Charles Halton

A gem heist gone wrong leaves a wanted man dead. A female reporter finds his body and, to claim the reward, hides the body in a wax museum. When the body vanishes, the hunt is on. In a cheap hotel room in New York City Jelke shoots gangster Joe Wells, takes a package from his pocket and flees.Wells staggers into an alley. On her way to her apartment above a wax museum, Sue Gallagher, a reporter for the Chronicle, finds Wells' body and hides his corpse among the wax-figures in the museum and calls her paper to send a photographer so she can get a scoop on the killing of Wells, who had a $5,000 reward for his capture, dead or alive. Meanwhile, Henry Miggs, the museum owner find the body and is ready to call the police but his handyman, Clutch Tracy tells him to conceal it and avoid suspicion. From this point on it is a game of where-is-the-body....and the stolen South American diamonds Wells was carrying. —O2D A gangster is shot in his hotel room and manages to make his way to a nearby wax museum, where he dies. A female reporter discovers the body and determines to break the case, but she must maneuver around a rival reporter--who happens to be her boyfriend--who also wants to break the case and the killer himself, who wants to find out where the body is. —frankfob2@yahoo.com

During the California Gold Rush, Boston pharmacist Tom Craig sets up shop in Sacramento where he clashes with local town crook Britt Dawson. Boston pharmacist Tom Craig comes to Sacramento, where he runs afoul of local political boss Britt Dawson, who exacts protection payment from the citizenry. Dawson frames Craig with poisoned medicine, but Craig redeems himself during a Gold Rush epidemic. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

After being dressed down in a court-martial and dishonorably discharged from the United States Army in December 1941 for misappropriation of funds, Lieutenant Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) tries to get into the Canadian Army but is blacklisted. Deciding to take a Japanese boat via the Panama Canal to China, Rick meets lovely Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor), a slightly mysterious woman travelling alone whom he immediately falls for. He also meets the rotund sociologist Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet) whose Japanese connections are far more involved than normal. When on one particular night Rick saves Lorenz from an assassin's bullet, the good doctor begins suggesting that the ex-Army man may have valuable information to sell to the right people for the right price. Leland delivers the goods but is waylaid by Lorenz' henchman, and recovers just in time to get to a mysterious plantation where some harsh anti-American activities against the nation are in motion. Along the way he runs into happy-go-lucky Joe Totsuiko (Victor Sen Yung) who's a little too friendly for the wrong reasons and Rick discovers why Lorenz, Alberta, and a host of Japanese operatives are convening in a desolate location and finds he's in for the fight of his life.