When Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) hires drifter Frank (John Garfield) to work as a handyman at his roadside diner he unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will lead to his own murder. Nick's beautiful wife Cora (Lana Turner) persuades her lover Frank to join her in a plot to kill her husband, but events spin out of control as the suspense builds in this tale of lust and immorality...