Band leader Frank Martin is convicted and sentenced to death for murdering the owner of a club in which he had performed. Frank's innocent of the crime, and singer Ruth Chapman can provide him with an alibi. But Ruth is missing, and records show she died years before. As Frank awaits execution, he enlists the help of his heiress girlfriend and his lawyer to clear his name.
Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.
Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacqueline Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from art student into one of love trysts.
Young forester Sixt is wounded one night. Smuggling in the mountains is the reason. By day, the brothers Benno and Simon Schaidler are respectable citizens - by night, they are smugglers and poachers.
