Two Dollar Bettor

Despite his initial reluctance, family man and widower John Hewitt places a two-dollar bet at his first visit to the race track and wins. With brother-in-law George Irwin's guidance and racing statistics, John continues betting and wins a down payment on new car for his daughters, seventeen-year-old Nancy and eighteen-year-old Diane. As comptroller of the Langston Bank, John earns a moderate living and has acquired some savings. Wanting to provide more for his daughters, John begins to place regular bets with bookie Krueger and arranges to meet Krueger's associate, Mary Slate, each week to settle his account. Over the next few months, John's obsession with the track grows as he successfully bets on jockey Osborne. When Osborne is injured; however, John's winning streak ends and he soon loses most of his savings. One evening at the Hewitt house, while Nancy and Diane entertain guests with song and dance, Mary comes to the house to collect a gambling debt. When John cannot pay, Mary promises to placate Krueger and meet John the next week, then seductively insinuates that she and John's partnership could be romantic. One night, while the girls are out with teenagers Chuck Norlinger and Chester, their doting grandmother, Sarah Irwin, teases John that he wants his daughters to marry for money, but John assures her he wants the girls to marry for love. Days later, A desperate John steals from the comptroller's fund to pay Mary the outstanding debt. Meanwhile, Diane runs into bank president Carleton Adams' son Phillip, who is on leave from Princeton. Charmed by Diane, Phillip insists on taking her out to lunch and a serious romance soon develops. Increasingly depressed about his financial problems, John continues to steal from the bank to pay for his gambling habit. Aware that a comptroller's fund audit is scheduled in three months, John admits to George that he has stolen over $14,000 to pay his gambling losses. When George graciously offers to loan John the money once he receives his bonus, John promises to stop betting on horses. Soon after Diane and Phillip announce their engagement, Carleton promises to promote John to the high-paying general manager position. Concerned that an audit arranged for the following week to finalize the promotion could threaten Diane's plans to marry, John turns to gambling again after he learns that Osborne has returned to the track. Taking $2,000 for the comptroller's fund, John attempts to place the bet on the New Orleans Bayou Handicap with Krueger. When Krueger will only place $1,000 on the horse, John flies to New Orleans to place the remaining $1,000 himself. At the track, John alarms bystanders with his furious screams for the jockey to spur his horse Great Day to the finish line. When the horse loses, John is despondent that he has ruined his daughters' future. The next day, after John settles the $1,000 bet with Mary, she sympathetically offers to ask her brother, Rick Bowers, for a hot tip on the track to help him. Later at her apartment, Mary deviously plots with Rick, who is actually her boyfriend, to trick John into embezzling another $20,000. Meeting John at a local hotel, Mary introduces Rick as a sports promoter who fixes races. John is impressed when Rick confidently places $100,000 on horse Rickety Rack over the phone, and he agrees to bet $20,000 on the same horse. Early results reveal Rickety Rack has won, but when John tries to collect, he discovers that Rick has checked out of the hotel. Realizing he has been duped, John arms himself with a gun and arrives at Mary's apartment just as Rick and Mary are leaving. When John holds them at gunpoint, she hands $10,000 to him. Rick then shoots and wounds John, prompting him to return the fire and kill both Rick and Mary. John, mortally wounded, then staggers to his car and drives to the Adamses' home. While Carleton sends for a doctor, John gives him the $20,000 and confesses to stealing an additional $16,000 from the bank. Tortured by the disgrace he has brought upon his daughters, John's dying words attest to his girls's innocence and their strength of character. Carleton knows that John only wanted to provide for his children, so when the police arrive, he fabricates a courageous story to salvage both John and his daughters' reputation. He claims that he asked John to bring the $20,000 to him. As John was delivering the money, he was held up by two thieves, whom he was forced to kill in self-defense. Months later, Diane and Phillip are married and plan to invite Nancy to live with them. Having only Carleton's heroic tale of their father's tragic death, Diane exclaims, "Dad would have been proud of us, just as proud as I am of him."