Summary
In the concrete canyons of 1920s Manhattan, Joseph Greer commands a business empire with the same cold precision he uses to manage his clandestine social life. By day, Jenny McFarlan is his impeccable, bespectacled secretary; by night, the glasses vanish, and she becomes his glamorous mistress in the city's hidden jazz haunts. This carefully curated hypocrisy is upended when Beatrice, Greer’s long-estranged daughter, arrives like a hurricane of silk and rebellion. A quintessential flapper, Beatrice treats her father’s mansion as a playground for pool parties and Prohibition-defying excess. When she falls for the family chauffeur, she doesn't just cross a class line—she obliterates her father’s sense of control. Greer’s subsequent attempt to exert parental authority triggers a catastrophic chain reaction: an elopement that shatters his reputation and a business betrayal that leaves him destitute. The film chronicles his descent into the shadows and the unexpected, humble path toward reconciliation, proving that the man who thinks he is the master of his world is often the biggest fool of all.
Synopsis
Joseph Greer is a wealthy businessman in New York City with all the trappings including a prim-and-proper secretary, Jenny McFarlan, who takes dictation during working hours and, at night, minus her eyeglasses, serves as his nightclub companion and mistress. Then his daughter,Beatrice, whom he has never seen, shows up and moves in with him. Beatrice is a grown-up flapper who loves jazz, pool parties, flaunting prohibition and carrying-on in general. Most of her carrying-on is with the family chauffeur and her father does not approve, says so, and fires the chauffeur. His parental-guidance technique backfires as Beatrice ups and elopes with the chauffeur. Later, the father has some problems with his business associates and loses his business and most of his fixtures and disappears. But Beatrice locates him and there is a happy reunion between father and daughter, especially since daughter has brought along Jenny to cheer him up.
