Henry Twinkle, the junior employee of a life insurance company, is granted a raise in salary when he sells a $50,000 life insurance policy to Gus Fender, of Fender Enterprises. Henry’s sweetheart, Mary Blake, who forced the milquetoast Henry to demand his raise, delights at his accomplishment and quits her job in anticipation of their wedding. Shortly thereafter, newspaper headlines reveal that Fender is a racketeer, and a $25,000 reward is posted for anyone who captures or kills him. When word of Fender’s criminal character reaches Henry’s boss, Buckley Sloan, he loses his temper and orders Henry to keep Fender alive. Meanwhile, Lila Hanley, Fender’s moll, purposely gets a speeding ticket in the small town of Upper Tuxton in order to land herself in the same jail cell where Fender is being held on a minor charge. There Lila, Fender and his henchmen, “Fatso” Werner and “Happy” Dugan, concoct a plan to raise the needed $50,000 to bail out Fender. Their scheme involves luring an honest but dumb individual to announce that he has captured Fender, and then have him turn over the reward money to them so that they can use it as bail. Lila finds just the right dupe in Henry, and she immediately calls him with directions to Upper Tuxton. After convincing Henry that the safest place for a wanted man is a jail cell, Fender fabricates the story of his capture for Henry to tell the police. In exchange for the reward money, Lila offers Henry some stock that she knows is worthless. Henry receives the reward money, but blunders once again when he returns to Upper Tuxton and hands Fender a check instead of cash. Fender instructs Henry to cash the check at a nearby bank, but after he does so, he hands the money over to Happy, who disappears with the cash. Soon after Mary confirms that Henry’s stock is worthless, the stock makes an unexpected recovery and suddenly becomes valuable. When Sloan learns of Henry’s stock market success, he calls him “the genius of the stock market” and promotes him. To celebrate, Henry goes on a shopping spree and then showers Mary with gifts. Misfortune returns to Henry when Lila demands that he return her stock and Mary sues to block Henry from taking away their assets. Mary is then kidnapped by Lila, Fatso and Happy and held captive until she agrees to drop her suit. Mary is rescued, however, when Henry enters the room where she is being held, knocks Lila’s gun out of her hand and escapes with his sweetheart. Some time later, Henry returns to Upper Tuxton with $150,000 in cash, less the $25,000 that Mary kept, and turns it over to Fender. This time, however, it is Fender who is striken with misfortune when a smoldering cigar ignites the cash and prevents him from posting bail. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch The Golden Fleecing (1940)
