Danny, a teenage runaway, meets Bix (Brett Halsey), a drifter who agrees to show him the ropes. Ending up in a small town, the pair court trouble in a pool hall, and later at a local diner. There they meet Carrie (Joyce Meadows), a waitress who is hounded by the filthy town letch Jesse (Jack Elam). When she is suddenly murdered, Bix is accused and a lynch mob beats him within an inch of his life before Danny reveals a shocking discovery.

A "troubled youth" film of the period, The Girl in Lover's Lane is a gritty slice of Americana showing the dark underbelly of small-town U.S.A.

When a drifter picks up a small town sweetheart who later turns up dead, he must clear his name or face the town's vengeance.