In the small town of Lake City, music teacher Ivy Higgins and her husband Peter, the town barber, share a house with Hattie Burns and her daughter Myrtle. Ivy, who detests the fact that the town has become a haven for Jim Curango’s racketeers, is running for the office of mayor to unseat the current mayor, Tom Collins, who is in a partnership with the mobsters. When Myrtle’s friend, Daisy Evans, is killed at the Little Club by Nifty, one of Curango’s men, with a bullet intended for Benny Emerson, Myrtle’s secret sweetheart, Hattie joins with Ivy in her resolve to close the town’s speakeasies. Nifty’s bungled murder attempt results in Curango’s decision to hang Daisy’s murder on Benny, a former gangster who decided to go straight. Unknown to Hattie, Ivy or Peter, Benny, who was injured in the shooting, has taken refuge in their attic. Later, at a re-election campaign meeting for the mayor, the townswomen rally around Hattie when she promises to run the mayor and all the other Lake City thugs out of town and into jail. After Ivy concedes that Hattie would make a better candidate than she, Hattie reluctantly accepts the nomination and later consents to run when the women show their support for her. Realizing that Hattie might pose a threat to his operations, Curango visits her and attempts to bribe and then blackmail her into a partnership with him. Hattie refuses to become involved in his scheme and promptly ejects him from her house. As support for Hattie grows, a protest torchlight parade commences through the streets of Lake City, in which the local women demand the ouster of Collins and the election of Hattie to office. Following the march, a women’s meeting is held, but it is soon broken up by the town’s male population, who collectively threaten to get drunk and spend all their money if the women persist in promoting Hattie for mayor. In response to the men’s behavior, Hattie organizes a female work strike, which effectively infuriates the men. As election day nears, Peter discovers Benny in his attic, and when the police arrive to arrest him, Myrtle becomes hysterical and admits that she was Benny’s mysterious girl friend. Fearing that the resulting scandal will surely put an end to her election bid, Hattie pulls out of the race. However, when Nifty is finally arrested for Daisy’s murder, he confesses that Benny went straight in order to marry Myrtle and that Curango ordered him to kill Benny. When the truth is learned, another march is held to show support for Hattie, who, with the endorsement of the police chief, wins the mayoral election. Hattie’s first duty as mayor is marrying her daughter to Benny, a ceremony in which Ivy, the newly appointed Commissioner of Garbage, acts as matron of honor. More on Wikipedia
Watch Politics (1931)
