During the early morning watch, Merchant
Marine Tom Wingfield remembers his life in a shabby St. Louis
apartment with his mother Amanda and crippled sister Laura: Although
she must sell magazine subscriptions to supplement Tom's income from
his work in a warehouse, Amanda fancies herself to be socially
superior to their impoverished neighbors. She blames the
family's reduced circumstances on her absent husband, "a telephone
operator who fell in love with Long Distance," and abandoned the
family years earlier. Afraid that Tom will also leave the
family, she nags him to bring home one of his friends to meet, and
hopefully court, the shy, lame Laura.
At Amanda's urging, Laura is taking a
secretarial course, but her only real interest is her collection of
small glass animals. Tom dreams of escaping his squalid life
and Amanda's romanticized memories of her genteel Southern girlhood.
When Amanda learns that Laura has left the secretarial school, she
proclaims that they will have to get her married. Laura
reminds her mother that she is crippled, and Amanda angrily replies
that she must not think of herself that way.
One day, Tom invites his friend, Jim
O'Connor, to dinner. Carried away by the possibilities of
Laura's first "gentleman caller," Amanda imagines Laura married to
Jim, and despite Tom's gentle caution that Laura's shyness makes her
seem peculiar, Amanda makes elaborate preparations for the dinner.
Laura, however, is distressed when she learns the name of their
visitor, because she remembers him from high school as one of the
most popular boys. She avoids dinner, claiming that she is too
ill to eat, but later, when Amanda arranges for Laura to be alone
with Jim, his open friendliness draws her out.
Diagnosing her shyness as an inferiority
complex, Jim persuades her to show him her glass collection and then
coaxes her to dance. Laura's awkwardness causes them to
accidentally break the horn off Laura's prize glass unicorn.
Although she is upset at first, she is able to accept the change
because it enables the unicorn to fit in with the horses in the
collection. To Amanda's delight, Jim then asks Laura to go
across the alley to the Paradise Ballroom. Again Jim
encourages Laura to have more self-confidence, and after kissing
her, explains that he is engaged to a woman named Betty.
Amanda is more upset than Laura, who gives Jim the broken unicorn as
a gift and invites him to visit again with Betty. Amanda takes
out her disappointment on Tom, who storms out of the apartment.
Laura follows him to voice her approval and love.
Tom joins the Merchant Marine.
Later, Laura has her own gentleman caller.
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