Ruby Gentry

Ruby Corey grows up as a poor girl in Braddock, North Carolina. She rebuffs Boake Tackman's advances during high school and is taken in for a couple of years by a kind wealthy businessman and his wife who protect her and teach her the manners of a lady. She returns home when her father needs her help, beginning her adult life in a town that will judge her.

Boake's family fortune has dwindled and he schemes to marry into a wealthy local family. Ruby, seeking security, agrees to wed Jim Gentry, a widowed benefactor, despite not loving him. The marriage binds her to a man she does not love and sets the stage for growing conflict.

At Jim's after-wedding party, he gets into a fistfight with Boake after seeing him dance with Ruby. Jim loudly calls Ruby a tramp who looks like a lady but doesn't behave like one, and she leaves the party in tears. He later apologizes, hinting at a fragile reconciliation.

The next day, Ruby and Jim go sailing together, and he tells her he doesn't mind being second best. Ruby admits that she really does love him, complicating the façade of her new life. The moment deepens their secret bond despite the town's judgment.

A loose rope on the boat causes the boom to swing and knock Jim overboard, leaving Ruby widowed and distraught. The local paper suggests foul play cannot be ruled out, hinting that she may be responsible. Town gossip explodes, and Ruby becomes the target of accusations and harassment.

Using Jim's money, Ruby launches a merciless campaign against those who slighted her, calling in debts to close down businesses and even pressuring the local newspaper that slandered her. Her brother comes to plead for leniency, but she throws him out, warning that she is just getting started. The town's power structure begins to buckle under her drive for revenge.

When Boake visits, Ruby returns the promissory note he had signed and offers to run off with him, hoping for a fresh start. He rejects her, saying that money cannot buy love or loyalty. The exchange makes clear that wealth cannot solve her deeper longing.

Ruby floods Boake's land, ruining his crops as a calculated act of vengeance. Boake, burning with resentment, accompanies her to his father's annual duck-hunting party, where he drowns his anger in drink. Afterward, he visits Ruby's room late at night, setting up a charged confrontation.

The next day, while hunting, Boake turns on Ruby in retaliation, and she apologizes for past actions. Jewel Corey, Ruby's estranged brother, arrives and shoots at the couple while reciting Bible verses about the wickedness of women. They try to hide in the swamp as the danger escalates.

Jewel's bullets strike Boake in the abdomen, killing him; Ruby guns down Jewel in a final, desperate act. Cradling Boake in her arms, Ruby laments the consequences of the choices that brought them here. The swamp becomes the backdrop for the couple's fatal ending.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Ruby becomes the skipper of a fishing boat, a status that forever sets her apart from Braddock's townspeople. She is looked down upon by society, a powerful woman who defies conventional morality. Her new life on the water marks a hard-won independence.

The film closes with Ruby steering her boat toward the horizon, a solitary figure defined by resilience rather than approval. She has traded the town's judgment for personal autonomy and the freedom of the sea. The swamp-born heroine endures, shaping her fate through strength and resolve.