens to a loud noise. He investigates but only hears his pet cat hissing. The next morning, the couple find a note from the killer, frightening Nina.
Carlo Marosi is revealed to be alive and well, in league with Roberto's tormentor to blackmail him. Carlo, however, wants out, and is killed by the tormentor with razor wire. Meanwhile, the Professor tells Roberto that he saw someone last night in his back garden, holding his cat wrapped in a blanket. The Professor tells Roberto that he may need to seek outside since he is too afraid to continue watching Roberto's house anymore.
Roberto meets with Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an eccentric and flamboyantly gay private investigator. Arrosio admits to never having solved a case, but is optimistic his bad record will be broken. Arrosio asks Roberto questions about his life and about Nina; when they met and how long they were married. Roberto mentions that Nina received a large inheritance. Roberto drops Arrosio off and returns to his house, where Nina is leaving with police officers investigating Amelia's murder. She tells Roberto she is unwilling to remain in the house anymore with someone stalking them. Roberto, however, resolves to stay and invites Dalia over.
That evening, Dalia confesses romantic feelings for Roberto, and the two have sex. Afterwards, Arrosio arrives and gives Roberto some photos of his past and his family as well as Nina's and Dalia's. They find the pet cat's head severed and wrapped in plastic. That night, Roberto has his nightmare again.
Arrosio phones Roberto to say that he’s found a "strange physical resemblance" in one photo, while going through Roberto's old papers, but that it may only be a red herring. Arrosio tells Roberto that he's found the name "Villa Rapidi" and asks if anyone ever mentioned it; Roberto claims ignorance of it. The ‘Villa Rapidi’ turns out to be the name of a psychiatric clinic. Arrosio travels there where he enquires with a doctor about a patient (whose name and gender are not mentioned), who stayed there for three years as a teenager after being deemed a homicidal maniac. Arrioso learns that the patient's father, who had institutionalized the patient, died suddenly of a heart attack. The patient’s mental symptoms then inexplicably disappeared, and the patient was subsequently discharged. The doctor relays his suspicion that the man who committed the teenager was not the patient's real biological father. Arrosio tracks down the killer’s residence in a boarding house, and follows the killer into a metro station only to be killed in a bathroom stall by the killer with a poison-filled syringe.
Learning of Arrosio’s murder, Godfrey insists Roberto leave Rome immediately, but he refuses, determined to find the killer himself. Meanwhile, Dalia notices a strange similarity between a recent photo of Roberto and Nina and some unseen person in another photo. Before she can contact Roberto, the killer breaks in. She hears noises and climbs stairs to an attic, hiding in a wardrobe, but when she emerges, the killer stabs her to death. Roberto returns home to find the body. The police perform an optographical test to see the last thing Dalia saw before she died, but only get a blurry image of four dark smudges against a gray background, an image which the technician refers to as "four flies on gray velvet." They are unsure what this means.
Knowing the killer will likely come for him next, Roberto loads a gun and waits. Dozing off, he has the same recurring nightmare (which now includes the actual decapitation of the victim in the arena). Godfrey rings to ask if he’s okay; then the line goes dead. Just then, Nina arrives home from her long getaway, Roberto almost shooting her as she enters the front door. Roberto tries to make her leave, when Nina's pendant necklace (a fly enclosed in glass) swings, giving the appearance of more than one fly.
Roberto realizes Nina is the killer and tries to fight back. Nina grabs Roberto's gun and shoots him in the shoulder. As he lies wounded on the floor, Nina explains how she was placed in the asylum by her abusive stepfather, who both raised her as a boy, and beat her. His death cured her condition, but when she met Roberto years later, he reminded her of her stepfather. So she married Roberto and planned a murder/blackmail scheme using Roberto as a surrogate for the stepfather, due to his Roberto's striking similarity to the stepfather. Nina repeatedly shoots Roberto, but Godfrey arrives, allowing Roberto to knock the gun from Nina's hands. Nina runs to Roberto's car and speeds away. But in a twist of fate, she rams into the back of a truck. Nina is decapitated by the truck's rear bumper as it smashes through her car windshield. The car then explodes in a mass of flames.

Labbé, a hatter in a French provincial town, leads the life of a respectable citizen but is in fact a serial murderer. The only person to suspect this is his neighbour Kachoudas, an Armenian tailor. After the hatter kills his own wife, he then kills six of her friends to stop them visiting her and prepares to murder a seventh when the intended victim dies naturally. As a substitute, he murders the maid. At the same time, Kachoudas is dying and Labbé confesses his crime to him. Then, after getting drunk he visits his favourite prostitute Berthe and kills her too, being found there in the morning by the police.

The film investigates the life and philosophy of Dante Alighieri through a series of interviews with intellectuals, artists, masons and men of faith who guide the viewer in discovering a little-known side of the man considered the father of the Italian language. This includes analysis of the cardinal points of The Divine Comedy and references to the Western tradition of initiation, secret lodges, membership or not, which accompany the viewer in a different approach to the study of Dante Alighieri. The film's first ten minutes are presented in a found footage format, before seguing into a series of interviews interspersed with occasional animations.

The novel is a psychological thriller about a woman suffering from anterograde amnesia. She wakes up every day with no knowledge of who she is and the novel follows her as she tries to reconstruct her memories from a journal she has been keeping. She learns that she has been seeing a doctor who is helping her to recover her memory, that her name is Christine Lucas, that she is 47 years old and married and has a son. As her journal grows it casts doubts on the truth behind this knowledge as she determines to discover who she really is.
