In the Midwest of the 1920s, in the small-town Missouri bar, Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is portrayed as a traveling salesman-huckster who sells shoeshines and vacuum cleaners.The assembled audience sings the national anthem "Hail, Hail Freedonia," but Firefly isn""t anywhere in sight." The second will be tucked in his brother""s suitcase and "he shall ransport it himself without knowing it.A second car arrives, and the newcomers lean into the wind, holding onto their caps.One of the men, identifying himself as a cartographer ("I""m a mapmaker") and not a professional interpreter, David Laughlin (Bob Balaban) is able to "translate French into English and English into French."Spade is confronted by an innocent-looking, stunning brunette beauty, a nervy but cool client named "Ruth Wonderly" (Mary Astor).