| Director | Richard Brooks |
|---|
Taking advantage of West German bank privacy laws, several criminals use safe deposit boxes in a Hamburg bank to store large amounts of illicit cash. These include Las Vegas mobster and attorney Mr. North, a ruthless drug smuggler known as the Candy Man, and a crooked overbearing U.S. Army officer, the Sarge and his meek-mannered partner the Major, who conspire on a big heroin and LSD smuggling score. Joe Collins, an American bank security consultant, has been spying on them and makes mysterious and elaborate preparations to steal their money (totaling more than $1.5 million) with the help of Dawn Divine, a hooker with a heart of gold, since Mr. North and the Sarge are her clients.
The Candy Man discovers Helga, a stripper that Collins employed to follow and spy on him and strangles her in a strip club. Granich, the club owner, is the boss of a drug smuggling mob who asks the Candy Man to deliver two bottles of a concentrated solution of LSD to Copenhagen. When the Candy Man asks about his fees, Granich gives him a third bottle as his share. Collins sends Divine to accompany the Candy Man in his trip as replacement to Helga. The Candy Man empty the two bottles into two champagne bottles as a disguise to smuggle the drug through customs. The Sarge makes a deal with the Candy Man --- Sarge would pay him next day $40,000 in exchange for hollow baseballs filled with heroin. At the airport, the Candy Man buys two real champagne bottles and replaces them with the identical-looking LSD bottles in the restroom and gives them to Divine. When Collins reads about Helga's death in the papers, he tries to warn Divine but he can't reach her, so he tips off the customs of Copenhagen Airport about her. They take her to a room to search her, while the Candy Man uses their distraction by Divine to leave with the drug-filled bottles.
Collins has Divine phone in a bomb threat to the bank president, Mr. Kessel, to create a diversion. Collins then locks himself inside the bank vault with a gold bar normally displayed in the lobby to supposedly save it. The bank is closed and evacuated while Collins uses duplicate keys (it is implied that Collins had obtained the necessary bank information and secretly copied the criminals' keys while they were engaged in sexual trysts with Divine) to empty the criminals' three safe deposit boxes into Dawn's large-size deposit box, using a special stopwatch he ordered to exactly avoid the rapidly-panning CCTV cameras that he supervised their installation before. Despite the fact that Kessel insists on burning through the wall to rescue Joe instead of waiting for the time lock to open, Joe succeeds in the heist and is hailed as a hero for "preventing" the robbery of the gold bar.
The next day, the three criminals, one by one, discover that their boxes are empty, and thus they cannot complete their illegal schemes, nor do they dare to go to the police to report the thefts, since they would then risk revealing their own dishonest pasts. Mr. North flees the country. The mob doesn't believe the Candy Man that their money ($140,000, the price for the two LSD bottles) was stolen and torture him, but he manages to escape, only to find his lodgings in flames, presumably torched by the vengeful mobsters, as well. He goes to the Sarge to find him also attacking the Major since he thinks that he took the deposit box contents (money) for himself. The Candy Man sees the photo of Divine with the Sarge and deduces the plan of Collins and Divine. The three men join forces and search Divine's apartment, as she was their common link, and find clues that connect her to Collins and Mr. North thus confirming the Candy Man's theory. Collins and Divine divide the heist money in two suitcases. Later, Divine, eager to drink, puts a Champagne bottle that she found in the Candy Man's deposit box in Collins' suitcase with wads of newspaper. The Sarge calls Kessel to get Collins' home address, but Collins is quickly tipped off by Kessel and he hurriedly sends Divine to the train station with a suitcase packed with her take — $765,000 — promising to meet her later someplace out of the country.
A long chase begins as Divine gives the Major the slip at the train station while the Candy Man and the Sarge chase Collins across a rail yard and through the Elbe Tunnel. Collins escapes on a car carrier truck, lugging his suitcase, but the Candy Man and the Sarge follow and catch up in the morning at a frozen lake in the countryside, where the Candy Man crashes his car through the ice and drowns.
Collins escapes again by hopping a train, but during the night the Sarge catches up to him, only to find that Collins' suitcase contains nothing but the bottle of champagne and the wads of newspaper. They conclude that Divine double-crossed Collins by repacking the suitcases (and thus taking all the money for herself) while he was getting the car, and the Sarge proposes a plan to Collins that they go after Divine together and split the money. However, upon swallowing a mouthful of the "champagne", the Sarge instantly goes into violent convulsions and falls down dead. It is obvious that the Candy Man had filled this bottle too with his share of the solution as he did with the two bottles that he delivered to Copenhagen. It's clear from Collins' reaction that he had no idea of the bottle's contents, and was just about to imbibe himself. Joe elects to place his glass of “champagne” down and departs the train.
Divine is staying at the Hotel del Coronado, joyfully driving a gleaming new yellow Corvette, and cuddling in bed with an unseen someone. The other suitcase is sitting near the bed, and Collins' bomber jacket hangs on the coat rack.