 During the Great Depression, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), the co-owner of a tallow works, part-time greeting card poet, and tuba-playing inhabitant of the (fictional) hamlet of Mandrake Falls, Vermont, inherits 20 million dollars (equivalent to US$ million in ) from his late uncle, Martin Semple.Semple's scheming attorney, John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), locates Deeds and takes him to New York City.Cedar gives his cynical troubleshooter, ex-newspaperman Cornelius Cobb (Lionel Stander), the task of keeping reporters away from Deeds.