Shot in black-and-white and set in San Francisco's so-called Barbary Coast during the California Gold Rush, the film combines elements of the Western genre with those of crime, melodrama and adventure.

It features a wide range of actors, from hero Joel McCrea to villain Edward G. Robinson, and stars Miriam Hopkins in the leading role as Mary 'Swan' Rutledge.

On a foggy night in 1850, Mary Rutledge and retired Colonel Marcus Aurelius Cobb arrive in San Francisco Bay aboard the clipper ship Flying Cloud.

The men at the wharf reluctantly inform her that her fiancé is dead, murdered most likely by Louis Chamalis, the powerful owner of the Bella Donna.

Colonel Cobb purchases a printing press, with the intention of starting a respectable newspaper for the people of San Francisco.

When Chamalis finds out, he threatens to destroy Cobb's printing press and burn down the building, but is halted by Swan.

When it begins to rain heavily, she seeks refuge in a seemingly abandoned cabin, where she meets poet and gold miner Jim Carmichael.

Devastated by Cobb's death, Mary acknowledges her love for Carmichael, and works the roulette table so that he wins back the gold he lost.

[2] When the first draft of the script was submitted to Joseph Breen, he commented to Samuel Goldwyn that "The whole flavor of the story is one of sordidness, and low-tone morality.

[2] Breen commented to Will Hays that it was now a love story "between a fine, clean girl" and a sentimental young man and that there was "no sex, no unpleasant details of prostitution" and contains "full, and completely compensating, value [...] the finest and most intelligent picture I have seen in many months".

[2] Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene declared the film a triumphant success, describing it as "melodrama of the neatest, most expert kind, well directed, well acted and well written".

Despite the film's use of what Greene regarded as a conventional plot, he lauded the "fresh and interesting" use of flawed characters to "make something real out of the hocus-pocus".