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Attempting to change his image, B-Western star Bill Cody signed with Universal to do a series of five inexpensive crime melodramas. The Price of Fear, the premiere entry, starred the laconic former cowboy as Grant Somers, a wealthy clubman turned amateur detective who goes undercover as a waiter in the notorious Red Rooster café. Somers' target is "The Professor" (Ole M. Ness), a dangerous gang leader, but when stool pigeon Toad Magee (Jack Raymond) is murdered by one of The Professor's henchmen (Tom London), Somers finds himself accused of the crime. Warned by Mary Franklin (Duane Thompson), a government detective in The Professor's employ, Somers manages to escape. Her cover blown, Mary is ordered killed by the gang leader, but the intrepid Somers rescues her in the nick of time. Cody's change of venue was completely overshadowed by the changeover to talkies and he quickly returned to the realm of B-Westerns, working steadily until his retirement in 1936.