White Tie and Tails

Wealthy New Yorker Andrew Latimer , his wife and their two children, Bill,17 and Betty, 15, go on a vacation to Florida and leave their Gotham mansion in charge of Charles DuMont, their impeccable butler. When the family is gone, art-lover and striving-artist Charles informs the chauffeur, George, that he is going to spend his own vacation there in the mansion, enjoying the paintings by Corot, Goya, Degas and others, and the Latimer’s fine liqueurs, and George is going to drive him around town as he plays the gentleman. Dining in style at the Club Bergerac, Charles meets Louise Bradford and her stuffy fiancée, Archer Ripley. Charles knows nothing about Louise, other than she carries a revolver in her purse, but is anxious to see her again. He arranges to be near her at the opera, where she is with her father and sister Cynthia. Much to Louise’s distress, Cynthia leaves the opera with Nate Romano , a gambler associated with Larry Lundie , a swank gambling house owner. Later, Charles offers to accompany Louise when she goes to confront Romano about Cynthia’s involvement with the gamblers. There, they learn that Lundie is quite willing to order hireling Romano to quit shadowing Cynthia…just as soon as she pays her gambling debt of $103,000. Charles, still posing as a wealthy young man-about-town, is maneuvered into writing a check to satisfy Lundie, as Louise promises to have her father reimburse Charles the next morning. Later that night, Lundie drops in on Charles at the Latimer residence and explains that he is just satisfying himself that Charles is the type of man who can write a “good” check for the sum of $103,000 but, in the event he might not be, Lundie departs with three of Latimer’s valuable paintings as collateral. Then Louise informs Charles that it will take her father several weeks to raise the money. He then has to explain to her that he is just an artist working as a butler, which does not set well with her. Lundie shows up again with the news that his art expert says the three paintings he took for collateral are worth only $85,000 and he is there to take some more to make up the difference. During the discussion, the Latimers arrive home ahead of schedule.