In the 20th century, Regina Hubbard Giddens (Bette Davis) who comes from an aristocrat family, struggles for wealth. For Regina, her life revolves around being able to have power and wealth and thus decided to manipulate her young and naive daughter named Alexandra(Teresa Wright) to coax her estrange husband, Horace (Herbert Marshall) who suffers from an incurable illness so he will agree to come back to live with her. Together with her two ruthless brothers named Ben (Charles Dingle) and Oscar Hubbard(Carl Benton Reid), Regina sets forward a cunning scheme in the hope of getting a larger share of the cotton mill which is owned by the alcoholic Birdie (Patricia Collinge) who is Oscar's wife. Unfortunately, due to her greediness she eventually lost both her husband and her only daughter, Alexandra.