Plot
J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold), the third richest banker in America, becomes infuriated after learning that his wife Jenny (Mary Nash) had bought a $58,000 fur coat without his knowledge. After finding so many fur coats in her closet, Ball grabs one which turns out to, in fact, be the offending coat and throws it off his New York City penthouse roof. It lands on Mary Smith (Jean Arthur) while she is riding to work on a double-decker bus. When she tries to return it, he tells her to keep it (without informing her how valuable it is). He also buys her an expensive new hat to replace the one damaged in the incident, causing her to be mistaken for his mistress. When she shows up for work, her straitlaced boss suspects her of behaving improperly to get a coat she obviously cannot afford and fires her to protect the reputation of the Boy's Constant Companion, the magazine he publishes.
Mary begins receiving offers from people eager to cash in on her notoriety. One firm gives her an expensive sixteen-cylinder car, and hotel owner Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni) installs her in a luxury suite, hoping that this will deter Ball from foreclosing on his failing establishment.
When Mary goes to an automat for a meal, she meets John Ball Jr. (Ray Milland), J.B.'s son. He is determined to make it on his own and is working anonymously at the restaurant. However, he is fired for giving Mary free food. When Mary finds out he has no place to stay, she invites him to share her enormous suite while he looks for a new job. They quickly fall in love.
Meanwhile, as time goes on, her supposed connection to J.B has satirically disastrous consequences for the stock market. Stockbroker E.F. Hulgar (Andrew Tombes) asks her for inside information about steel from Mr. Ball. The only Ball the confused Mary knows is John Jr., so she consults him. He jokingly tells her it is going down and she passes it along to Hulgar. As a result, everybody begins selling, just as J.B. starts buying, causing J.B.'s company to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. When Mary, John, and J.B. finally get together and figure out what is going on, John comes up with a bright solution - getting Mary to tell Hulgar that J.B. has cornered the market. Prices shoot up, rescuing the beleaguered financier.
The delighted father gives his son a job. John then offers Mary a job too: fixing his breakfast every day as his wife.
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“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.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)