Prison Shadows

After "Rough House" Sweeney dies in the ring while fighting Gene Harris, Gene is given a prison sentence of five years. Gene's trainer, Dave Moran, is not convinced that Gene's punches killed Sweeney and is suspicious of Gene's manager and promoter, George Miller. Miller's girl friend, Claire Thomas, has tricked Gene into believing she loves him. When he is paroled after three years, Gene is met by Mary Grant, who works in Miller's office and really loves Gene, and his dog, "Babe." Gene is still infatuated with Claire, however, and is unaware that she is part of a gambling ring and is plotting with one of her lovers, Bert McNamee, to involve Gene in another ring fatality with fighter Dynamite Murphy. During the fight, Bert acts as Murphy's second and saturates a towel with a poison that kills when it penetrates the spine. After Bert rubs down Murphy in between rounds, he collapses and is pronounced dead, even though Gene purposefully gave Murphy light punches. Gene is arrested, but convinces the police captain that Murphy's bruises were not enough to kill him, and the captain lets Gene go. While Gene accompanies Claire home, Mary and Dave retrieve Babe from Murphy's dressing room, where he has been playing with the poisoned towel. They find him writhing in pain and take him to a veterinarian's office. After Gene sees Babe die, he goes back to the dressing room and gets the towel. Gene confers with the captain and the coroner, but is told that no poison was found in Murphy's body during the autopsy; however, the coroner is familiar with a Chinese herb that kills a man when applied externally and leaves no trace of poison in the stomach. The captain and the coroner agree to help Gene find the killer. Claire, meanwhile, arranges with Bert to act as second in Gene's match with Kayo Reilly. Mary overhears Claire's plan and informs Dave, who advises Gene to play dead in order to catch the killers. During the fight, Gene tires quickly, then falls in the third round and is counted out. After being carried into his dressing room, Gene is declared dead by the coroner. Claire and Bert enter and discuss the incident over Gene's "corpse," thereby incriminating themselves. Gene "revives" and reveals that Dave switched the towels, causing Bert to inadvertently give him a harmless alcohol rub. The police arrest Bert and Claire for murder, and the newspapers announce that, following the exposure of a betting ring, the Harris-Reilly fight was declared a "no contest." Later, at Babe's grave, Dave tells Gene and Mary that they might never have been united if it had not been for Babe.