Two Southern clans, the Lynches and the Summers, have been at odds with each other since long before Civil War times. But that hasn't stopped Jere Lynch and Betty Summers from falling in love.

Department-store clerk Larry Young is determined to marry a rich girl. He falls for Elaine Debaux, whom he believes to be the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder. However, when war breaks out Larry is drafted into the army. Before he is taken in, though, he and Elaine are rescued from gangsters by an ex-con named Mike Moran. It turns out that Moran wants to join the army but they won't take him because of his record. Larry, who doesn't want to go into the army because it will interfere with his plans to marry Elaine, comes up with an idea he thinks will work out for all concerned. Complications ensue.

Although they have a happy marriage, Sir Charles Chatham, an explorer, and his American wife, Lady Marion, have been unable to have children. After Charles goes to Egypt, his sister Gertrude and her sweetheart Stephen Hartley, an American consulate attaché, take refuge from a storm in a deserted tower. Frightened, Gertrude yields to Stephen's advances. Although he intends to marry Gertrude, Stephen suddenly is called to deliver supplies to starving women and children in Russia. Marion takes the pregnant Gertrude away to have her child, and notifies Stephen, who, because he is shot during Bolshevik rioting, returns too late to marry Gertrude, who dies after childbirth. To honor Gertrude's dying request, and to provide Charles with a much desired child, Marion telegraphs Charles that the baby is theirs.

Because he had previously picked the name James for his first-born, when a female arrives, Major Milligan, a well-meaning but lazy dreamer, calls his daughter Jamesina, or Jemmy for short. With the birth of her second child, Mrs. Milligan dies, and several years later, when Jemmy is about eighteen, the Major marries a widow with three children. Soon the family is deeply in debt. Jemmy gets work at a textile factory, gets jobs for the other children, and even inspires the Major to work. She falls in love with Stanley Templeton, an aviator on furlough, but because his mother disapproves, Jemmy refuses to marry him. After Stanley returns to the war, Jemmy captures a German spy in the plant who was soaking cloth for airplanes in acid. She receives a reward which allows the Milligans to pay off their mortgage. Mrs. Templeton apologizes, and when Stanley returns, she warmly approves of their engagement.

Upon learning that notorious art thief Alf Wilson plans to steal his valuable paintings, idle millionaire Travers Gladwyn decides to amuse himself by guarding his own home. After bribing Policeman Phelan, Officer 666, with a $500 bill, Travers dons the officer's uniform and identity. When Wilson appears at his mansion, Travers questions him and discovers that Wilson is posing as Travers, claiming that he is packing up his paintings for safe keeping. ...

An American marries the widow of one of his French army friends, who never got back from the front. They live their lives together and take care of the child, who was born soon after the Frenchman was called for duty. Years after, the Frenchman returns from his release from a German Prisoners-of-War camp and is confronted with the dramatic changes in his matrimonial situation.

Blue Jean Billie (Dean), a prosperous young woman crook who lives apart from the denizens of the underworld, has pulled off many robberies of the high society world with the help of her pal Shaver Michael (De Grasse). Billie gains admission to the Vanderhoof dinner at which the engagement of their daughter to Lord Chesterton (Hall) will be announced. While the dinner is in progress, Billie gags and handcuffs special officer Detective Wood (Ross), and proceeds to make a wholesale robbery of the guests. She flees in an automobile and none succeed in tracking her save Lord Chesterton. She makes a prisoner of him, but a police raid follows and she must flee. Once more Lord Chesterton succeeds in following her and again she makes him her prisoner, but she learns to trust and love him. The special agent and Shaver Michael arrive at the scene with resulting complications, but a happy end results for all.

Count Camello lives on his fine estate in Italy, near the home occupied by Sir James Drake and his family. Gregory Baldi, a parasitical cousin of the count, is courting Mary Drake, and although the count also loves the girl, he conceals his feelings out of respect for his cousin. When war breaks out, Camello enlists while Gregory convinces Mary's brother Oliver that Oliver has killed an opponent in a duel and that the only way to escape a murder charge is to disguise himself by going to war under Gregory's name. Wounded, Count Camello returns from the front and, after Gregory is reported dead, proposes to Mary. On the eve of their wedding, Gregory returns unexpectedly and, in dire need of money, buries his cousin alive in the family vault.

A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.

Based on the novel Low Company. One of the most peculiar film noirs of the 1940s stars Barry Sullivan as a small-time hood who suffers a mental breakdown as his big plans begin to crumble. Beautiful Belita is his singer girlfriend who only fuels his paranoia.