During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.

An actress gets involved with a criminal gang and winds up taking the rap for a $40,000 bank robbery. Before being sent to prison, she steals the money from her partners and hides it, thinking to use it as a bargaining chip to be released from prison. However, her former partners have different ideas.

A kindly, enthusiastic, newly-arrived American immigrant from Hungary is forced to turn to a life of crime after his face is badly disfigured in a hotel fire.

In 19th century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.

In 19th century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.

Locals in an Italian village believe evil has taken over the estate of a recently deceased pianist where murder has taken place. The alleged killer: the pianist's severed hand.

After robbing and murdering his married lover and then making her death look like suicide, conniving philanderer Ronnie Mason relocates to Los Angeles. Under a new identity and claiming to be a writer, Ronnie finds lodging at the home of Hilda Fenchurch and her mother. He woos Hilda, knowing she has money, but when he discovers that Hilda's sister, Anne, has just inherited $25,000, he switches his attentions to her.

A playwright descended from the Borgia family becomes a murder suspect.

A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.

In London, a secret society led by lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew collects the assets of any of its deceased members and divides them among the remaining members. Society members start dropping like flies. Sherlock Holmes is approached by member James Murphy's widow, who is miffed at being left penniless by her husband. When Captain Pyke is shot, Holmes keys in on his mysterious Chinese widow as well as the shady Merrydew. Other members keep dying: Malcom Dearing first, then Mr. Baker. There is also an attempt on the life of young Eileen Forrester, who became a reluctant society member upon the death of her father. Holmes' uncanny observations and insights are put to the test.