An emotionally troubled teenage girl drops out of high school and travels with her boyfriend to San Diego, while the girl's mother enlists the help of an old U.S. Navy friend to help find her daughter.
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.