Parker Ballantine is a New York theater critic and his wife writes a play that may or may not be very good. Now Parker must either get out of reviewing the play or cause the breakup of his marriage.

A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.

A wealthy society doctor decides to research the medical aspects of criminal behaviour by becoming one himself. He joins a gang of thieves and proceeds to wrest leadership of the gang away from its extremely resentful leader.

Songwriter Gus Kahn fights to make his name, then has to fight again to survive the Depression.

After marrying her long lost love, a pianist finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.

A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sister.

A U.S. Marine Corps colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

The owner of a tavern is pressured by the local mob to go into business with them, and figures it's better all around if he does that rather than cause trouble. However, when he starts to see what kind of place his nice little neighborhood bar is turning into, and when one of the mob's goons tries to rape his daughter, he decides to fight them.

A womanizing reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine impersonates his hen-pecked neighbor in order to get an expose on renowned psychologist Helen Gurley Brown.

Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton are rival Madison Avenue advertising executives who each dislike each other’s methods. After he steals a client out from under her cute little nose, revenge prompts her to infiltrate his secret "VIP" campaign in order to persuade the mystery product’s scientist to switch to her firm.