World for Ransom is a 1954 American film noir drama directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Dan Duryea, Patric Knowles, Gene Lockhart, Reginald Denny, and Nigel Bruce (in his final film role). Many of the actors and sets used in the film were from the Dan Duryea television show China Smith. Aldrich and cinematographer Joseph Biroc also worked on the series. Aldrich later said the film "first embedded what I wanted to say in films. It was mainly about two men with good and bad points. Both men believed in individual liberty but the belief of one man was weaker than the other because he had no respect for humanity." Plot Mike Callahan (Duryea) is an Irish émigré and war veteran working in Singapore as a private detective. He takes on a case from a former flame, now a nightclub singer. She thinks her husband Julian March (Knowles) is involved in criminal activities and asks him to help out. Callahan learns that a man named Alexis Pederas (Lockhart) has involved Julian in a plot to kidnap a prominent nuclear scientist Sean O'Connor and hold him for ransom to the highest bidder. O'Connor is one of the only four men in the world that knows how to detonate the H-Bomb. Cast Dan Duryea as Mike Callahan aka Corrigan Gene Lockhart as Alexis Pederas Patric Knowles as Julian March Reginald Denny as Major Ian Bone Nigel Bruce as Governor Sir Charles Crotts Marian Carr as Frenessey March Arthur Shields as O'Connor Douglass Dumbrille as Inspector McCollum Carmen D'Antonio as Dancer Keye Luke as Wong Clarence Lung as Johnny Chan Lou Nova as Guzik Beal Wong as Wu, Bartender Strother Martin as Corporal Patrick Allen as Soldier Spencer Chan as Club Patron Herschel Graham as Club Patron Production background Aldrich said he got the idea to make the film while directing episodes of China Smith. When production was on hiatus he wrote a story with a colleague. Bernard Tabakin, who produced China Smith, agreed to produce the film along with Aldrich. Aldrich says the script was almost entirely written by Hugo Butler but Butler does not get credit due to being blacklisted. Aldrich said "There are optimists in the society, not many left, who thought that someday those guys [on the Hollywood Blacklist] would get post-mortem credits for their work. So he wrote World for Ransom and I put my name on it