- An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi.
- Wilson of the War Crimes Commission is seeking Franz Kindler, mastermind of the Holocaust, who has effectively erased his identity. Wilson releases Kindler's former comrade Meinike and follows him to Harper, Connecticut, where he is killed before he can identify Kindler. Now Wilson's only clue is Kindler's fascination with antique clocks; but, though Kindler seems secure in his new identity, he feels his past closing in.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
- Charles Rankin is a professor in a respectable Connecticut town about to marry the daughter of a U.S. Supreme Court justice. But his name is fake and his past is filthy. An earnest convert to Christianity, who once ran a Nazi concentration camp, is capable of exposing him. So "Rankin" kills this little old man and buries his body in the forest. But he isn't safe because an investigator from the War Crimes Commission is on his tail. Rankin will need his own wife to help him elude capture. But his fascination with the local clock tower may prove his undoing.—J. Spurlin
- Franz Kindler is one of the most notorious of the Nazis who has escaped capture following the war. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Kindler liked to remain anonymous in carrying out his heinous war crimes, and as such only those closest to him knows what he looks like. Mr. Wilson of the war crimes commission is able to convince his colleagues to release one of Kindler's closest imprisoned associates, Konrad Meinike, who Wilson expects will lead them to Kindler. Wilson is able to follow Meinike to small town Harper, Connecticut. Shortly after his arrival in town, Wilson, with only circumstantial evidence, believes that Kindler is Charles Rankin, a professor at the local boys college. Wilson is correct, Kindler who plans to marry Mary Longstreet, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Adam Longstreet, to add more respectability to his cover, and who does plan for a Nazi uprising when the time is right. Wilson ends up playing a game of cat and mouse, first with Meinike, then with Rankin, both of the Nazis who know that Wilson is after them. Especially between Wilson and Rankin, the game turns to one of taunts in plain sight, Rankin who believes one of his saving graces being Mary, who probably would not believe him of any such wrongdoing in her love for him. If Mary does get close to discovering the truth, her life and that of those closest to her may be in danger.—Huggo
- War crimes commissioner Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) has a mission to track down the errant Nazi war criminals and bring them to justice. One way is to use Konrad Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) as bait by freeing him and following him to his contacts. Meinike, driven by guilt over his actions during the war has become a Christian. Once free he immediately goes to a small Connecticut town and makes contact with his former Nazi associate Franz Kindler (Orson Welles) who is posing as Professor Charles Rankin. Kindler is hiding out as a teacher with a lovely new wife Mary (Loretta Young). When Meineke arrives in town to appeal to Kindler to give himself up, the professor responds by strangling his old associate and hiding the body in the nearby woods. Kindler believes himself safe because no one has an idea of his former identity. Wilson arrives in town following Meinike, posing as an antiques dealer, and starts sniffing out the dangerous Kindler and a confrontation of wills and cunning ensue.
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