Frank Ross, James Cagney, a crusading newspaperman, is on the trail of a crooked district attorney when he is framed for manslaughter and sentenced to a maximum of twenty years in prison. There, he meets the notorious 'Hood' Stacey, George Raft, a lifer falsely accused of fatally stabbing a stool pigeon. Although Ross senses Stacey’s innocence is being used against him, he stays quiet, and Stacey, grateful for any help, agrees to aid Ross in proving the frame.
In a daring gambit, they orchestrate a courtroom moment where Ross publicly names Stacey as the killer of the stool pigeon’s death, just before Stacey makes a dramatic escape from the courthouse. The plan hinges on a shared grievance against a system they both believe has wronged them, but it also sows tension and mistrust from the very start. Ross vows to keep the ruse secret, yet his decision to tip off his old newspaper enrages Stacey, who finds the courtroom crowded with reporters and eyes on their every move. The stakes rise as the truth inches toward exposure, even as the two men realize their fragile alliance could derail at any moment.
Stacey escapes by leaping from a window, leaving behind a trail of questions but no real culprits. Ross, meanwhile, is drawn deeper into the fallout of the ruse and winds up spending five months in solitary confinement, handcuffed to the bars in the dark and fed bread and water once a day. He refuses to name Stacey, clinging to a stubborn belief in his own integrity and the possibility of exoneration, even as the odds stack against him and the system seems determined to keep him silenced.
As the pages of the case turn, Ross encounters another layer of corruption closer to home: the warden offers a chance at parole if he reforms, yet the district attorney—now a governor—has appointed a crony to head the parole board. The bid for release is rejected, forcing Ross to endure another five-year wait before he can re-file, a harsh reminder that justice in this world is tied to power as much as to truth. In this bleak landscape, Ross learns the nickname of the man who framed him: "Polecat." Alan Baxter plays Polecat Carlisle, a widely disliked jailhouse informant who somehow remains a dark magnet at the center of a corrupt system.
Back behind bars, Stacey, moved by Ross’s stubborn sense of fairness, decides to go back to prison and push Polecat to confess. He even engineers a breakout that turns the warden’s office into a hostage scene, drawing in the National Guard as the escape threatens to erupt into something far larger than a simple frame-up. The moment comes when Polecat’s confession surfaces, and the truth about the framing unfurls in the open. Ross is finally vindicated, and the price is paid in blood: Stacey and Polecat are killed by Guard soldiers, while the governor and the head of the parole board are indicted for murder, a reckoning that arrives only after a long, painful march toward clarity and accountability.
Throughout, the film threads a tense meditation on power, loyalty, and the cost of staying true to one’s principles in a world where justice can hinge on who holds the keys to the system. The narrative builds a quiet momentum from a single, devastating lie to a broader exposure of corruption, showing how a reporter’s relentless pursuit of the truth, paired with a streetwise ally, can tilt an entire order back toward legitimacy. In the end, the resilience of the human spirit is spotlighted: a man who refuses to betray a friend, even when the system insists on sacrificing him, arrives at a hard-won, if imperfect, justice.
