A young doctor (Peter Falk) on a staff headed by a senior psychiatrist (Sidney Poitier) is frustrated with his patient, who is black and detests him because he is white.

"[2] The prisoner has a sleep disorder and blackouts and, over time, is prodded to discuss trauma he experienced throughout his life, particularly in childhood at the hands of his father and through the weakness of his mother.

The prisoner describes how, while impoverished during the Great Depression, he met an attractive young woman who was kind to him and seemed interested in a relationship, but her father puts a stop to the budding romance.

Back in the present day, the senior doctor reveals that the Nazi prisoner was released, and was some years later executed for beating an old man to death for no reason.

In his autobiography, he noted "obviously a picture about a black psychiatrist treating white patients was not the kind of sure-fire package that would send audiences rushing into theatres across the country.