At the Tangier airport, all manner of shifty characters await the arrival of a mysterious plane flying in from behind the Iron Curtain. Those awaiting the plane include Gil Walker (Jack Palance), a sometime dabbler in black-market operations and an unjustified winner of a Congressional Medal of Honor; Susan (Joan Fontaine), an Americal girl engaged to the pilot of the mysterious plane; and Nicole (Corinne Calvet), a French girl whose affections seem to be evenly divided between Walker and various other Tangier underworld characters. Wild events are set in motion when the plane crashes and no bodies are found, and it is revealed that the lone passenger was carrying 3 million dollars to fund Communist black market arms purchases! Now the race is on to locate the missing loot as Palance, Fontaine and Calvet are pursued by black-market racketeers who, in turn, are trailed by the police!

Due to the similar themes (a bunch of money going missing and leading to a trainwreck of events), The Cohen Brothers chose to show this as the movie Carla Jean was watching in " No Country For Old Men" when Lewellyn returned with the drug money. Jack Palance and Joan Fontaine bring a whole lot of gravitas to the picture. There is an odd competition between the Euro and the American ladies, and Fontaine is made to outclass her even though Calvet is a young, voluptuous type. A real highlight is, oddly, Technicolor. I think these might be the most beautifully lit sets I have ever seen and Technicolor makes each shot seem like a work of art - this film has a very distinctive look that you really can't get with the ultra-realistic HD movies of today, and it's a joy to look at. All in all an entertaining film, and I'm sure anyone familiar with Cold War era entertainment will realize the type of film that it is going into it.