The Out of Towners 1970

Henry Clark and Nancy Clark are a longtime married couple in a quiet Ohio town. After twenty-seven years together and with their last child, Alan, having moved off to Europe, Nancy is wrestling with empty-nest blues while Henry carries his own quiet routine. When Henry lands a job interview in New York, a sudden impulse from Nancy leads her to secretly board the plane with him, kicking off a travel excursion that quickly spirals into a string of mishaps. What starts as a routine business trip becomes an unpredictable test of their relationship, their nerve, and their ability to adapt on the fly.

Their hopes of a smooth journey are dashed almost at once: a weather-driven reroute lands them in Boston, their luggage vanishes, and they end up renting an impractically expensive car after missing the train to NYC. A mugging at gunpoint leaves them rattled, and the situation gets tougher when their daughter Susan’s credit card has already been pushed to its limit. The hotel scene grows tense as they’re tossed out by a pompous manager named Mersault, so Nancy resolves to find Susan at her apartment, only to be chased away by nosy neighbors who don’t want strangers in their building. The couple makes a halt at a church, accidentally stumble into a Sexaholics Anonymous gathering, and are thrust into the spotlight as Nancy is pressed to explain why she and Henry have grown distant. Henry finally comes clean about the layoff—the stress has sapped his usual drive—and the revelation hits Nancy hard, underscoring the secrets they’ve kept from one another.

Desperate to salvage something from the trip, they return to the hotel in search of their bags but discover they have no luck yet. In a moment of improvisation, they slip into a bar where Nancy, in a bid to secure a room for the night, lets a man named Greg flirt with her; she plans to wait for him in his room while he’s away for work, and they order room service. Greg discovers them and calls the police, forcing the couple to improvise once again. They sneak onto a balcony, only to witness Mersault secretly cross-dressing in the clothes of other guests, a sight that ups the stakes of their already unstable predicament. Now forced to live by their wits on the streets, they end up in a stolen cab, jump from the moving vehicle, and suddenly find themselves wandering through Central Park.

In the park the mood shifts to something warmer and more intimate for the two, but they are quickly discovered and chased by mounted police. They fall asleep in a makeshift lean-to, and in the morning Henry faces an arrest for indecent exposure as he’s discovered while relieving himself. Nancy finds a way to turn the tide by quietly pressuring Mersault into helping them out of their bind. The next chapter of their lives begins with a renewed sense of possibility: Henry aces his job interview, and the couple decides to settle into a new life together in New York City, taking up permanent residence at the hotel. They, along with Mersault in full drag, head to see their daughter Susan Clark perform on Broadway, marking a new and surprising chapter in their relationship and their shared story in the city.