An unscrupulous successful businessman comes to Washington DC with his mistress, lawyer, and right-hand man. He takes over a wing of a high-dollar hotel. A local columnist wants to interview him. The businessman has come to town to check up on his “bought” Congressman and to see if he can get more out of him, maybe even buy a Senator. He realizes that his mistress has some pretty rough edges, so he hires the columnist to smooth off those edges.
The lawyer advises the businessman that he should marry his mistress. They’ve been hiding a lot of subsidiary assets in her name, and having her sign papers (which, of course, she doesn’t read and doesn’t understand). If they’re married, she can’t testify against him.
She’s really quite intelligent, if uneducated, and as she learns more, she realizes what’s happening with the businessman. And, naturally, she and the columnist fall in love. Eventually, she and the columnist find a way to steal incriminating papers, so the businessman can be foiled. The happy couple gets married and drives out of Washington.
Sounds like a pretty standard up-to-date story - something that happens all the time in our government, and in Washington. Well, the “getting married” should be a clue as to the age of the movie. It was Born Yesterday (1950) , with Judy Holliday, William Holden, and Broderick Crawford. It was remade in 1993 with Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, and John Goodman. We haven’t seen that one, but the plot could be all but identical. Guess we’ll have to put that one on our list.
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