Guy Johnson (James Stewart) is a NYC private detective working for 100 dollars a week keeping his boss, multimillionaire Willy Heyward, out of trouble, and that usually means out of trouble with women. But Willy has recently married, and a Latin American dancer is filling the headlines with her breach of promise claims concerning him. Willy gets drunk and goes up to settle things with the dancer, but he walks into a frame up. Somebody shoots the dancer and kills her, and Willy picks up the gun. Johnson walks into the scene not really knowing if Heyward is guilty or not, and so Johnson helps him hide out while he tries to find out who really did it. The police find the hide out though, and Willy gets convicted and sentenced to death. Johnson gets a one-year prison sentence for harboring him.
On the way to prison, Johnson sees a note in the personal column that he thinks is a clue as to who the real murderer was. So he escapes and is going to try and get evidence that Willy did not commit the murder. By the way, Willy had promised him in writing that he would give Guy Johnson 100K if he proved he didn't commit the murder. And then SHE shows up -poetess Edwina Corday (Claudette Colbert) - just in time to see Johnson escape. At first he has to drag her along as she screams the entire way and even sets fire to her own car, thinking he is an escaped murderer. But when she realizes Guy is not a "real" criminal, she won't stop bothering him. She persists in tagging along and nothing Guy does or says can shake her. Many complications ensue along the way to where Guy hopes to catch the real murderer.
I've never seen Claudette Colbert be annoying before, and she certainly is here as she gives a very shrill performance. It's odd seeing James Stewart throwing around language like he's straight out of a 30s Warner Brothers gangster film, but he, at least, makes his performance work.
Standouts include Guy Kibbee as Johnson's partner and Nat Pendleton always entertains as a rather dim and flaky flatfoot.
