The Great Night

A bachelor shackled by the tick of an ancestral clock, Larry Gilmore hurtles through a carnival of matrimonial panic: a fortune blooms only if he weds before the chimes cease. Suitors swarm like starlings, their eyes glittering with fiduciary hunger; he ducks them by ducking into a cobalt police tunic, badge flashing like a talisman against cupidity. In a grease-scented diner he collides with Mollie Martin, a waitress whose smile carries the salt of the everyday; she stirs coffee, dreams, and—unaware of his looming millions—agrees to stitch her life to his. Jewel thieves, champagne mishaps, and a citywide scramble coil around the lovers until, with seconds hissing toward zero, vows are traded, cuffs snap shut on crooks, and love cashes the check destiny wrote.