Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

Wandered away from his asylum, an amnesiac World War I veteran falls in love with a music hall star but his amnesia makes it difficult to last.

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.

The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, and the employees' anger is directed at him, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to mete out the rabble-rousers. So he goes undercover as a sales clerk in the shoe department.

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

The story of Ethel Armstrong and her father Henry looking forward to her marriage to the ambitious attorney Bruce Steele. Bruce is elected district attorney and goes after a group of food profiteers. Ethel breaks the engagement when her father falls under suspicion as one of the food hoarders.

Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.

The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.

This MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short shows the role the crime laboratory plays in the solving of cases, and how even the smallest detail can become a major clue.