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In 1931, with the heartland of Kansas suffering a severe drought, confidence man Bill Starbuck plies his trade as a rainmaker, though he has failed to produce even a single drop of precipitation.  After narrowly escaping another angry mob, to whom he has been selling bogus tornado deflectors, Starbuck arrives in the backwater town of Three Point.  Although the town was once a prosperous farm community, the drought has killed most of the local crops, as well as much of the townspeople's livestock.

Rancher H.C. Curry has problems beyond his dying cattle, however, as his spinster daughter Lizzie has returned home from a week's visit to Sweet River without making any conquests from among her Uncle Ned's three marriage-able sons.  H.C., along with his two sons, Noah and Jim, then decide to match Lizzie up with J.S. File, the local deputy.  Although Lizzie is agreeable to such an arrangement, File has little interest in romance, having come to accept his solitary life.

After declining the Currys' invitation to dinner, File gets into a brief fight with the bumbling Jim, though H.C. strikes the final blow when he tells the deputy that the whole town knows that he is not the grieving widower that he claims to be.  That evening, Lizzie is heartbroken to learn that File is not coming to dinner, but the deputy is soon replaced at the Currys' dinner table by Starbuck.  The fast-talking confidence man offers to bring rain to Three Point in twenty-four hours, if he is paid $100 in advance.  Though H.C. knows Starbuck is a liar, the desperate rancher agrees to the crooked rainmaker's proposition.

Arguing that he can only be successful in creating a storm if the family believes in him, Starbuck sends the three male Currys off on bizarre errands, leaving him alone with Lizzie.  He soon reduces the skeptical spinster to tears by telling her that she will never be a real woman because of her lack of faith in anyone or anything.

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Meanwhile, with the encouragement of his boss, Sheriff Howard Thomas, File has a change of heart and decides to go out to the Curry ranch, under the pretext of apologizing to Jim.  Instead, he confesses to Lizzie that he is a divorced man, who lost his wife to a near-sighted schoolteacher because he was too proud to ask her to stay.  The two then sit down to talk, but the insecure Lizzie finds herself either arguing with File or acting like a brainless idiot.

After the deputy literally runs out of the Curry home, Noah confronts his family, stating that Lizzie is plain and doomed to be an old maid.  Though she seemingly accepts her elder brother's decree, Lizzie's spirits soon soar on the wings of Starbuck's charm, for he convinces her that she will be beautiful if she believes it.  After letting down her hair, Lizzie is kissed for the very first time by Starbuck.  She is not the only Curry to finally gain self-confidence, as Jim breaks away from Noah's domineering manner and becomes engaged to Snookie McGuire.

Soon after, File returns to the Curry ranch looking for a swindler known as Tornado Johnson.  Realizing that Tornado and Starbuck are one and the same, the Currys try to protect the rainmaker from the law, but he is arrested by File nevertheless.  After the entire family, including Noah, asks for Starbuck's release, File agrees to let the confidence man go.  As he begins to ride off, Starbuck stops his wagon and asks Lizzie to join him.  File, however, asks her to stay, and realizing her place is with him, Lizzie remains behind.  Starbuck then gives the Currys back their money and rides off, only to have a rainstorm break out.  He then rides back to the ranch, collects his money and rides off again, finally a real rainmaker.