Secret Sinners

Chorus girl Blondie Marsh has many “stage-door Johnnies” eager to wine and dine her, but she is only interested in struggling songwriter Jimmy Stafford, who lives in the same boarding house. Jimmy gets a small cash advance and they are getting reading to go out and celebrate when Blondie, having trouble hooking up her evening dress, steps out in the hall and is helped by Marjorie Dodd, a jobless chorus girl who has taken up house cleaning. Mrs. Simmons, boarding house owner comes by and fires Marjorie for neglecting her duties. Blondie promises to help get Marjorie a job and she joins Blondie and Jimmy on their celebration. Wealthy-and-bored club man Jeff Gilbert is desperately trying to find something to do for the evening and his butler suggests taking in the show in which Blondie is working. While dressing, Jeff is informed that his estranged wife is returning from Paris agreeable to a divorce for a big cash settlement. The price is too high and Jeff decides to fight it. Jeff attends the show and walks around behind the theatre where his car awaits him. He sends his chauffeur for a newspaper and Marjorie appears and thinks he is the friend that Jimmy had gotten her a date with. Jimmy and Blondie come out and the error is discovered, but they all like Jeff, who has quietly shooed his chauffeur away, and go to a restaurant for dinner. Jeff thinks about telling Marjorie of his marriage problems but postpones doing so. Back at his apartment Jeff find his wife and her gigolo waiting and, based on his growing fondness for Marjorie, agrees to the settlement terms. At a restaurant one night, they run into Jeff’s not-yet-divorced wife and Marjorie is heartbroken to learn that Jeff is married. In her grief, Marjorie takes up with a dissolute wastrel, Johnny, who takes her to a roadhouse. Blondie calls Jeff and tells him that this date surely means trouble for Marjorie. Jeff, followed by private detectives hired by his wife, sets out to find her. Marjorie’s date has become insulting and pushy, and she tells him of her love for Jeff. More than a little hacked over this development, he says he has no further use of her, drags her to his car and heads back to town in a hurry. Jeff, headed for the roadhouse, finds a wrecked car and a badly-injured Marjorie. He takes her back to his apartment, puts her in bed, and then phones for a doctor and Blondie. The detectives, outside the apartment, call Jeff’s wife and advise her now is the time to get the evidence she is after. The arrival of Blondie, Jimmy and the doctor is not observed. The wife and her gigolo, along with the private detectives and a policeman they have brought along as a witness, all arrive and gain admittance to the apartment, where they find Blondie, Jimmy, the doctor and Jeff and the injured Marjorie. Circumstances being what they are, and with the policeman as a witness to the innocence of the scene, Jeff now refuses his wife the money settlement she was demanding and offers a token amount that he advises her to take, as he is only offering it to forego the nuisance a lawsuit would create.