Plot

An opinion pollster finds a town which is a perfect mirror of U.S. opinions.

Rip Smith's opinion-poll business is a failure...until he discovers that the small town of Grandview is statistically identical to the entire country. He and his assistants go there to run polls cheaply and easily, in total secrecy (it would be fatal to let the townsfolk get self-conscious). And of course, civic crusader Mary Peterman must be kept from changing things too much. But romantic involvement with Mary complicates life for Rip; then suddenly everything changes...—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Lawrence "Rip" Smith (James Stewart) runs a struggling public opinion polling company. Rip's company is underfunded and can't compete with the industry leaders, and so he is obsessed with finding a perfect formula for polling to give his company an edge. One day Rip notices that a poll taken by a friend of his in the small town of Grandview perfectly mirrors a national poll taken by the top national polling company. Believing that Grandview might be the answer to his search for the perfect formula, Rip and his team go to the town to start polling while pretending to be insurance salesmen. Rip soon encounters Mary Peterman (Jane Wyman), a woman whose family runs the local newspaper, and who is trying to convince the mayor to expand the town. Rip believes this would ruin the perfect polling capability of the town, so he works contrary to Mary to keep the town the same, despite his growing attraction to Mary. Unfortunately for Rip, Mary finds out the real reason for Rip's presence and exposes it, which leads to disastrous consequences for the town. Rip and Mary must then work together to prevent the town from ruin.—Patrick Depew