Curley Smith, a lieutenant of the Texas Rangers, gets chased by a band of smugglers after getting caught spying on them and becomes injured. Anita, the daughter of the chief smuggler tends to him and the two of them fall in love. Dean, a member of the renegade, becomes jealous of their romance, and will do whatever he can to get rid of Curley - fair or foul.
Around the film hang fascinating questions about border politics, which I’ll touch on in an introduction before the screening. One of Eugene Buck’s motivations for making the film may have been his rough cross-examination during his kidnappers’ first trials, in October 1913, when defense attorneys cast him as a confused and unreliable witness against idealistic freedom fighters. On film he could reproduce the pursuit, the shootouts, his kidnapping, and his friend’s murder just as he had testified. Reenacting the crime on film may have been the best revenge—and a way to honor the sacrifice of Deputy Ortiz, a twenty-year police veteran and, for the era, a rare Mexican American lawman.
The tragic story of Don Jose, a Spanish cavalryman, who falls under the spell of a gypsy girl, Carmen, who treats him with both love and contempt and leads him into temptation and thus damnation.
A government agent investigates a ring that is smuggling Chinese aliens across the border from Mexico. His investigation takes him to the Grand Canyon. He finds a dazed girl wandering around who has become separated from her companions and is lost. He and the girl are soon found by her companions - the smuggling ring!
Several prohibition agents display cans and bottles of seized liquor for the camera. They are then shown dumping the goods at a junk yard.
When Hamburg ship's mate Klaus Brandt catches a thief one night at the port, his downfall is pre-ordained. For the thief turns out to be a young, attractive woman and the otherwise upright sailor allows her to slip away. Jenny is the star of a local dive bar, with a side-line in smuggling.
A blackmailer falls in love with his female victim.
It's Prohibition, and the boys wind up behind bars after Stan sells some of their home-brew beer to a policeman.
An Air Force washout and his buddy room with a pretty young lady. Desperate for jobs during the Depression, they finally land employment with the mob.
An Englishman sought for murder, tries to escape fate to South Seas island.
A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the crook's operation and bring in his gang--including the man who saved his life.
Dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Marines after starting a barroom brawl that gets his leatherneck buddy "Tubby" Waters killed, hothead "Woody" Davis infiltrates a gang of Shanghai gunrunners to bring the culprit to justice.
Frances Farmer's second film is a typical B-programmer from the Paramount lot of 1936--up and coming stars (John Howard, Robert Cummings, Grant Withers, Farmer) in a concerning the Coast Guard and smugglers. The chief points of interest are the truly exceptional aerial sequences and Farmer's early performance.
A California Highway Patrolman gets involved with a smuggling ring.
An investigator looks into the activities of a movie producer he believes is involved in smuggling Asians into the U.S.
At the request of the Mexican government, a federal agent and a lady reporter team up to catch a gang that has been smuggling gold from Mexico to the U.S. and then selling it to the U.S. government.
Cattlemen's Protective Association agent Tom Wade and his partner Happy are assigned to look into the disappearance of rancher John Carroll, who has been abducted by Carson, who wants to use his out-of-the-way ranch as a base for his smuggling operations. Complications arise as Carrol's daughter, Rita, looking for him, has an unfriendly run-in with Wade, then later is herself kidnapped by Carson.
A classic "B" featurette about "smugglin' in Chinamen for $300 a load"
A Chinese-American woman tries to expose an illegal alien smuggling ring.