Real estate secretary Marion Crane is unable to marry her lover, Sam Loomis. Her destiny places in her hands $40,000 in cash that her boss trusts her to deposit in the bank. Marion decides to seize that sum to start a new life with Sam. On her way to California, night falls and a severe storm forces her to seek lodging at a lonely roadside motel run by a shy, strange and somewhat insane young man, Norman Bates, and her mother.
