While a ship's captain is being slowly poisoned, a gang of thugs try to take over the ship.

Captain Carroll needs to hire, the the worst way, a first-mate for his three-masted cargo ship, the "Marigold," sailing to Manila and Singapore, and does so by hiring Woolf Barstow, whose track record includes the loss of three ships. Barstow brings along his equally-unsavory confederate, "Scar" Murray, as the boatswain. Bartsow intends to take over the ship, and also has his lustful eye on the captain's daughter, Mary. He poisons the captain, drowns the second-mate, Miller, and has a fake cargo arranged by Wong, a Chinese merchant who operates a waterfront dive where Barstow's true-blue sweetheart, Concha Renaldo, dances. As a replacement for the 2nd-mate, he hires a derelict who is handy with his fists, Steve Trent, and Trent brings along his drunken-sot friend, Bloater, as the ship's cook. Concha, spurned by Barstow, is a stowaway on the ship. The pot is boiling. Anchor's aweigh.—Les Adams <[email protected]>

One must consider that 'Talkie' movies of the early 1930s were new to the American people and very few were able to see/hear them. This particular movie was somewhat surprising when it began taking on a classical sense of love, betrayal, greed, and lust. It's as if they were following a Shakespearean style of delivery rather than a simple Hollywood "B" movie. From the records, I have to lay the blame for a superb story to the screenwriter, Jack Natteford, for his ability to blend classical writing and the new era of Hollywood's devotion to talking moving pictures. The ending, I must say, is pure Shakespeare.—Ric Lewis