成功的建筑师唐纳德·格雷沙姆和苦苦挣扎的女演员帕蒂·奥尼尔第一次在唐工作的帝国大厦见面时，立刻被对方吸引。唐，一个男人的花花公子，来接她。另一方面，帕蒂是个贤惠的人，但当她接受他的晚餐约会时，先在他的公寓停留一下，她清楚地知道自己的期望是什么：“感情但没有激情”。最后，她不停地直截了当地谈论男女关系和性行为，这可能会也可能不会改变唐对她的看法，这让他感到困惑。但唐要想从帕蒂那里得到他想要的东西，可能还有更大的障碍，辛西娅·斯莱特，唐最近的一个女朋友，他昨晚才和她分手，因为唐太“绅士”了，而大卫·斯莱特，也是一个男人的花花公子，是大卫的朋友，当帕蒂遇到她时，他也立刻被她吸引，因此他想从她那里得到和唐一样的东西（帕蒂在遇到大卫后可能会向她屈服），并且和辛西娅有一种不寻常的关系：他不太了解父亲，辛西娅和他住在唐家楼上的公寓里。

Anne Crandall is the mayor of a small town in Vermont. Her deceased husband had been the mayor for years and when he died, she was left to carry on and to raise his daughter from his first marriage. She lives with the daughter, her father-in-law and a housekeeper. In the town square, there was a statue of her late husband and every year since his death, they have an anniversary celebration there. This year during a thunderstorm, the statue is hit by lightning and the head falls off. The daughter insists that a new statue be erected instead of patching the old one. Mayor Crandall is sent to New York to interview the prospective sculptor, George Corday.