Movies - The Affairs of Annabel

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	Movies - The Affairs of Annabel

The Affairs of Annabel is a 1938 comedy starring Lucille Ball and Jack Oakie. Oakie plays Lannie Morgan, Wonder Pictures publicity man working with film star Annabel Allison (Ball).

Plot

Lannie has Annabel taken into prison in order to generate publicity before the release of her new movie. However, when, a month later, Annabel is finally released released, she finds that no publicity at all has been generated from the stunt, and has Lannie fired. But when he pays a struggling actress to pretend to be his sick mother, Annabel has Lannie rehired, and he immediately begins plotting his next stunt.

The head of Wonder Pictures informs Annabel that her film has been canned, and that she is to star in the new film, The Maid and the Man. Lannie arranges to have her work as "Mary", a maid for the Fletchers, their teenage son Robert, and inventor "Major". While Robert becomes infatuated with Annabel, she is expected to cook and clean for the family, so she calls Lannie to help. Meanwhile, the investors visiting about one of Major's inventions, a rubber ring placed around a plate so that it will bounce rather than break when dropped, appear in the morning newspaper as robbers. They are in fact waiting for their own publicity to die down so that they may make a getaway.

Back at Wonder Pictures, The Maid and the Man has been scrapped, but when Lannie calls Annabel to inform her of this, she answers that she can't leave. Though first confused, he finds Annabel's police mug shot in the paper along with the robbers, and forms a plan to outfit one hundred extras as policemen. As they march towards the house firing blanks almost at random, the robbers return fire, with real bullets, and the extras make a desperate escape from the scene.

Lannie sneaks into the house alone, but is heard when he knocks over a vase. One of the robbers sends Major through the door, where Lannie is waiting to strike Annabel's captor with a plate. Instead, he knocks out Major, and the robber follows and captures Lannie. Major is more impressed by the fact that his invention has worked.

When the real policemen arrive, the robbers try to make a break for it, using Lannie (who looks about to faint) and Allison as shields. The police are about to take a shot when Lannie calls out that it's Allison Annabel they've got, and that the risk is too high. Instead, Annabel uses her martial arts training to throw one of the robbers to the ground, while Lannie bites the other. While Lannie begins talking up Allison's efforts, she falls to the ground, having herself fainted.

Annabel returns to Wonder Pictures and is disappointed to find that The Maid and the Man has been replaced by The Diamond Smuggler, in which she is instead to play the lead. On her way out, Annabel picks up a gift which Lannie had arranged for her to receive, and is apprehended when the police open it to discover the precious jewels inside. Lannie watches on from the front of the new billboard for The Diamond Smuggler as Annabel is driven away screaming.

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