This Humphrey Bogart gangster movie follows a young punk, Johnnie Stone (Billy Halop), who hooks up with a mobster, Frank Wilson (Bogart), for a gas station robbery and soon graduates to more serious crimes. But when Wilson shoots someone using a gun stolen from Johnnie's sister's lover, Fred Burke (Harvey Stephens), Burke is sentenced to death, and the guilt-plagued Johnnie wants to take the rap. Wilson threatens him into silence, but the boy later ends up in a penitentiary and finds a mentor who advises him to come clean--prompting Wilson to take further action to keep Johnnie quiet.