Now confident that he will not be recognized in the United States, Douglas leaves Canada after his release from the hospital and retrieves the suitcase, still full of money. He then proceeds to New York City to book passage on a ship to Europe. In New York, while walking along a street with his suitcase, Douglas is spotted by two men he had befriended in Canada. The two are the same friends who had taken him to the hospital after his burn injuries and had visited him during his recovery. They invite him to share a taxi ride. He declines, but they cheerfully insist, and he goes with them. The taxi soon stops in front of the Seacoast National Bank, his former employer. Now quite nervous, Douglas refuses to go into the building, so his friends suddenly put handcuffs on him, take his suitcase, and escort him at gunpoint to the office of the bank's president. Douglas is surprised to see Louie there, along with other men. The bank president now informs Douglas that his escape from prison had been an elaborate ruse, that he was allowed to escape. He also tells Douglas that officials for the bank's bonding company never believed his claim that he had spent all of the stolen cash, so in an effort to recover the money the company had organized his escape and had its agents follow him constantly since then. Those agents included some prison staff, his Canadian "friends", and even Louie. The film ends with the disfigured Douglas staring at the camera as he is being told he will now return to prison to serve his maximum sentence with no hope for early parole. Five years before the release of "Buried Loot", MGM produced the feature-length prison drama "The Big House" and staged the film on huge sets constructed by studio crews, who had meticulously reproduced the cellblocks, mess hall, and high-walled prison yard of San Quentin State Prison in California. MGM recycled some of the footage shot on those sets for "The Big House" and used it in "Buried Loot" for scenes depicting Al Douglas in prison. MGM released "Buried Loot" to theaters on January 19, 1935, but five days earlier the studio had arranged a special presentation of the film for law enforcement officials in Baltimore, Maryland. "Motion Picture Daily", an entertainment trade publication in New York, reported on that premiere: