While working as a counselor at a summer camp, college-student Marjorie Morgenstern falls for 32-year-old Noel Airman, a would-be dramatist working at a nearby summer theater. Like Marjorie, he is an upper-middle-class New York Jew, but has fallen away from his roots, and Marjorie's parents object among other things to his lack of a suitable profession. Noel himself warns Marjorie repeatedly that she's much too naive and conventional for him, but they nonetheless fall in love.

A crazed teacher at a respectable girls' school draws power from a medallion she has obtained from the Carpathian Mountains, and uses it to experiment telepathically on the school's newest young pupil.

An agent from a distant planet has been sent to earth to ship large quantities of blood to his world, where a plague is ravaging the populace. He comes equipped with an interstellar matter transmitter, telepathic mind-control powers, and deathray-shooting eyes. Because he is also affected by the blood disease, he gains control of the town's physician and has him place a nurse at his disposal, while he collects live humans for fresh blood; but gains the nurse's suspicions, along with those of her boyfriend - a town police officer.

Rock-and-roller Arnie Haynes returns to his hometown as a hero to the teenagers. However, the mayor and other concerned adults have banned him from performing in his hometown because they consider him and his music a negative influence on the youth. But with the help of disc jockey/publicist Alan Freed and fellow artists (including Bill Haley and the Comets and Little Richard), they hope to convince everyone that rock and roll is not as dangerous as the adults think.