John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

An alcoholic lawyer who successfully defended a notorious gambler on a murder charge objects when his free-spirited daughter becomes romantically involved with him.

A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.

Two sailors (William Haines and Cliff Edwards) are leaving the US Navy after 10 years. In their spare time, one of them (Haines) invents a carburetor that should increase the speed that powered boats will run, but all they succeed in doing is sinking the Admiral's barge. After discharge, broke and out of work, they find work with a boat builder who wants the fastest race boat in the world. They design the boat, carburetor and the engine but lack of money and the foreclosure of the business hinders their efforts to prove the new design.

On shore leave, a young sailor meets and falls in love with a pretty young blonde. He goes home with her to meet her parents, but they don't approve of him at all. Their daughter takes offense at this, and in the ensuing argument she storms out of the house determined to live on her own.

Socialite Carol Morgan romps through the Depression and her wealth while breaking up with Bill Wade and getting back together with him.

Childhood friends Diana, Neville and David are caught in a love triangle as adults. Diana and Neville have long been smitten with each other, but her father disapproves of the relationship, resulting in her eventual marriage to David. It's not long after their wedding, however, that tragedy strikes, sending Diana on a downward spiral. When Neville reappears in her life, will he be able to save her from her own misery?

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.