Frank Capra classic, which earned the director an Oscar. When Vermont poet Longfellow Deeds Gary Cooper inherits a fortune from his uncle, he sets off for New York to take over his new business empire. Newspaper editor MacWade George Bancroft, believing the naive and trusting Deeds to be too good to be true, assigns reporter Babe Bennett Jean Arthur to dig up the dirt on him. Babe inveigles her way into Deeds' confidence by staging a fainting fit in front of his mansion, but despite her best efforts finds him to be nothing other than a gentleman. Others, however, are determined to prove that Deeds is not fit for his new fortune, and a court case ensues.