Description
Dubbed “The Oriental Hitler”, Baron Giichi Tanaka has formulated a sinister plan for world conquest which will eventually lead to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. American newspaperman Nick Condon (James Cagney) has been brought in to run the Tokyo Chronicle which, unbeknownst to Condon, is under the yoke of the Japanese militarists. When Condon not only runs a front page article revealing the existence of the Tanaka Plan, but tells the owner he authored it, he is hounded by the Japanese Secret Police. After his trusted employee, Ollie Miller, mysteriously comes into loads of money, and he and his wife are suddenly killed before leaving Tokyo, Condon knows trouble is brewing. Even more troubling is the explosive document Ollie gives Condon before dying, an original copy of the Tanaka Plan. Condon’s apartment is raided by the police, but Condon hides the envelope containing the plan behind a portrait of the Emperor, which the police don’t dare violate. When Condon goes back to retrieve it, it is gone and later turns up in the possession of the beautiful Iris Hilliard (Sylvia Sidney). Condon is distrustful of her but has fallen in love. When she turns over the document, Condon convinces her to get the document into the right h ands to warn the free world.