The Hitch-Hiker

Rodeo rider Hurricane Smith is wrongly convicted of murder and robbery, but escapes and creates a new and happy life for himself. But one of the real criminals shows up to claim the loot which he believes Smith has.

Ernie Reardon, the superintendent, and Bill O'Hara, the foreman, of a construction company crew working on a bridge to a remote valley, are constantly quarreling over small and minor matter, especially when it comes to Peg Mallory, whom both men are romancing and Peg enjoys the attention. Thed work is suspended when a worker is killed, but a flood is approaching and the valley citizens are in dire straits unless the bridge is completed - in a hurry.

Roger Andrews, an assistant district attorney, is the accidental hero of a police capture that results in his appointment by crooked civic leaders as a special prosecutor assigned to smash a crime ring. The crooked politicians, in an effort to cover their own tracks, work to turn public sympathy against him but, aided by newspaper-reporter Ann Thompson and informant Carol Turner, he adopts gangland's own methods in getting a confession for the ring's hired killer.

Bill Foster, a suspended auto racer, attempts to get even with Jerry Neeley, the woman who owns a bus line, by going to work for the rival company. But Bill soon learns about his new boss' shady practices and begins to fall for Jerry.

Dr. Lawrence Baxter, working with the Bureau of Pure Foods and Drugs, uses radio broadcasts to expose a number of fraudulent patient medicines, with his bitterest attacks being aimed at Kennedy Radium Products the manufacturer of a tonic called 'Radium Rejuvenating Tablets," which Baxter claims is a slow cause of death. This leads the manufacturer to try every means to defeat and discredit the young doctor.

Following a news report that a fabulous jewel collection, called "Unclaimed Cargo", will be on display at the Waldorf Jewelry Company, a city alderman and secret underworld gang leader, Nick Petzik (Peter Brocco), plans a gigantic jewel robbery. Petzik intends to sell the jewels back to the insurance company; and to force the insurance company to play ball with him, Petzik enlists the aid of Gino Morello ('Richard Benedict'), a young and reckless Italian boy, whose brother Phil (Rick Vallin') is the lawyer for the insurance company. Petzik is sure that once Phil learns that his brother is one of the thieves, he will do business with the gang without asking any questions. But...Anna Reichardt (Penny Edwards (I)'), an Austrian girl, who runs a pastry shop on the ground floor of the Morello apartment building...is a witness to the robbery and spots Gino as one of the robbers. Complications arise.