An aging gangster, Big Mac M'Gann, enlists a bold plan for a heist at a fashionable resort town, Tropico Springs, with Roy Earle, Humphrey Bogart at the helm. Roy, a convicted bank robber whose release was secured by Big Mac’s bribery of a governor, travels cross‑country to meet the three men who will help pull off the job: Louis Mendoza, a hotel clerk, Cornel Wilde; Red Hattery, a tough presence, Arthur Kennedy; and Babe Kozak, a loyal if reckless accomplice, Alan Curtis. Babe has brought along his girlfriend, Marie Garson, a dance hall performer from Los Angeles, Ida Lupino. The group’s uneasy balance is tested when Roy’s earlier prejudices clash with the glamorous setup of their target, forcing hard choices about who deserves a place in the plan and who might jeopardize everything.
At a rugged logging camp in the mountains, a wary handyman, Pard, befriends Roy and helps seal a new sense of companionship in a man who has learned to trust almost no one. Roy’s interactions off‑the‑grid grow more complicated as Marie, Ida Lupino, develops feelings for him, even as he resists her affections. The dynamic tightens when Tropico Springs introduces Velma, played by Joan Leslie, a young woman with a clubfoot who catches Roy’s eye. Velma is the granddaughter of Ma and Pa Goodhue, portrayed by Elisabeth Risdon and Henry Travers. Despite the townspeople’s cautions and Velma’s own sense of loyalty to an beaus back East, Roy’s decision to try to win her heart hints at a softer, more fatal resolve.
The heist unfolds with tense precision but is derailed when a security guard interrupts. Roy escapes with Marie and a stash of jewels, yet disaster follows: Mendoza, Red, and Babe are swept into a deadly car crash, leaving Mendoza to face the police alone as Red and Babe perish. Roy and Marie press on to Los Angeles, where they discover that Big Mac has died of a heart attack and that Jake Kranmer, a former policeman, has taken charge of the operation, threatening to squeeze Roy for the jewels. In a decisive clash, Roy shoots Kranmer dead when pressed for payment, severing any possibility of a clean exit and sealing his fate to a life on the run.
Back in the city, Roy keeps a fragile appointment with Art, a fence who promises to pay but cannot settle the debt immediately. As Roy grapples with the value of the stolen jewels, he gives Marie an engagement ring and the couple retreat to a hotel, hoping to ride out the storm. But newspapers begin naming Roy, Marie, and even Pard, stoking a national manhunt that seems to close in from every direction. Realizing prying eyes and police chatter threaten their safety, Roy resolves to slip away from the city with Marie by separating their fates.
Panic sets in as Roy heads into the hills to retrieve his payoff, while Marie and Pard are sent toward Las Vegas to keep a low profile. A final, dangerous choice awaits Roy on a desolate stretch of road: he is recognized during a routine stop, and a tense pursuit across the mountains ends when he is cornered and shot at dawn. A sharpshooter’s bullet finds him on a rocky ledge, and Roy falls, his body tumbling down the mountainside. Pard rushes to his side, while Marie, shaken and distraught, hurries to join the others in a painful, quiet vigil.
In the aftermath, Marie is escorted away with Pard, carrying the heavy knowledge that Roy would never surrender to prison again. As the sun rises over the tortured landscape, a quiet sense of mercy lingers—Roy’s fate is sealed, but the human cost of his longing for freedom and gift for sheltering the vulnerable remains, heavy and heartbreaking, in the memory of those who survived his stormy arc.
