A Lion Is in the Streets

Charismatic roving peddler Hank Martin (James Cagney) falls in love at first sight with schoolteacher Verity Wade (Barbara Hale) and soon marries her. On their wedding day, he rents a ramshackle home from his upper class lawyer friend Jules Bolduc (Warner Anderson). Hank rounds up some of his many friends to fix up the place, but Verity begins to realize that he is not as nice as he appears to be; while they do the work, he sees nothing wrong in going inside to read a law book. He confides to her that it is all a matter of manipulating people the right way.