Plot
Peacetime sailor John J. Baggs is unable to get paid or receive new orders because somehow the U.S. Navy has lost his file. He is able to come and go from the base until curfew.
One night in a bar, he spots an attractive woman hustling guys at a pool table. He challenges her himself and develops an interest in the woman, Maggie, who turns out to be a prostitute living in a tenement with a young black son, Doug.
Baggs begins spending time with Maggie at the apartment, where Doug is often left to fend for himself. His attempts at creating a normal life for her succeed for a while, but Maggie cannot change the way she is. Doug, suspicious and cynical at first, bonds with Baggs, who devotes his free time to the kid and even gets his teeth fixed. But both know that soon Baggs will be reassigned and gone for good.
The Navy's mix-up continues to baffle Baggs until one day a veteran sailor named Forshay not only finds the file, but volunteers to change places with Baggs and ship out under a false name. Baggs and Doug may not have Maggie around any more, but they've got each other.
Read more about this topic: Cinderella Liberty
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
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