- The new owner of a motel in the California desert has a run-in with a gang of delinquent teenage hot rod drivers.
- While on a business trip just before Christmas, Tom Phillips gets into a car accident, which was caused by the reckless driving of the other car involved. Although Tom suffered no paralysis from his back injury, he did come out of the accident with a chronic back problem which results in him not being able to continue with his current work, and a mental block having anything to do with the accident, including Christmas music, driving in general and the sounds of screeching tires and breaking glass. The Phillips - Tom, his wife Peg, and their two children, teenager Tina and pre-teen Jamie - end up moving from their Boston home and buying a motel in Mayville in the California desert. Tom would be physically able to do the work required running a motel, and the dry heat is good for his back. But as they approach Mayville, they encounter a bunch of reckless hot rodders named Duke, Ernie and Gloria. Since Tom scolds them about their reckless behavior, they decide to make the Phillips' lives miserable by terrorizing them using their souped up vehicle. They also end up finding out where the Phillips' ultimate destination is. But as their string of altercations comes to a head, the process which includes Tina's teen-aged infatuation with Duke, the Phillips have to figure out how best to protect themselves, Tom who knows they can't outrun the souped up hot rod, or out "chicken" the crazed Duke.—Huggo
- Tom Phillips, his wife Peg their teenage daughter Tina and little boy Jamie drive through the California desert heading for a new life running a motel. Things go haywire when teenage bad girl Gloria and her two delinquent boyfriends, Duke and Ernie, chase them, with Duke attempting to seduce the daughter, finally driving dad to take action.—alfiehitchie
- Traveling salesman Tom Phillips (Dana Andrews) is driving home to Boston, Massachusetts for Christmas when he encounters a drunken driver on a rain-streaked road. He cannot avoid a collision, and is hospitalized with spinal damage. Since he cannot be a traveling salesman anymore, his brother arranges for Tom to buy a remote motel in the desert town of Mayville, California. Tom is reluctant, since he has never been an innkeeper beforebut in the end he decides that he must travel in order to get as far away from the site of his accident as possible, as soon as possible.
So Tom sets out for California with his wife, teen-aged daughter, and son. But when they reach the desert they are accosted by a pair of drag racers and a "party girl" in a modified, high-performance 1958 Chevrolet Corvette who jokingly force them to swerve and avoid a collision.
This is only the first of a series of escalating encounters with the local youth. Spoiled teenaged children of relatively well-off local farmers, they are apparently given "everything they want" but are still bored and are locked in a never-ending desire for "kicks" in which they will never be satisfied. The adults, including the owner of a local filling station, are fed-up with them. One of these adults, however, turns out to own the very motel that Tom Phillips has bought and he is selling out after having let the wayward youth use his motel as an illicit trysting place for years.
When Tom tells the filling-station owner that he has "just bought himself a motel," one of the kids, named Ernie (Gene Kirkwood), overhears. Soon after, he tells his friend Duke (Paul Bertoya), who is the driver of the Corvette. Duke organizes a campaign of harassment against Tom and chases the hapless family all the way to the motel.
Matters come to a dangerous head when Tom's daughter (Laurie Mock), fascinated by Duke, goes to see him in the motel bar and grill, called the "Arena." Duke's current girlfriend Gloria (Mimsy Farmer), in a jealous rage, informs Tom, who tries to strangle Duke but his back goes out and he must desist. He then informs the former motel owner (George Ives) that he will not go through with the sale. This causes a confrontation between the former owner and the youths, which ends when the owner tells Duke and Ernie that Tom is going to the next town to "bring the police down on this place."
Duke and Ernie resolve never to let Tom Phillips reach that town and so, as the family tries to escape, they engage them in a deadly game of "chicken." This game ends only when Tom outwits the teenagers by parking his car on a narrow bridge, with the headlights on, evacuating him and his family to a safe spot twenty yards off the road. Faced with an unmoving object, Duke turns "chicken" himself, running his car off the edge of the bridge after which he and Ernie, bruised, battered, and with scraped knees, swear that they will never give Tom any trouble. Tom agrees not to turn them in to the police, but tells them that he will go back to his motel and run it properly from now on.
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