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Retired millionaire Benjamin Dingle comes to
Washington and is greeted by a flurry of no vacancy signs, the result of a
severe war-time housing shortage in the capital. Upon discovering that
he must wait two days to occupy his hotel suite, Dingle scours the
classified ads for room rentals. Arriving at a building to find a line
of eager applicants waiting to rent the half-apartment described in the
paper, the enterprising Dingle pretends to be the lease holder and dismisses
the other candidates. When Connie Milligan, the real lease holder,
arrives, she expresses reluctance to rent to a male roommate, but Dingle
convinces her to grant him a week trial period.
After Connie scurries to work the next morning,
Dingle meets Sgt. Joe Carter, who has come to inquire about renting the room
while he awaits his military assignment. Dingle offers to rent Joe
half of his room and, when Connie returns home from work that evening,
Dingle tries to conceal Joe's presence from her. Joe's barking in the
shower attracts Connie's attention, however, and upon discovering her new
tenant in the hallway, she becomes furious and orders both Dingle and Joe to
leave. When they demand that she refund their rent, however, Connie
allows them to stay because she has spent the money on a new hat.
At breakfast the next morning, Joe finds himself
attracted to his new landlady. After Connie reveals that she has been
engaged for two years to bureaucrat Charles J. Pendergast, Dingle questions
the delay and advises her to "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
Dingle, who has come to Washington as an advisor on the housing shortage,
coincidentally meets the prosaic Pendergast the next day at a luncheon
meeting and decides that Joe would be a better match for Connie.
One day, Dingle discovers Connie's diary and
begins to read aloud the pages that flatter Joe. When Connie discovers
Dingle reading her diary, she denounces him and orders both Dingle and Joe
to move out the next day. The following day, Connie returns home from
work, and Joe gives her a farewell note from Dingle, absolving him of all
blame in the diary incident, and then presents her with a traveling bag as
an apology. Connie, who has become attracted to Joe, accepts the gift
and agrees to let him stay until he leaves for his mission in Africa in two
days.
When Joe invites Connie to dinner that night,
she demurs, saying that she must wait until eight o'clock for Pendergast's
call. After the hour passes without a call from Pendergast, Joe and
Connie prepare to leave when Connie's neighbor, teenager Morton Rodakiewicz,
comes to ask her opinion about joining the Boy Scouts. Morton notices
that Joe has taken the phone off the hook, and as soon as he returns the
receiver to its cradle, Pendergast calls. As Connie leaves to join
Pendergast in the lobby, Joe watches them through binoculars and Morton
accuses him of being a spy.
After driving Morton away by claiming to be a
Japanese agent, Joe goes to meet Dingle for dinner. They arrive at the
same restaurant where Pendergast and Connie are dining. When Dingle
stops at their table with Joe, Pendergast, who is unaware of Connie's
housing situation, invites the two to join them. Determined to unite
Joe and Connie, Dingle suggests they dance while he and Pendergast discuss
the housing shortage in his suite. On the dance floor, Joe is
about to kiss Connie when they are interrupted by a group of Connie's
man-hungry women friends. After Pendergast calls Connie to ask Joe to take
her home, Connie extracts Joe from the clutches of his admirers, and they
walk home together. On the steps outside their apartment building, Joe
starts to caress Connie. Flustered, she begins to extoll Pendergast's
virtues, and they kiss. Saying goodnight, they retire to their
separate bedrooms. Through the wall separating their beds, Connie
confides her doubts about marrying Pendergast, and Joe admits that he loves
her and proposes. As they murmur endearments to each other, Evans and
Pike, two FBI agents, burst into the apartment, having been alerted by
Morton that Joe is a Japanese spy. The agents take Joe and Connie to
headquarters and also summon Dingle, their ex-roommate, there.
Dingle arrives with Pendergast in tow and, when
Pendergast learns that Joe shares Connie's address, he is scandalized.
After Joe is released when his commanding officer vouches for him, he,
Dingle, Connie and Pendergast pile into a cab. Unknown to them, the
other passenger in the taxi is a reporter. After accusing Pendergast
of being interested only in his career, Connie angrily returns his ring.
When the reporter leaves the cab at the headquarters of the Washington
Post, Pendergast, terrified of a scandal, follows him. Dingle then
advises Joe and Connie to marry quickly and file for an annulment to avoid a
scandal.
With only twenty-six hours remaining before Joe
is to leave for Africa, the couple fly to South Carolina to wed. Upon
returning home, the sobbing bride and her groom go to their separate
bedrooms. As Joe and Connie nervously pace, they realize that Dingle
has had the wall between their rooms removed, and they kiss. Dingle,
who has been sleeping in the lobby with a group of roomless men, then steals
up to their apartment door and changes the nameplate to read Mr. and Mrs.
Sgt. Carter. |
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