The Lady Says No

On the road toward Monterey, California, rakish Life magazine photographer Bill Shelby, driving with his trailer hitched to his car, picks up hitchhiker Goldie and her new G.I. husband, Potsy. Within minutes, they fill the car with their friends, Goose, Mary and pretty Midge, and convince Bill to drive them to a club in Monterey. First, however, Bill must stop in the staid town of Carmel to meet the subject of his next assignment, author Dorinda Hatch. Knowing that Dorinda's best-selling book, The Lady Says No , decries men as philanderers and advises women to avoid them, Bill is shocked to discover that she is a young, beautiful woman, and immediately insults her by insinuating that her ideas may have originated with her embittered guardian aunt, Alice Hatch. When Midge and Goldie enter the Hatch house, complaining about Potsy, Dorinda urges Goldie to leave him, but Potsy arrives and sweeps his wife into his arms. Although Bill smugly dismisses Dorinda and her ideas, after he leaves, she finds herself looking forward to their photography session the next day. There, Bill insults her further by declaring her book "spinster rubbish," and a confused Dorinda allows him to strip her prim outfit off until she is posing in a bathing suit. After one too many attacks on her book, however, Dorinda stalks off angrily. At home, she discovers Matt Hatch, her charming rogue uncle who walked out on Alice years earlier, and who now refuses to leave despite both Dorinda and Alice's exhortations. The next day, Dorinda speaks at a ladies' luncheon, and after Matt and Bill show up and heckle her, she calmly invites Bill onstage and proceeds to humiliate him, as an example of how to handle fast men. He refuses to react until she smears pie in his face, at which point he finally explodes in anger and chases her through the crowd of women. Dorinda gloats about her victory but then is sad to see him leave, and later, Bill, drunk after spending an afternoon with Matt, declares it his mission to awaken Dorinda's womanliness. To this end, he sends her a mock Life cover featuring her in an unattractive pose, guessing correctly that she will rush to his trailer to protest. Bill promises to destroy the photograph in return for a kiss but, after Dorinda obliges, pretends he is unmoved. Dorinda, shocked at her passionate response, begs for another chance, but then slaps him when he finally agrees. At home, Matt shows her a book Bill has written describing his travels in Africa, and impassioned by his tales of naked natives, she dreams that she has captured him in the jungle. When she wakes, she insists that Matt escort her to the local dance club where Bill has taken Midge. After Dorinda mistakenly orders the club's strongest drink, she joins Bill's party, where she is paired with the oafish Goose. Dorinda spills a drink on Goose, then asks Bill to dance, and confesses her feelings for him on the dance floor. She is interrupted by Potsy, however, who states that a furious Midge is leaving, and Bill runs after his date. Potsy then insinuates that Dorinda is no match for Midge, so Dorinda works to seduce him, but is caught by Goldie and Midge, who pull her into the ladies' room for a fight. There, Dorinda convinces Goldie that Potsy will only make her miserable, and after Goldie races out to break off her marriage, Dorinda gives her beautiful dress to Midge in return for Bill's companionship. Wearing Midge's flimsy dress, Dorinda hopes to impress Bill, but after he calls her cheap, she retaliates by flirting with every man in the bar and causing several fistfights. Bill brings her home, but when he tries to kiss her on the porch, she shuns his advances, crying after he leaves. By morning, Bill's trailer is gone, and Dorinda, now desperate to find him, tracks down Midge in nearby Fort Ord's soda shop and pumps her for information about Bill. Midge reveals that Goldie, enflamed by Dorinda's book, has banished Potsy, who is now sharing Bill's trailer a few miles away. Dorinda finds Goldie and, while driving to the trailer, tries to undo the damage done by her book, which Goldie quotes by heart. When they reach the trailer, the men refuse to come out, so Dorinda hops in the car and drives them through town recklessly, finally coming to rest in Fort Ord. There, the general hears about the commotion and insists that Potsy come outside, and after Dorinda denounces her book as rubbish, the couple reunites. Dorinda goes home to pack, informing Matt and Alice that they have poisoned her mind for long enough, and as she leaves, Matt admits to Alice that he has never stopped loving her. Dorinda is driving away when Bill spots her and pulls in front of her car, forcing her to stop. She steps onto the cliff, where she throws her book into the ocean. As Bill takes her into his arms, Dorinda plans her next book, Twenty-seven Ways to Say Yes .