Lucky Cullen, [Milton Berle], gets into trouble when his boss, Tony Miller, [Cesar Romero], discovers that Lucky has bet (and lost) $5,000 under a false identity. Tony gives Lucky 24 hours to settle the debt, setting a clock that threads through the film with a mix of pressure and wit. The money matter kicks off a chain of choices that pull Lucky into a world of art, deception, and high-stakes risk.
Lucky soon learns that he has inherited a Fifth Avenue art gallery from his late uncle, a surprise that arrives like a door to a different life. When he and Tony inspect the place, Helen Mason, [Carole Landis], informs them that the business is so deeply in debt that it’s effectively worthless. The news hits hard, yet it also creates an unusual opportunity. Tony, ever practical and hungry for leverage, cancels Lucky’s debt on the condition that he can control the gallery’s fate, and he accompanies Helen to dinner to begin teaching him about art and the language of pictures. The dinner becomes a window into a curious plan: Tony sees potential profits, but he also senses a chance to shape Lucky’s future in a way that serves his own interests.
As the trio navigates the gallery’s troubled reputation, Tony notices trouble closer to home. He confronts the casual indiscretions of a gallery employee, Stewart Haines, and when he finds Stewart kissing Helen, he sends the man on a buying trip to Europe, buying time and removing a volatile obstacle from the immediate scene. This distraction, however, opens a space for more unlikely characters to enter: Genius, a working-name painter who is really a gifted if struggling artist, becomes a recurring presence in Lucky’s life. [Elisha Cook Jr.] portrays Genius with a mix of earnestness and eccentricity, and Lucky, hoping to placate him, pays him a mere $10 for his initial abstract pieces. To Lucky’s surprise, Genius returns again and again with more of his work, and a subsequent sale by a patron seems to validate the painter’s odd, unpolished genius—and it adds a strange optimism to the gallery’s fortunes.
In an effort to impress Helen, Tony decides to stage a big move. He buys a Rembrandt from Claire Barrington, [Rose Hobart], for $20,000, hoping the painting will boost the gallery’s prestige. The plan falters when Appleby, the gallery’s gruff art expert, [Francis Pierlot], unmasks the painting as a very good fake. Tony’s confrontation with Claire and Gigi, the forger, becomes a turning point. Gigi, [J. Carrol Naish], is pressed into service to salvage the situation, and Tony retrieves his money—yet the scheme fuels his fascination with the idea of art as a possession that can be controlled and traded.
Then a new opportunity emerges when Helen tells Tony about a missing Velasquez, Two Children in the Court. He enlists Gigi to paint a copy and presents it to Helen to sell at an auction at the gallery, testing the line between authenticity and illusion. The tension rises as Finchley, a government buyer, enters the bidding scene. Finchley, [Jerome Cowan], becomes a formidable force, and Tony orders Lucky to buy the painting against Helen’s better judgment. Finchley ultimately secures the piece for $84,000, a sum that raises the stakes and tightens the suspicions around the gallery’s grand plan.
Complications multiply when Stewart returns from his trip with Don Fernando, [Steven Geray], and the genuine Velasquez painting appears in the mix. Lucky’s impulsive act—kidnapping Don Fernando—shocks Tony and pushes the plot toward a dramatic reversal. Tony buys the genuine work for $100,000, then switches it with Gigi’s forgery, only to have the government expert dismiss it as a bad copy. Helen calls for more experts, insisting on a fair, thorough judgment. In the meantime, Gigi counters by substituting his own forgery, a version that proves far more convincing to the new evaluators. The tension peaks as the experts finally acknowledge the painting’s authenticity, and Tony, in a moment of calculated generosity, donates the piece to the government to show that money is no longer the sole motive behind his actions.
In the aftermath, Tony transfers the gallery to Helen and Stewart, signaling a new, more hopeful era for the business and for his own priorities. Helen appears at the racetrack, where she forgives Tony, and a curious, almost comic, final note lands when Lucky returns the $100,000 to Tony, explaining that the money had been paid to Don Fernando with counterfeit funds. The story ends on a note of uneasy détente—art, deception, and pride all mingling as the mountaintop plan dissolves into a quieter, more ambiguous future for the gallery and its people.
