Sideshow kootch-dancer Lane Bellamy (Joan Crawford), stranded in a backwater town, gets a job as a waitress. Lane begins falling in love with Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott), the political protégé of the town's big-daddy sheriff Titus Semple (Sidney Greenstreet). Semple regards Lane as a gold-digging troublemaker, and does his best to break up the romance, framing her on a trumped-up morals charges and having her shipped off to prison. Once out of the joint, Lane returns to town, seeking revenge against both Semple and Carlisle. She charms political hack Dan Reynolds (David Brian) into marriage, then transforms Reynolds into a "reform candidate" bent on destroying the corrupt Semple machine.