The Affairs of Annabel

The Affairs of Annabel is a 1938 comedy starring Lucille Ball and Jack Oakie. Oakie plays Lannie Morgan, Wonder Pictures publicity man working with film star Annabel Allison Ball, her first starring comedy role.

The head of Wonder Pictures informs Annabel that her film has been canceled, and that she is to star in a new film, The Maid and the Man. Lannie arranges to have her work as Mary, a maid for the Fletchers, their teenage son Robert Lee Van Atta, and inventor Major Thurston Hall. While Robert becomes infatuated with Annabel, she is expected to cook and clean for the family, so she calls on Lannie to help. Meanwhile, the investors interested in one of Majors inventions, a rubber ring placed around a plate so that it will bounce rather than break when dropped, appear in the morning newspaper as robbers. They are in fact waiting for their own publicity to die down so that they can make a getaway.Back at Wonder Pictures, The Maid and the Man has been scrapped, but when Lannie calls Annabel to tell her, she answers that she cant leave. Though first confused, he finds Annabels police mug shot in the paper along with the robbers, and forms a plan to outfit fifty extras as policemen plus a police seargent and captain. As they march towards the house firing blanks, the robbers return fire with real bullets, and the extras scatter. Lannie sneaks into the house alone, but is captured. ........

Source: Wikipedia