Walter Burns, editor of a major Chicago newspaper, is about to lose his ace reporter and former wife, Hildy to an insurance salesman, but not without a fight. The crafty editor uses every trick in his fedora to get Hildy to write one last big story about murderer Earl Williams and the inept Sheriff Hartwell. The plot snowballs as Williams' friend Molly Malloy, the crooked mayor, and his mother get tied up in Walter's web.