Lum and Abner Abroad

Elderly Pine Ridge, Arkansas citizens Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody, who have traveled to Zagreb, Yugoslavia after winning a good neighbor contest, check into a luxurious hotel at the same time as Nikolai "Nicky" Braznavik and his ballet troupe. When the kindly gentlemen see ballerina Marianne Possavetz crying on the balcony next to theirs, they ask if they can help. She tells them that she and American reporter Tommy Ellis are in love and had planned to marry, but she has not heard from him for three weeks. Despite her friends' warning that Tommy is "phoney baloney," Marianne is convinced that Tommy is good, so Lum and Abner promise to help find him. After attending the ballet that night, Lum and Abner are invited by Marianne to visit her parents' farm in the country. At the Possavetz farm, near "Pinevec Ridgeka," prize-winning cook Mama prepares a feast, while Papa convinces Lum and Abner that they certainly can find Tommy. The next day, Lum and Abner go to the U.S. Consulate in Zagreb and browbeat the consulate's secretary into contacting the press. Soon the search for Tommy is worldwide news, and the Possavetz family prepares for a wedding feast. As the wedding approaches, Lum and Abner begin to worry that Tommy will not show up, but encourage Marianne to be hopeful. A few days before the proposed Wednesday wedding, Nicky arrives from the city to announce that Marianne must return by Thursday for a performance. Lum and Abner assure him that the wedding will take place on Wednesday, but privately worry. On Wednesday morning, Tommy still has not turned up, but the wedding preparations continue. As Papa, Mama and Marianne fret that Tommy will not arrive, Lum and Abner don native costumes and plan to leave to avoid witnessing Marianne's humiliation. Just then, Tommy walks up the road and is embraced by Marianne and her family. When Tommy says that he has written every day and does not understand why she never wrote back, Marianne comments that Nicky always got the mail and never gave her the letters. Ashamed of himself, Nicky admits hiding the letters because he thought that Tommy was not sincere. Marianne forgives Nicky, and soon she and Tommy are married in a traditional wedding ceremony. After the wedding feast, Tommy and Marianne leave for their honeymoon. Abner confesses to Lum that he gave Marianne his ticket to go to Paris and Lum confesses that he gave his to Tommy. They laugh and wonder how they will get to their next destination, but are content that Tommy and Marianne will be happy.
       Some time later Lum and Abner attend a soccer game in Paris and are introduced as America's Good Will Ambassadors, loved throughout the world. When their pictures appear in the newspaper, international jewel thief Pepe Le Cocoa, who has just stolen a jeweled figurine from a Paris museum, tells his accomplice, Collette Bleu, that they will smuggle the figurine out of France using Lum and Abner, who would be above suspicion. That night, Pepe's plan unfolds whereby Collette pretends to have been beaten by a cohort, who flees just as Lum and Abner are walking by. Assuming that the "unconscious" Collette needs help, they take her to their hotel, where she awakens and says that a man tried to steal a figurine from her. When Lum produces the figurine, which he had picked up while she was unconscious, she says that it is only a cheap bauble, but invaluable to her because it proves that she is the niece of a count. Because she says that people again may try and steal it from her to cheat our out of her inheritance, Lum and Abner offer to keep it in their safe and take it with them in their baggage when they leave for Monaco. The next morning, Lum and Abner take Collette with them when they leave Paris. Following instructions, they row twelve hours across a lake and eventually land at a small island, which Collette says, is owned by her grandmother. Collette then leads them to a dark and mysterious castle. There Pepe greets them, calling himself "Rupert," the family's faithful retainer. After the butler, Boris, shows Lum and Abner to their rooms, Pepe says that he wants to remove the figurine in a way to make it appear that Lum and Abner merely lost it. Collette, however, prefers to utilize the services of Frankenshplinin. Pepe is afraid that Frankenshplinin's methods are "too messy," but finally agrees to summon him. As Frankenshplinin makes his way to Lum and Abner's room, Lum goes into the bathroom to shave, and Abner loses his glasses. When the brutish Frankenshplinin enters the room and starts to tear apart Abner's suitcase, Abner thinks it is Lum. Hearing the commotion, though, Lum comes into the room and confronts Frankenshplinin, who is accidentally pushed out the window by the myopic Abner. Now Pepe appears and draws a gun on them, demanding the figurine. Lum and Abner do not want to shirk their duty by turning the statue over, but just then Collette comes into their room wielding a gun. Pepe grabs Collette's gun, but as they are struggling, the French police arrive, headed by a policemen who has been observing them since Paris. Although Lum and Abner still do not realize that Collette had been lying to them, they soon are honored by the Mayor of Paris, who decorates them for saving one of France's treasures.
       In Monte Carlo, the Duchess Dubroc is thought to be wealthy by the international crowd who patronize her parties, but, in fact, she never pays her bills. One night, at a costume party given for her niece Lisa, the Duchess tells her cousin Mischa that tonight two rich Americans will come to her party, and she hopes that one of them will marry Lisa. Meanwhile, Lum and Abner are walking by the Duchess' hotel trying to find the American Embassy. The doorman looks at their old-fashioned suits and, assuming they are dressed for the costume party, invites them in. As rumors spread that Lum and Abner are rich Americans, Mischa tells the Duchess, who introduces them to Lisa. The next night, the Duchess and Lisa are having dinner at the Casino de Monte Carlo with Lum and Abner, now smartly dressed in tuxedos. The Duchess secretly talks about her "two pigeons" with Marcel, the casino manager, and arranges for her usual deal, ten percent of their losses at the roulette table. The Duchess then arranges for the sweet and unsuspecting Lisa to win a turn of the roulette wheel, prompting Lum and Abner to try the game. They lose their first "five," then another, which makes Lisa suspicious that they are being taken advantage of. However, Lum and Abner's luck turns and they eventually close down the casino by winning $1,480,000. After newspapers print the story about Lum and Abner breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, the Duchess, Marcel and the city's head banker decide that the only way they can pay Lum and Abner what is still owed to them is to raise money by taxing the people. They send Lisa to tell them about the arrangement, but when Lum and Abner realize that people thought the "five" bets meant five thousand dollars instead of their usual bets of five cents, they refuse to take more than $14.80 in winnings. After garnering praise for saving Monaco, Lum and Abner decide to head for home. As they leave Monte Carlo, they encounter American Tommy Ellis. Upon hearing that Lum and Abner won only $14.80, Tommy wishes them well and hands them his business card, which identifies him as a member of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Tax Department.