Socialite Angela Brooks asks her maid, Martha, if it is worthwhile for a wife to try and please her husband. They both agree it is impossible to please a husband.
Bob Brooks arrives home drunk after a night on the town with his friend Jimmy Wade. Angela reads in the paper that she, Bob and Jimmy were arrested during the night for drunk driving, but she was not out with Bob. Angela finds a card from Trixie in Bob’s pocket, but he tells a disbelieving Angela that Trixie is Jimmy’s new wife. Angela leaves, and Jimmy asks Bob why he runs around with Trixie when he has a wife like Angela.
Jimmy Wade (Roland Young), Bob Brooks (Reginald Denny) and, under the blanket, Angela Brooks (Kay Johnson)
That evening, Bob sleeps when he and Angela were supposed to be going to a concert. Angela tells Martha she is beaten. Martha’s advice is to make herself so attractive to Bob that he will not want to leave her [Live and Love Today]. But that does not meet Angela’s ideal of true love.
Bob complains that when Angela became his wife, she stopped being his pal and became cold:”Love can’t be kept in cold storage; it’s a battery that has to be recharged every day”. Bob walks out.
Angela asks Jimmy if she can spend the night with him and his ‘wife’. Jimmy tries to decline, suggesting instead that Angela come and make whoopee at a masked ball he is holding next week on the zeppelin. Angela remembers Martha’s advice [Live and Love Today] and follows Jimmy so she can fight for her happiness.
Trixie, a vaudeville performer, is rehearsing a new number in her apartment [Low Down]. Jimmy rushes in but, before he can explain, Angela arrives. Jimmy maintains the pretence that Trixie is his wife. Trixie goes along with it and Angela pretends to. Inviting herself into the guest room, Angela reveals that she has a gun. Jimmy locks Angela in the room and tries to sneak out, but is caught by the arriving Bob. Jimmy then barricades himself in Trixie’s room and Angela hears Bob trying to get in.
Trixie hides on the balcony. Angela finds a connecting door to the other bedroom and Jimmy hides her under a blanket. Bob believes it is Trixie under there, and only accepts it is not when the real Trixie shows herself.
Bob tells Jimmy and Trixie that he has left Angela, and he and Jimmy leave. Trixie mocks Angela for getting caught in her own trap. Trixie says she will keep Bob by giving him what he wants. Angela accepts that as a challenge, and says she will make Bob sick of vice.
On the night of Jimmy’s masked ball, guests arrive at the zeppelin moored over the city [The Cat Walk; Ballet Mécanique].Bob and Trixie arrive together in costume. At midnight everyone unmasks, and there is an auction of the most beautiful women in the room. The one who attracts the highest bid will be queen of the ball [song]. Just as men are wildly competing to buy Trixie, Angela enters in the guise of Madam Satan and draws them all away [Meet Madam].
Trixie (Lillian Roth) and Madam Satan eyeball each other
The newcomer joins the auction and Bob bids a huge amount to win her. Angela warns him that he will get burned [All I Know Is You’re in My Arms/Live and Love Today]. Trixie is furious that Bob is being taken away from her, but can do nothing to prevent it.
Angel-as-Madam Satan declares she wants the wickedest man there, and Bob replies that he could never think anything he did was a sin. Angela and Bob go to the chart room and engage in an extended flirtation. Finally, Angela admits that she is not the devil she seems, just a woman attempting to keep her self respect. Bob says he finds that even more attractive. A well-intentioned Jimmy separates them by telling Bob that Madam Satan is the woman who was under his blanket.
A storm begins, alarming the zeppelin’s captain. He suggests that Jimmy send his guests back to the ground. Angela and Trixie compete for Bob’s attention [Low Down]. Bob is angry at Angela, but still obsessed with her and ignores Trixie. Bob chases Angela and she unmasks: “You said I was below zero, so I raised my temperature”. Bob is angry at the deception.
Lightning strikes the zeppelin, which breaks its mooring. The captain orders everyone into parachutes. Bob gets a parachute for Angela, but she gives it to Trixie, on the understanding that she never sees Bob again. Bob finds another parachute, but she will not leave without him. Bob forces her to jump.
Bob forces the unmasked Angela to take the last parachute
The zeppelin breaks up and crashes to earth. Bob manages to jump into the reservoir at the last minute.
The next day, Angela and Bob are at home. He is still annoyed about her performance as Madam Satan, but she is winning him round [Meet Madam] when a bandaged Jimmy arrives (he landed in the lions’ enclosure at the zoo). Jimmy says he will marry Angela if Bob divorces her. Bob says there is no question of divorce and admits he has been a fool.
