After stealing from his employer, real estate agent Mario Crane runs away from his married girlfriend, his job and his life. He is overcome by exhaustion driving at night in a heavy rain storm. Traveling on the back roads to avoid the police, he stops for the night at the ramshackle Bates Motel and meets the polite but skittish proprietor Nora Bate. A young woman with an interest in wood carving and a demanding father.