The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.

Professor Pierre Ginsberg is having wife trouble and, on the advice of his lawyer, sets out to wear her down with kindness; she wants constant entertainment his lawyer promises him that a month of dancing and entertainment will eventually kill her or, at least, calm her down some. The exact opposite happens and Professor Ginsberg stands a good chance of dying himself. He manages to sing a song, in the best Willie Howard style, along the way.

Professor Pierre Ginsberg, extraordinary French instructor, is sailing with a wealthy couple as their instructor and guide in France. But when his client tries out his French in the dining room and everything is wrong, he fires Ginsberg. Two gangster-type Americans ask Ginsbeg to order them a meal, and advise him to get a girl for the ship's ball that night. Ginsberg, of course, picks the wife of one of them.

Helen Lester is in love with a man she has known just 24 hours, a playboy who spent time in jail for passing bad checks. Though the man has promised to change, most of her strait-laced relatives are up in arms. But Clare Lester, Helen's grandmother, says the girl is free to join the man she loves. On one condition, that she listen to the story of a day in Clare's own life and of a man she tried to change.

Michael O'More, an American who lives in Ireland with his uncle, a horsetrainer for the Earl of Balkerry, loves Lady Mary Cardigan, granddaughter of the Earl. He finds a rival in Capt. Brian Fitzroy, a rake who intends to buy the impoverished earl's castle and marry Lady Mary. After nearly killing Fitzroy in a brawl over Lady Mary, Michael flees to the United States. There he becomes financially secure when department store magnate Abe Feinberg offers him a job. Feinberg commissions Michael to establish a linen mill on the earl's estate. He and Mary, who is in the United States evading Fitzroy, return to Ireland and marry.

Produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the film used actors to recreate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and compare working conditions of the early 20th century to that of the 1950s.

A young woman, who wants to be in the Follies, is making ends meet by working at a department store's sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits. She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend, who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an opportunity to make her dream come true. Upon arriving in New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.

Young Irish lad Tommy O'Day lives in a poor section of New York's Lower East Side, and is blessed with a beautiful singing voice. After an argument with his father, who accuses him of stealing the family's life savings, Tommy leaves home and gets a job singing in a cabaret. He is successful and soon lands the lead in a Broadway revue. On opening night, just as he is about to go on stage, he receives word that his mother, who he has not seen since he left home, is dying and wants to see him.