While out playing in the yard of his mother's employer, young Petey Atlas (Jerry Mathers) hears screams, races back to the house and witnesses his mother, Linda Atlas (Betty Garrett), being terrorized by three thugs. Running away in a state of shock, Petey wanders onto the highway and is picked up by some truckers.
Petey is traumatized, unable to respond to the truckers' questions, and so they decide to leave the boy with Jim Warren (Jack Lomas), the dispatcher at the produce company. Warren notifies the police. They take the boy to headquarters. Sgt. Paul Denke (Sam Gilman) recognizes him as the son of Police Detective Sgt. Tony Atlas (Philip Carey). Tony is separated from his wife. Petey, still suffering from shock, fails to recognize his own father.
Linda's assailants, Joey Gomez (Gerald Sarracini), a dimwitted, hot tempered teen; his friend Gil Ramsey (Corey Allen); and Jess Reber (John Barrymore Jr.), a young tough, all squabble over what to do with Linda. She witnessed Joey bludgeon her elderly employer, Ben Canfield (Watson Downs), to death in an aborted robbery attempt.
At headquarters, Tony briefs the police force about Linda's disappearance, then goes to search her apartment with Pau and discovers that Linda left with Petey early that morning to go to a temporary stenography job. Gil goes to his mother's apartment, to steal his stepfather's gun. As the investigation continues, the trail reaches a dead end when Warren, who is having an affair, fails to return home to his wife that night.
At the house, Canfield's niece Myra (Angela Stevens) calls, and when Linda answers the phone, Myra becomes suspicious. Eleven hours after Petey was first found, Tony, deducing that Linda may have been an innocent victim of a robbery, decides to expand his investigation into the areas surrounding the produce company. After Tony orders an inquiry into all of the ex-convicts in the vicinity, he confides to Paul his guilt over breaking up his marriage when Linda insisted on working outside the house.
When the police inquiry turns up Jess's name, they go to his rooming house to interrogate him and there the clerk mentions his friendship with Gil. At Gil's home, Tony and Paul question Gil's mother, who lies that her son's not there. Sensing she's lying, Tony returns to the building and finds Gil climbing out a rear window. Gil starts firing at Tony with his stolen gun, leading him on a chase across the rooftops and into the subway, where Tony shoots and kills him in self-defense.
After Tony finds a pile of cash and Linda's wallet on Gil's body, he returns to interrogate Gil's mother, but she knows nothing about her son's activities. When Warren finally returns home, he puts Tony in contact with the truckers, who remember picking up the boy on a highway near Canfield's house. The next morning, Jess finds a gun hidden in the house and turns it on Linda. To save her life, Joey jumps Jess and the weapon fires, killing Joey.
Tony takes Peter for a ride along the highway and after the boy suddenly reacts to a tractor outside the Canfield house, realizes that Linda is being held hostage inside. Jess, now paranoid over Gil's failure to return, spots the police surrounding the house. Just then, Tony kicks down the door and finds Canfield's dead body. Having retreated to the stairway, Jess points his gun at Linda and orders the police to drop their weapons. Defying him, Tony steadily advances up the stairs, and when Jess turns toward him, an officer fires his revolver, sending Jess scurrying into a room for cover. After cornering Jess, Tony grabs the gun from his hand and then slaps him across the face. Reassuring Linda that Petey is safe, Tony escorts her outside. When she calls to Petey, the boy snaps out of his trance and runs to his mother.
A 1957 American film-noir crime thriller film directed by William Asher, produced by Jonie Taps, screenplay by Leo Townsend & David P. Harmon, story by John Hawkins and Ward Hawkins, cinematography by Frank G. "Kit" Carson, starring Philip Carey, Betty Garrett, John Drew Barrymore, Jr., Corey Allen, Jerry Mathers, Sam Gilman, Rusty Lane, Ainslie Pryor, Paul Picerni, and William Leslie. Blake Edwards was originally signed to direct.
Only film appearance for Gerald Sarracini. After a Christmas Eve 1957 performance as Romanoff in the Broadway production of "Romanoff and Juliet", he was walking with a friend when they were assaulted by group of men. He died from his injuries two days later.
Only credited performance for Australian-born actress Doreen Woodbury. A dancer who was being groomed for stardom by Columbia Studios head Harry Cohn. While in dance rehearsals for "Pal Joey" (1957), Woodbury committed suicide.
Betty Garrett's only dramatic role. She appeared in lighthearted musicals. By the time this was made, Garrett's career was impacted by the McCarthy hearings blacklist, purely by association. Her husband, Larry Parks, was one of McCarthy's hardest hit sacrificial lambs.