A theatrical producer puts aside his own success to boost the career of a talented singer.

Mantan takes a job as office boy at a new TV station and gets to watch several pre-recorded musical numbers.

Upholsterer's assistant Irene O'Dare meets wealthy Don Marshall while she is measuring chairs for Mrs. Herman Vincent at her Long Island estate. Charmed by her, Don anonymously purchases Madame Lucy's, an exclusive Manhattan boutique, and instructs newly hired manager Mr. Smith to offer Irene a job as a model. She soon catches the eye of socialite Bob Vincent, whose mother is hosting a ball at the family mansion. To promote Madame Lucy's dress line, Mr. Smith arranges for his models to be invited to the ball.

An undercover police woman poses as a nighclub entertainer to catch the main man behind the racketeers going on around Harlem. Meanwhile two men are falling for her.

When compulsive gambler Little Joe Jackson dies in a drunken fight, he awakens in purgatory, where he learns that he will be sent back to Earth for six months to prove that he deserves to be in heaven. He awakens, remembering nothing and struggles to do right by his devout wife, Petunia, while an angel known as the General and the devil's son, Lucifer Jr., fight for his soul.

The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.