Joyce Compton

A food writer who has lied about being the perfect housewife must try to cover her deception when her boss and a returning war hero invite themselves to her home for a traditional family Christmas. Journalist Elizabeth Lane is one of the country's most famous food writers. In her columns, she describes herself as a hard working farm woman, taking care of her children and being an excellent cook. But this is all lies. In reality she is an unmarried New Yorker who can't even boil an egg. The recipes come from her good friend Felix. The owner of the magazine she works for has decided that a heroic sailor will spend his Christmas on *her* farm. Miss Lane knows that her career is over if the truth comes out, but what can she do? —Mattias Thuresson In her Smart Housekeeping column, Elizabeth Lane provides amazing recipes and homemaking hints. However, Elizabeth's got a little secret: SHE needs a recipe to boil water! Elizabeth has no cooking skills, no Connecticut farm, no adoring hubby and no baby-makes-three as suggested in her column. Something her boss, the magazine publisher, doesn't know when he decides to invite himself and a recently returned war hero to her home for a traditional family Christmas. Watch as Elizabeth tries to be a good wife and doting mother, with absolutely NO experience. —Carolyn Weiss The destroyer of Jefferson Jones and his partner Sinkewicz is sunk by the Germans and they float adrift in a raft for eighteen days. When they are rescued, they are sent to a hospital and Jefferson has to follow a stringent diet imposed by the doctors. He seduces his nurse expecting to get solid food and she decides to write to Alexander Yardley, who is the owner of the Smart Housekeeping magazine where the famous journalist Elizabeth Lane writes a column about recipes and food, asking him to allow Jefferson to spend Christmas with Elizabeth and her family in her farm in Connecticut. The prepotent Yardley sees the chance of free promotion of his magazine and forces Elizabeth to invite the hero Jones. However, Elizabeth is single, does not have a baby and lives alone in a small apartment in New York and she made-up a perfect married life for her fans. Further, she does not how to cook and the recipes belong to her Hungarian friend Felix Bassenak, who owns a restaurant in New York. The architect John Sloan, who has been wooing Elizabeth for a long, proposes to marry her in his farm in Connecticut and she brings Felix with her to help to proceed the farce. The things get complicated when Yardley also decides to spend Christmas with Elizabeth while she falls in love with Jones. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Elizabeth Lane is the perfect homemaker in so many ways. She's an outstanding cook and interior decorator who lives in a beautiful house in the countryside, is happily married and recently had a baby - as her regular column in Smart Housekeeping magazine recounts to her wide readership. There's only one big catch: she isn't any of those things - she can't cook, doesn't know the first thing about decorating and lives in a tiny, dingy apartment. It all begins to unravel when her publisher, Alexander Yardley, arranges for recently rescued sailor Jefferson Jones to spend the weekend at Lane's country home. To top it off, Yardley invites himself to spend the weekend there as well. Elizabeth scrambles, getting her friend Felix Bassenak to cook for her and borrows her friend John Sloan's country house. She even gets a baby from a neighbor. As if she doesn't have enough to deal with, she and Jones become quite attracted to one another. Somehow it all works out in the end. —garykmcd

A widow and her daughter are threatened with eviction by an unscrupulous lawyer. The widow Wilson and her daughter Mary have just learned that old Mr. Middleton, who held the mortgage on their home, has passed away. They are now visited by Middleton's lawyer, Cribbs, who informs them that Middleton's son and heir Edward plans to foreclose and take possession of their home. When Mary goes to plead with Edward, she soon discovers that it is really the unscrupulous Cribbs who wants to drive them out of their home. When Mary and Edward become engaged to be married, it looks as if all is well. But the calculating Cribbs has a new plan, which begins with luring young Edward into a lifestyle of drinking and dissipation. —Snow Leopard

A married couple files an amicable divorce, but find letting go of each other harder than they originally thought. Before their divorce becomes final, Jerry and Lucy Warriner do their best to ruin each other's plans for remarriage, Jerry to haughty socialite Barbara Vance, Lucy to oil-rich bumpkin Daniel Leeson. Among their strategies: Jerry's court-decreed visitation rights with Mr. Smith, their pet fox terrier; and Lucy doing her most flamboyant Dixie Belle Lee impersonation as Jerry's brassy "sister" before his prospective bride's scandalized family. —Paul Penna <tterrace@wco.com> Married couple Lucy and Jerry Warriner suspect each other of cheating and find themselves in divorce court. The divorce is granted--the only point of contention is who gets their dog, Mr. Smith. They soon have significant others. Lucy starts seeing her neighbor from across the hall, Daniel Leeson, while Jerry is seeing Barbara Vance. Soon the two are going out of their way to sabotage each other's new relationships; after they succeed, they end up alone together in her aunt's country house realizing the mistake they have made. —garykmcd Although they still seem to love each other, New York sophisticates Lucy and Jerry Warriner don't feel they can trust each other any more based on what appears on the surface of their marriage, despite each vowing that what they state, contrary to appearance, is the truth. As such, they decide to get a divorce, they, however, still needing to see each other based on visitation rights for Mr. Smith, aka Smitty, their pet terrier. With two months to go before the divorce becomes final, Lucy doesn't seem too anxious to replace Jerry with any other man, until she meets Dan Leeson, an Oklahoma oil baron, who she agrees to marry, largely as he represents the antithesis of Jerry. And based on that mistrust in their marriage, Jerry gets engaged to snobbish socialite Barbara Vance. However, each eventually comes to the conclusion that they still love each other and try, without directly saying so and without the other knowing, to get back together. The questions become whether they will come to this conclusion at the same time, and if so if it will happen before they are no longer man and wife in 60 days. —Huggo Jerry and Lucy are a married couple who doubt each other's fidelity: Jerry suspects that Lucy and her music teacher have spent an evening together; and Lucy is convinced Jerry lied about a business trip. When the jealous pair file for divorce, both rush into new relationships, but quickly realize their love never died. The soon-to-be-divorced husband and wife then both scramble to spoil each other's chances for newfound romance. —Jwelch5742

A pair of hit songwriters fall in love with an ex-film star and her friend, but a blackmailer arrives to disrupt the romances. Based on William Field's short story "Temperamental Lady." Songwriter Danny (Pryor) believes that the only way to jump-start fading movie star Polly's (Bradley) career is to end his partnership with lyricist Mike (Newell). Polly's friend Mattie (Kelton) manages to comfort Mike in the interim. Then, Mike concocts a plan to separate Danny from Polly: he sends blonde seductress Blossom (Compton) to pretend to be Mike's girlfriend. But all ill feelings and misunderstandings are resolved by the climactic musical finale. —Anonymous

A theatrical troupe headed by a flashy showman finds itself in the tiny--and bankrupt--kingdom of Belgardia. The showman falls in love with the daughter of the dotty king, who has promised her to another. Complications ensue.