A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

A Vietnam vet, Jud Carney. returns to Los Angeles at Christmas time, finds out it's not how he thought it was going to be. When Jud discovers his fiancee has left him, he moves into a boarding house peopled with "types." Flashback memories of the war and the suicide of fellow house resident, reduce Jud to a broken and bitter man.