Question: Build a movie plot around this: What type of appointment does Dan want that could be threatened by the revelation regarding his crooked dealings? A CABINET APPOINTMENT
Answer:
One week before her next society dinner, Millicent Jordan receives word that Lord and Lady Ferncliffe, whom she and her husband Oliver, a New York shipping magnate, had met in England the previous year, have accepted her invitation. Overjoyed by this social coup, Millicent is oblivious to Oliver's lack of enthusiasm about the dinner and her daughter Paula's preoccupation about the impending return of her fiance, Ernest DeGraff, from Europe. While Millicent fusses about finding an "extra man" for her single female guest, former stage star Carlotta Vance, Oliver faces distressing news about his shipping business, which has been struck hard by the Depression. After Carlotta, a former lover of Oliver who resides in Europe, confesses to Oliver in his office that she is nearly broke and is interested in selling her stock in the Jordan Shipping Line, Oliver is visited by Dan Packard, a rough-talking, nouveau-riche mining magnate. Oliver confides in Dan about his financial struggles and asks him to take over some of his stocks until his business improves. With blustering hesitation, Dan agrees only to consider Oliver's proposition, then goes home to brag to his brassy, gold digger wife Kitty that the Jordan Line is a valuable asset that he is going to devour through crooked stock purchases. Unknown to Dan, however, Oliver has convinced Millicent to invite the Packards to her dinner, and the ill-mannered but socially ambitious Kitty eagerly has accepted. Although he at first refuses to go, Dan, who believes that he will soon be appointed to a Cabinet post, changes his mind about the dinner when he finds out that the Ferncliffes, the richest couple in England, are also invited. Also unknown to Dan, one of Millicent's other guests, Dr. Wayne Talbot, has been having an affair with Kitty while pretending to be tending to her feigned illnesses. On the eve of her dinner, Millicent, still short an extra man, telephones Larry Renault, a washed-up silent movie star, and extends him a last-minute invitation, completely unaware...