Dan Brady, Mickey Rooney, a young auto mechanic in California, borrows $20 from the shop register to take Vera Novak, Jeanne Cagney, a blonde femme fatale who works at a nearby diner, out for a night on the town. To cover the missing funds, he lands in a risky scheme: he pays only a dollar down on a $100 wristwatch at a jewelry store, signing an installment contract that would force him to pay the rest over time. He then hocks the watch for $30 at a pawnshop, using most of that money to plug the hole in the garage’s finances. The next day, a persistent investigator makes it clear that he has violated the contract by pawning something he doesn’t own, and if he can’t come up with the full $100 within 24 hours he’ll be charged with grand larceny.
Desperate, Dan cannot secure a payday loan and cannot use his car as collateral, so he resorts to mugging a tipsy bar patron who is known to carry cash. Into this volatile mix steps Nick Dramoshag, Peter Lorre, the seedy owner of a penny arcade on Santa Monica Pier who already has a complicated history with Vera. Dramoshag uncovers Dan’s crime and uses the information to coerce him, demanding a car from Dan’s workplace in exchange for his silence. Dan steals the car and trades it for the incriminating evidence from Dramoshag, hoping to quash the threat.
Dan’s morally compromised boss, Oren Mackey, Art Smith, confronts him with a brutal choice: return the car or pay $3,000, or the police will be called. The tension escalates as Dan and Vera steal the month-end receipts from Dramoshag’s arcade, netting $3,610. Vera, however, spends a large portion of the money on a mink coat for herself ($1,800), leaving Dan furious and scrambling to salvage the situation. He offers Mackey $1,800 to settle, but the moblike response is swift: Mackey takes the money and grabs the phone to summon the police. The two men struggle, and Dan ends the danger by strangling Mackey with the phone cord. With Mackey presumably out of the picture, Dan pockets the gun and heads back to Vera to tell her of the deed, urging her to flee with him to Texas. She refuses, insisting there’s no concrete evidence against her, and Dan, disenchanted by her self-serving behavior, leaves in disgust.
Outside Vera’s apartment, Helen Calder, Barbara Bates, Dan’s still-loyal former girlfriend, waits in his car to talk. Seeing him in trouble, she decides to accompany him as they drive away to avoid arrest for murder. When their car breaks down, Dan carjacks a sedan driven by a sympathetic lawyer, Taylor Holmes, and tells Helen to stay with the lawyer while he plans to slip across the border on a friend’s charter boat to Mexico. He assures Helen that he’ll send for her once he’s safely settled.
A short time later, the lawyer and Helen hear a radio news report that Mackey has survived his injuries. They hurry back to the Santa Monica Pier to find Dan, while police spot him, wound him in a shooting during the ensuing chase, and take him into custody. In the end, Helen comforts Dan and vows to wait for his eventual release, leaving the door open to a future that remains uncertain.
