Two Gals and a Guy

Due to their popularity, married New York television show hosts Deke and Della Oliver are in negotiations with television executive Mr. Seymour for a five-year contract doubling their salary. Though Deke is very enthusiastic about the show's success and the new contract, Della is frustrated about their lack of privacy and secretly yearns for a child. One morning theatrical agent Bill Howard takes Seymour, who has flown in from California, to Deke and Della's uptown apartment and, while they wait for the couple, Della's nervous nephew Bernard enters, followed by the show's musicians, The Three Suns, and the writers, all of whom are working on the next act. Deke and Della finally arrive, but are too distracted to notice Howard and Seymour, who are growing impatient. When a nursery with whom Della is secretly arranging an adoption calls, Della claims she is merely contributing to the organization. During the ruckus Howard finally introduces the couple to Seymour, and Deke signs the contract. Della, however, refuses, announcing that she has made plans to become a mother. Seymour counters that he thinks the team is overpaid and is ready to end the deal, but Howard convinces him to cool off in the bar with the show's staff until his plane leaves. Once alone Della tells Deke that she is sick of "being an animated billboard" for television and wants a child. Deke does not want to father a child and Della replies that she will adopt and retires to her bedroom. Just then Miss Prindle and Mrs. Brooster from the nursery call from the hotel lobby. Deke does not tell Della about the call and instead asks them to wait. In the bar, The Three Suns play tunes while the writers flatter Seymour, and Bernard consumes basket after basket of popcorn. Meanwhile Deke has Howard call Della, and while disguising his voice as a woman's using a kerchief, cancel the appointment with Prindle and Brooster and ask her to come to the nursery to attend to other matters. After Della departs, Deke invites Prindle and Brooster up to the apartment, greets them at the door in his bathrobe and proceeds to offend them with his aggressive enthusiasm for the adoption and the post-party liquor bottles and cigarette butts strewn about the apartment." They leave abruptly, appalled, and later tell Della about her husband's inappropriate behavior. Della returns to the apartment fuming, tells Deke, Seymour and Howard that the team is dissolved and leaves. Seymour threatens to sue them if they do not at least finish the two shows for which they are currently contracted. A week passes and Deke has not found Della and does not know that she is happily gardening in a penthouse apartment in the same building, confident that her bluff will convince him to have a child. With only twenty-four hours before the show, Deke is desperate. Bernard returns to the apartment after searching all the hotels and tells Deke that they did not find Della, but mistook a woman on the street for her. Deke decides to use the woman as a replacement for Della during the show, and they find Della's blonde, squeaky-voiced double, Sylvia Latour, at a modeling agency. After she reluctantly agrees to do the television show, Deke stays up the whole night rehearsing lines with her in his apartment, but she is unable to remember them. In the morning Della arrives at the apartment, and upon dicovering Sylvia napping in her bedroom, launches into a tirade against her and Deke. Sylvia runs from the apartment and Deke gives up on the show. Howard and Bernard find Sylvia and return to the apartment with her, but discover Deke drunk and unable to perform. With only twenty minutes until showtime, Bernard, Sylvia and Howard attempt to sober Deke up, pouring ice on him and filling him with coffee, and then drive him to the studio. Della and Seymour are in the audience when Deke and Sylvia go on stage, and though Sylvia has forgotten her lines, her befuddlement is such a shock to the audience that they roll with laughter, saving the show. Della suddenly appears on stage and asks The Three Suns to play the team's signature waltz. While dancing with Deke, tripping and pummeling him with her feet, Della coerces him into agreeing to have children, not adopting them. Years later, the Olivers have had four children together while continuing to work happily in the television industry.