Fields often tried to recapture sketches that led to his stage success onto film; skits such as "The Picnic", "A Joy Ride", and most famously, "The Back Porch" are all featured in It's a Gift.

After inheriting some money, Harold Bissonette (mispronounced by his pompous wife as "biss-on-ay") decides to give up the grocery business, move to California, and run an orange ranch.

Despite his family's objections and the news that the land he bought is worthless, Bissonette packs up and drives out to California with his nagging wife Amelia, self-involved daughter Mildred, and bothersome son Norman.

Just when Harold is about to lose all hope, though, his luck takes a dramatic turn; a neighbor informs him that a developer is desperate to acquire his land to build a grandstand for a race track.

Finally standing up for himself and to his nagging wife, Harold holds out for a large sum of money (including a commission for the friendly neighbor), as well as a demand that the developer buy him an orange grove like the one in the brochure he has been carrying throughout the film.

Over the course of the picture, Harold fails to prevent a blind customer named Mr. Muckle (and Baby LeRoy) from turning his store into a disaster area; attempts to share a bathroom mirror with his self-centered, high-pitched, gargling daughter; has a destructive picnic on private property; and in the film's lengthy centerpiece, is driven to sleep on the porch by his haranguing wife, and is kept awake all night by neighbors (including further trouble with the mother of the baby who caused damage in his grocery store), salesmen, and assorted noises and calamities.