Plot
Boisterous billionaire Preston Blake, owner of Blake Media, freezes to death while climbing Mount Everest. During the ensuing media circus, Blake's board of directors, led by the greedy Chuck Cedar, discover his closest living relative is a great-nephew named Longfellow Deeds. Deeds is a kind-hearted and cheerful man who runs a pizzeria in Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire with his friend Jan. He also writes greeting cards in his free time, hoping they might be accepted by Hallmark.
Deeds is flown to New York City, where he meets various Blake staff members, including well-meaning general counsel Cecil Anderson. He also meets Blake's longtime butler Emilio Lopez, who saw Blake as a father figure and quickly befriends Deeds. Plans are made for Deeds to sell his shares in the company for $40 billion, though he must remain in New York for the time being. Cedar grows to despise Deeds, and secretly wants to break up Blake Media.
Cynical television tabloid reporter Babe Bennett, wanting in on the story, invents the false persona of "Pam Dawson" to get close to Deeds. She has her lecherous co-worker Marty pretend to steal her purse in front of Deeds so he can "save her". However, Deeds beats Marty senseless. Deeds is immediately smitten with Babe, who clumsily makes up a story about being a school nurse from the town of "Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa".
Although initially only interested in the story, Babe eventually falls for the kind-hearted Deeds, who writes her a poem and manages to find a real "Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa", to which he takes her on a surprise trip.
Marty reveals Babe's true identity to Cedar and, during a dinner date, the truth is revealed about her deception. Heartbroken, Deeds decides to return home. He is assured that the company will stay open, and asks to donate his money to the United Negro College Fund. However, he later learns from his mentally unstable friend "Crazy Eyes" that Cedar intends to sell the company and lay off thousands of employees.
Babe follows Deeds to Mandrake Falls to win him back, getting into a massive brawl with Jan, who is furious at Babe for hurting her friend. Jan realizes Babe really cares for Deeds and tells her where to find him. While approaching Deeds, Babe falls through the ice of a frozen lake. Deeds hears her cries and saves her from drowning, breaking the ice with his foot, which was rendered rock-hard from a childhood frostbite injury. Despite Babe's pleas for forgiveness, he rejects her, and she sadly returns to New York.
At a shareholders' meeting, Cedar persuades everyone to sell the company until Deeds suddenly arrives. Deeds appeals to all of the shareholders to do the right thing and convinces them to change their minds. However, Cedar reveals that he secretly controls a majority of the shares and overrules them. Babe suddenly arrives, having stolen and studied Blake's personal diary. The diary reveals that forty years earlier, Blake had a brief romance with his maid, Consuela, Emilio's late mother who died while giving birth to him nine months later. Thus, Emilio is Blake's son and the true heir to his stake in the company.
Emilio immediately takes control of Blake Media and fires Cedar and many other corrupt board members, though he keeps Cecil on the board due to his good nature. Emilio thanks Deeds for his friendship and support, before giving him $1 billion as a farewell gift. Deeds and Babe reconcile and return to Mandrake Falls, where she now works alongside him and Jan at the pizzeria. The poem Deeds wrote for Babe is accepted by Hallmark and becomes a popular greeting card. He has also used some of his money to buy Corvettes for everyone in Mandrake Falls... though "Crazy Eyes" immediately crashes his.
Production
The producers were looking for a small, "old-fashioned, New England-type" town close to New York, when they serendipitously discovered New Milford, Connecticut, and, upon having lunch there at "The Bistro Cafe", decided the town would be the perfect choice to portray the fictional home-town of Deeds, Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire, and that the cafe was a great location to use as "'Deeds' Pizza" restaurant. [2] Some scenes were also shot in Carmel, New York. Several sequences were filmed in New York City around Spring 2001. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, images of the World Trade Center towers were digitally removed from several shots of New York City. The Blake Media Hotel scenes were shot in Beverly Hills, California. The scene where Longfellow Deeds and Chuck Cedar are playing tennis at the tennis court was filmed at Roosevelt Island, New York.
