Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics who involves himself in the goings on of a revolution in the Caribbean in the late 1700s. A light hearted adventure involving prison breaks, an oddball scientist, sailing ships, naval fights and tons of swordplay.

Inspector Darrow investigates the death of a wealthy man.

In Ischia, a priest uses the money a young woman has made on the black market toward a home for illegitimate children.

Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.

When the City stockbroker firm of Macintyre & Son records a substantial yearly profit, its senior staff are each promised a £50 bonus. But their hasty plans for spending their windfalls are put in jeopardy the following morning, as a set of negotiable bonds are discovered missing.

Set on Blackpool’s Golden Mile, Jim (Douglass Montgomery), a once promising scientist, sets up in business as a patent medicine man selling hair tonic at the fair with his ex-army colleague Dan (Ronald Shiner). Following a fight with local hoods over pitch spaces, Jim falls for Jane (Hazel Court), the girl on a nearby candy floss stall. The two begin dating but Jim fails to mention he is already married.

Someone is stealing priceless paintings from the great museums of the world and replacing them with nearly flawless forgeries. Leonardo da Vinci's "Madonna and Child" is being shipped to London's Tate Gallery for a special exhibition, and Paul Mitchell is assigned to protect it. Upon the painting's arrival, Paul realizes it has been switched. Eager to collect the museum's $50,000 reward, he teams up with Mary Mason, a Tate employee, to recover the original.

During the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II, a Belgian resistance group revives the newspaper "La Libre Belgique" to expose and counter Nazi propaganda efforts to deceive the people. They are so effective that the Nazis offer a reward for the capture of the paper's staff, although they don't know their identities. One of them is a well-known entertainer, and when his jealous partner hears of the reward, he turns him in. The paper's publishers escape capture, but their staff doesn't. The paper's founders must find not only a way to keep from getting captured by the Nazis but keep their newspaper going and get their staff released.

Steven Sims is a diamond merchant who bullies his kindly hard-working clerk and disappoints his expectations when he takes into partnership an aristocratic ne'er-do-well.

Garage owner Harry Stone buys a racehorse, Brownie, from Peggy Lanstone and, according to formula, hires Peggy as the steed's trainer. When the filly finishes a mere second in the Oaks, Harry's snooty fiancee, Muriel, who never liked the setup anyway, disgustedly heads for greener pastures. Harry promptly marries Peggy, and, after an official investigation of the Oaks' results, Brownie gets revenge on the fickle Muriel.