Summary
An aging Manhattan patriarch, Henry Burgess, orchestrates a comic-baroque experiment in affection: he commandeers twin foundlings from a washerwoman’s washtub and deposits them like Trojan horses on the marble doorsteps of two emotional recluses—Virginia Parke, a porcelain heiress who dotes on her pom-pommed poodle Frou-Frou more than on any biped, and Peter Warburton, a ledger-enslaved magnate whose heart beats only in quarterly increments. The infants, smelling of soap flakes and possibility, detonate the adults’ routines: silk parlor becomes nursery, ticker-tape office becomes cradle. Courtship emerges through lullabies and mashed-pea philosophies; love is measured in diaper pins and the precise angle of a nursery-rhyme hum. Just as the mismatched pair prepare to sign a lifetime merger, the twins vanish—snatched by their ne’er-do-well father who covets the $25,000 safety bond posted by the manipulative uncle. A chase through tenement shadows and moonlit wharfs restores the babies to their rightful washerwoman and, more crucially, restores Peter and Virginia to one another—now eager to manufacture heirs of their own, no subterfuge required.
Synopsis
Henry Burgess favors a match between his ward, Virginia Parke, and his nephew, Peter Warburton, but she is only interested in her poodle, Frou Frou, and Peter devotes all of his attention to his business. To bring them together, Uncle Henry rents twin babies of the laundrywoman, Bridget McGroghan, placing one on Peter's doorstep and the other on Virginia's. Each discovering that the other has a baby, Peter and Virginia soon begin to share their views on child rearing and matrimony, and are about to become engaged when the babies disappear. Michael McGroghan, the twins' father, hires a pair of crooks to kidnap the babies so that he may collect the $25,000 bond that has been put up by Henry for their safe return. Peter, however, tracks down the kidnappers, and after the infants are returned to their grateful mother, he and Virginia look forward to having their own babies.
Director
