Let’s Live a Little 1948

At Montgomery Advertising in New York City, Duke Crawford, Robert Cummings, is fighting to manage the cosmetics account of Michele Bennett, Anna Sten, his former fiancée, who stubbornly refuses to sign a contract until he proves real affection. When Duke threatens to quit Michele’s account, his boss, Mr. Montgomery, Harry Antrim, assigns him to the book promotion for a new client, a nerve psychologist named J.O. Loring. The assignment promises a different kind of challenge, one that tests not only his professional stamina but his stubborn reluctance to let love steer his decisions.

As Duke rides in a taxi toward the psychologist’s office, he experiments with an electric razor he invented, and the result is comic calamity: half a mustache and a nervous energy that foreshadows the trouble he has with his own beliefs about women. Upon arriving, he discovers that J.O. Loring is in fact an alluring woman, Jo, Hedy Lamarr. Jo mistakes him for a disturbed patient, and in a bid to prove he’s numb to the feminine pull, Duke impulsively kisses her. Jo, smart and perceptive, suggests that he read her book on stress relief, Let’s Live a Little, and the encounter leaves him unsettled enough to consider therapy as a route to self-mastery.

The next morning, Jo makes it clear that to win Michele’s signature Duke must learn to charm rather than coerce, and she prescribes the art of courting as a scientific experiment. He arranges a date with Michele at a glittering nightclub, only to be joined by Jo and her stern, capable surgeon boyfriend, Dr. Richard Field, Robert Shayne. As the evening unfolds, Michele senses the growing bond between Duke and Jo; when a cake containing an advertising contract is served instead of a marriage license, she erupts in a moment of theatrical fury, flinging her drink and storming away. The blow leaves Duke rattled and repeating slogans as if he’s reciting a script, a side of him that Jo finds difficult to ignore.

Feeling responsible for Duke’s fragile psyche, Jo escorts him to a lakeside lodge for a restorative rest cure. Under the moon’s calm glow, they drift in a canoe across a quiet lake, and a passionate kiss seals Duke’s transformation, convincing him that his previous misogyny has loosened its grip. He returns to New York with renewed vitality and channels that energy into a successful radio ad campaign for Jo’s book, which begins to turn public perception in Jo’s favor. During a radio interview, Jo speaks about a patient who suffered a nervous breakdown after a failed relationship and how she helped him heal by allowing herself to appear as if she could fall in love with him, thereby guiding a transference of feelings. When Duke hears this, a sting of resentment hits him—he feels manipulated, as if he were a guinea pig in a grand romantic experiment—and he resolves to forget Jo and pursue Michele instead.

That resolve is tested when Jo’s newspaper headlines reveal Duke’s engaged status to Michele. The sight stirs a new wave of anxiety in Jo, triggering another nervous breakdown, and Dr. Field carries her to the lakeside lodge to calm her. Even though Field has proposed to her, Jo can think only of Duke and rejects him, leaving Field frustrated but supportive. Meanwhile, Michele’s tasteless redecorations of Duke’s apartment reflect a mismatch in priorities, and when Field calls to announce that Jo is now in his care, Duke’s impulse shifts again. He leaves Michele behind and drives toward the lakeside retreat, where the sight of Jo reignites the ache and certainty of their bond. In a final, defiant embrace, Duke reassures Jo that his kisses—and their love—are real, and the two decide to face the world together, hoping to turn his softened heart and their shared chemistry into a lasting connection.