While working for
Sight magazine, journalist Katie Connors goes to San Marcos, a remote Mexican fishing village. She seeks novelist and adventurer Mike Latimer, who has abandoned writing "at the peak of his fame" and dropped from sight. He is in the village, indulging in drinking, fishing, hunting, and flying his
aircraft. Katie contrives to meet Latimer, who is smitten. Over the next days, Katie starts falling in love with him but conceals the reason she is there. After Latimer explains that his wife was the
muse behind his literary success, and that he quit writing because she left him to be with his best friend, Katie decides to return to New York City. Latimer offers to fly her to
Mexico City and asks Katie to write down her address to keep in touch. During the flight, the
magnetized notebook in Katie's purse affects the aircraft's
magnetic compass, and they find themselves lost over jungle. The aircraft runs out of fuel and Latimer crash-lands in a clearing. Knocked unconscious, he wakes up to find himself in a bed in the main house of a
hacienda. Katie introduces him to their rescuers, the Englishman Browne and the Dutch
archaeologist Dr. Van Anders, who live on the estate with Jan, another European. When asked about a rifle bullet that Latimer carries, he says that it is a souvenir and
good luck charm from the
D-Day invasion, a time when his courage failed him. Browne, a big game hunter, claims that he has no contact with the outside world. He keeps savage dogs to prowl the estate and control the local populace. When Latimer goes to examine the condition of his aircraft, it has disappeared. Later, a newscast on the radio announcing their disappearance reveals Katie's identity and original purpose. Katie tries to persuade an offended Latimer that she no longer intends to write the story but he rebuffs her. That night, Latimer finds a storeroom containing military gear with
Nazi markings, items from his missing aircraft supposedly stolen by the local natives, and hunting rifles. The dogs' barking awakens Browne and Van Anders. Latimer overhears them talking in German and tells Katie what he found. He says that they need to work together to escape. They discover that Browne has been concealing from them his own "flyable"
aircraft. Latimer eventually recognizes Browne's voice; the latter turns out to be an infamous
turncoat who during the war
broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin to Britain after having married a German woman. Browne admits the truth and adds that his wife was Van Anders' sister, killed in a British air raid. Van Anders is Colonel Von Andre, a German
war criminal who massacred an entire village and intends to kill Latimer and Katie. The two try to steal the aircraft, but when Jan shoots at them, they flee into the jungle. Browne, leading Van Anders, Jan and the dogs, follows their trail, failing to catch them the first day when
wild pigs attack the dogs. The next day, Latimer rigs a crude
booby trap that kills Jan. With Katie nearing exhaustion, Latimer doubles back, and when Browne and Van Anders find Jan's dead body, they realize that the aircraft has been left unguarded. Stopping for the night, Latimer finds that she wrote down the office address of
Sight magazine as her own, proving that she had been truthful about her feelings. They reach the hacienda before their pursuers and barricade themselves in the chapel. Van Anders pretends to negotiate with Latimer and shoots through the door. Latimer ridicules him, and when Van Anders goes to bring workers to break down the door, he is forced to lock up the dogs to get their cooperation. Browne fears the Nazi, and offers to shoot Van Anders if Latimer flies him to South America. Latimer refuses and uses the bullet hole in the door as a makeshift
gun barrel, striking the
primer with a
chisel and fatally shooting Browne. Latimer and Katie take off in Browne's aircraft, killing Van Anders with the propeller when he tries to block their path. They manage to escape safely. ==Cast==