Edmond O'Brien

A millionaire with a mysterious fiancee hires a detective to discover the truth about her past. Sylvia West is a young poetess engaged to Frederic Summers, an eccentric millionaire. Summers, a man who always fears he is being loved for his money, decides to make a small check on his prospective bride. The results of this check completely shock him. Not one fact matches 'his' Sylvia. Intregued and bewildered, Summers hires detective Alan Maklin and has him make a thorough investigation on 'Who Is Sylvia.' —filmfactsman

A true-life drama about Robert Stroud who educated himself in the science of birds while spending 53 years in prison. He became a world authority on birds. Convicted of murder twice, the second time for killing a prison guard, Robert Stroud is sentenced to life in solitary confinement. One day, after curing a sickly sparrow that lands in his cell, Stroud finds new purpose in his lonely life. He begins studying and eventually becomes an expert on birds. Through the strength of his will and the power of his intellect, Stroud is able to create a new life, and a fascinating world, in his tiny prison cell.

The film begins in 1910 when a successful aging U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife of twenty-five years Hallie (Vera Miles) return to the small western town Shinbone, where they met, to attend the funeral of Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) a man known in the town as a good man but undistinguished. When a young local reporter presses Stoddard for an interview about why he has come to the funeral of a nobody like Doniphon, Stoddard begins a story that relates the history of the film in flashback. Stoddard tells us how when he came to the town as young newly-graduated attorney at law he was bullied by a local tough outlaw named Liberty Valence (Lee Marvin), a gunman employed by the local cattle cartel directed to keep the town in line so that the barons could monopolize the local resources to insure their beef industry. He first meets Valance when the stagecoach he is travelling in is ambushed by the outlaw and his companions.Stoddard tries to stop him from robbing a woman but he is knocked out.When Valance discovers he is a law graduate,he whips him several times,before he and his friends wander off into the night.Early the next morning,Doniphon and his friend Pompey (Woody Strode) take the unconscious Stoddard into Shinbone to rest up at Hallie's place where she runs a steakhouse.Bumbling and cowardly marshal,Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) arrives and is horrified to find out that they want him to capture Valance.He tries his best to come up with excuses about how the jurisdiction prevents him from doing anything about it,which is what the residents have come to expect from him. On one boisterous night,newspaper publisher Dutton Peabody leaves his office and runs into Appleyard who is petrified because he knows Valance is in town.Peabody goes to the restaurant for dinner,where Stoddard is helping out in the kitchen as a way of earning his keep.While he's washing the dishes,he's reading up on a law book about the marshal's jurisdiction and how he can get Valance.He finds some useful information and asks Hallie to read the good news,but she feels embarrassed as she can't read.Appleyard sneaks into the kitchen through the back door,nervously trying to keep out of Valance's way.He asks for a steak and sits down with Stoppard who tells him that he has he power to arrest Valance when he sees him,much to his dismay.Hallie asks Stoppard if he would be willing to teach her to read and he's happy to. Doniphon arrives all dressed up, with a cactus rose to see Hallie and isn't too happy to see her getting friendly with Stoddard.Pompy plants the rose for her,while Doniphon goes to sit with Peabody while he waits for his steak order.Valance and his men enter and as soon as Appleyard hears him,he rushes out of the back door.The outlaws remove three men from their table and sit down for dinner.Stoddard comes out from the kitchen with Doniphon's meal and sees them.Valance laughs at him.As Stoddard tries to ignore him and walk passed him,Valance trips him up.Doniphon tells Valance to pick his steak up.To avoid a showdown,Stoddard angrily picks it up and Valance and his men leave.Stoddard realises that Doniphon was right.A gun is the only way to deal with people like Valance.But he's disgusted that Doniphon was going to kill him over a steak and hates the idea that he fought his fight for him.Doniphon tells him Valance will be back for him at some point.He either better get a gun or get out of town.Stoddard says he's staying and he's not going to get a gun.Doniphon tells Hallie he's leaving town for a while to do some horse trading. Stoddard teaches the people in the town how to read,and about history.He explains to them about the upcoming election and how important it is.Doniphon arrives with news about Valance.He's been recruiting gunmen for the big ranchers and has killed some people.They tried to bushwhack Doniphon but he killed one of them and got away.Doniphon reckons they'll arrive in town by the day of the election.He tells Hallie to go home and be safe but she tells him that he doesn't own her.He leaves and Stoddard tells her that Doniphon is only trying to protect her.He goes off on a wagon and Peabody tells her that Stoddard has a gun that he's given him and he's been practicing with it to try and prepare for a showdown with Valance.Hallie tells Doniphon about this and he goes after him.After catching up with him,he takes him to his ranch and tells him that Hallie's his girl,and shows him the extension that he is having done on his home ready to settle down with her.Stoddard says there's nothing going on between them but Doniphon can tell she's starting to develop feelings for him.He also reckons Stoddard's bluffing about going up against Valance but Stoddard's adamant that he fully intends to.However he proves that despite practicing,he still cannot use a gun at all.Doniphon tries to teach him.He tells him to put some paint cans up on a fence and shoots them,the final one covering Stoddard in paint.Stoddard is angry at him humiliating him as Doniphon laughs.But he explains that's the kind of behaviour to expect from Valance.Stoddard punches him in the jaw and goes off. On the day of the elections,Stoddard nominates Doniphon for the first delegate but he refuses.He already has his future planned with Hallie.Doniphon nominates Stoddard.Valance arrives and threatens the townsfolk to nominate him.If they don't,he'll get hold of them when they're alone.But they still refuse to vote for him.The only people that nominate him are his two sidekicks.Stoddard gets a lot of votes but Peabody gets the most.Valance confronts Stoddard.Doniphon tries to intervene but Valance tells him he's been hiding behind his gun long enough.He orders Stoddard to either get out of town or face him in the street.If he stays and hides,he'll go and get him.As he leaves,Doniphon tells Stoddard it would be best to leave. Later that night,Peabody gets drunk in his office whilst writing the newspaper headlines.He goes off to the saloon to get some more alchohol.When he returns to his office and lights up the room,he finds Valance and his men waiting for him.They wreck his office and beat him to near death.As they go off to the saloon after firing gunshots in the street,Stoddard goes over to see Peabody.He tells Appleyard to go and tell Valance he'll be waiting for him in the street,while he goes off to get his gun from Hallie's. He fires and Valance dies. A wounded Stoddard returns to Hallie who confides that she did not want him to leave. Doniphon comes in and sees Hallie and Stoddard together and apologizes to Hallie that he did not arrive in time to help. Doniphon returns drunken to his place where he torches it and would be content to die if Pompy did not rescue him from the burning house. When Stoddard is unanimously elected to a political career so he may clear the land of other outlaws, he defers, but then Doniphon comes forth to tell him that on that fateful night Valence fell due to a shot Doniphon fired from him across the street. When Stoddards ethical issues rise and he moves to tell the world the truth, Doniphon convinces him to keep the truth a secret and take a leading role to change the ways of the old West. Doniphon tells Stoddard that Hallie is Stoddard's girl now and since he taught her how to read and write, he needs to give her something to read and write about. Stoddard goes on to a stellar career making sweeping changes in the way the land is governed and Doniphon fades away. As Stoddard finishes his story, the reporter destroys his notes and insists that the myth of the West is more important to sustain than the sterilized truth, although the truth has freed the demons Stoddard and Hallie have carried with them since their time with Doniphon. Stoddard returns to Doniphon's casket to leave with Hallie and notices a cactus rose on top of the casket. On the train ride back to the east, Stoddard asks Hallie if she would mind returning back to Shinbone to settle down and retire. Hallie says she would love to as her heart has always been there. Stoddard asks Hallie who placed the cactus rose on Doniphon's casket. Hallie says she did.

Two Korean War veterans re-unite to pull off a heist at a San Francisco airport but find themselves running for their lives. During the Korean War, Matt saves the life of his buddy, Vince, who promises that someday he'll repay Matt by cutting him in on a million dollars. Eight years later Matt is in the midst of a rapidly disintegrating marriage to Nina, a man-hungry alcoholic. Vince suddenly reappears for a reunion with Matt, telling him that enemies of a Central American dictator have hijacked $3.5 million, and that he knows how he can get hold of the money and collect a large reward he'll share with Matt if he will help recover the money. Matt is skeptical, but after a particularly violent quarrel in which he leaves his wife, he agrees to go along with Vince, provided there is no gunplay. —Anonymous

This is the life of a Hollywood movie star named Maria, as told by writer/director Harry Dawes, from being discovered in Madrid, Spain, until her funeral in Italy. At Maria Vargas' funeral, several people recall who she was and the impact she had on them. Harry Dawes was a not very successful writer/director when he and movie producer Kirk Edwards scouted her at a shabby nightclub where she worked as a flamenco dancer. He convinces her to take a chance on acting and her first film is a huge hit. PR man Oscar Muldoon remembers when Maria was in court supporting her father who was accused of murdering her mother. It was Maria's testimony that got him off and she was a bigger star than ever. Alberto Bravano, one of the richest men in South America, sets his sights on Maria and she goes off with him - as much to make Edwards angry as anything - but he treats her badly. When she meets Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini they fall deeply in love. They are married but theirs is not to be a happy life. —garykmcd Has-been director Harry Dawes gets a new lease on his career when independently wealthy Kirk Edwards hires him to write and direct a film. They go to Madrid to find Maria Vargas, a dancer who will star in the film. Millionaire Alberto Bravano takes Maria from Kirk. Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini takes Maria from Alberto. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> While in the burial of Countess Torlato-Favrini, her friend Harry Dawes and the Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini recall parts of her past. When the wealthy Kirk Edwards hires director and screenplay writer Harry Dawes, they travel to Spain with the public relations Oscar Muldoon to see the dancer of a nightclub Maria Vargas and invite her for an audition, since they need a new face for their next movie. Maria, a naive woman with simple origins, is convinced by Harry to go to Hollywood and becomes a famous star and a close friend of Harry and his girlfriend Jerry. Along her successful career, Maria lives personal dramas including lack of adaptation for her new lifestyle, is unable to love and is disputed by the powerful millionaires Kirk Edwards and Alberto Bravano. When she meets the noble and handsome Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini in the French Riviera, she believes that she found her prince charming and her life becomes a fairy tale. But after the wedding, she sees that her Cinderella's castle of dreams has become a pumpkin. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony. Brutus, Cassius, and other high-ranking Romans murder Caesar, because they believe his ambition will lead to tyranny. The people of Rome are on their side until Antony, Caesar's right-hand man, makes a moving speech. The conspirators are driven from Rome, and two armies are formed: one side following the conspirators; the other, Antony. Antony has the superior force, and surrounds Brutus and Cassius, but they kill themselves to avoid capture. —John Oswalt <jao@jao.com> Brutus is convinced by a scheming band of Roman senators, led by Caius Cassius, that his dear friend Julius Caesar intends to dissolve the republic and install himself as monarch, and he joins a conspiracy to assassinate him. Brutus stirringly defends his actions, but when Mark Antony responds with a speech that plays upon the crowd's love for their fallen leader, a battle between the two factions is assured. —Jwelch5742

John Vickers joins Custer's cavalry regiment seeking private revenge. John Vickers finally tracks down one of the three men who killed his true love. Before he dies, the miscreant admits that his accomplices joined the cavalry. Vickers, a former officer himself, does likewise, after saving pretty Molly Quade from rowdy Sergeant O'Hara, who sets out to harass the new recruit. After incidents during a battle with the Sioux, Vickers is pretty sure O'Hara is one of his men. But can he reconcile his desire for vengeance with loyalty to the Army? —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

After a desperate plot to rob his company office, a mining engineer leaves town humiliated. He takes up work elsewhere, agreeing to help a threatened father and his daughter extract silver ore from their mine before the lease expires. The office of mining engineers and partners Larkin Moffatt and Charlie Storrs is robbed. Storrs accuses Moffatt of complicity with the robbers and fires him. He also asks all major mining companies in the region to avoid hiring Moffatt. Unemployable, Moffatt opens his own small independent assay office in Silver City. His first client, Candace Surrency, leases a mine from the greedy R. R. Jarboe, owner of several mines. Candace Surrency and her father have invested all their funds in the mine lease which is due to expire in 12 days, reverting the mining rights back to its owner, R. R. Jarboe. So far the mine has been dry but the Surrencys have hired Moffatt to do another assay on the latest batch of ore. Moffatt finds silver in large amounts in the test batch, making the Surrencys rich. News of their silver strike spreads fast. Mine owner R. R. Jarboe refuses to extend the mine lease to the Surrencys who won't have enough time to extract and process the silver ore during the remainder of the lease. R. R. Jarboe is sure to benefit from the silver strike once the mine reverts to him. Desperate, the Surrencys ask Moffatt to become the mine's foreman and use his expertise to extract and process the silver ore within the remaining 12 days of lease rights. Aware of R. R. Jarboe's power Moffatt refuses to get involved but changes his mind when noticing Jarboe's ruthless sabotage tactics against the Surrencys. Moffatt and Candace Surrency fall in-love. Unfortunately, Moffatt's old boss and former partner Charlie Storrs shows up in town to buy this particular mine from owner R. R. Jarboe. —nufs68

Framed for murder during the Civil War, Gil Kyle's only alibi is Confederate agent Candace Bronson who he must track down in dangerous territory filled with foes. Gil Kyle finds himself caught up in the politics and unrest of the American Civil War and soon gets himself framed for a murder. His only alibi is Candace Bronson, who is aiding the Confederate cause and has left the territory to deliver a vital message about a Yankee gold shipment. So he sets off in pursuit, running into desperados, government agents, and guerrilla fighters, who are more interested in profit than ideals. —Alfred Jingle

While recuperating from wartime back injuries at a hospital, veteran Bob Corey is visited on Christmas Eve by a beautiful stranger with an even stranger message. Bob Corey, recovering from a series of operations in a veterans' hospital, learns that his friend, Steve Connelly, with whom he intended to buy a ranch, has disappeared under circumstance that indicate he may have been involved in a murder. Accompanied by his nurse, Julie Benson, with whom he has fallen in love, Bob follows a series of clues and incidents, including three more murders, that leads to a gambler, masquerading as an undertaker to avoid taxes on his illegal income, and has a whole lot to do with his friend's predicament. —Anonymous

Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is the ruthless, deranged leader of a criminal gang. Although married to Verna (Virginia Mayo), Jarrett is overly attached to his equally crooked and determined mother, 'Ma' Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), who is his only real confidant. When he has one of his splitting headaches she consoles him, sits him on her lap and gives him a drink with the toast "Top of the world". Jarrett's father died in an institution. He himself is described as someone who when "he was a kid, he used to fake headaches to get his mother's attention away from the rest of the family. It worked. As he grew up, the fancied headaches became real, until now they tear him to pieces." Jarrett and his gang carry out a major robbery involving the hijacking of a train and the deaths of several people, including four members of the train crew and one of his own accomplices, Zuckie (Ford Rainey). With the help of informants, the police soon close in and Jarrett shoots and injures US Treasury investigator Philip Evans (John Archer). He escapes to Illinois and confesses to a lesser crime which was committed by an associate. It was done at a time to coincide with the train robbery and thus provides Jarrett with a perfect alibi. He is sentenced to one to three years of jail time. Evans is not fooled. He allows Jarrett's conviction to go through but then sends his best undercover agent into the penitentiary in order to get information from Jarrett as part of a sting operation. The agent is Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien), who goes by the name "Vic Pardo." His main task is to find the "Trader", a fence who launders stolen US Dollars on the European black market on Jarrett's behalf. 'Big Ed' Somers (Steve Cochran), Jarrett's ambitious right-hand man, has designs on both Jarrett's gang and his treacherous wife Verna. He orders another convict, Roy Parker (Paul Guilfoyle), to kill him. In the prison workplace, Parker arranges to drop a heavy piece of machinery on Jarrett, but Fallon pushes him out of the way and saves his life. When Ma visits, she insists she'll take care of Big Ed herself, despite Jarrett's attempts to dissuade her. He begins to worry and decides to break out. When he returns to the metal working shop after Ma's visit, he is overcome with another severe headache. Fallon covers for him and massages Cody's neck, helping him relive the pain. Cody is humbled and takes Fallon into his confidence. Fallon suggests a means to escape that will entail a minimum of risk (he'll have the help of his colleagues on the outside who will then follow them). However, during dinner on the day of the escape, Jarrett learns from the prison grapevine that Ma now is dead and goes berserk in the mess hall, hitting several guards before they overpower him and drag him away screaming. Held in the infirmary in a straight-jacket, Jarrett persuades another convict, Tommy Ryley (Robert Osterloh), to give him a gun which Ryley has managed to stash away. Holding various officials hostage, Jarrett escapes along with Fallon, their cellmates and Parker, who is locked in the trunk of the car they use to drive out. Evans and his men were due to follow Jarrett and Fallon, but, on learning of Jarrett being held in the infirmary, called the whole thing off. When the convicts do escape they react too slowly to intercept them. Cody's gang escapes to the mountains of California where they murder a family and steal their car. As they leave the house Parker, still in the trunk of the car used to escape the prison, complains "It's stuffy, I need some air" Jarrett replies "Oh, stuffy, huh? I'll give ya a little air" and "creates" some air holes by emptying his gun into the trunk. Ma was shot in the back by Verna when she faced Big Ed. Verna wants to get away, but Big Ed is resolved to confront Jarrett and end it all. When Verna tries to slip away discreetly she is seized by her husband and is quick to convince him that Ma was murdered by Big Ed. Jarrett stalks Big Ed through the house and shoots him in the back. The gang is now double in size with the other escapees, including Fallon for whom Jarrett appears to have a genuine liking for. He even appears to look on him as a kind of substitute for Ma, insisting that they will share the proceeds from their robberies: "I split even with Ma, didn't I?". "I'll practice up on my lullabies," mutters Fallon, but not in Jarrett's presence. While the gang prepares its next heist, a fisherman arrives at the country hideout asking to use the phone. The gang expects him to be murdered and Fallon follows him and Jarrett into the house in order to prevent any killing. In conversation, Fallon exposes the fisherman as a phony. He is in fact Jarrett's fence the Trader (Fred Clark), the man Fallon is really after. Jarrett, who never trusted any of his other accomplices with the Trader's identity, with the possible exception of Ma, makes the introductions as if Fallon is a trustworthy as she was. Jarrett intends to rob the payroll at a chemical plant in Long Beach, California. The gang has a huge gas truck (that they bought instead of stealing, however Jarrett sees an opportunity to use it) and an accomplice who works for the plant named Bo Creel (Ian MacDonald), a convict whom Fallon had sent to prison. The plan is to use the gas truck as a Trojan Horse in order to get into the plant discreetly and steal the money. Verna's radio has broken down and Fallon offers to fix it. In fact he converts it into sending a signal which his law-enforcement colleagues will be able to pick up and thus track him down. He places the radio under the truck before the gang sets off. While on their way to the plant they stop at a gas station in order to have the engine checked. Fallon goes into the washroom and uses the soap to write a message on the mirror for Evans. The gas station attendant alerts Evans, the T-Men track the signal given off by the hidden radio and triangulate it to the target, the chemical plant. The gang gets into the plant hidden in the gas truck. Guided by the ex-con driver they get to the office where the payroll is hidden in the safe. Creel who suddenly recognizes Pardo as Fallon. Jarrett is incensed that the man he trusted is an undercover cop. Fallon briefly holds everyone hostage until one of Jarrett's men sneaks up behind him and hits him and disarms him. The police surround the building and Evans calls on Jarrett to surrender. Jarrett goes completely round-the-bend and resolves to fight it out. When the police fire tear gas into the building, Fallon manages to escape the gang. Verna arrives in a getaway car outside the plant. When she offers to help them capture Jarrett alive, Evans doesn't buy it and orders her arrested. Fallon also gives the Trader's present location. Jarrett is pursued to the top of a gigantic gas storage tank. His accomplices are shot by the police, or by Jarrett himself when they try to give themselves up. Fallon is given a high-powered rifle and hits Jarrett with several shots, remarking at how Cody remains on his feet while severely wounded. Jarrett, knowing he's doomed, starts firing holes into the tank and goes up in what for him is a blaze of glory, screaming "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" Fallon remarks that Cody made it to the top of the world "and it blew up, right in his face."

Two hit men, Al (Charles McGraw) and Max (William Conrad), drive into Brentwood, New Jersey, in search of Pete "Swede" Lund (Burt Lancaster), and stake out a diner he frequents, questioning, among others, customer Nick Adams about Swede's whereabouts. After the men leave, Nick races to Swede's boardinghouse room to warn him and is stunned when Swede seems resigned to his fate. Shortly after Nick's departure, Al and Max find Swede waiting in his room and shoot him to death. When it is discovered Swede had a small life insurance policy with Atlantic Casualty, insurance investigator James Riordan (Edmond O'Brien) begins investigating his murder. Jim first questions Nick, who worked with Swede at a filling station, and Nick recalls that Swede stopped coming to work the week before his murder after waiting on a wealthy, middle-aged stranger at the station. Jim then calls on Swede's beneficiary, Mary Ellen "Queenie" Doherty, a cleaning woman at an Atlantic City hotel. Queenie recalls Swede staying at the hotel some six years earlier, when she stopped him from throwing himself out of the window. Upon returning to his office, Jim learns that Swede was a former boxer, whose real name was Ole Anderson, and that after his fight career ended, he served three years in prison for robbery. Jim visits Swede's arresting officer, police lieutenant Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levine), who tells him that he and Swede had grown up together in Philadelphia and that his wife Lilly dated Swede before her marriage. In another narrated flashback, Lilly then recalls her final date with Swede at a party given by Jake "the Rake" in a lavish apartment owned by "Big Jim" Colfax (Albert Dekker), where they met Blinky Franklin and singer Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner), to whom Swede is immediately attracted. Then Sam adds that some time later, while working on a jewelry heist, a tip led him to Jake and Kitty, whom he suspected of wearing a piece of the stolen jewelry. When Sam tried to arrest her, Swede intervened and claimed responsibility for stealing the jewelry, which landed him in prison. Sam asks Jim if he can help with the investigation and later that afternoon, at Swede's burial service, Sam points out Charleston (Vince Barnette), a small-time hood and acquaintance of Swede's, to Jim, who later questions him. Charleston reveals that he and Swede shared a prison cell together and that Swede referred to Kitty as "his girl," and asked Charleston to visit her upon his release: After Swede is released, Charleston is sent by Colfax to summon him to a meeting with Blinky, another thug, Dum Dum, and a mysterious woman. Colfax has planned a payroll heist at a hat company which promises a $250,000 payoff, but the older Charleston finds the risk too great and withdraws, and never sees Swede again. After leaving Charleston, Jim digs up information that Atlantic Casualty insured the hat company and discovers details of the heist. Sam then contacts Jim to inform him that Blinky has been discovered shot and near death. Both men hurry to the hospital, where Blinky, semi-conscious, rambles about the robbery: After the heist, the group was forced to change their meeting place as the scheduled halfway house had burned down unexpectedly. Swede arrives last and after accusing Colfax of trying to cheat him, takes all the money and flees. Back at the hospital after Blinky dies, Jim feels sure the robbery is connected to Swede's murder and stakes out his old room at the boardinghouse. Soon after, Dum Dum Clark (Jack Lambert) rents Swede's old room and begins an elaborate search. Jim breaks in on him and demands to know more details of the robbery, specifically why the meeting place was changed. Dum Dum admits Kitty was the woman involved and that just after midnight the night before the robbery she had told each of them separately about the change, which Swede later claimed he was not told. Jim tells Dum Dum that Swede had run off with Kitty and that later in Atlantic City, Kitty had disappeared with the money. Dum Dum escapes from Jim and despite a police cordon, gets away. Later when Jim receives notification that the halfway house burned down after 2:00 a.m., not midnight, he is certain Colfax and Kitty are behind Swede's murder, but Sam insists Colfax has gone straight. Jim goes to the factory Colfax is now managing, but Colfax claims no knowledge of the robbery or Kitty's whereabouts. Later, however, Jim receives a telephone call from Kitty, suggesting they meet. Driving away from their agreed-upon rendezvous spot, Kitty and Jim are unknowingly trailed by Al and Max to a night club. There, Kitty tells Jim that the night before the robbery, she convinced Swede that the others were double-crossing him, so he would agree to take her away from Colfax. She insists that she left Swede in Atlantic City with the money and pleads with Jim not to involve her further as she is now married and has a good home. Jim demands that she give him proof of Colfax's participation and she agrees, but as they prepare to leave the club, she disappears into the ladies room. Meanwhile at the bar, Al and Max begin to move in on Jim, but are cut off and shot by Sam who is also at the bar. Jim realizes Kitty has escaped and, with Sam and a police backup, heads to Colfax's house. They arrive to a series of gunshots and find Dum Dum dead at the bottom of the stairs and Colfax fatally wounded on the landing with Kitty hovering over him. Jim tells Colfax he had discovered Kitty was his wife and could not testify against him. Colfax admits to having Swede killed, in fear that the other gang members would find him and realize that Colfax and Kitty had double-crossed them and kept all the money. Colfax dies as Kitty pleads for him to declare her innocent.

Pre-Pearl Harbor propaganda film about young Americans, from various social backgrounds, who undergo parachute training at Fort Benning prior to becoming paratroopers. In this pre-Pearl Harbor recruiting poster, colonel's estranged son Bill Burke, football hero Donald Morse, and hillbilly Jeff Hollis enlist in the paratroopers. Their training at Fort Benning, Georgia is followed in semi-documentary style, with time out for personal dramas and the romantic rivalry of Bill and Don over the sergeant's daughter. —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>