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As convict Hart is on his way to be executed, he
entrusts fellow inmate Larry Poole with a note to be given to the Smith
family in New Jersey.
Out of prison, as Larry sings with young Patsy
Smith in an apartment courtyard for pennies, he meets county welfare worker
Susan Sprague, who wants to place Patsy in an orphanage. After Patsy
introduces Larry to her grandfather, Gramp Smith, he and Larry eat lunch by
the river and Larry gives him Hart's note. As retribution for killing
Patsy's father, Hart has enclosed a key to his hideout, which is now reputed
to be a haunted house.
When Mr. Carmicheal of the Union County Welfare
Board orders Susan to put Patsy in an orphanage because Gramp has no money
to support her, Larry comes up with a plan: the Haunted House Cafe. On
opening night, however, the sheriff arrests the cafe's orchestra leader
Henry, and his band for stealing the chickens that provided food for the
customers. To pay the tavern license, Larry takes a job at the
fairground as a daredevil, but his plane crashes and he is hospitalized.
Gramp brings word that Patsy has been put in the
orphanage and he is forbidden to see her. When Susan learns this, she
quits the Welfare Board and becomes Patsy's friend. Then, Larry puts
on a show at the orphanage so that he may rescue Patsy from the home, but
after Patsy tells him of Susan's change of heart, she is caught. Larry
searches for Susan all over New York City but, when he finds her, he is
arrested. Patsy, on a hunger strike, has persuaded the orphanage that
she is too much trouble, and Susan and Larry, now married, adopt her. |
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