THE STORY
When the kidnapping of the scion of a wealthy retailer ignites a firestorm of suspicion and rage in idyllic, Depression-era San Jose, California, a principled young reporter takes on the powers-that-be to prevent the lynching of two men he believes are innocent. Story inspired by the only eyewitness account of the actual kidnapping. All characters are fictional and have no resemblance to anyone living or dead.
Synopsis
Unhappy to be assigned to cover a social confection where Blake Walsh (JOE Mandragona), the only son of a wealthy retailer, was made the new vice-president of the family department store, reporter Jack Daumier (GABRIEL MANN), becomes wildly infatuated with Helen Walsh (EMILY HARRISON), the younger sister of the new vice president. She flirts shamelessly with him much to the disapproval of her ever-watchful mother, Natalie (DIANA SCARWID). Blake asks Natalie to tell his father, Horace (BRUCE MCGILL), who never learned to drive because of poor depth perception, that he will pick him up in front of the hotel in his new car. When Blake begins to drive from the hotel parking lot, a man jumps into the seat next to him and jams a gun in his ribs.
As the kidnapper forces Blake to drive, Helen and Jack meet in her old playhouse at the Walsh mansion. Blissfully forgetful about the impending arrival of her mother, Helen listens raptly as Jack recounts a childhood experience that resulted in Jack being forbidden to ever visit his aunt (the Walsh live-in maid and one-time nanny). Helen share their first kiss, and the porch light illuminates the interior of the playhouse as Natalie Walsh booms her daughter’s name. Jack escapes through the rear of the playhouse. Immediately thereafter, Helen takes a chilling ransom call.
Jack receives a call from his Aunt Sylvia (VAL DIAMOND), informing him that both the FBI and sheriff are at the Walsh mansion, and that Blake’s car has been found abandoned ten miles outside of San Jose. Watchful of the deputies and FBI agents crawling over Blake Walsh’s empty Studebaker roadster, Jack interviews a farm woman who tells him that she and her daughter saw the driver of the Studebaker get into a sedan with five men.
 In the Walsh mansion Porte Cochere, Jack joins a gaggle of obnoxious San Francisco news reporters who have descended to cover the kidnapping of the ‘snot-nosed,” fruit-picker rich kid. Upon learning that Jack is a reporter for the Valley Standard, they derisively proclaim that its publisher, Albion Munson (PETE POSTLETHWAITE), doesn’t need reporters because “he makes up the news.” Albion Munson appears to chase the reporters off, and warns Jack to stay out of the kidnapping. Jack remembers the interview with cannery organizers he has been trying to get for weeks, and rushes to meet the man who will take him to their camp hidden in the foothills.
As he begins his interview, the organizers and Jack are attacked by vigilantes. After knocking out a vigilante trying to take his head off with an axe handle, Jack goes to the aid of an organizer on the ground being beaten by a vigilante and sheriff’s deputy. The organizer is dead. A gunshot out of the darkness sends him running for his life.
Just as Jack is about to lock a carbon copy of his news story about the murder of the organizer, fellow reporter Ralph Ruts (DAVID BARTH), enters to comment sarcastically: “What cat dragged your sorry ass in?” As soon as Jack leaves to clean-up, Ruts breaks into Jack’s desk and immediately takes his copy to Albion Munson. Jack returns to discover a grossly distorted news story on his desk with Ruts’ byline. When Jack confronts Munson and tells him that “Publishers with integrity print the truth,” Munson growls: “I’m truth, and you’re fired.”
Jack takes his vigilante murder story to the Clarion Voice newspaper in San Francisco because Albion Munson once told him: “The average Joe can’t tell the difference between toilet paper, the Communist Manifesto, and the Clarion Voice.” The editor, Stanley Dieffenbach (BOB GREENE), hires Jack upon learning that his aunt works in the Walsh mansion and, after calling and tormenting Albion Munson, agrees to print his “fruit-picker vigilante story.”
 At a meeting with Sheriff Ackle (TOM BOWER), the two FBI agents, and Albion Munson, Horace Walsh is astonished to learn that ransom demands have been received from different people claiming to have Blake, and that his son’s wallet had been discarded in San Francisco. Albion warns Sheriff Ackle that he can’t allow the FBI to arrest the kidnappers first. Shortly thereafter, Ackle arrests a man near a phone where a ransom call had been traced. After hours of third degree, the hapless man confesses to throwing Blake Walsh off a bridge the night of the kidnapping with the help of another local man.
Following the arrest of two suspects who signed confessions, Horace Walsh continues to receive ransom demands, and develops serious doubt about the guilt of the suspects. Sharing the same doubt, Helen enlists Jack’s help to find her brother. After re-tracing and timing the kidnap route described in one of the confessions, Jack and Helen realize that the two suspects could not have kidnapped Blake in the way described in the confessions. Each man blamed the other solely for the crime.
Knowing that a federal grand jury will indict the suspects for mail fraud (the most serious charge available to the FBI at the time), Munson forms a Committee of Justice comprised of the most respected civic and business leaders in the valley who sign a pledge to see that “justice is done.” Sheriff Ackle learns about the lynch committee, and sneaks the suspects to San Francisco.
Jack learns from his aunt that Munson and Governor Aloysius Brodie (ED HOLMES), will meet at Munson’s ranch. Hidden, Jack overhears the governor’s agreement not to call out the National Guard. The governor’s action will free Sheriff Ackle from blame for the lynching because no one expects him to fight the whole valley. When U.S. Marshals are sent to arrest the two suspects upon indictment by the federal grand jury, Sheriff Ackle quickly returns them to the Valley of the Heart’s Delight.
 Dieffenbach congratulates Jack on his story about Munson and the governor’s lynch plot, and tells him that it will be published the following day if Blake Walsh’s body still hasn’t been found. Dieffenbach calls Munson and boasts that Jack’s story that will “turn Valley of the Heart’s Delight into Death Valley.”
That evening, Helen joins Jack in his car outside the mansion. Jack has a strong feeling that Helen has not told him everything she knows about her brother, and confronts her. Hurt terribly, Helen attempts to leave. As Jack tries to comfort her, Natalie Walsh appears. As Natalie approaches Jack’s car, Helen hurriedly tells him that her brother used to visit a speakeasy on the San Francisco Bay, then come home and sob in his room. Natalie Walsh warns Jack that if he ever comes near her daughter again, that she’ll have him arrested for kidnapping.
Jack learns from the bartender about the “rattlesnake” who lives behind the speakeasy. He finds a bullet-riddled car with a pale, cadaverous man in the rear seat. Jack approaches with the whiskey bottle he purchased from the bartender. The man in the car, Harlan Grasso (ROD GNAPP), groans painfully as he slides to the doorway to point a gun at Jack.
Jack trades the whiskey for the gun, and Grasso tells him how Blake Walsh escaped on the San Mateo Bridge when he and his partner stopped to turn their car around. He and his partner met later with the other three men who had gone to San Francisco to make the ransom call.  Grasso tells the other men Walsh’s escape doesn’t matter because they still have his wallet. When one of them says the wallet got tossed into the bay because they had Walsh, a gun fight breaks out.
Jack promises to get Grasso help, but when he turns away, Grasso kills himself. Unknown to Jack, a decomposed body is found in the bay. Munson and Ackle distribute photographs of the body in the valley, and a lynch mob slowly forms.
Jack calls Dieffenbach to tell him about the real kidnapper’s confession, but drives off to tell Helen Walsh before Dieffenbach can tell up that a body has been found. Jack tells Helen that her brother escaped, but that it was too dark to tell how high he was above the bay. A sheriff’s deputy appears, shows Jack a picture of the body found in the bay, and returns Helen to her family.
Knowing that Horace Walsh is the only one who can stop the lynching, Jack goes to the Walsh mansion. Albion Munson answers the door and tells Jack that Helen never wants to see him again. Jack rushes to the park across the street from the jail to try and stop the lynching.  Helen follows in her car. Panicked, Horace gets in his son’s Studebaker and clumsily drives after her.
Sheriff Ackle and Albion Munson watch the lynch mob carry one of the suspects from the jail, and are astonished to see Jack Daumier rush up and place his arms around the man. Jack is beaten, and both suspects are carried to the park across the street from the jail. Helen appears to comfort Jack, and has to struggle with him when he heads toward where the men are about to be lynched. Horace Walsh appears to assist Helen. Together they witness the lynching.
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