The story is by Ernest Lehman and Geza Herczeg and the snappy screenplay by the team of Mary Loos and Richard Sale. It is a Depression-era story written when President Roosevelt declared an eight-day "bank holiday" (closings) with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 to avoid customer withdrawals. In the case of this film, however, it involves the circulation of a thousand dollars that solves and creates problems.
William Lundigan plays a
struggling artist (cliché intended). He is stressed about a decent
living for supporting his fiancée, Marsha Hunt. He owes a thousand
dollars to her father, Gene Lockhart, owner of a local inn. Lockhart
loathes the artist's feast-or-famine career pursuit. It initiates his
overstepping the bounds of character exaggeration. The frequency
becomes a bit out of place in a film of subtle humor, not in keeping
with a screwball comedy.
While attending to an inn guest, Roscoe Karns, Winninger mindlessly puts his thousand dollars in the wrong envelope—addressed to Lundigan—into the safe. Karn's insurance money is meant for a local farmer, Tom Fadden, when he arrives. Karns uses his typical rapid-fire delivery as a wisecracking womanizer with a trademark double-take after a verbal smackdown. He is frightened by the mere mention of conflict. Lockhart later finds the money in the safe and mistakenly thinks it was payment for Lundigan's paintings. He quickly changes his tune toward Lundigan in absurd fashion. He claims the cash to pay off his debt to local merchant, Will Wright, who in turn pays what he owes the building's owner, Florence Bates. The head-strong Bates in turn gives the money to an attorney, Robert Shayne, to cover waning legal fees.
Speaking of over-the-top, Shayne is so distraught over not being able
to make a living for his wife, Gail Patrick, he considers suicide.
Bates prevents this with her visit to his office. Suddenly Shayne is
beside himself with joy. I suspect he is bipolar. Patrick then uses
the money to pay Lundigan for her portrait she's gifting her husband.
So, amusingly, the money goes full circle, ending up with the artist,
who then pays Lockhart, who gives it to Winninger to place in the
safe. Perfect timing for Karns to pay farmer Fadden. Into the mix is
are bootleggers, Allen Jenkins, and his dim-witted partner, William
Haad, was tempted to steal the dough in the safe. But unknown to
them, the safe is empty!
Note: The film has its implausibilities with the aforementioned over-the-top emotional swings and the fact that all six people owe or are paid exactly one thousand dollars. Winninger is the spark of the film. In true form is both lovable and exasperating. Hunt, Lundigan, and Shayne never looked better.
