|
On a rainy night in New York, hustler Bill
O'Brien looks for a sucker to fleece and enters a swank nightclub. He
sets his sights on Charles Engle, a desperate embezzler bent on suicide as
the only way out of his crime. Bill misinterprets Engle's modest
clothes and demeanor and thinks that he is a rich "hick" from out of town.
What he does not know is that Engle has been given until six o'clock in the
morning to repay money that he embezzled to spend on his frivolous wife.
Bill enlists the beautiful and ambitious Nina Barona, an aspiring showgirl
whom he meets at the club, to act as bait to lure the unsuspecting Engle
into a high stakes poker game run by gangster Dutch Enright.
Meanwhile, Gene Gibbons, an alcoholic,
down-on-his-luck playwright who sees a story in everyone, becomes involved in
Engle's life when he is mistakenly given Engle's coat at the cloak room and
finds his suicide note. Though he himself is despondent, he decides to
plot "a happy ending" for the desperate man. When he approaches Engle and
hears his story, Gene tries to trick his former mistress out of a brooch that
has a value more than equal to Engle's debt, but the brooch turns out to be
paste.
When Gene hears about Bill's original plan to fleece
Engle in a poker game, he enlists Bill in a new scheme to win the three thousand
dollars that Engle needs by having Engle go to the game, then sneak out after
the gamblers allow him to win some initial "sucker money." Bill is
reluctant, but agrees if Engle will give him anything over the three thousand
dollars.
While waiting in a hotel room for the game to start,
Gene scripts a scenario for Bill and Engle, then passes out. Bill decides
to go through with the plan but, before the curtain is rung down on the last
act, Gene wakes up sober and, having forgotten everything about the evening's
events, leaves the hotel to reconcile with his ex-wife, who has always had faith
in him. Now stranded, Bill, Engle and Nina must write their own ending.
When Dutch learns that Engle plans to skip out with
the winnings, Nina appeals to Bill's better instincts and convinces him to beat
off Dutch's thugs while Engle escapes with the money. In doing their good
deed, Nina and Bill fall in love and redeem themselves, thus finding their own
happy ending.
|
_01.jpg)
_01.jpg){kind=small}
_02.jpg)
