Hadleyburg has a reputation for unshakable honesty. The smug towns-people are proud of this virtue and keep themselves honest by simply avoiding temptation. That is until The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg arrives in town.

Robert Preston stars as the stranger who plots a revenge on the hypocritical residents by promising a fortune to the citizens who once showed him charity many years before. One by one the stranger tempts the leading citizens to scheme for the money- until Hadleyburg's honest reputation is mud before the world.

Based on one of Mark Twain's best-known short stories, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg is a cynical, yet humorous view of life in America's small towns-a life that the acerbic Mr. Twain knew only too well.