Plot
In May 1959, in the town of Cape Anne, Maine, a foul-up by the Eastern & Portland Railroad (E&P) results in the death of 300 lobsters shipped by Jane Osgood (Day). She gets her lawyer and friend, George Denham (Lemmon), to go after the E&P to pay damages after her customer, the Marshall Town Country Club, refuses all future orders.
In the E&P office in New York City, Harry Foster Malone (Kovacs) learns about the Osgood lawsuit. Due to the budget cuts Malone instated, there was no station agent at Marshall Town to receive the lobsters. Malone sends employees Crawford Sloan (Walter Greaza) and Wilbur Peterson (Philip Coolidge) to Cape Anne to deal with the situation. The two attorneys offer $700, but Jane turns it down because the loss to her business reputation is more than that.
Jane wins in court, but E&P appeals the case to the state Supreme Court in Augusta, Maine. George files a writ of execution to force payment and take possession of the train, Old 97, in lieu of payment.
Jane is interviewed by local newspaper reporter Matilda Runyon, who then calls the Daily Mirror in New York. Top reporter Larry Hall (Steve Forrest) is sent to Cape Anne for the story. Television stations also want to interview Jane. Malone retaliates by charging Jane rent for the siding on which the train is sitting.
Jane appears on ABC, NBC, and CBS. Fearful of bad publicity, Malone finally gives in and cancels the rent, but gives Jane the train. Meanwhile, George becomes increasingly jealous when he sees Larry is attracted to Jane so he proposes marriage to her.
Back in Cape Anne, during a town meeting, Jane learns that Malone has ordered all his trains to bypass the town and has given Jane 48 hours to remove Old 97. Jane runs away and George scolds the townspeople for turning against her.
Realizing that Old 97 is just the way to deliver the lobsters, Jane and George persuade everybody to fill up the train's tender with coal from their homes. George recruits his uncle Otis, a retired E&P engineer, to engineer the train.
Old 97 sets off with Jane, her children, George, and the lobsters on board. Malone does everything possible to delay them. Jane becomes upset at the roundabout route Malone is forcing them to take. Eventually, the coal runs out, stopping Old 97 and blocking traffic.
Just then, Malone arrives by helicopter. Jane scolds him for his underhanded actions. Malone finally agrees to Jane's demands. Jane and George tell him to come along so he cannot cause any more trouble. He finally shows his good side by helping shovel coal. Larry and a photographer are in Marshall Town when the train arrives. George kisses Jane in front of Larry and she agrees to marry George.
After the wedding, as George is being sworn in as the new first selectman, a badly needed fire engine pulls into town, a present from Malone.
Read more about this topic: It Happened To Jane
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“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)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)