The picture, directed by Delmer Daves and produced by Clarence Brown, was from a screenplay by George Froeschel and Ronald Millar, based on the 1949 novel Came the Dawn by Roger Bax.

Moscow based newspaper reporter Philip Sutherland (Clark Gable) is in love with Marya (Gene Tierney), a ballerina.

He and radio broadcaster Steve Quillan (Kenneth More) go to see her perform Swan Lake with the Bolshoi Ballet, and a pleased Philip learns that Marya wishes to marry him and accompany him home to San Francisco.

On their honeymoon, they meet Christopher Denny (Richard Haydn), an Englishman married to Marya's good friend Svetlana (Anna Valentina), who is pregnant.

He travels to London, where he and Joe Brooks (Bernard Miles), an experienced boatman, hatch a scheme to sail to Tallinn where the Bolshoi is scheduled to perform, in order to clandestinely leave with Marya.

Before sailing off, Christopher shows up at the dock ready to join the journey, explaining that his son died after becoming ill with a fever just a few weeks prior.