When a crafty reporter uses false pretenses to get a story out of heiress Tony Gateson, she turns the tables on him, telling the press that they are engaged. Suddenly he's front page news, every salesman is at his doorstep, and he loses his job. A series of misadventures ensues with him alternately back on his job and fired and her ex-fiancé showing up.

Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.

A brilliant but deranged neurosurgeon becomes obsessively fixated on a judge's daughter. With the help of an escaped criminal whose face he has surgically deformed, the mad man lures her, her father, and her fiancé to his isolated, castle-like home.

Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.

Assistant District Attorney Jeffery Powell has just sent an innocent man to prison for the murder of a gambler. Powell is in love with, Marion Courtney, but he's unaware that Marion is the sister of the innocent man he sent to prison. Marion gets herself committed to a women's prison to get proof from inmate, Evelyn 'Duchess' Thane, that her brother is innocent. Powell learns of Marion's plight and believes she's in love with the man he sent to prison.

Dr. Socrates gave up his brilliant career as surgeon in a prominent hospital because his betrothed died under his knife. He is now a struggling doctor in a small town that has a gangster's hideout.

When reporter Dan Miller is once again late to meet his girl friend, Helen Murdock, because he is working on a story, Helen breaks up with him. Later, in an effort to reconcile with her, Dan misses an appointment with the district attorney, and is fired when his editor learns that the district attorney was murdered in Dan's absence. The man suspected of the crime, Mitts Coster, is rumored to be traveling to Europe aboard an ocean liner. While Dan's friend, photographer Snapper McGillicuddy, fetches Helen to the boat, under the pretense that Dan is leaving town to forget her, Dan searches the ship for Mitts, whom he does not recognize. When Helen arrives, Dan feigns illness, and she admits her love for him. When Helen learns of Dan's ruse, however, she angrily hits him with a package that a passenger gave her when she boarded the ship. The package contains a passport for Dorothy Madden, who greatly resembles Helen, and $2,000 dollars.

Broadway's most successful producer, John Forrester, is deeply in love with his wife Margaret and dreams of the future when his son Jack will step into his shoes. He sails to England to produce a show but the ship strikes a derelict wreckage and is sinking rapidly. In the ensuing wild panic, Forrester saves many lives, until finally, panic stricken by sudden fear, he dons a woman's clothes and is among the rescued. On the coast of Newfouldland, the villagers, not aware of his true identity, curse him but he is befriended by Alec who helps him conceal his identity. With a planned story of his survival, he returns to New York but cannot face his family or friends after he sees the plaque to his heroism on his New York theatre. Deciding to remain thought of as dead, he becomes a derelict himself, surviving on odd jobs as he watches from afar his now-grown son begin his career as a producer.

A small town politician, kept from marrying the love of his life, eventually marries another woman and his career ascends, but he secretly continues the relationship with his true love.

A wide-eyed working girl wins a $5,000 sweepstakes and plunges into the lush life of New York City, where she meets a bellboy who is more than he seems.