Returning to the United States after a year in Japan to learn how to make artificial silk and recover from a broken romance, cloth manufacturer Hank Medhill hears the news that his former girl friend, Eleanor Breen, is about to marry. Although his cousin William tries to dissuade him, Hank dashes off to stop the wedding and convinces Eleanor to leave her groom at the altar. Eleanor and her mother Gypsy are eccentric show business people, and Eleanor thinks that Hank is just as crazy as she. Shortly after their marriage, however, Eleanor and Hank learn that they are very different. While she enjoys the company of show business friends who constantly turn up at their apartment uninvited, Hank is only interested in developing his artificial silk formula with William. After an argument, Eleanor goes home to Gypsy and, following the advice of a married friend, Hank decides to pick a date at random from the telephone directory. Unknown to Hank, Eleanor has arranged for the switchboard operator to put Hank's "random" call through to a show business friend of hers named Vera Montana and Hank is given the fright of his life during a wild evening of chases, gun threats and socks in the nose. When he finally goes home, he discovers that Vance Dillman, to whom Eleanor had been secretly married briefly while Hank was in Japan, is in their apartment. Though Eleanor thought that their marriage ceremony was invalid, Vance informs her that a technicality involving their marriage license and daylight savings time makes their marriage valid and the one to Hank illegal. Some time later, Vera goes to visit the Medhill family estate, which she previously considered boring, and tells William that she misses being Hank's wife. When Vance and Hank arrive and she learns that Hank had discovered some time ago that her marriage to Vance was not really valid, they quarrel, and she leaves. Unknown to her, Hank disguises himself as a cabbie and drives her away, racing wildly through the countryside. After Eleanor realizes that Hank is driving, the cab accidentally plunges into a lake. As they kiss and make up, Eleanor finds that the silk dress she is wearing is disintegrating and Hank happily tells her that he made it just for her when he found out that his artificial silk formula dissolved in water.