The Dictator’s Guns 1965

In Santo Domingo, Hendrix Alberto de Mendoza asks the experienced skipper Cournot Lino Ventura to take a look at the Dragoon, a small ketch being sold by a widow in New York named Mrs Osborne Sylva Koscina. When the Dominican police arrest Cournot after Hendrix and the Dragoon disappear, leaving several corpses on the shore, the case grows complicated until Mrs Osborne flies in and confirms his account, which earns him his freedom.

She is determined to recover her stolen vessel, and Cournot suggests a seaplane pilot in Kingston, Jamaica, who can fly them to the last reported location. They discover the Dragoon grounded near an exposed sandbank. Once they go aboard, they are seized by a ruthless gunrunner, Morrison Leo Gordon, who already holds Hendrix and has loaded the Dragoon with weapons and ammunition bound for Central America.

Morrison forces Cournot to ferry heavy cases one by one to the sandbank, a grueling task meant to refloat the vessel and reload it. Tensions among the crooks escalate, and Morrison is left alone on the sandbank with the hardware while Cournot, Mrs Osborne, and a wounded Hendrix remain on the boat. Morrison trains rifle fire on the Dragoon, attempting to hit the humans and disable the craft. He succeeds in puncturing the petrol tank, flooding the ship with fuel that could ignite at any moment. While Cournot struggles to pump out the liquid by hand, Morrison swims aboard and, in a final confrontation, is killed.

A rising tide lifts the Dragoon, and with sails hoisted, Cournot sets course for Panama—a place where, as the story implies, they hope no one will ask too many questions.