Public Wedding 1937

Pop Lane, his daughter Florence “Flip” Lane, con men Nick and The Deacon, and wheeler-dealer Joe Taylor are grifters running a failed carnival concession in New York. They hatch a plan to stage a public wedding: [Florence “Flip” Lane] as the bride, Nick as the groom, and The Deacon as the judge, but the con men abscond with the gate receipts. Confronted with a restless crowd eager for their money’s worth, Pop enlists a “starving artist” named Tony Burke as a stand-in. The wedding is a big success, and, to everyone’s surprise, the “judge” performing the ceremony is a real justice of the peace, leaving Flip and Tony actually married. Flip angrily walks out on Pop, while Tony, intrigued by her, takes her to his studio above a stable and suggests that their marriage might be a good idea after all. The penniless Pop and Joe track them down and Tony agrees to put them up for a night.

The next morning Tessie Schultz becomes part of the scheme when Pop and Joe try to hock Flip’s wedding dress and instead seek a loan from Tessie after rescuing her from a police raid. The dress inspires Joe to promote Tessie as stripper “Lillith Love” by having her pretend to be an amnesiac bride who was left at the altar. Meanwhile, Flip tries to peddle Tony’s paintings without success because he has no reputation. The publicity around Tessie’s stunt makes Flip push Tony forward as the man who “placed Art before Love,” and society matrons clamor for portraits, though nothing substantial happens for Pop, Joe, and Tessie. Because Flip took advantage of their setup, they demand that she cut them in on the profits.

When Tony learns of Flip’s manipulations, he is furious. Yet, recognizing their feelings for each other, he agrees to try the marriage if Flip will let him be the boss. Tony plans to channel his financial success into a real cause by endowing a traveling fellowship to send deserving young artists to Europe to study. He offers Pop and the others a check for $1,000 to get out of town. Pop uses the check as a prop to pretend to raise donations as treasurer of the “Anthony Burke Traveling Fellowship, Ltd.,” bilking New York society into giving money. Flip discovers the racket just after the fake fellowship has withdrawn all its funds in cash.

Tony is arrested for obtaining money on false pretenses, and Flip pursues Pop, Joe, and Tessie to the airport. She discovers that the serial numbers on the cash are consecutive. She convinces them the money is hot and to hand it over, since they would be arrested if caught with it. Before they can depart, they are nabbed by the victim of one of their earlier schemes. Flip redeposits the money into an irrevocable trust to fund its real purpose and shows the police the deposit slip to secure Tony’s release. Tessie then visits Pop in jail with the wonderful romantic news that Flip and Tony have sailed to Europe for their honeymoon.