Originally, reporter David Chase (Edmund Lowe) just went to the docks
to research a human interest story about an eccentric old warehouse owner
(Kathryn Card), but when taking a tour through her warehouse he is shot at
and injured by smuggler Dutch Schmidt (Otto Reichow), who has just come to
the USA from Singpore as a stowaway. When later Schmidt is reported to
have tried to break into the vessel he has travelled in as a stowaway,
that raises Chase's interest, and he soon finds a stach of diamonds
Schmidt has apparently left behind on the ship. Schmidt's employer
Grandell (Lewis L.Russell) though thinks Schmidt was trying to pull a fast
one on him and thus takes him captive - and Chase too, whom he finds
snooping around. But when Grandell wants the two of them shot, his
right-hand man turns out to be an undercover policeman, who sees to it
that all the baddies are arrested and Chase gets his exclusive story. One
of the worse episodes of Front Page Detective, as the plot somehow
doesn't open itself to the audience - somehow credulity is strained when a
professional smuggler forgets a stash of diamonds, isn't it? Even the
usual charming yet ironic performance of Edmund Lowe can't really iron
over the plot's shortcomings.
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