Ex-bootlegger Frankie Madison is
released from prison after fourteen years and is met in New York
City by Dave, a member of his old gang. Frankie soon learns
that Noll "Dink" Turner, who ran the bootlegging racket with Frankie
but never visited him in jail, now runs the respectable and upscale
Regent nightclub.
Hoping to manipulate Frankie into
believing that they are still best friends, Noll asks his girl
friend, nightclub singer Kay Lawrence, to entertain Frankie for
dinner, while Noll has a rendezvous in his office with wealthy
society woman Mrs. Alexis Richardson. During dinner,
Frankie and Kay begin to fall in love, and he tells her about
himself.
In 1933, while running a truckload of
rye whiskey over the Canadian border, Frankie and Noll split up to
escape the police, and Noll promises Frankie fifty percent of all
their earnings if he is caught. Noll then escapes on foot
while Frankie, who is driving the truck, is arrested. After
dinner, Frankie overhears Noll thanking Kay for getting information
out of Frankie, and he angrily confronts Noll, demanding his share
of the nightclub. Dave shows Frankie a dissolution of
partnership paper that Frankie naïvely signed while in jail, and
tells him that he is only owed $2,912. Frankie slugs Noll in
the mouth and leaves to recruit men to fight him.
Later, Noll tells Kay that he is going
to marry Alexis, but loves Kay and wants their relationship to go
unchanged. She quits and goes to apologize to Frankie, who is
visited by an old gang member named Nick Palestro, who now runs a
used car business. Accompanied by three henchmen, they arrive
at the Regent to demand Frankie's half ownership. Dave and
Noll explain that it is owned by several corporations and that it
would be impossible to give him a share without approval of the
board of directors.
Frankie blames Dave and threatens to
kill him, then orders the henchmen to help him take over the club by
force, but they refuse. Noll then has his bouncer, Dan, who
also used to know Frankie, drag him into the alley in a choke-hold
and beat him up. Dave later goes to the alley to tend to
Frankie and apologize, promising to meet him afterward to discuss
bringing down Noll. Kay takes Frankie to her apartment to
nurse his wounds, while Dave tells Noll that he is going to ruin him
by exposing his embezzlement of the nightclub's profits.
On Noll's orders, Dave is gunned down in
the street by a henchman named Skinner and Frankie is wanted for the
murder. He and Kay escape in a taxi provided by Nick to Noll's
New Jersey home, where he is waiting for them with a gun.
Frankie easily outwits Noll, gets the gun, and takes him at gunpoint
to the Regent, where he demands his $2,912 and a written confession.
After the police arrive, Frankie reveals only a fountain pen in his
pocket, and Noll is arrested. On his way out of the bar, Noll
disarms his two police escorts and takes aim at Frankie, but is shot
dead by the police.
After being cleared at the police
station, Frankie and Kay walk out into the New York night to begin
their future together.
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