Kiss and Tell 1945

At a USO bazaar that isn’t drawing a crowd, Corliss Archer teams up with her best friend, Mildred Pringle, to try a bold idea: selling kisses to the soldiers. The scheme takes off, drawing in a steady stream of servicemen and turning the booth into the highlight of the bazaar. Yet the success stirs trouble back home when Mrs. Archer assumes the worst about the girls’ conduct and places the blame squarely on [Mildred Pringle]. The tension at the Pringle dinner table grows into a wall between the Pringles and the Archers, and Mr. Pringle resolves that his family will stop socializing with the Archers.

That same night, [Corliss Archer] accents her bravado by pretending to be older and flirting with young Private Jimmy Earhart who’s invited to dinner. In truth, she’s actually dating the boy next door, Dexter Franklin, the son of Bill Franklin and Mary Franklin. After Lenny Archer returns on a brief leave from the Air Force, he proposes to [Mildred Pringle], and the couple hurriedly wed across the state line. They go home to break the news, only to find the feud between the Pringles and Archers has intensified, leaving both families out of speaking terms. The dramatic rift widens as [Mr. Pringle] and [Mr. Archer] collide in a fistfight, and the resulting injuries spark lawsuits that drag on for months.

Meanwhile, the pregnancy adds another layer of urgency to the crisis. Mildred learns she is expecting, and she and [Dexter Franklin] visit an obstetrician. A town gossip, [Mrs. Wilcox], spots them and broadcasts the insinuations, fueling the Pringle plan to blame Corliss for the pregnancy and point to Jimmy Earhart as the father. Corliss refuses to let Mildred and her brother bear the burden alone, so she admits she is pregnant herself; the counter-accusation then targets Dexter as the possible father. To complicate matters further, Corliss fabricates a story about a wedding across the state line, and she asks Dexter to help by lying as well.

To untangle the knots, Uncle George Archer, a Navy chaplain, steps in and suggests a proper ceremony to settle the confusion. The families endure further shocks when the war news arrives that [Lenny Archer] has performed heroically and is coming home, prompting Mildred to reveal the truth about her marriage and pregnancy—and to confirm that Corliss had accompanied her to the doctor, revealing that Mrs. Wilcox’s earlier gossip was mistaken. Realizing the misreadings and biases, the Pringles rush to tell the Archers the latest developments, and the house fills with the sound of a wedding march as the two families face the truth together. In the end, the misunderstandings are cleared, the grandchildren are on the way, and the two families reconvene in a spirit of reconciliation.