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A newspaper story by Patrick "Packy" Campbell reveals that
10,000 aliens are smuggled monthly across the borders into the United States
and that, afterwards, the smugglers extort the illegals' salaries by
threatening to turn them in.
When Bonnie Brewster, the daughter of the newspaper's
principal advertiser, arrives at the office hoping to become a reporter,
Packy asks her to join him that evening to help get a story. At the
500 Club, during Latin dancer, Carmen Zoro's performance, Packy sends Bonnie
up to Carmen's dressing room to look for Baretto, a gangster. She is
trapped by Baretto, but the police are summoned and the criminal is shot.
To get Carmen's story and to save her from reprisals, Packy hides her in his
apartment with a ladies' editor to keep her company. However, Bonnie,
whom Packy allowed to be arrested, brings District Attorney Joe Carey to
take Carmen and Packy into custody. Now working for a rival newspaper,
Bonnie convinces Carmen to tell her story but, as she is about to tell the
name of the boss of the alien smuggling ring, Carmen is shot by mobster Tony
Sculla.
While Bonnie is upset, Packy telephones the story into their
papers. They both then follow Carmen's lead to the Northern Star
liner in Canada and pretend to be a French couple trying to enter the
United States. They acquire passage and the bridal suite for $450, but
the gang learns their true identity, and they are taken off the ship.
Hauled away in a truck by Sculla, they manage to escape, and Packy takes the
captured Sculla to the newspaper. Packy and his editor, Lionel
"Bulldog" Crocker, scare the gangster by discussing the details of
executions until Sculla names prominent civic leader Gilbert Fender as the
leader of the mob. At the same time, Bonnie seeks Carey at the home of
his friend, Fender. Waiting for Carey, she tells Fender what they have
discovered, and she is tied up.
When Packy, the police and Carey arrive at Fender's, Sculla
recants his story at Carey's urging. However, Packy sees Bonnie's
bracelet, and the gang is rounded up. |
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