Plot
A murderous gang of counterfeiters has kidnapped John Severn (played by Ray Parsons), the U.S. government's best engraver. He is forced to engrave a set of counterfeit plates, to print phony money that is virtually undetectable from genuine currency. The United States Secret Service sends its toughest agent, Jack Holt (played by himself), and his female partner, Kay Drew (Evelyn Brent), after the gang. Holt poses as escaped tough guy, Nick Farrel. Masquerading as the bickering, tough-talking Mr. and Mrs. Farrel, Holt and Drew manage to infiltrate the ruthless gang of thugs. Holt locates Severn and instructs him to keep working but as slowly as possible, to give Holt time to find the head of the crime ring. Holt takes the set of counterfeit plates in hand, and much of the action has Holt keeping the plates away from the crooks. The scenes shift from the gang's hideout in a lost canyon to a gambling ship on the high seas, to a small island country where the gang hopes to escape U.S. extradition.
The head of the ring is gambler Lucky Arnold (John Ward), but he hides behind the facade of one of his loyal henchmen, Quist (Ted Adams), to shield himself from the Secret Service, and lets another one of his men, Ed Valden (Tristram Coffin), do most of his dirty work. The island nation has its own self-appointed dictator (Stanley Blystone), who is also trying to rub out our hero. During the 15 episodes, Holt endures numerous brushes with death, emerging from all of them virtually unscathed. Holt is so tough that, when he faces a firing squad and is asked if he wants a blindfold, he murmurs, "Forget it. This is the only thing in life I haven't seen!"
Charles John "Jack" Holt, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was prominent in both silent and sound movies, particularly Westerns.
Harry Cohn was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Evelyn Brent was an American film and stage actress.
Robert Allen, was an American actor in both feature films and B-movie westerns between 1935 and 1944.
James Wesley Horne was an early American actor, screenwriter and film director. He began his career as an actor under director Sidney Olcott at Kalem Studios in 1913 and directed his first film for the company two years later.
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Law of the Badlands is a 1951 American western film starring Tim Holt. Although the cheapest Holt vehicle since the war years, it still recorded a loss of $20,000.
A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.
