Enredo

A wealthy heiress returns to a small Arkansas town to furtively reward the townsfolk who helped to save her life when she was a young girl.

Recently arrived back in New York City after several years in Britain, twenty-one year old oil heiress Corby Lane wants to repay what she considers her debt to the residents of Progress, AR - stable population of about two hundred - for them saving her life. When Corby was two and she and her father were passing through town, Robert Sellers, the town's doctor, took up a collection to pay for her bills for emergency medical treatment in St. Louis, that treatment which her father at the time could not afford. Her plan is simply to hand over money to any person she believes would have contributed to that fund, and of which Dr. Sellers probably kept a record. This plan is against the advice of John Bentley, the President of the Lane Oil Corporation, as being misguided, her still misguided Plan B to buy whatever the residents need or want without she telling them that she is their benefactor or of her true identity. In arriving in Progress, she finds that Dr. Sellers cannot help her as being deceased, but that his son, Robert Sellers, Jr., has taken over as the town doctor. Her attempts to repay that debt in the ways she wants has unexpected negative consequences at every turn. Guessing what is going on and concurring with Bentley, Dr. Sellers nonetheless starts to fall for Corby, which, as the town's only real eligible bachelor - a status he fosters - may not sit well with those who are aiming to be Mrs. Dr. Sellers. In his open disdain for what she is doing and has done with her money in fundamentally changing the town and its residents, Corby has to decide if she can admit to herself that she too is falling for Dr. Sellers in return.—Huggo

As usual with most of the RKO films from this era "presented" by RKO-owner Howard Hughes, the PCA number is usually 500-1000 digits lower than the one from other studios being released at the time, indicating it was released a year or more after it was completed. This one finds heiress Corby Lane (Jean Simmons) coming to a small Arkansas town to play Santa Claus because, when she was a small child traveling with her impoverished father, the townspeople saved her life by donating money needed for medical treatment. She meets and falls in love with "Doc" Sellers (Robert Mitchum), an easy-going doctor who enjoys fishing and the unhurried pace of the town. Corby's gesture of handing out money and lavish gifts to the citizens backfires when, after it has been publicized, the town becomes the destination of every wayward traveler and fortune seeker.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>