In the 1950s town of Hornbeck, Dickie Herkimer sees fellow teenager Anton “Tony” Beeler walking toward a dance in the nearby town of Millville. Although Dickie claims he would not be caught dead with a Millville girl, he asks if he can tag along. Tony answers “no” and keeps walking. Dickie puts a package into a mailbox and blows it up. In Millville, as Tony dances with Eva Bullard, she recognizes him as the one who broke her cousin Norman Huff’s collarbone during the last Hornbeck-Millville football game. When Tony has to leave, Eva playfully punches him in the stomach and runs into a nearby cemetery, with Tony following close behind. As they kiss, Tony pushes his hands under Eva’s blouse, but stops fondling her when she admits she is not yet fourteen. The next day, Tony’s father, Dolf Beeler, goes to a Millville hardware store owned by Eva’s father, Bud Bullard. Eva’s brother, Junior Bullard, refuses to wait on Dolf until he removes the unlit cigar in his mouth. As they argue, Bud’s cousin, Reverton Kirby, claiming to be a police officer, intervenes, and Dolf tells him to get lost. The mentally unbalanced Reverton pulls a pistol, handcuffs Dolf, and frightens him into giving a sobbing apology. After Reverton removes the cuffs and leaves, Junior reveals that his relative is only a railroad detective, not a real policeman. Dolf becomes enraged and swears revenge. At the munitions plant where he works, Dolf Beeler tells fellow worker Walt Huff that he is looking for Reverton, then drives home and warns his son, Tony, to stay away from the Bullards, especially the women. Tony confesses to his sister, Bernice Beeler, that he loves Eva Bullard, but their father has ordered him to avoid the family. Having recently returned to Hornbeck after living in a city, Bernice is pregnant, but hides her morning sickness, teases her hair, and dresses in tight pants in hope of luring someone to marry her. Later, Junior Bullard leaves a lit marijuana cigarette in the hardware store bathroom and burns the place down, but Reverton convinces Bud Bullard that Dolf Beeler set the fire. Elsewhere, during football practice at Hornbeck High School, Tony hears about the fire and runs to Millville to see Eva. Reverton stops Tony on the street, discovers he is Dolf Beeler’s son, and marches him to Bud’s house at gunpoint. Anguished by the loss of his store and lack of insurance, Bud Bullard is gassing himself in the basement when Reverton brings the Beeler boy down. Still bleary from the fumes, Bud orders Tony and his family to stay out of Millville. The teenager runs from the house, but Eva pulls him into the bushes, and as they kiss and declare their love, Tony explains he must warn his father. Returning to Hornbeck, Tony is joined by Dickie Herkimer, who shows him a new explosive device. When Tony goes into the house, Dickie puts his homemade bomb under the hood of Dolf’s car, blows it up, and runs. Believing that Bullard destroyed his car, Dolf reports the crime to Hornbeck Chief of Police Harvey Yelton. When Ernie arrives to tow Dolf’s car to his garage, he flirts with Bernice, but she is interested in the police chief, who drives her to an abandoned building, makes love to her, then tells her to take a bus home. After he leaves, Bernice pats her belly and declares, “Guess we got us a daddy.” At the munitions plant, Walt Huff suggests to Dolf Beeler that he patch things up with Bud Bullard, but when Dolf insults the Bullard family, Walt angrily replies that his wife is a Bullard and punches Dolf in the stomach. Dolf hits Walt in the nose, sending him stumbling away. As Dolf exalts in his victory, however, he suffers a heart attack. Hearing that looters are cleaning out his store, Bud Bullard arrives with a shotgun and shoots at everything that moves, prompting Millville Chief of Police Clive Shell to hit him on the head with his nightstick. As Shell delivers Bud to Millville’s hospital in a straitjacket, attendants wheel Dolf Beeler into the emergency room. Meeting Eva in a hospital corridor, Tony asks her to elope with him. Meanwhile, Bernice visits Police Chief Harvey Yelton to inform him she needs money to go away and have his baby, but Yelton reminds her that she could not possibly know she was pregnant with his child because they only had sex the day before. Wielding his revolver, he adds that a woman could get herself shot making trouble for a man. As Tony drives his mother, Bobby Beeler, home from the hospital, Millville Police Chief Clive Shell pulls him over for driving through a stop sign. When Bobby defends her son, Shell treats her disrespectfully, and Tony knocks him unconscious. Meanwhile, “the stranger” sits at a bar. Bernice walks in, asks him to buy her a drink, and tries to pick him up, but the stranger walks out. At that moment, Ernie the tow truck driver enters and Bernice enthusiastically greets him. Standing guard outside Bud Bullard’s house, Reverton tells Junior Bullard he expects the Beeler boy to return and commit mischief. Junior offers to guard the house while Reverton goes inside and eats, but adds that he will need Reverton’s gun for protection. As soon as Reverton goes inside, Junior hurries away with the gun. At the Hornbeck police station, when Bobby Beeler alerts Harvey Yelton that Tony knocked out Police Chief Shell, Harvey eases her mind by suggesting that Shell will be too ashamed to let anyone know the boy beat him up. Their conversation reveals that they were once lovers, and that Tony is secretly Harvey’s son, not Dolf’s. Meanwhile, as Junior flashes Reverton’s gun at Curley McCoy’s café, Curley and his cook slip out the back door, leaving Junior to clean out the cash register. At the Bullard house, Reverton finds Junior gone and thinks the Beelers have kidnapped him. Hearing a woman screaming, he goes into an auto body repair yard and finds Ernie and Bernice making love in a tow truck. Reverton insults Bernice, and Ernie knocks him unconscious. Junior goes to a bar, but the bartender refuses to serve him because he is underage. Drawing Reverton’s gun, Junior demands the bartender sell him a drink. The bartender hits him with a club, and in his delirium, Junior shoots the woman sitting next to him. She is shocked, but unhurt. The bartender picks up the gun and recognizes it as a starter’s pistol. At the Millville police station, a battered Reverton reports being jumped by a gang of toughs. Policeman Ray Dooley receives a telephone call from Police Chief Harvey, asking him to pick up Junior, who was arrested in Hornbeck for attempted robbery. As soon as Dooley leaves the station, Reverton sees Police Chief Shell’s holstered gun hanging on the wall and puts it on, along with a police hat and badge. Meanwhile, Tony and Eva make love in a cemetery, then go to a Millville bakery to buy hot donuts. Offended that her donut is cold, Eva demands that Tony get another one for her, and when he balks, she derides him and his family for being spineless. Tony tells her goodbye and goes to the hospital to see his dad. Dolf awakens long enough to ask Tony for a cigar. Smiling as his son places one in his mouth, Dolf passes away. Early next morning, Ernie and Bernice are married by a justice of the peace, but he refuses to take his new bride home until they have had a few dates and accustomed his mother to the relationship. Elsewhere, patrolling deserted downtown streets, Reverton encounters the stranger leaving the Millville Bank & Trust carrying a paper bag. The stranger draws a gun and shoots him, and though Reverton is wounded several times in the exchange, he kills the stranger. In the hospital, Reverton’s mortal injuries shock Bud Bullard out of his mental fog. Whispering in Bud’s ear, Reverton bequeaths whatever reward he gets to Junior, then dies. Chief Shell arrests Tony at his new job at the Millville bakery, but the young man pushes a cream pie into the policeman’s face and runs to Hornbeck, where Chief Harvey offers him the job of deputy. In the weeks ahead, Bud Bullard opens a new hardware store with Reverton’s reward money. Dickie Herkimer impresses Eva Bullard with his homemade explosives. Driving the Hornbeck police car, Deputy Tony Beeler, with one of his dad’s unlit cigars in his teeth, faces off with Chief Clive Shell at the line dividing the two towns.