Anne Brooks (Kay Francis) is married to a wealthy financier about twenty years older than herself. She was previously a dancer, and at a very young age married her dancing partner, Maurice LeBrun (Monroe Owsley). She found out he was a slime ball, and so when he asked for a divorce she was all for it. But he never got that divorce, and now he's blackmailing her over the fact that her marriage to Schuyler Brooks is not legal.
Ann goes to her sister-in-law, Portia, who comes up with a plan. Ann will lure Maurice out of the country by going on a ship voyage. Then Portia will use her connections in the federal government to get Maurice's visa revoked on grounds that he is an undesirable alien so that he cannot get back into the country. Then Ann can go get the marriage to Maurice annulled quietly.
But Schuyler, not knowing any of this, has separate plans of his own. All of Anne's skulking about, going to see Maurice secretly to try and stall him and keep him quiet have Schuyler believing Anne may be having an affair. He hires PI Neil Davis (George Brent) to follow Anne on her voyage and find out if she is the cheating kind. So far this sounds rather mundane, except that Neil has a natural skepticism towards women and their fidelity, and if he can't FIND infidelity, he sleeps with the women himself so that the husband has something in the way of evidence to take to court. But during the long time he is getting to know Anne, he begins to fall for her and determines that she is actually a good woman. Complications ensue.
The - I guess you'd call it courtship - between Anne and Neil takes a large part of the middle of the film, and it is rather slow going compared to the fast moving beginning and ending. Plus it doesn't show any of those Curtiz flourishes. It does show the great chemistry between Brent and Francis, and their later scripts were much better paced and suited to them.
Allen Jenkins, as a PI himself, actually helped this film, and he definitely livened up the rather slow middle as he struggles to be Neil's valet as a cover story for him being onboard the ship with him. But he also catches the eye of Dot (Glenda Farrell) who is a rich young woman on the ship. What does she want with Jenkins? Watch and find out.
There's a great bit of business towards the beginning where Jenkins goes to a hotel and warns a bunch of "Mr. Smiths" that there is about to be a raid. All of the Mr. Smiths leave their hotel rooms and head for the elevator at the same time.
