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.
John Cummings, an unsuccessful London cosmetics salesman, has his unpaid-for car stolen by a hood in the employ of Lionel Meadows, sadistic organiser of a car conversion racket.
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.
Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he kills a man and then flees.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.
