Lady Jane Winston travels to the Ivory Coast of Africa to investigate George Castle, the manager of her family's rubber and ivory company, whom she suspects of embezzlement. On the voyage, Rin Tin Tin ("Rinty") leaps overboard near the African coast and befriends Jim Clayton, a beachcomber and former company employee. Together, the dog and Clayton rescue Lady Jane from a shark attack, prompting a partnership to expose Castle.

Wade Rawlings, a former Captain in the Gold Stream Guards, has lost his fortune and has become a wanderer in the United States. He is hired as the Kilbourne-family chauffeur after Mrs. Kilbourne, whose hobby is reforming tramps, takes note of his skill as an auto-mechanic. The rest of the family objects strongly, especially 22-year-old Eileen who takes an immediate dislike to him, but Mr. Kilbourne allows him to stay on. Shortly afterward, Mr. Kilbourne is surprised to learn that Eileen has eloped and he has a new son-in-law, and even more surprised to learn this his son-in-law is the family chauffeur.

Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get "culture" and meet "the right kind of people." Pike and his grown son and daughter soon have flirtatious French admirers; Idy rents a chateau from an impoverished aristocrat; while Pike responds to each new development with homespun wit. In the inevitable clash, will pretentiousness and sophistication or common sense triumph?

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett.

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.