Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Gary Cooper,Jean Arthur,Lionel Stander,Ann Doran

Longfellow Deeds of Mandrake Falls, Vermont is a simple man who needs little more to be truly happy than to come up with greeting-card poems or play his tuba. Longfellow learns that he is the sole beneficiary to the $20-million estate of his New-York-City-based Uncle Martin Semple--whom he barely knows except by name--who died in a car accident in Italy. Never having left Mandrake Falls, Longfellow is excited to travel to New York to deal with the estate, if only to see the sights of the big city. Certain things seem to come along with the inheritance, including a mansion full of servants and Cornelius Cobb, who is tasked with protecting Longfellow from any predators on behalf of his employer, Uncle Martin's lawyer John Cedar who wants to continue to have power of attorney over the estate for his own benefit. Beyond Cedar, people and organizations come out of the woodwork wanting their piece of the estate, believing they can run roughshod over "simpleminded country bumpkin" Longfellow--who is not so simpleminded. The one person who gets past Cobb's wall to fleece Longfellow is Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Babe Bennett, who is playing down-on-her-luck working girl "Mary Dawson" to play to Longfellow's humanity. Babe's mission is to write an exclusive series on Longfellow--portraying him as a backward sap. Babe's articles have the potential to ruin Longfellow's life and his selfless plan for all the money, and even if she develops a conscience and comes to his aid in being converted to his simple and more humanistic way of thinking, his fate might already be sealed, not only in being classified as backward, but more importantly certifiable.—Huggo