On the French Riviera, movie producer Max Poulton is on location shooting a film starring his lover, Gina Bertini. But when the rueful Max ends his fling with Gina to return to his loyal wife, Carol, the jilted actress threatens to reveal details of their affair to Carol. Later, at a party at Max's villa, investigator Carliss arrives with news that Gina has been killed and that Max is a murderer suspect.

While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire. In charge, Lietenant Commander Kerans was not however prepared for his crew and his ship to remain as a hostage for the Chinese to use as an international pawn.

British Air Marshal Hardie is attending a party in Hong Kong when he hears of a dream, told by a pilot, in which Hardie's flight to Tokyo on a small Dakota propeller plane crashes on a Japanese beach. Hardie dismisses the dream as pure fantasy, but while he is flying to Tokyo the next day, circumstances start changing to align with the pilot's vivid vision, and it looks like the dream disaster may become a reality.

James Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies show that the aircraft being manufactured by his employer has a subtle but deadly design flaw that manifests itself only after the aircraft has flown a certain number of hours. En route to a crash site to prove his theory, Honey discovers that he is aboard a plane rapidly approaching his predicted deadline.