Harmon Cobb, a defense attorney, Walter Matthau, defends his law partner, Judge Bell, Harry Morgan, who stands accused of killing the abusive father of his estranged daughter's child.
Lily Bell, Stephanie Zimbalist, works as a waitress, and her 13-year-old son John Bell Trenton, Nick Stahl, has a newspaper route to help make ends meet. The “widowed” Lily tells him his father was a soldier who died in France during WWII.
At his friend’s father’s bar, John meets an ex-soldier who enthralls John with tales of fighting at Normandy. The ex-soldier turns up at John’s house, having searched for Lily for months. Cold and unwelcoming, Lily tells him to go away. Arriving on scene, John learns that the man is his father, Frank Trenton, David Nerman who learns he has a son. Greeting Trenton enthusiastically, John relates that his mother had received a telegram informing that he died in France. Lily curtly orders John into the house.
Lily orders John to stay away from Trenton; resentful that his mother lied about his father, John seeks out Trenton’s company. When Trenton turns up at her work and again at her home, Lily continues to be cold. Initially apologetic for having >lost his head< years ago, Trenton then asserts she always played >hard to get<; his unwanted embrace turns forceful when she again rejects him. Lily drives him off, threatening him with a garden claw. Before leaving, Trenton threatens to take his son away from her.
In response to Lily’s urgent appeal, her estranged father Bell comes to her aid with his partner Cobb. Bell admits to Cobb his estrangement from Lily when she became unmarried and pregnant, refusing to put the baby up for adoption. Now Lily informs Bell that she conceived John when raped by Trenton, not out of consenting passion as Bell always assumed. Lily never told Bell about the rape because he never gave her a chance, calling her a tramp. Bell instructs Cobb to get a restraining order against Trenton and file criminal charges.
Lily refuses to let Cobb use her rape as justification for a restraining order; she does not want her son knowing he was conceived in rape and thinking that she resented him. In court, Trenton insists that he just kissed Lily, who overreacted by swinging at him with a gardening claw. Believing Trenton’s account, the judge denies the restraining order. Outside the courtroom, Bell threatens to wipe the smirk off Trenton’s face and feebly attacks him.
That night Lily comes to Cobb’s hotel room, with bruises on her face, saying that her father has been arrested for Trenton’s murder. Bell tells Cobb that he woke up to Lily screaming and arrived to see her unconscious; he swung the clothesline prop at Trenton, catching him on the head. Cobb is skeptical that right-handed Bell hit Trenton on the right side.
Arguing to the jury, Cobb asserts that the older and weaker Bell had to strike the aggressive Trenton in self-defense. Prosecutor Madeline Harold describes Bell’s striking Trenton, unprovoked, after the failed injunction hearing.
Outside court, Cobb believes Bell is covering for Lily and refuses to continue his defense. In court Lily admits to killing Trenton, but she again refuses to disclose the prior rape. The prosecutor’s office will not press charges, but an army witness to a past rape in France by Trenton is sought; the testimony is blocked because Lily would not know of that rape as justification for fear when she killed Trenton.
John expresses guilt to Cobb that his defiance of his mother’s order to stay away from Trenton led to his death. When confronted by Cobb, John admits that he killed Trenton. He saw his mother strike at Trenton with the clothesline prop, but Trenton blocked the blow and then assaulted Lily. As Trenton was lifting Lily’s skirt, John struck Trenton on the head with the clothes prop.
In the trial’s chambers, John confesses to killing Trenton in defense of his mother and to Lily taking the blame. The judge dismisses the charges; the prosecutor’s office will not press charges, but the prosecutor insists that John get therapy.
