To save her husband’s career, Ellen, the American wife of a prominent Parisian politician, asks her brother, sculptor Paul Dover, to retrieve a packet of her love letters from the blackmailing criminal Marlow. With his neighbor Marcel, a professional safecracker, Paul breaks into Marlow’s office and steals the letters, which Ellen had written to Marlow as a naive university student, from a safe. As Marcel is escaping from the office, however, he is shot by one of Marlow’s men and dumps the letters in an alleyway. Although Marlow, who has forced a confession out of Marcel, is arrested, Paul decides to track down the letters, which have ended up in a shipment bound for a museum in Los Angeles. Once in Los Angeles, Paul assumes the disguise of a blind man, buying Ace, a Seeing Eye dog, and ingratiating himself with Julia Fraser, the assistant curator of the museum, who, out of compassion, grants him permission to study all of the exhibits. At the same time, Mitch, a Los Angeles cohort of Marlow, murders a museum janitor and plants one of his men, Taggart, in the vacated position. When Taggart is unable to infiltrate the collection, he suggests to Mitch that they hire Paul, who agrees to do the job. After convincing the police of his blindness, Paul learns that the letters have been moved to Julia’s desk. With Ace at his side, Paul, who has confessed his impersonation to Julia, breaks into the museum and burns the letters before Mitch and his gang arrive. As Paul leaves the museum, however, he is caught by Mitch, and during the ensuing struggle, Ace suffers a sight-threatening gunshot wound. Although Mitch is captured by the police, Paul is arrested for stealing the letters after he delivers Ace to a veterinarian. Paul serves his year-long prison sentence and is released to the loving, faithful arms of Julia and a recuperated Ace. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch Blind Alibi (1938)
