Judy Holliday

A minority stockholder takes on the crooked board of directors at a billion dollar corporation. Laura Partridge (Judy Holliday) is a very enthusiastic small stockholder of 10 shares in International Projects, a large corporation based in New York City. She attends her first stockholders meeting ready to question the board of directors from their salaries to their operations. These are not the questions which the board expected to be asked of them, especially since they are all crooked, except for Edward McKeever (Paul Douglas), the current CEO who has resigned in order to take an advisory position at the Pentagon. Following the meeting, he bumps into Laura and offers to drive her home. On the way there, Laura displays her enthusiasm for being a stockholder, as a result, Edward takes a liking to her. With Edward in Washington, D.C., John Blessington (John Williams) and Clifford Snell (Fred Clark) establish their hold on International Projects. They see greater riches now that Edward has influence with the U.S. Senate, especially with the awarding of federal contracts; unfortunately for them, he is honest, and won't do their bidding. In the meantime, Laura continues to be a nuisance to the board. Blessington believes the only way to silence her is to give her a high-paying position with the company. The idea is for her to do absolutely nothing, but Laura has other plans. She begins to correspond with other small stockholders in the company, a problem for the board. They decide to use her influence on Edward and send her to Washington, D.C. to get contracts. Laura, now knowing their true intentions for her, has her own agenda, that is, get Edward back in charge of the company. —Kelly It is the Annual General Meeting of International Projects, a large listed company. The board of directors are a shady lot, but none of the shareholders ever question their decisions or vote against their motions--until now. Laura Partridge (Judy Holliday), a minor shareholder, starts to ask some pretty important questions--questions which the directors don't like. In the aftermath of the meeting, the directors are worried that she will form a committee of minority shareholders, and exercise some control of the company. In order to keep her quiet and in line, they offer her a job in the company, as Director of Shareholder Relations. The idea is to give her nothing to do, but Laura has other plans. —grantss Inheriting ten shares of the company's stock, struggling New York actress Laura Partridge, who has no experience with the workings of multinational corporations, decides to attend an International Projects' stockholders' meeting to understand what is happening with her money in those ten shares. She will discover that this meeting will introduce a change to the Board as company founder Edward L. McKeever is stepping down as President and Board Chair having been seconded, appointed directly by the President of the United States, to a position in procurement for the Department of Defense in Washington, DC, he necessarily having sold his company shares to avoid conflict of interest, with John T. Blessington taking over as President and Board Chair. While McKeever is an ethical and hard working man, Blessington and the rest of the Board executive are less than ethical in only looking out for their own personal interests. On the surface, Laura doesn't like what she sees especially in bloated salaries for the Board executive. In meeting after meeting, Laura is able to be enough of a thorn in the Board executives' sides that Blessington decides that the best tact in dealing with her is to hold her close by offering her a made-up executive position within the company as Director of Shareholder Relations, her responsibilities to answer any correspondence received by shareholders, such correspondence which is basically non-existent. In being on the inside, Laura, despite her naiveté, knows what she believes is best for the company and for the plethora of minor shareholders like herself, namely for McKeever to return to the company, which is the last thing Blessington and the other Board executives want in expecting McKeever to direct government contracts in International Projects' direction to line their pockets further, and in not wanting to relinquish their control of the company. Things only get more complicated when Laura and McKeever fall in love, and they learn that Blessington never had any intention of relinquishing control back to McKeever despite Blessington bestowing upon McKeever as a going away gift a master "golden key", which opens any lock at International Projects, as a symbol of he being welcomed back at any time. —Huggo

After a young woman with dreams of fame rents a billboard to advertise herself, her life changes overnight. Gladys Glover has just lost her modeling job when she meets filmmaker Pete Sheppard shooting a documentary in Central Park. For Pete it's love at first sight, but Gladys has her mind on other things -- like making a name for herself. Through a fluke of advertising she winds up with her name plastered on six billboards throughout city. Suddenly all of New York is clamoring for Gladys Glover without knowing why, and playboy Evan Adams III is making a play for Gladys that even Pete knows will be hard to beat. —A.L.Beneteau <albl@inforamp.net> Gladys Glover, a naive and starry eyed young woman, came to New York City less than two years ago from upstate to make a name for herself. Not only has that not happened, but she just got fired from her latest job as a girdle model. Documentary filmmaker Pete Sheppard, whom she meets by chance and who falls in love with her at first sight, predicts that if an opportunity presents itself, she will be able to seize it. Based on that idea, Gladys, seeing that it is available and using her life savings, decides to rent out a giant billboard in busy Columbus Circle for three months, the signage to be only her name in large lettering. While Gladys loves the billboard and takes any opportunity to stare at it, Pete believes it is a wacky idea since it means nothing, and if it does attract attention, it will only be of the kind that will brand Gladys a nut. It does attract some attention, most specifically of wealthy playboy Evan Adams III of Adams Soap, the company which wants to use the billboard for their regular summer advertising campaign. Despite Gladys and Evan's antagonistic first meeting, Evan sees in Gladys his next romantic conquest. In Gladys' and Evan's negotiations for that billboard space, Evan may be able to parlay Gladys' want for notoriety into his own amorous gains. Gladys has to weigh if this wanted fame is worth it any any cost, even at the expense of losing Pete, for whom she also seems to be falling. —Huggo

While pursuing new love interests, a former married couple keep running into each other all over town. Robert and Nina divorce after eight years of marriage. He takes up with his womanizing Navy buddy Charlie Nelson while she looks to her interfering mother for guidance. Both start dating other people, but although they try to ignore each other whenever they accidentally meet, it is obvious the past is not dead. Then one night they find themselves in a nightclub doing the mambo together. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} After months of each feeling but not stating outwardly to the other that they have been dissatisfied with their marriage, lawyer Robert Tracey and soap opera creator and writer Nina Tracey née Chapman, after eight years of marriage, decide to get an uncontested divorce. They are at the stage of hating the other so much that despite the divorce being uncontested on both sides, each is irked that the break-up isn't causing the other any grief. Each also feels that the downfall of their marriage is in large part due to the advice and support of their primary confidantes, Robert's being his womanizing best friend, plagiarizing playwright and old army buddy Charlie Nelson, and Nina's being her mother, interior designer Edith Chapman, who is further advised by who Robert considers Edith's quack of a therapist, Dr. Van Kessel. During the post-divorce period, Robert and Nina constantly run into each other. Their individual lives also seem to parallel each other, including the satisfaction of their respective dates with others, which are encouraged by Charlie and Edith. That parallel also includes an eventual realization about their true feeling for the other. The question becomes if their pre-divorce behavior of not stating what they're feeling will kibosh what each really wants in life. —Huggo

While in Washington to lobby for favorable legislation, a garbage tycoon hires a reporter to teach his ex-showgirl mistress proper etiquette to better fit in with high society, but she ends up learning more than he bargained for. Uncouth, loud-mouth junkyard tycoon Harry Brock descends upon Washington D.C. to buy himself a congressman or two, bringing with him his mistress, ex-showgirl Billie Dawn. Brock hires newspaperman Paul Verrall to see if he can soften her rough edges and make her more presentable in capital society. But Harry gets more than he bargained for as Billie absorbs Verall's lessons in U.S. history and not only comes to the realization that Harry is nothing but a two-bit, corrupt crook, but in the process also falls in love with her handsome tutor. —Paul Penna <tterrace@wco.com> Nouveau riche New Yorker Harry Brock, who made his money as a junk dealer, is uncouth and brash, he believing that money should be able to get him whatever he wants. What he wants is more power and money, which is the reason he has come to Washington DC, specifically to bribe a congressman or two, only the latest of his illegal activities. Among Harry's entourage is his fiancée of seven years, Billie Dawn, a former showgirl and an uneducated seemingly stereotypical dumb blonde. Beyond throwing money at her or playing gin rummy with her, Harry largely ignores Billie, or when he does spend time with her treats her badly, despite he being in his brand of love with her. As Harry is embarrassed by Billie's uncultured ways in dealing with the political elite of Washington - in the process he being clueless or unconcerned as to his own crudeness - he decides to hire Paul Verrall, a local freelance reporter writing a story on him, to teach Billie how to be cultured. Paul gladly accepts the job in his enjoyment of showing all that Washington DC has to offer in its history and politics, but not for Harry, who he does not like much. Paul finds that Billie is an eager student regardless of she seeing herself as being dumb and uneducatable. But Billie is able to see the world differently through the new eyes that Paul gives to her, she now not only learning about the world in general, but questioning her relationship with Harry, especially the legal papers Harry's lawyer Jim Devery is always getting her to sign. In the process, Paul also comes to some realizations about his feelings toward Billie and Harry. —Huggo Brassy blonde moll Billie Dawn hits Washington, D.C., with her unscrupulous millionaire sugar daddy, Harry Brock, and his sleazy lawyer, Jim Devery, who has been pressuring Harry to marry Billie by pointing out that a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband. In an effort to make Billie more socially acceptable, Harry hires journalist Paul Verrall to smarten her up -- and sparks soon fly between the pair. —Jwelch5742

Assistant District Attorney Adam Bonner is assigned to prosecute a woman who tries to shoot her unfaithful husband. The DA and Bonner both expect a quick win. But neither planned on Bonner's wife and fellow attorney, Amanda Bonner, of defending the woman on the basis of "equal rights under the law," which Ms. Bonner insists would vindicate a man who would try to kill the lover of his unfaithful wife. Ms. Bonner shows throughout the court case that the law and society treat women different from men, and that any person would resort to violence if pushed sufficiently far. Mr. Bonner insists that regardless, no individual can take the law into his or her own hands, or chaos would ensue.