Double Exposure

In New York City, James B. Turlock, a health fanatic and publisher of the photo editorial Flick magazine, orders his editor, Larry Burke, to hire Iowa photographer Pat Marvin after seeing Pat's photograph of an airplane crash. Pat leaves behind her boyfriend, Ben Scribner, to take the big city job, and Larry is surprised to discover that his new photographer is a woman. Wasting no time letting her know he is romantically interested, Larry asks Pat out and, while dining at a restaurant, they see millionaire Sonny Tucker arguing with his fifth wife, chorus girl Dolores Tucker. Pat takes Larry's advice about seizing opportunity and photographs Dolores lying unconscious on the floor of the restaurant bathroom after her seventh suicide attempt. Later that night, Pat invents a brother she calls Ben to fend off Larry's advances. The next day, Larry commissions Pat to photograph Sonny at his apartment, so she poses as a chorus girl in order to gain entry to his apartment, as all reporters are being turned away. Lazy Sonny is amused by Pat, and allows her to photograph him, but when Dolores, who has recovered rapidly because she diluted her poison, returns, she picks a jealous fight with Pat. Later, Ben shows up at the magazine and is confused when Larry mistakes him for Pat's brother. Pat soon explains the situation to Ben, and Ben then vies with Larry for Pat's affection on a double date, ignoring his own blind date. At a nightclub, Sonny, who is traveling to Reno the next day to divorce Dolores, flippantly asks Pat to marry him, and gives her his apartment key. Pat thinks he is joking, but Dolores is not amused, and Ben and Larry have to pry her off Pat. Later, Larry is interrupted by Ben when he tries to tell Pat he loves her, and never finishes his proclamation. The next day, Turlock assigns Pat to produce the "Mystery of the Week" feature, a contest involving a series of supposedly genuine crime scene photographs, in which readers must look for clues to solve a murder. Pat uses her key to enter Sonny's apartment, and she and Ben set up a fake crime scene. Pat then poses as the murder victim while wearing Dolores' clothing. Shortly after, Larry arranges for Ben, who has been working for the magazine, to be shipped to Russia as a war photographer. After the "Mystery" issue is published, police arrest Pat for Dolores' murder, as pictures of her actual murder exactly duplicate those taken by Pat. At first reluctant to expose Pat's fraud, Larry finally admits to the district attorney that the photographs were false. Despite Larry's confession, all evidence points to Pat as the culprit because of her arguments with Dolores, and she remains in custody. Larry becomes suspicious of Sonny after a conversation in which Sonny mentions a detail of the crime scene which was not explicit in the magazine photographs. Later, Larry becomes burdened by guilt after he receives news that Ben was killed when his ship was torpedoed, and arranges a meeting with the district attorney during which he shows him a photograph taken by Ben at the crime scene, clearly showing Sonny in the background. Larry speculates that instead of going to Reno, Sonny hid in the butler's quarters, intending to murder Dolores, and when he saw Pat and Ben at work, he matched them detail for detail. Larry's guess is proven correct and Pat is released after Sonny confesses. Later on, Larry admits that he falsified the photograph of Sonny in order to get him to confess. Larry then apologizes to Pat for shipping Ben out, and he and Pat confess their love. Just then, Ben returns, having spent a long time on a life raft, and socks Larry on the jaw as revenge. Ben then explains that by the time he was rescued, he was so hungry for companionship that he married a Russian woman named Natasha, thereby leaving Pat free to marry Larry.