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While staying in a London hotel with his English
theatrical backer, Horace Hardwick, American musical revue star Jerry
Travers wakes up Dale Tremont, Horace's downstairs neighbor, with his
compulsive tap dancing. Upon seeing the furious Dale, Jerry falls
instantly in love and, in spite of her snubbing, daily sends flowers to her
room. Then, while posing as a hansom cab driver, Jerry delivers Dale
to her riding lesson in the park and romances her in a pavilion during a
rain storm. Dale's loving bliss is shattered, however, when she
incorrectly deduces that Jerry, whose name she has never heard, is actually
the husband of her matchmaking friend, Madge Hardwick.
In spite of her desire to return to America,
Dale is convinced by Alberto Beddini, her adoring, ambitious Italian
dressmaker, to accept Madge's invitation to join her in Italy. Before
leaving, Dale encounters Jerry in the hotel and slaps him without
explanation. Worried that the slap will cause a scandal, the hotel
management admonishes a confused Horace, who in turn blames the incident on
Bates, his quarrelsome valet.
After Horace orders Bates to follow Dale, he
receives a telegram from Madge saying that Dale is on her way to the Lido in
Venice. Overjoyed, Jerry rushes through his London revue and flies to
Venice with Horace, unaware that Dale has confessed to Madge in their hotel
room that her husband has made illicit advances toward her.
_NRFPT_01_small.jpg) In Italy, Jerry continues to be baffled by
Dale's emotional vacillations, while Horace is equally baffled by Alberto's
threats of bodily violence. At the hotel nightclub, Dale dances with
Jerry at the urging of Madge, who is unaware that Dale has mistaken Jerry,
the man that she is trying to get Dale to marry, for Horace. When
Jerry then proposes to Dale, she slaps him again, while Madge, who had taken
Dale's initial revelations about Horace with good humor, punches her husband
in the eye. Depressed and heartsick, Dale succumbs to the affections
of Alberto and accepts his marriage proposal.
The next day, Jerry learns that Dale has married
and, by tap dancing as he did in London, connives to see her alone.
Although Dale finally learns Jerry's true identity while cruising with him
in a gondola, the revenge-hungry Alberto pursues the couple across the
canals. Eventually Bates reveals that, while following Dale and
Alberto, he had impersonated a clergyman and performed their marriage
ceremony. Legally single, Dale now accepts Jerry's proposal and, back
in the nightclub, dances happily with him across the floor. |
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