The story of a ruthless small time crook's rise from lowly barber shop backroom bookie to high stakes international swindler. Max Werner (Stone) goes from the gambling to crooked stocks and bond dealing,getting ever richer. Dodging the law, he flees to England where he follows through with more stock chicanery, setting up phony companies. After a newspaper exposes one of his associates, he double crosses another to take his girlfriend back to America, where a trap awaits him.