Bessie Dunn lives with her sister Gertie and her n’er-do-well husband Jim and their four children. Bessie’s boyfriend, Eddie Blake, who is a talented singer but works as an assistant file clerk at KLR radio, proposes, but she delays her answer, advising Eddie to get his voice on the radio. Mr. Simpson, Eddie’s boss, asks Bessie to fill in as secretary to the station’s electrical engineer, Stephen Barclay. Meanwhile, in the station locker room, Eddie out-sings Cliff Miller, who is rehearsing for a radio audition, then pesters Bessie for the answer to his proposal. Barclay tells the nervous Bessie that her dictation is awful, and when she cries, he kindly orders a private lunch for the two of them so no one will see she has been crying. Eddie interrupts the lobster and artichoke lunch for Bessie’s answer, and when she asks him to leave, he quits, calling Barclay a society playboy. After Jim arrives at the office for money, Eddie gives him seventy-six dollars, then goes up to the recording studios for the amateur auditions. There, Phil Romaine, KLR’s star performer, makes $1,500 each time he sings. Eddie watches a broadcast of “Terrors of the Jungle,” an episode of “Geraldine and Gerry,” then pushes his way in to an audition. Believing the mike is on, Eddie performs, but is only laughed at. Meanwhile, Romaine refuses to go on the air that night or renew his contract unless studio head Mr. Zeller gives him his asking price. Zeller refuses to acquiesce, however, sure he can find a replacement. After Barclay befriends Bessie and decides to call her Elizabeth, his wife Eileen calls to tell him she is going to Southampton for a few days with a girl friend. She is really going away with her lover, Tony St. John, and although Tony has asked her to divorce her husband, she does not take him seriously. Barclay invites Bessie on a trip to the country, and she accepts and buys lingerie. When Eddie learns what “lingerie” is, he gets jealous and listens in on Bessie’s call to Gertie in which her trip is discussed. Eddie then asks a brunette named Hazel to marry him after work, and she promises to marry him after she gets her hair waved. Eddie receives two weeks’ severance pay and money for a wedding present from Simpson. When he calls Bessie to announce his marriage, she is heartbroken. Eileen, meanwhile, is ambivalent about her rendezvous with Tony and is on her way to see Barclay. Coincidentally, she, Bessie and Eddie are riding the same elevator when it crashes. As they wait to be rescued, Eddie and Bessie fight about her trip with Barclay. An elderly woman in the elevator then has a heart attack and Eddie enters the elevator shaft to get help. To calm his nerves, Eddie sings, and Zeller, in another elevator, hears him. Eddie’s efforts save the woman, but he and Bessie continue to fight. While Zeller offers Eddie a contract, Bessie tells Barclay she cannot go with him, after which Barclay and his wife are reconciled. Hazel is asked out on a date, leaving Eddie free to marry Bessie. As Eddie finally makes his radio debut, Bessie listens with pride and they kiss. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch One Hour Late (1934)
