Crusade Against Rackets

Mary Lou Smith is abducted as she is walking home, but the resourceful girl jumps from her captors' car and is picked up by three men who live at her mother's boardinghouse. Would-be reporter Phillip Miller writes the story of Mary Lou's kidnapping after she is questioned by the chief of detectives, who determines that her assailants were going to take her to the Berrywood Roadhouse, a notorious brothel. As Phillip takes his story to the editor of the Evening Standard , the police raid the Berrywood. The operators of the club, Jim Murray and Belle Harris, receive warning of the raid, however, and order their henchmen, Nick Costello and Dutch Hendricks, to clear the place out. The police rescue seven of the women Belle and Jim have forced into white slavery, and vow to apprehend the ringleaders, who are still unknown to them. Mary Lou identifies a mug shot of Good Looking Freddie, who was driving the car in which she was abducted, but cannot find a police photo of the man who hit her and forced her into the car. The man is Jim, who, with Belle, uses a barbershop as a front for their evil trade. Belle is the manager of the shop and is in charge of the manicurists, one of whom is Phillip's fiancée, Dona Lee. Jim, who masquerades as a benevolent businessman, pursues Dona, but she brushes aside his romantic attentions. Belle and Jim supply their "clubs" by placing ads in small town newspapers for attractive, young women manicurists who need no experience. Soon the girls are adrift and alone in the big city, and become easy prey for Belle and Jim. The duo maintain a group of nightclubs, where the girls dance and escort visitors to "private dining rooms." Jim is still interested in Dona, and so, to get Phillip out of the way, plants $1,000 in marked money on him. Phillip is arrested and Dona turns to Belle and Jim for help. Jim gets a lawyer for Phillip, who advises him to plead guilty. Although Mary Lou has identified Jim as her abductor after seeing him in the shop, Dona reluctantly agrees to meet him for dinner in order to get more evidence for the editor, in whom she has confided her suspicions that Jim and Belle are white slavers. Meanwhile, Nick and Dutch grow tired of their low wages and decide to take over one of the clubs that night. Dona arrives at the club and meets Jim, who takes her into a soundproof room and attempts to rape her. At the newspaper office, the editor has informed the chief of detectives about Dona's story, and persuades him to take Phillip along as a reporter when the police raid the club. The police arrive as Nick, Dutch and their gang are fighting with the men still loyal to Belle and, while they are stopping the brawl, Phillip finds and rescues Dona. Soon Jim and Belle are behind bars, and when the editor offers Phillip a job, he tells him to wait until tomorrow to marry Dona so that he can work that night.