Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

In Hoyt City, a statue of founder Ethan Hoyt is dedicated, and 100 year old Hannah Sempler Hoyt (who lives in the last residence among skyscrapers) is at last persuaded to tell her story to a 'girl biographer'. Flashback: in 1848, teenage Hannah meets and flirts with pioneer Ethan; on a sudden impulse, they elope. We follow their struggle to found a city in the wilderness, hampered by the Gold Rush, star-crossed love, peril, and heartbreak. The star "ages" 80 years.

An opportunistic Texas gambler and the exiled Creole daughter of an aristocratic family join forces to achieve justice from the society that has ostracized them.

During a stick-up, a woman is excited by the criminal and joins him on his crime spree.

Society lawyer Christopher Durant agrees to defend his friend Phil Siddall who was arrested for the murder of an ex-girlfriend. With the help of nightclub singer Pat Abbott and crime boss Tony Gazotti (a former client), Durant launches his own investigation of the murder in order to prove his friend's innocence.

Marriage counselor advises his bored wife to take up painting through which she meets a hubbie-rival yachtsman.

Father goes to an American Legion convention in Hollywood and the family goes along, visiting a studio a causing havoc on the set.

A merciless district attorney prosecutes a case that mirrors his own life.

A working-class woman is willing to do whatever it takes to give her daughter a socially promising future.

Rose Pierce is discontent with her life as the wife of a small town plumber and has visions of becoming a wealthy socialite. Consequently, when her smart aleck son Sammy hears that an electric railroad line is to be built through town, she decides that the family can become rich by purchasing the lots along the right of way. Patriarch George Pierce laughs at the idea, but when Rose and Sammy learn that Cora Stewart, the wealthy town widow, has withdrawn her savings from the bank, they jump to the conclusion that she is interested in buying the lots, and mother and son secretly invest the family bank roll in the land.