Oliver Boggs, a typical office drone, with no success in sight, who can spout statistics about anything and everything, wins $1500 in a bean-guessing contest at the movie theatre, quits his job and sets forth for the seedy, down-at-the-heels town of Peckham Falls. There he buys a barrel factory and falls in love with Irene Lee, the snobbish niece of crusty old Morton Ross, the town's only rich man and owner of the closed canneries. Oleander Tubbs and her inventor father Angus, who sold Oliver the factory, tell him it has no future but he disagrees and says he will have everything booming again. Oleander thinks he is daffy but she and her father agree to help him. Angus invents a collapsible barrel and Oliver, seeing fame and fortune just ahead, spends all of his money just keeping the factory going.