Old Home Week (1925)

Tom Clark, the part owner of a luckless gas station in New York, returns to his place of birth for Old Home Week, posing as the millionaire president of the Amalgamated Oil Co. He is chosen as the orator for the homecoming banquet and given complete financial control over an oil well drilled in the town by Coleman and Barton, a pair of oily swindlers. Tom discovers that the well is a fake and has it connected secretly with the local reservoir. A wire from Tom's partner is intercepted, and Tom is exposed as a fraud. Coleman and Barton are about to leave town when Tom fakes a gusher and quickly sells the well back to the swindlers at a profit. The swindlers realize that they have been outsmarted, and their anger convinces the townspeople that Tom has acted in the best interests of the community. Tom is again the toast of the town, feted by its inhabitants and rewarded with the kisses of his sweetheart.