Fan Casting

Dave Hirsh is a cynical Army veteran who winds up in his hometown of Parkman after being put on a bus in Chicago while intoxicated. Ginny Moorehead, a woman of seemingly loose morals and poor education, was invited by Dave in his drunken state to accompany him to Parkman. When Dave sobers up, he realizes it was a mistake, and gives her money to return to Chicago. However, she decides to stay because she has fallen in love with Dave and is also trying to escape a violent boyfriend back in Chicago. Dave left Parkman 16 years before and had a career as a writer, publishing two books. He did not visit or stay in touch with his older brother, Frank, because he is still embittered about how Frank and his wife Agnes treated him when he was a child. Frank, who was newly married to the well-off Agnes, had placed him in a charity boarding school rather than take Dave to live in his home. Frank has since inherited a jewelry business from Agnes' father, sits on the board of a local bank, and is active in civic affairs. Frank and Agnes are very concerned about their social status and reputation in the town, which is threatened when Dave returns without letting them know and then deposits over $5,000 (over $42,000 today) in the bank that competes with Frank's bank. Frank attempts to make amends with Dave in order to get him to move the bank deposit. Agnes wants nothing to do with Dave, but is forced to welcome him after two of her wealthy social acquaintances, Professor French and his daughter Gwen, a schoolteacher, ask to meet Dave because they admire his books. When Dave meets Gwen, he immediately falls in love with her. She is attracted to him as well, but is afraid of the passionate feelings he arouses in her and of his lifestyle. Each time Gwen rejects him, he ends up back with Ginny, even though her lack of intelligence frustrates him and she is nothing like Gwen. Dave has also befriended a hard-partying but good-hearted gambler, Bama Dillert, and the two get into trouble when Ginny's ex-boyfriend, a gangster named Ray, comes to town stalking her. Frank is upset about the bad reflection on him from Dave's lifestyle. However, Dave is shown to be a good man despite his notorious reputation when he treats Ginny with kindness and takes a fatherly interest in his niece, Frank's daughter Dawn, who becomes upset and tries to run away when she sees her father in a lovers' lane with his secretary, Edith. Dave's new story that he wrote with Gwen's encouragement is published in The Atlantic magazine, and Gwen confesses her love to him by telephone while he is on a gambling trip out of town with Bama and Ginny. Gwen's phone call leads the gamblers to think Dave is cheating at cards, triggering a fight in which Bama is stabbed. During his hospital stay, Bama is informed of his diabetes, but chooses to disregard medical advice, especially about his incessant drinking. Ginny later visits Gwen at her school to ask if Gwen and Dave are in a relationship and confess her own love for Dave. Gwen is horrified to discover Dave has been seeing Ginny, assures Ginny that there is nothing between her and Dave, and then cuts Dave off. Dave, at the end of his rope from Gwen's rejection, decides to marry Ginny, even over Bama's objections. While she is not Dave's social or intellectual match, Dave recognizes that she gives him unconditional love that he's never had from anyone else. The two marry that night, but soon after they leave the judge's house while walking among the crowds of the town's fair, Ray comes after them with a gun, shoots and injures Dave, and then shoots Ginny dead as she tries to protect Dave. In the final scene, most of the main characters are in attendance at Ginny's funeral, but with Dave and Bama standing separately and at a distance. Bama does, in a show of respect, remove his hat in final scene, which he never took off, as a show of respect toward his friend Dave.