Plot
Charles (Conrad Nagel) is the epitome of domestic regularity — a mild, meticulous man who wakes at precisely 7:26 a.m., shaves (cutting his chin on schedule every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday), and breakfasts on eggs boiled for one minute and eighteen seconds. His life, governed by habit and order, is shared with his sweet but conventional wife, Alice (June Collyer).
Charles’s predictability earns him the nickname “Old Faithful” at the office, but things begin to shift when a bold and alluring new secretary, Miss Jones (Sharon Lynn), joins the firm. She turns heads — including Charles’s — and her arrival prompts his friend and co-worker, Jack Stone (Arthur Stone), to suggest Charles needs to sample the "red wine of life." Jack tempts Charles to cut loose and attend a party at the notorious Club Exotique, urging him to “forget marriage” and remember that “you’re only young once.”
After some hesitation, Charles gives in.
At the Club Exotique, he’s plunged into a night of exotic spectacle and drunken revelry. Spanish, Hawaiian, and Chinese dancers perform to the crowd's delight. Charles drinks heavily for the first time since college and quickly becomes the butt of a practical joke. Jack and his friends watch with glee as Charles grows increasingly inebriated, and they stage a scandal: after he passes out, they drape women’s clothes around his hotel room to suggest he’s spent the night in sinful company.
The next morning, Charles awakens groggy, guilt-ridden, and deeply confused. Miss Jones teasingly greets him at the office with a knowing smirk, and Charles obsesses over the phrase Jack had repeated — “Young once” — scribbling it like a confession. He is too ashamed to tell Alice.
Then comes a cruel twist of fate: that very night is the Davises’ wedding anniversary, and Alice insists they celebrate at the very same Club Exotique. Despite Charles’s desperate attempts to dissuade her, she’s determined — “I’d like to be just a little bit wicked for once,” she says playfully.
At the club, Charles is immediately recognized by the waiters and dancers from the night before. Their teasing banter and suggestive glances bewilder Alice, who begins to suspect there’s more to her husband’s story than he’s letting on. Matters spiral when Jack’s prankster friends return and mockingly refer to Charles’s “latest conquest.”
Mortified, Charles storms out and confronts Jack on a nearby rooftop. The tension breaks when Jack finally confesses: nothing happened. After Charles passed out, it was all staged — the women’s clothes, the room setup, the gossip. It was only a joke.
With the truth revealed, Charles rushes back to Alice, who is still at the club. There, amid the final strains of music and dancing, he takes her in his arms and explains everything. The misunderstanding is forgiven, and they share a tender waltz beneath the club’s glittering lights.
As the music swells, Charles and Alice embrace, united once more in love and laughter. “You’re right, dear,” Charles tells her softly. “We’re only young once.”
