THE STORY: Mary Coyle, daughter of a corrupt Tammany politician who died in prison, is lonely and unhappy. She is also very rich, and wants to give back to the people of New York some of the money her father took from them. Mary tries to do this by giving free concerts in Central Park. But the concerts don’t make people happy as she had hoped, and when she is visited by a Dr. Brightlee, H.D. (Doctor of Humanity) who has some suggestions on how Mary can spread more happiness, she is most enthusiastic. This enthusiasm isn’t shared by Mary’s aunt and guardians, who suspect Dr. Brightlee of being the devil,…and they’re right. But instead of being evil, the devil stands for the restless, rebellious individual spirit of man that hates conformity and is responsible for what human progress there is. Dr. Brightlee leads Mary away from an infatuation with a composer, the only man she has known until now, and finds her a real romance with a taxi driver who goes into a dance whenever he hears music.
“Very funny…[an] ironic inventive fantasy.” —The New York Times.
