The Merchants Hotel hosts a curious double bill: a convention for morticians and a mediation meeting between aircraft manufacturers and their workers, a combination that instantly stirs tension and farcical energy throughout the bustling lobby and conference rooms. The hotel manager Wilburforce Puddle Robert Benchley frets that a forthcoming newspaper piece could sink the convention’s reputation, especially since the hostesses at the center of the social storm are Faith Banner Binnie Barnes and Hope Banner Joan Blondell. Faith and Hope are by necessity the hotel’s social linchpins, but their sister Charity Banner Janet Blair is caught in a precarious moment: she reveals to her sisters that she plans to quit school to become a hostess like them, a decision that unsettles the family dynamic and adds another layer to the hotel’s fragile image.
The mood turns tense when a dead body is discovered somewhere in the hotel. The Banner sisters, anxious about the already fragile reputation, decide to move the corpse, hoping to keep the incident quiet. Hope pleads with Tommy Hopkins John Howard, a reporter who is secretly in love with Hope, to help, but Tommy spots a sensational scoop in this unfortunate find. He recognizes the victim as the missing labor mediator everyone has waited for, and the allure of a big story overrides caution. Hope’s attempt to persuade him to stay quiet falters, and the two end up dragging the body down the fire escape and hiding it in a room.
The situation spirals as rough luck collides with quick thinking. The mortician occupant of the room, Josephus Wiegal, discovers the disturbance and immediately calls the police, only to flee, leaving the others to improvise. Hope and Faith recover the body and sneak it into a laundry cart, but Tommy then intercepts them and, pressed by circumstance, sets the body down at a poker table—drawn into a high-stakes game and nicknamed “sleepy Joe” by the players. The body unexpectedly proves to be a remarkable “player,” winning hand after hand with Tommy’s quiet assistance, turning a potential scandal into a comic centerpiece of the scene.
Hope and Faith crash the game, improvising to explain the spate of odd events by claiming they have been seeking their wayward husband. The sisters hustle the corpse out of sight again, opting for a random room to dodge the police chief’s scrutiny. Their next stop is the mortician Josephus Wiegal’s own room, where the coffin with the body is forcibly loaded into the morticians’ convention space and then carried away as part of the bewildering aftermath. Fred Chambers Paul Harvey, Tommy’s editor, tracks the misadventure and, upon learning that the body has vanished, fires him. Charity, who has grown fond of Tommy and has been flirting with him openly, confesses that she has feelings for the reporter, deepening the love-triangle humor that threads through the film.
As news spreads, The Chronicle runs a story about Tommy’s discovery, and police attention intensifies. Tommy ends up at the mediation meeting, where he improvises as the supposed mediator, appealing to both sides’ sense of patriotism. His impromptu speech nudges the aircraft manufacturers and the workers toward a practical compromise, saving the day—at least on the surface. Yet the law catches up with him: the chief of police arrests Tommy, and the trio of Hope, Charity, and Puddle race to navigate the consequences. Hope persuades Puddle to relinquish the body to Tommy, only to be dragged into a room full of policemen and taken into custody themselves. In a surprising turn, Tommy is promoted by his editor for averting a strike, a reward that seems to justify the chaos that preceded it.
The hotel’s public drama ends with a surreal twist: as the body is carried out through the lobby, a drunk named Charlemagne Eric Blore recognizes it and, with a clap of his hands, restores life through hypnosis, revealing that the man had been under suspended animation. With the spell broken, everyone is released. Tommy, ever practical, offers to let the police chief off the hook for false arrest if he can obtain a marriage license immediately, rather than waiting days. Hope assumes Tommy intends to marry Charity, but Tommy corrects her, setting the stage for one last domestic complication. When Charity shows up and continues to misrepresent her relationship with Tommy, Hope playfully — and firmly — disciplines her, with Faith and, finally, Puddle joining in the lighthearted moral of the tale.
This comedy unfolds as a brisk, buoyant mélange of workplace farce, romantic entanglements, and social satire, all set against a hotel backdrop that keeps throwing new obstacles into the path of its hapless, well-meaning characters. The interplay between the Banner sisters, the ambitious reporter, the hotel manager, and the eclectic cast of guests and staff creates a lively tapestry of misunderstandings, clever improvisations, and small, satisfying reversals that keep the momentum going from one chaotic beat to the next. The humor lands in the way these characters navigate duty, affection, and professional ambition, all while a corpse—temporarily, comically, and improbably—keeps resurfacing to test their wits and resolve.
