Summary
Ink still wet on exile papers, muckraker Burton Grant is railroaded out of town by Jarvis McVey’s bought-and-paid-for posse; his parting shot is to will the tottering Daily News to firebrand city editor Frank Summers. But Grant’s daughter Sylvia—half Gibson-girl, half powder-keg—vaults over patriarchal intent, sacks Frank with a satin bow, and turns the newsroom into a pastel tempest of ribboned typewriters and giddy scoops that read like valentines laced with strychnine. While she’s busy headline-couturing, Frank digs into a smoky pact between McVey and the railroad baron to gouge the city franchise; Sylvia, stung by love and rivalry, slings an extra that bellows for tar, feathers, and civic vengeance. A torch-bearing throng answers, only to be gentled by the sudden revenant figure of Papa Grant, who strong-arms McVey onto the next dust-blown freight. Order ostensibly restored, Grant banishes his daughter back to finishing-school purgatory; Sylvia, ink in her veins and wedding rice in her eyes, tears up the ticket and claims the rival editor instead, sealing the saga with a kiss that smells of newsprint and gunpowder.
Synopsis
Run out of town when he exposes crooked politician Jarvis McVey in the pages of his newspaper, Burton Grant asks his daughter Sylvia to turn the Daily News over to his dynamic young city editor, Frank Summers. Having inherited her father's journalistic talents, however, Sylvia fires Frank and takes charge of the paper herself, decorating the city room with bows and printing several rather silly "scoops." In the meantime, Frank learns that McVey and the president of the railroad have become involved in a dishonest scheme concerning the city franchise, and when Sylvia hears this, she publishes an extra, stating that McVey should be tarred and feathered. Sylvia's father arrives just in time to prevent the angry townspeople from carrying out her suggestion and then compels McVey to leave town. Grant orders Sylvia to return to school, but she decides to become Mrs. Frank Summers instead.
