Bad News Johnson, a con artist from Memphis, Tennessee, arrives in Dallas, Texas, accompanied by his dim sidekick July Jones with only twenty-five cents between them. The duo arrange to become boarders at the home of Louella "Mama Lou" Holiday, who is fooled into believing Johnson is an acting teacher from Hollywood. Mrs. Holiday agrees to give the men free room and board if they will provide poise lessons to her daughter, an aspiring beauty queen named Honey Dew.

A Harlem nightclub entertainer arrives on the Caribbean island of "Rinidad" to perform as the headliner in a revue at the Paradise Hotel. She quickly attracts the attention of several men.