The 1946 film "The French Key" is based on the 1939 mystery novel The French Key Mystery written by prolific western and mystery writer Frank Gruber. The film is a comedy-mystery about two wise-cracking amateur detectives who find a dead body clutching an old gold coin in their hotel room. They become suspects and set out to find the "real killer." The gold coin, an extremely rare United States half eagle five dollar coin dated 1822, leads them to a crooked coin dealer, a wealthy coin collector, an old gold mine, and, of course, pretty women. In 1933 President Roosevelt and the Congress took the United States off the gold standard and issued regulations requiring Americans to turn in their gold coins (with some exceptions) to the government. In 1934 the US government raised the price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35.00. This meant that a $20 gold coin was worth it's face value as a coin but melted would be worth around $35. There is some discussion in the film of rare United States gold coins and their values, along with gold hoarding and profitable but illegal schemes to circumvent the 1933 gold regulations. A real early 20th century French "Marianne-Rooster" 20 francs gold coin is used as a prop coin substituting for the 1822 gold half eagle in the film.

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Sam Cragg, a large and physically powerful man, tells the story of the "French Key" to a man he meets at a Los Angeles American Legion gymnasium. This implies that Sam Cragg and his partner Johnny Fletcher are World War II veterans.

Cragg shows the man the key.

Cragg and his detective partner Johnny Fletcher come back to the cheap Eagle Hotel (rooms $12.15 a week) and find their room key doesn't work. In those days it was the custom of hotels to allow customers with luggage to stay at hotels without requiring payment in advance and to collect the room charges later. The men have not paid their hotel bill of $36.45 for three weeks and the manager has put a "French key" into the lock. A "French key" is a soft metal key which jams the lock. The men use a skeleton key to enter an adjoining room and climb into the window of their old room. There they discover a dead man laying on the bed who has been murdered and realize that the police would suspect them of the killing.

Fletcher searches the body and finds a gold coin in the dead man's hand.

The coin design has the French figure of "Marianne", the national emblem of France. The coin will appear again in the film. Fletcher keeps the coin which he identifies to Cragg as a "five dollar gold piece." They discuss the fact that gold money is "illegal" (due to the 1933 gold regulations). Both men then climb out the window and into the adjoining room.

Fletcher and Cragg find a woman named Janet Morgan is now occupying the room. She is applying for a job in a nightclub floor show which she later gets.

The men tell Janet about the body and someone calls the police. Fletcher and Cragg use a telephone directory to locate a "numismatist" or "old coin dealer."

The directory listing reads:

Fletcher and Cragg visit the coin dealer.

The dealer reads the date as "1822" and first offers Fletcher $20 for the coin. Fletcher refuses and the dealer then tells Fletcher that an 1822 five dollar gold coin is extremely rare and worth $10,000 dollars. The dealer mentions a local rare coin collector named George Polson and asks to keep the coin to research it and offers a $500 advance but the men leave with the coin. The dealer then telephones Polson. Fletcher and Cragg, locked out of their cheap hotel room, check into the expensive Barbizon Wilshire Hotel, again without paying in advance. Fletcher calls Janet and askes her to come over to his hotel for lunch. She tells him that the police questioned her and told her that they believe that the dead man was a gold miner due to his clothes and gold dust on them.

Walter Winslow, a Wall Street tycoon, began his fortune with a Nevada gold mine named the "Three Bears Mine." He reads about the dead man in the newspaper and identifies him as Billy Tamm, a prospector and miner whom he hired 20 years to live at his mine as a caretaker and watchman. Fletcher and Cragg drive out to Winslow's Beverly Hills mansion where a pool party is going on and meets Betty, Winslow's daughter. Winslow has three iron statues of bears installed, a big bear and two small bears, at his mansion as a tribute to his gold mine. At the pool party, Cragg shows off his physical strength by attempting to lift the bear statues.

Cragg is able lift two of the statues but can not lift the third statue. Fletcher visits Winslow's office and meets John Holterman, Winslow's assistant. George Polson and coin dealer Vedder are there also. They discuss the dead man Billy Tamm and Fletcher learns that Winslow hired him to watch the mine in case it is reopened. Fletcher asks how Tamm could have gotten an uncirculated gold coin in mint condition. Winslow claims that the 1822 coin belongs to him but Fletcher refuses to give it to him. Winslow then privately tells Fletcher that one of his small bear statues has been stolen and hires Fletcher to look for it, giving him a $100 advance. Back at the Barbizon Wilshire Fletcher sees two police detectives waiting for him and heads for a telephone booth.

In the telephone booth, Fletcher looks at both sides of the coin.

The coin is a real French Marianne-Rooster 20 francs gold coin.

Gold, 21 mm, 6.45 gm
Minted in Paris from 1899 to 1914.

Pay telephones (in 1946) had slots for nickels, dimes, and quarters. Fletcher puts the coin into the pay telephone nickel slot where it stays. From 1795 to 1829 the United States gold five dollar coin diameter was 25.0 mm and from 1839 to 1929 the diameter was 21.6 mm. The diameter of the United States five cent nickel coin has been 21.2 mm from 1883 to the present. Therefore an 1822 five dollar coin would not fit into the smaller nickel slot of a pay telephone. The United States quarter diameter has been 24.3 mm from 1831 to the present. The 1822 gold coin would have probably jammed if Fletcher tried to insert it into the quarter slot.

When he leaves the telephone booth he is picked up by a policeman who takes him to the station. Separately the police also pick up Cragg.

Murdock and Madigan, police detectives, search Fletcher but do not find the coin. Fletcher and Cragg are released and Fletcher sees a newspaper headline about a telephone company collector who was slugged and robbed. Fletcher tells police detective Fox that he dropped the gold coin into a telephone box. Fletcher sends Cragg to Winslow's house and asks him to lift the bears again. Cragg reports that he lifted all three bears and that the two small bears weighed 100 pounds and the big bear weighed 250 pounds. At the hotel room a policeman wakes Fletcher and tells him that Winslow has been killed by a hit-and-run driver and that the coin was found on him. The two men are taken to the police station again but are told that they are not suspects. The police detective Murdock knows that Winslow got the coin from Fletcher. Mr. Garlow, a Treasury Department agent, tells the men that some gold hoarders have conceived the brilliant idea of making a profit on the gold coin they sold as newly mined gold and that the government has recently purchased a large amount of gold from a certain mine and smelter in Nevada. He has reason to believe that the gold did not come from the ground at least not recently but gold coins melted down. Fletcher asks if he believes that Winslow is involved. Fletcher heads for the Winslow house and talks to Winslow's daughter Betty. He tells Betty that he believes that her father's death was not an accident and Betty gives him some money to investigate. Fletcher and Cragg fly to Las Vegas, rent an old car, and drive to the mine. Along the way they encounter the coin dealer Vedder and take him along. They drive to the ghost town of Bad Axe and then to the "Three Bears Mine."

The sign reads "BAD AXE six miles." The three men search the mine office.

In the mine cabin where Billy Tamm stayed, the men find an "Indian Pennies" coin album along with some information on coin collecting which shows that Tamm had an interest in old coins. The three men then leave the mine office and head for the mine.

Fletcher and Vedder go to the mine entrance while Cragg waits outside.

They find a box with 19 similar 1822 gold coins and Vedder mentions that Tamm sent him a letter about finding the coins and a skeleton in a nearby cave. Vedder states that the Bonneville Expedition passed near the area in 1833 and that the coins might have been left by a member of the expedition. Vedder pulls a gun and says that the coins belong to him but Fletcher manages to take the gun. Back in Los Angeles, Fletcher heads for Beverly Hills and visits Betty Winslow.

Betty tells Fletcher that she suspected that her father was a gold hoarder but never discussed the matter with him. Fletcher gives Betty the twenty 1822 gold coins and tells her that while one would be worth $15,000, the existance of more would drive down the price considerably. Fletcher suggests that Betty contact the coin dealer to arrange to sell them gradually. Betty offers Fletcher a reward but he refuses it. Garlow inform the men that they looked at the bear statues and found them to be hollow with traces of gold dust inside them which proves that Winslow was using them to store gold. Cragg could not lift the little bear earlier as it was full of gold and would have weighed 900 pounds. Fletcher and Cragg head back to their old hotel and pay their $36.45 bill with nickels.

Fletcher asks the hotel bellboy to find out who stayed in rooms near their room on the day of the Billy Tamm murder.

Fletcher attends Janet's nightclub show opening and then visits her at her dressing room, followed by the police and the major players and suspects in the case.

Police detective Madigan and then Fletcher explain the scheme, Winslow had a half million dollars in gold coin when the country went off the gold standard in 1933 which he hid in the three bears. Somebody worked out a neat stunt and grabbed the missing gold, took it to a working mine in Nevada, had it melted down and sold to the Treasury Department as bullion (at $35/ounce). Winslow was not running the scheme but a man using the fictitious name of James Reno was. Reno contacted Tamm by mail and posing as Winslow hired Tamm to handle the gold melting. When Tamm found the rare coin he wrote to Winslow (Reno) and said he was coming to Los Angeles. Reno intercepted Tamm at the hotel as he didn't want Tamm to see the real Winslow. Reno also hired two thugs to rob the telephone collector and recover the gold coin which Fletcher had put into the telephone box. He then felt that Winslow would learn about his activities and killed him. The Eagle Hotel bellboy is brought in and identifies one of the men as the one who posed as "James Reno", the man is arrested and the others leave the room.

Cragg finishes telling the story of "The French Key."

Albert Dekker as Johnny Fletcher
Mike Mazurki as Sam Cragg
Evelyn Ankers as Janet Morgan
Selmer Jackson as Walter Winslow
John Eldredge as John Holterman
Director: Walter Colmes
Writers: Frank Gruber