Summary
In the gas-lit underbelly of a nameless city that reeks of cigar ash and busted dreams, Lionel Jamieson—part Svengali, part loan-shark—presides over a gilded cesspool of roulette wheels and broken vows. His wife, once a ballroom sylph, now sits transfixed in a silk-upholstered chair, legs as lifeless as the morality her husband pawned years ago. Into this chiaroscuro of vice he drags Betty, his stepdaughter, fresh from the whitewashed hush of a convent, her eyes still flickering with stained-glass innocence; he intends to weaponize that purity, to dangle her like a jeweled lure before salivating high-rollers. Tommy, a stable boy with cheekbones sharp enough to cut moonlight, watches the atrocity unfold while bedding down Thunderclap—a rangy thoroughbred whose heart thrums like war drums. Gunga Din, the stable’s sphinx-eyed poet-mystic, whispers omens through the straw. When a high-stakes whale is skinned for forty grand, the countdown begins: twenty-four ticks of the clock before Lionel’s blood irrigates the baize. Foster, a rival impresario, offers salvation contingent upon equine supremacy—his own stallion must outrun Thunderclap or the debt becomes a death sentence. Lionel, ever the engineer of catastrophes, schemes to vaporize the rickety bridge that carries boy and horse to destiny; dynamite becomes his signature in smoke. Yet Gunga Din, nostrils flaring at sulfur and treachery, reroutes fate. Meanwhile Wah Leong, a silk-suited incubus from the city’s Celestial Quarter, kidnaps Betty, hoping to mint her rarity into ransom. Tommy, galvanized by love and vengeance, vaults into the rescue, fists pistoning like locomotive rods. Horse, boy, and rescued girl converge at the racetrack where dust and destiny swirl. Thunderclap, nostrils wide as cathedral arches, devours the mile; Foster’s contender eats its dust. Lionel, cornered by the conned patron, takes a bullet that ricochets through the grandstand’s roar. The same percussion that ends him jolts his wife from her marble paralysis—leap of flesh, miracle of cinema—she rises, trembling, into a world suddenly lighter one monster.
Synopsis
Gambling-house proprietor Lionel Jamieson, whose brutality has caused his wife's paralysis, removes his stepdaughter Betty from a convent to use her as a lure for customers. Lionel's young employee Tommy is a good friend to Mrs. Jamieson and soon falls in love with Betty. With the assistance of stable hand Gunga Din, Tommy trains his horse, Thunderclap, for a racing event. At the gambling house, a customer is cheated out of $40,000 and threatens to kill Lionel unless he repays the money within 24 hours. Lionel's friend Foster agrees to help, provided that his horse wins against Thunderclap. Upon learning that Tommy will need to cross a bridge while transporting his horse to the racetrack, Lionel plots to blow it up, killing both Thunderclap and his owner. However, Gunga Din suspects foul play and ensures their safe arrival. Tommy then rescues Betty from kidnapper Wah Leong, returns to the track, and rides Thunderclap to victory. Lionel is killed by the man he cheated, and the shock restores Mrs. Jamieson's mobility.
