Summary
Crimson-curtained farce unfurls inside a dowager’s marble mansion where vaudeville ghosts shimmy through Art-Deco corridors: John Smith, heir-presumptive to two million Depression-era dollars, discovers the fortune hangs on a single, preposterous string—he must excise Lucille, his firecracker wife and former song-and-dance phenom, from the marital ledger. Cue a cha-cha of deception: John checks into a gaudy hotel with Fannie, the janitor’s sultry spouse, to manufacture adulterous “evidence,” only to find the thin walls vibrating with the honeymoon tantrums of Britton Hughes and his fugitive bride Peggy. Doors slam, identities blur, and a ricocheting husband storms the corridor; in the ensuing centrifugal panic John and Peggy tumble together just as Lucille pirouettes in, her heart snapping like a snare drum. From here the narrative whips through mistaken bedrooms, telegram mix-ups, a near-elopement to Havana on a rum-runner’s yacht, and a final deus-ex-spinster when Auntie reveals the clause was a Machiavellian stress-test of affection. The curtain falls on reconciliations, a reprise of Lucille’s old music-hall number, and a shower of ticker-tape confetti that turns the screen into a pop-art snow globe.
Synopsis
John Smith learns in order to inherit two million dollars from his wealthy aunt, he divorce his wife Lucille, a former vaudeville performer. In order to qualify for his inheritance, John devises the idea of divorcing his wife and then remarrying her. To establish grounds for the divorce, John registers at a hotel with Fannie, the janitor's wife. Their neighbors in the adjoining room are Britton Hughes and his bride Peggy, who are being pursued by the bride's father. The arrival of Fannie's husband precipitates a panic in the two apartments, during which time, John and Peggy are thrown together. At that moment, Lucille arrives and believes that John is guilty of a real affair. Several complications arise until John's aunt appears and tells her nephew that the will was all a test of his love for Lucille, and when the runaway bride and groom are forgiven, all ends happily.
