Intrigue

George Raft is about to be thrown out of his hotel room when he steals a shipment from Shanghai black market boss June Havoc and spreads some good Scotch around. He also blackmails Miss Havoc into a partnership. His attention to business is distracted when old buddy Tom Tully shows up and begins to write stories on the Black Market and to clear Raft of the offenses he and others were court-martialed for, as well as Helena Carter for a rescue agency to succor the orphans starving because of the black market, and to find out the truth about her brother, who was also found guilty in the same trial that broke Raft.

Raft is, we are led to believe, innocent of the underlying charges, although he must now, given the structure of this Bogart-like tale of redemption break away from the dark forces that now surround him. Fortunately, he's good with his fists, and the Chinese orphans have no trouble recognizing him as a good guy, so we should too.

Raft certainly dived deeper into the bad-guy millieu than Bogart did during the star phase of his career, but Raft always had the reputation of being hooked into the wise guys. The story isn't as polished, and Raft can't show the inner struggle as well as Bogey. Still, it's a decent example of the sort of noir-influenced story-telling which was so popular at the moment, that it would soon become a drug on the market..... if not quite yet. With Phillip Ahn, Marvin Miller, Jay C. Flippen, Charles Lane, and Michael Ansara.