The Notorious Mr. Monks is a 1958 American drama film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Vera Ralston, Don Kelly and Paul Fix.

In central California, hitchhiker Dan Flynn comes across drunken Ben Monks, passed out at the wheel of his parked car.

Angie, who married the much older Ben because he promised her there was millions of dollars worth of oil on his farm, has grown weary of his alcoholism and abusiveness.

In the morning, Ben gruffly negotiates a low wage for Dan, and over the next days pushes him to work long hours.

A drunken Ben drives home without realizing that young runaway Gilda Hadley is hiding in his back seat.

At the farm, when Ben accuses Angie of cheating, she retorts that he lied about the oil and calls him old, prompting him to hit her, after which he pleads with her not to leave him.

With strong circumstantial evidence against Dan, who was the last to see Ben alive, his only hope lies in locating Gilda, who was watching from the loft and so may have seen the real killer.

The judge rules that the death occurred accidentally when Ben fell from the loft and hit his head on the anvil, and Dan is freed.