After serving 18 years for murdering his abusive father, he in a rage albeit not a murderous one when it happened, at least from what he can remember, Bill Clark (Steve Cochran) is released from prison. Not only have times changed in those 18 years, but so has Bill, he only a child of 13 when he was incarcerated, meaning that he will be experiencing many adult things for the first time, including alcohol and girls. Wanting to live in peace which means anonymity working in the welding trade that he learned inside, he finds he can't do so in his hometown of Norton City where he was imprisoned, where he would have liked to have lived, despite no family, in having any sort of touchstone to familiarity. He ends up going to New York City instead. Searching for any sort of human connection, he meets Cathy Higgins (Ruth Roman) - she more casually referred to as Cay - a taxi dancer, who knows how to play the game at the dance hall. Stemming from an incident involving both of them, they decide to go on the run, despite the police not knowing anything about their involvement in that incident, and Cay not knowing anything about his past until they being on the lam. Counting in part on his naiveté, Cay plays him for a chump, specifically about what happened that led to them running. In trying to eke out a life together on the straight and narrow albeit using assumed names, they end up forming that human connection that Bill needs so much. The question then becomes what happens if their shared past concerning that incident in New York City and/or Bill's past history as a convicted murderer catches up with them, perceived or real.
—Huggo