or the past ten years, Baltimore industrialist Wendell Armbruster has been spending the month of August at the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Ischia, allegedly to soak in the therapeutic mud baths for which the resort island is known. When he is killed in an automobile accident, his straitlaced son Wendell Armbruster, Jr. journeys to Italy to claim his father's body. Upon arrival he discovers his father was not alone in the Fiat he was driving; with him was his British mistress, whose daughter, free-spirited London shop girl Pamela Piggott, also is on the scene, though she clearly knew of their parents' clandestine romance beforehand.
Complications arise when the Trotta family, whose vineyard was damaged when the elder Armbruster's car drove into it, steal the bodies from the morgue and hold them for a two million lire ransom. Trying to assist is United States Ambassador J.J. Blodgett, who hopes to appoint the deceased man to an embassy post posthumously so the government can get involved in the recovery of his body. As their problems with local customs and bureaucratic red tape escalate, Wendell and Pamela find themselves falling in love with the assistance of manager Carlo Carlucci, valet Bruno, and the rest of the hotel staff, who are determined the couple will follow in the romantic path of their parents.