The plot concerns Betty Miller (Norma Moore), a shy country girl who moves from a farming community to Los Angeles. She falls in love with a smooth-talking grifter, Don Bigelow (Robert Vaughn), who involves her in a robbery, gets her pregnant, then abandons her. In jail on remand she is cruised by an elder cell mate and befriended by a strip club manageress (Billie Bird).
After visiting a drunken, backyard abortionist (Timothy Carey), Betty is confined in a home for unwed mothers and decides to give the baby up for adoption. But eventually she comes to regret that decision and pursues the foster parents who adopted her child.
Note: Although in keeping with the production code, while the word "pregnancy" is never uttered throughout the film, some actresses in the maternity home scenes are shown with pregnancy pads, which was uncommon on the screens of the 1950s and 60s where explicit displays of maternity tended to be hidden.[4]
