What It's About:

Frustrated with his wife’s spending habits, financier J.B. Ball (Arnold) throws his wife’s brand-new $58,000 sable coat out of the window, where it alights on the shoulders of working-girl Mary Smith (Arthur), who’s riding to the office on a double-decker bus. When she attempts to return the coat, the blustering “Bull of Broad Street” indulges her with a new hat and a ride to work, unwittingly opening the door to a world of instant fortune—and a heap of personal troubles.

Why I Love It:

The great Preston Sturges (“Sullivan’s Travels”) penned this farcical, rags-to-riches romance, in which an innocent secretary is assumed by her snitty coworkers and a hotelier to be the mistress of an older, married tycoon. As always with a Sturges picture, this is only the beginning of delightfully nutty entanglements, and Leisen’s light touch with the script allows the future director’s comic vision to unfold without a hitch. Ray Milland is a hoot, too, as Ball Jr., Arthur’s bumbling love interest.