[3] Ace Connors (John Hodiak) is a con man who has half a million dollars in bonds hidden in a cookbook.

He arranges a deal to reduce his sentence by testifying, angering his former partner in crime, Fly Feletti (Elisha Cook, Jr.).

A cop, Bob Simms (Lloyd Nolan), is assigned to accompany Ace on the train from Los Angeles to New York.

[1] When the film was released the film critic for The New York Times panned it, writing, "Except for a lively and colorful series of Mardi Gras sequences in New Orleans, which are introduced quite late in the picture, Two Smart People is an otherwise dreadfully boring hodgepodge about love and the confidence racket ... John Hodiak and Lucille Ball are the principals and they are painfully defeated by the script at almost every turn.

But in addition to its pedestrian plot, Two Smart People also suffers from lack of competent direction.