When Owen is forced to confront the past he's been running from his whole adult life, he and his girlfriend, Isabel, become entangled in a horrifying web of lies, deceit and murder.
Out of costume, Charlie is a clean-shaven dandy who, somewhat drunk, visits a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admirers the band leader, one of the musicians, and now Charlie.
Based on the novel by Karel Capek, the prominent Czech writer of the early 20th century who coined the word robot for his play R.U.R., the story revolves around a discovery of Krakatit - a powerful explosive - by Prokop, an experimental scientist who, following an accidental explosion in his lab, slips in and out of delirium. When he realises that, in a delirious period, he has given the formula for making Krakatit to one of his colleagues, he tries to find the man, who does not realize how dangerous a thing Krakatit is. In the process, he nearly gives his discovery away again to foreign interests, a group of anarchists, and even greater forces of darkness...