While passing through small-town Ohio during a cross-country lecture tour, notoriously acerbic New York radio personality Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) breaks his hip after slipping and falling on the icy steps of the house of the Stanleys (Grant Mitchell (actor) and Billie Burke), a prominent Ohio family with whom he's supposed to dine as a publicity stunt. He insists on recuperating in their home during the Christmas holidays. The overbearing, self-centered celebrity soon comes to dominate the lives of the residents and everyone else who enters the household. He encourages young adults Richard (Russell Arms) and June (Elisabeth Fraser) Stanley to pursue their dreams, much to the dismay of their conventional father Ernest.