****SPOILERS*** Despite his background as a Yale graduate and it's star football running back modest and unassuming Dick Bruton, Joel McCrea, is just a working man at heart and nothing else. You can just imagine when his boss Arthur Parker's, Robert McWade, daughter Dottie, Dorothy Mackaill, took a shine to him when he was invited to dinner at the Parker Estate. Not only was he tall and good looking but not at all interested in fame and in getting a $1,0000.00 bonus for saving three fellow steel workers lives in a accident at her dad's steel mill. This impressed Dottie so much that she set her sights in getting Dick hooked and married before Christmas just about month away.
Even though Dick was anything but impressed with Doddie and her rich and never worked a day in their lives friends he did find her attractive in a nutty kind of way and before you know it he accepted, which should have been the other way around, Dottie's proposal of marriage. As Dick was soon to find out if he didn't already marriage to a rich and full of herself girl wasn't exactly paradise. Getting a promotion at the steel mill made life a little better for Dick in him being into his work, as the mill's 3rd vice president, and staying away from his wife Dottie and her rich and snobbish friends. But things soon came to a head when Dick got the job of being in charge of the construction of a major bridge project in St. Louis which called for him to be away from home, New Jersey, for two weeks. It's those two weeks that Dottie has a number of major parties and social functions to attend! And it's now either building the bridge or staying home with his wife Dottie if he want her to stay married to him.
*****SPOILER***** All American Joel McCrae as Dick Brunton was never better as the guy who's not impressed with money or position but just wants to do a good days work for a good days or weeks pay which was back then in 1930 $45.00 a week; That's about $625,00 a week in 2013 dollars. As for his wife Dottie she realized that her money and good looks weren't enough to attract a man like Dick who was interested in far more important things in the woman that he married. Like her raising a family and washing the dishes as well as his socks and pants and having food, or a hot meal, on the table when he comes home from a hard days work. Now with Dottie finally seeing the light in what a happy marriage is supposed to be the two newlyweds drive into the sunset in Dick's battered jalopy to live a normal, not filthy rich, life and make ends meet with Dick's $45.00, pulse a 10% raise, a week salary. That in the depths, which in 1930 or 1931 were still yet to come, of the Great 1930's Depression that may very well, with all the thousands of steel mills being forced to close down, put Dick on the unemployment line!
P.S Check out the tenant at the Burton House Hughie "Smily" Hanready played by Ned Sparks. Spark's dead pan and unemotional way of delivering his lines was so important to him that he had himself insured for $10,000.00 if anyone was able to photograph him smiling.
Even though Dick was anything but impressed with Doddie and her rich and never worked a day in their lives friends he did find her attractive in a nutty kind of way and before you know it he accepted, which should have been the other way around, Dottie's proposal of marriage. As Dick was soon to find out if he didn't already marriage to a rich and full of herself girl wasn't exactly paradise. Getting a promotion at the steel mill made life a little better for Dick in him being into his work, as the mill's 3rd vice president, and staying away from his wife Dottie and her rich and snobbish friends. But things soon came to a head when Dick got the job of being in charge of the construction of a major bridge project in St. Louis which called for him to be away from home, New Jersey, for two weeks. It's those two weeks that Dottie has a number of major parties and social functions to attend! And it's now either building the bridge or staying home with his wife Dottie if he want her to stay married to him.
*****SPOILER***** All American Joel McCrae as Dick Brunton was never better as the guy who's not impressed with money or position but just wants to do a good days work for a good days or weeks pay which was back then in 1930 $45.00 a week; That's about $625,00 a week in 2013 dollars. As for his wife Dottie she realized that her money and good looks weren't enough to attract a man like Dick who was interested in far more important things in the woman that he married. Like her raising a family and washing the dishes as well as his socks and pants and having food, or a hot meal, on the table when he comes home from a hard days work. Now with Dottie finally seeing the light in what a happy marriage is supposed to be the two newlyweds drive into the sunset in Dick's battered jalopy to live a normal, not filthy rich, life and make ends meet with Dick's $45.00, pulse a 10% raise, a week salary. That in the depths, which in 1930 or 1931 were still yet to come, of the Great 1930's Depression that may very well, with all the thousands of steel mills being forced to close down, put Dick on the unemployment line!
P.S Check out the tenant at the Burton House Hughie "Smily" Hanready played by Ned Sparks. Spark's dead pan and unemotional way of delivering his lines was so important to him that he had himself insured for $10,000.00 if anyone was able to photograph him smiling.