The Cobra Strikes
Cast & Crew
Charles F. Riesner
Sheila Ryan
Richard Fraser
Leslie Brooks
Herbert Heyes
James Seay
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
As Dr. Damon Cameron leaves his laboratory to unveil his new invention at a state medical banquet, he is gunned down. Dr. Cameron's twin brother Ted, meanwhile, keeps an appointment at the Safari Club with two colleagues from his importing business, Victor Devereaux and Franz Lang. During the meeting, Lang angrily warns Devereaux to stay away from his wife. Later, as Damon is hovering between life and death, police captain Monihan and Sergeant Harris inform Cameron's daughter Dale and Ted that Damon was probably shot because of his invention. A brain surgeon then announces that Damon will survive but will probably be unable to remember anything from his past. With Monihan's permission, newspaper columnist Mike Kent, a former crime reporter who was planning to attend the banquet, searches the laboratory but finds nothing significant. The next day, in the Safari Club's steam room, Mike meets Ted's business partner from India, Hyder Ali, and they become suspects when Devereaux dies mysteriously while concealed by the steam. At Devereaux's funeral, a blonde Russian woman, Olga Kaminoff, shows up professing that Devereaux was everything to her and demanding to view the body. However, when the coffin is opened, it is found to be empty. The body is eventually recovered from a bay and a belated autopsy is performed, revealing that Devereaux was poisoned. Monihan suspects Lang and arrests him. Mike tells Dale that there might be some connection between Devereaux's death and her father's invention, which he speculates might have been used as the murder weapon. Later, Ted calls Dale to invite her to see some movies he shot in India while on a hunting trip with Ali, and she accepts, unaware that Monihan has set it up and invited all of the suspects. As they watch an onscreen battle between a cobra and a mongoose, Dale notices that a valuable ivory elephant has disappeared from the mantelpiece in the room. At the end of the films, Lang is found dead in his chair, poisoned. Later, the coroner determines that the base of the poison which killed Devereaux and Lang is cobra venom. After Ali is found dead with an ivory elephant beside his body, Damon recovers sufficiently to tell Mike that his invention is a hypo-jet that sprays insulin through skin pores. Damon also mentions that his brother was the only other person who knew about it. When Mike deduces that Ted killed his business partners in a dispute over the proceeds from rubies smuggled in the elephants, Ted takes Dale hostage and threatens to administer a lethal dose of the poison to her. Mike and the police outwit him, however, and he is captured. The enigmatic "Russian" lady is revealed to be an American writer of mystery stories. With the murders solved, Mike and Dale realize that they have fallen in love.
Director
Charles F. Riesner
Cast
Sheila Ryan
Richard Fraser
Leslie Brooks
Herbert Heyes
James Seay
Richard Loo
Lyle Latell
Pat Flaherty
Philip Ahn
Fred Nurney
Leslie Denison
George Sorel
Selmer Jackson
Howard Negley
Dean Riesner
Vic Cutler
George Chandler
Milton Parsons
Virginia Farmer
James Logan
Crew
Del Armstrong
Leon S. Becker
Eugene Conrad
Leland Davis
Frank E. Durlauf
France Ehren
Irving Friedman
Jack Herzberg
Gwen Holden
Howard W. Koch
Louis Kusley
Armor Marlowe
Guy Roe
Louis Sackin
Joan St. Oegger
David I. Stephenson
Stewart Stern
Ben Stoloff
George J. Teague
Perc J. Townsend
James T. Vaughn
Ted Weisbarth
Ern Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
