Murder at Dawn 1932
Mad scientist works on a death ray in his mountain hideaway.
Mad scientist works on a death ray in his mountain hideaway.
Jeremy Wales, a crook who stays on the safe side of the law but bends it whenever possible,has tricked short-sighted John 'Dad" Saunders to sign a note for ten thousand dollars instead of the one thousand that Saunders borrowed to work his "Rose o' My Heart" mine. Saunders tells his problem to Phil Lee, a prosperous young rancher, whose method of settling problems has gained him the nickname of "Quick Trigger."
A young ranch foreman, Bud Drake aka The Kid, is wrongfully arrested for the theft of six-thousand dollars from ranch-owner "Hardshell" Beckett. He escapes and with the aid of Beckett's adopted daughter, Alice, sets out to clear his name.
Aaron Abrams' daughter Rachel died broken-hearted after her marriage was cruelly annulled by her father-in-law Roger Mortimer, and so years later, his oath of revenge remembered, Abrams has plans to destroy Mortimer's son Russel, unaware and uncaring how the happiness of the people he loves most has became intertwined with the Mortimer family.
The Dale's need money for their sick mother and Bart Travis, having found gold, says he will provide it. Duke Remsden learns of the strike and waylays Buzz Dale as he tries to record Bart's deed. Then dressed as Bart, Duke kills and robs a man. With the Sheriff after Bart, Buzz escapes capture, finds the clothes worn to impersonate Bart, and heads for the Sheriff.
Badger, a clerk at a Wall Street brokerage, discovers that his boss Gideon Bloodgood has swindled an investor, Fairweather, out of his money. Fairweather dies of a heart attack after an argument with Bloodgood, and Badger uses this knowledge to blackmail him. By a strange coincidence, Bloodgood's daughter Lucy runs over Fairweather's son, Paul, and cripples him.
A gang of crooks kills a gold miner while trying to find out the location of the mine. They then terrorize the miner's son to get him to reveal the mine's location.
Small-town girl Mary Barry wins a beauty contest and goes to New York to meet D. V. Cortelyou, the magazine's publisher. Greatly taken by young girl, Cortelyou arranges for her to live with Dolly Griffith, a woman of questionable reputation who often aids him in his wicked schemes of blackmail and seduction. During a party seemingly in Mary's honor, Cortelyou obtains some apparently compromising evidence with which to blackmail Mrs. Young, the wife of a wealthy broker; Cortelyou then makes rough advances toward Mary, and one of his assistants, Jack McGuire, gives him a good beating.
Wall Street financier Frederick Searles goes bankrupt, prompting his mercenary wife to marry their eldest daughter Needa to the wealthy, disreputable John Davis Warren, despite Needa's love for Hugh Stanton.
Esther Wells is dumped by her husband, Martin, just as she's boarding a train. She gets off at the next stop, wanders into a cabin owned by Samuel Radburn, who happens to have been swindled out of a mine by Martin.
In The Scarlet Brand, a young cowpoke tricked into rustling cattle and hell-bent on getting revenge against the poacher who set him up.
The story of Ethel Armstrong and her father Henry looking forward to her marriage to the ambitious attorney Bruce Steele. Bruce is elected district attorney and goes after a group of food profiteers. Ethel breaks the engagement when her father falls under suspicion as one of the food hoarders.