At sea, a freighter, traveling from the Far East to Los Angeles, picks up the sole survivor of the sinking of a small fishing boat. As the ship nears the California coast, a health officer boards for a quarantine inspection. The official is diabetic, takes ill, and is invited to rest on board until the ship docks.
The rescued "fisherman" locates a package of war surplus narcotics. The health officer deliberately injects himself with an overdose of insulin, rendering himself unconscious, prompting the captain to send a message to have an ambulance meet the ship when it docks. The fisherman, actually an accomplice of the health officer, places the package in the health officer's jacket. When the ship docks, another accomplice, a Nurse (Marge Evans) working for the ambulance service, takes possession of the package, and passes it on to Jordan (John Russell) who sends it to a drug dealer.
Jordan, who has made a film enactment of this proposed robbery, screens it for gangster Harry Quantro (Frank Fenton) and his associates in order to secure financial backing for the actual heist. Quantro agrees to provide funding, but insists his girl friend Paula (June Blair) pose as the nurse, a role intended for Jordan's girl friend, Jan (Margo Woode), in order to protect Quantro's investment. The ambulance driver, Eddie Mason (Stuart Whitman), is not in on the scheme, so Paula must be careful when she takes her place.
A seaman delivers a map of the ship's hold along with a key to the narcotics storage compartment, Jordan runs him over with his car, killing him. Jordan hires port health officer, Herbert Fay, Jr. (Stanley Adams), an overweight diabetic eager to retire and travel, to participate in the robbery. Jordan blackmails Stanley Thomas (George E. Mather), a recovering drug addict and former medical student who caused a girl's death during an illegal operation, to pose as the fisherman.
Paula falls in love with Eddie. Jordan informs Paula of the ship's docking date and gives Thomas the key to the area containing the drugs. Jordan finds out about Paula's relationship with Eddie, stabs her and leaves her for dead. Jan agrees to resume her original role and replace Paula.
On the morning of the robbery, Eddie is worried about Paula and tries to reach her. Thomas is desperately in need of a fix. Fay feigns a dizzy spell, and the captain invites him to stay on board and arranges for an ambulance to meet the boat. The scheme unravels disastrously, however, when Thomas goes berserk and Fay dies after injecting the insulin. Eddie and Jan arrive in the ambulance at dockside, find Fay's dead body being carried down the gangplank, and Thomas in custody. A police officer hands Eddie a phone number to call and he connects with a hospitalized Paula who has informed the police about the robbery. The police arrest Jan who then points to Jordan as he lurks nearby. The police chase Jordan, and he is killed.
A 1957 American Black & White crime film directed by William J. Hole Jr., produced by Howard W. Koch, screenplay by Richard H. Landau, story by Landau and Arthur E. Orloff, cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie, starring John Russell, June Blair, Stuart Whitman, Margo Woode, George E. Mather, Stanley Adams, Frank Fenton, and Dehl Berti. Released by United Artists.
Feature film directorial debut of actor William J. Hole Jr..
The versatile character actor Stanley Adams was just a decade away from his best remembered role as the likable but crafty Cyrano Jones in "Star Trek" (1966)'s "The Trouble with Tribbles" (1967). His character was a bit of a smuggler, too, though he likened it to being a traveling purveyor of unusual items. The small recorder Jordan plays is a Protona Minifon P-55 made in West Germany starting in 1955. It recorded on a small reel-to-reel wire system. It was used by many intelligence services around the world, including the CIA.
When the ambulance is rushing to pick up the injured boy, it goes past the Hi Ho Motel. The motel was located on Ventura Boulevard in an area that was mostly commercial and a bit rundown. In the early 1980s, the city used its "red light abatement" law to close down the motel, and it was demolished by its owner in 1985 to make way for a shopping center.
Jordan's car is a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere four-door sedan.
The final scenes were filmed at the Red Car trolley graveyard, on Terminal Island, near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Hundreds of obsolete "Red Car" inter-urban electric trolleys were stacked, in the process awaiting being recycled by National Metal and Steel. The company also scrapped many decommissioned U.S. Navy ships there after WWII, and steam locomotives being replaced by diesel-electric ones. The scrapyard closed at the end of 1985.
This razor-edged, taut, tight little heist B-Movie with film-noir Influences is lurid, smashing, and violent. A hidden-gem featuring desperate characters, a violent plot, and an ending that is visually and viscerally stunning.