Hilarious misadventures of a merry, but scandalously lazy band of well-to-do young men-and a weary terrier named 'Montmorency'-on an idyllic cruise along the River Thames. Feeling seedy, muses one of them dreamily, "What we want is rest." What they find instead is one hapless catastrophe after an...

Mr Worthing invents a brother, Earnest, as an excuse to leave his dull life behind him to pursue Gwendolyn. While across town Algernon Montecrieff decides to take the name Earnest, when visiting Worthing's young ward Cecily. The real fun and confusion begins when the two end up together and their deceptions are in danger of being revealed....