Harvard grad Bruce McVeagh has fled San Francisco for the South Seas, where he rules as a king on a remote island. With his half-crazed first-mate 'Pearly' Gates, he keeps the natives subjugated with gin. Any who dare disobey him find brutal punishment on his dreaded torture rack. But his kingdom threatens to crash down around him when his lost love, Nancy Darrell, is shipwrecked on the island, just as the aroused natives rise up against their tormentor in an armed rebellion.