Con artist Candy Johnson (Clark Gable) has been run out of town after town. Then he got wise. He went out and got a town of his own: Yellow Creek, Nevada.

Lana Turner stars opposite Gable in this sometimes comic, always terrific Western. The title honky tonk is the Square Deal Saloon, where Candy and poker-playing sidekick Sniper (Chill Wills) cut cards but not the liquor. The colorful townfolk include a Justice of the Peace (Frank Morgan) who's good pals with John Barleycorn, a fiery do-gooder (Marjorie Main), a long-suffering dancehall girl (Claire Trevor) and a law-unto-himself sheriff (Albert Dekker). Topping it all is the pizazz of the first Gable-Turner pairing. After kissing her, Gable says: "Why don't you jump in and get wet all over?"

Candy Johnson, a crooked con artist, is continually run out of town after town, when he decides to get wise and take over a town of his own - Yellow Creek, Nevada. Once there, he marries the daughter of the local justice of the peace and expands his illicit activities, until a sequence of events turn him to the straight and narrow. This was the first MGM pairing of Gable and Turner, but the obvious chemistry between the two leads, as well as the emphatic audience approval, assured them that it wouldn't be their last.