James Gregory plays a thoroughly contemptible character, a sharecropper who uses his sensitive young son as a pawn in a get-rich-quick oil scheme. Gregory is fine, and so is Terry Moore, but the story of the "poor white trash" suddenly overwhelmed by riches, runs steadily downhill.

When a twenty-year old itinerant ranch hand (Keir Dullea) damages Garret property, Jim Redigo (Richard Egan) gives him a choice of jail or a chance to work off the damage.