While John, a young soldier, is home on a temporary leave, he meets and falls in love with Savannah, a college girl on her spring break. Savannah promises to write to John when he is sent overseas. Over the next seven years, the couple continues to be separated by John's increasingly dangerous deployments. Though they meet only sporadically, they continue to stay in touch through love letters that eventually bring fateful consequences.

In a sleepy Northern California town in the 1940s, Ed Crane, a humble barber, suspects that his wife Doris is having an affair with her boss. When a stranger comes into town hinting that there is a fortune to be made in investing in the new invention of dry cleaning, Ed hatches a blackmail scheme he hopes will make him rich and get him some revenge at the same time. His plan goes horribly awry when he accidentally commits a murder for which Doris...