Sisters Jane and Penny are arrested for hitchhiking on their way to Los Angeles when they stop for a quick skinny-dip in a rural town. Local agricultural magnate Tropp, who sponsors a local prison work program, puts the women in the cotton fields to work off their sentence. Tropp marries the middle-aged widowed judge to ensure a stable supply of cheap labor to undercut his competition. The prisoners suffer ill treatment, but the judge's son has signed on as a hired hand and begins to figure out the scam as he falls in love with Jane, and Penny dreams of making it big in showbiz.