Carlito Brigante is released from jail after serving five years of a much longer stretch. He vows to go straight and to live life as a fine, upstanding citizen. He even rekindles a romance with his ex-lover. However, Carlito’s associates cannot seem to leave him in peace…his nephew involves him a pool-room gunfight, his lawyer asks him for “favours” which spiral out of control, and even an old friend (now a wheelchair bound paraplegic) tries to get him into trouble with the law. Carlito decides to make a run for Florida and the promise of a new life, but has one final dramatic escape to make from some hoods who believe (wrongly) that he was behind the murder of their boss.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.