Ellen Arden (Monroe), a photographer and mother of two small children, has been Declared death in absentia, having been lost at sea in the Pacific. Her husband Nick (Dean Martin) Enoch Arden law; he and his new wife, Bianca (Cyd Charisse), are on their honeymoon when Ellen, rescued from an island where she has been stranded for five years, returns home. The family dog remembers her, but the children do not. However, they take a liking to her, and invite her to stay. Ellen assumes a foreign accent and pretends to be a woman named Ingrid Tic. Nick, flustered by the revelation that he's now married to two women, makes great effort to keep the truth from his new wife all the while trying to quash her amorous advances. Upon learning that Ellen was marooned on the island with a man, Stephen Burkett (Tom Tryon) — whom she knew as "Adam" to her "Eve" — he becomes jealous and suspicious of her fidelity. To calm his fears, Ellen enlists a meek shoe salesman (Wally Cox) to impersonate her island companion.