"[1] According to pre-Code scholar Thomas Doherty, it was part of a series of movies that drew inspiration from the "real-life compromises working girls made to get and retain employment" during the Great Depression.

[1] A repeated theme in women's pictures in the Depression was the "threat of sexual violation" and the "hard necessity of risking virtue to keep a paycheck".

[2] Sol Glass (Ferdinand Gottschalk) owns a clothing manufacturing company struggling to survive in the midst of the Great Depression.

When buyer Luther Haines (Hugh Herbert) sees Tommy's secretary and fiancee, Florence "Flo" Denny (Loretta Young), he wants to take her out.

Later, with Birdie sick, Tommy reluctantly lets Flo go on a date with another buyer, Daniel "Danny" Drew (Lyle Talbot).

Meanwhile, Flo's friend, fellow employee and roommate, Maizee (Winnie Lightner), shows her that Tommy is cheating on her with Birdie.

Then, spotting Haines at another table, he asks her to help convince the last holdout to a merger to sign an important contract, the biggest deal of his life.

When Haines later complains about Flo's methods, and claims that she and Tommy are living together, Daniel suspects that she is not as innocent as he believed, so he drives her out into the country to the mansion of his friends.