Some days business is good - and some days it's murder! Raymond Chandler’s famed "noir" private eye, Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is caught in a deadly case of blackmail. General Sternwood (James Stewart), an aged, wealthy American living in England, is being blackmailed over the antics of his two daughters and hires Marlowe to find the blackmailer. Marlowe soon finds that the blackmailer’s attempts are half hearted at best and seem to be more connected with the disappearance of the other daughter’s husband, Rusty Regan. Rusty’s wife seems unconcerned with his disappearance, further complicating the mystery. Only General Sternwood seems concerned as mobsters and hired killers continue to appear in the path of the investigation into the disappearance. Marlowe travels the seedy underworld of crime beneath old London through a dangerous tangle of murder and suicide and straight into the dark world of gangster, night club owner, Eddie Mars.