When star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) announces that she's quitting to marry mild-mannered insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), her editor and ex-husband, the notoriously cutthroat Walter Burns (Cary Grant), will stop at nothing to change her mind. Knowing full well that it's a story she can't resist, Burns assigns Hildy to interview Earl Williams, a convicted killer who's been sentenced to die. But once Hildy suspects that the execution is simply a political maneuver designed to appease the voters, she helps Williams escape and, with her ex-husband's help, hides the fugitive and sets out to expose the corrupt politicians who stand to benefit from the condemned man's death.