The Fuller Brush Girl

Sally, Lucille Ball, a switchboard operator, and her boyfriend Humphrey, Eddie Albert, a shy office boy, work at a steamship company. They dream of marrying and buying the house they’ve long wanted, and they hope to manage monthly payments. After their boss Harvey Simpson, Jerome Cowan, fires a cargo supervisor, Sally urges Simpson to hire Humphrey, and to his surprise, he is hired. Simpson is secretly involved in a smuggling operation and plans to use Humphrey as an oblivious patsy before firing him after one day on the job. With the promotion, Sally and Humphrey can put a down payment on their dream house.

During a conversation with a friend who works for the Fuller Brush Company, Sally accidentally damages the switchboard and covers Simpson with Fuller Brush powder, leading to her dismissal. She decides to launch her own Fuller Brush franchise, but she needs a reference from her former employer.

Simpson’s wife Claire, Lee Patrick, smelling the powder on her husband, accuses him of infidelity. Simpson asks Humphrey to have Sally corroborate his version of events. A woman claiming to be Sally enters the Simpson home and kills Claire. When Sally arrives, the intruder knocks her unconscious. Humphrey rescues her just before the police arrive, but Sally, believing it was Claire who attacked her, becomes the main suspect.

Sally spots an advertisement for a burlesque show featuring a dancer she recognizes as Ruby Rawlings, Gale Robbins. Humphrey then encounters a gunman at the steamship company office; the man fires at him and misses, but he has already killed Simpson. Sally finds a photo of Simpson’s wife on his desk and realizes it wasn’t she who struck her, but the dancer, Ruby Rawlings.

The couple pursues Ruby to her theater, where Sally disguises herself as a dancer and is forced to perform. They trail Ruby onto a departing ocean liner, and Humphrey becomes aware of his unwitting role in the smuggling operation. The pair are chased around the ship by a criminal gang intent on silencing them and hide in rooms filled with leaky wine barrels, piles of bananas, and a pair of talking parrots. The main container of smuggled goods is booby-trapped with explosives, and when Sally inadvertently threatens it, the criminals leap overboard. The harbor police arrive as Sally and Humphrey, locked in an embrace, barely notice the blast.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:43