Vincent Lubeck is a vicious ex-convict. His criminal activities are despised by his family, but he uses and abuses them in the course of his crimes. Eventually his own brother must stand up to him.

Susan Morrow, the secretary to Robert Clarke, a model photographer, is upset when her boss pays too much attention to model Noreen Nash. Morrow's younger sister takes a candid photo of her sister in her underwear, with face hidden, and sends it to Clarke. He is intrigued and tries to locate the mystery girl but, meanwhile, enters the photograph in a contest. It wins, provided Clarke can identify the girl. He offers a reward and hires a friend to search for her. Meanwhile, back the agency, Nash offers to pose as the missing girl, but she and Clarke quarrel and she walks out. Rather than leave her boss in a fix, Morrow admits she is the girl in the picture.

A ruthless, cynical, hated publisher is killed in a plane crash, doomed to be a "restless" spirit for being unloved. A heavenly power gives him a month on Earth to find one person to shed a tear for him before his fate is sealed.

While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he sets about the business of surviving in a world where, he knows, the old ideals of humanity will be the first casualties.

After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico to hide out.