A young man asks a hat check girl to pose as his fiancée in order to make his dying father's last moments happy. However, the old man's health takes a turn for the better and now his son doesn't know how to break the news that he's engaged to someone else, especially since his father is so taken with the impostor.
Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.
Lucille Lingard and her friend Emmie bid farewell to their European friends on their last night in Paris. Lucille has fallen for the debonair Ronald Derbyshire and dreads returning to her mundane Midwestern hometown in Iowa and her stolid husband Charles. Back in America, Lucille plans to get a divorce and is delighted when Ronald show up. However, he and Charles unexpectedly become close friends, and Ronald admits that he does not find Lucille as attractive as he did in Paris. He leaves the next day and Lucille stays with her husband, won over once more to her family life.
An Australian opera singer hires a husband so she can work in the U.S. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene.
Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.
A stockbroker bets his new partners $10,000 that he can tell the truth, and only the truth, for twenty-four hours.
Grant Jordan, bachelor botany professor, marries Katie, a widow with three kids, despite the machinations of Grant's former girlfriend Minna. But on the wedding day, Aunt Jo, who was to babysit, breaks a leg; so the kids come along on the honeymoon.
Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.
A book publisher finds his business floundering, which prompts his socially ambitious wife to desert him for a society millionaire, leaving him with their young son. The publisher's fortunes improve dramatically, however, when a best-selling romance novelist decides to publish her new book with his firm. In the meantime, his ex-wife has married the millionaire, and she and her new mother-in-law come up with a plan to sue her ex-husband for custody of the boy.
Jim Hanvey is a genial but top-notch detective who has retired to his country home. An insurance company hires him to find a missing emerald so they won't have to pay out the $100,000 for which the jewel is insured. It doesn't take him long to find the emerald, but he discovers that finding it was the easy part; the difficult part is getting it back to its rightful owner, and he winds up involved in a murder in which an innocent man is framed.
A young couple struggling against poverty must keep their marriage a secret in order for the husband to keep his job, as his boss doesn't like to hire married men.
A nine-year-old Elizabeth Taylor made her film debut in this lively comedy. She plays the spoiled-brat daughter of a pudding manufacturer who has been entered into the town's mayoral race by some of the local businessmen. They have chosen him because they think he is easy to manipulate. As a sales gimmick, the pudding magnate advertises that his product contains the highly nutritious "Vitamin Z." He suddenly begins selling pudding like crazy and soon his political campaign is well-funded. Unfortunately, there is no "Vitamin Z" and when this is discovered, the town fathers try to dump him and show that he is a fake.
The story of a small-time vaudeville trio and their rise to the big time.
Daniel Bone is aiming for success. A Brooklyn gunsmith by trade, he figures the place to be is where the guns are. So off he goes into the West and becomes the foe of the notorious Pecos Kid, the captive of Paiutes, the target in a saloon showdown, and the lone source of the whereabouts of a fabulous gold strike.
An Italian immigrant studying the law gets mixed up with crooks.
There are plenty of suspects when an unscrupulous, blackmailing businessman turns up dead, especially the Police Commissioner's current paramour, who actually confessed to the killing before it was committed.
Margot, the motherless daughter of a New England fisherman, dreams of a better life. After rescuing the wealthy Jack Rutledge's mother, Margot is taken in by the family. Jack and Margot fall in love against the will of his mother and must find a way to marry.
Circus dancer Babette learns from Zaidee, her fortune-teller mother, that her father is the respected businessman Ezra Butterworth, who had deserted Zaidee years before and then remarried. After Zaidee dies, Babette goes to live with Ezra, but fearful that his second wife will learn of his less-than-upright past, he takes her in as his ward and forbids her to mention their real relationship.
Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.
A trustworthy captain is reduced in rank so that the owner's daughter's fiancé may take charge.
A fake heiress marries a common reporter to thwart the advances of gold-digging playboys.
A hypochondriac is afraid he will die before he gets an inheritance that will "cure" him.
A baby is left on the Brinbecombes' yacht while they are sailing up the Hudson River, and they adopt him and name him Everett. They are neighbors of Governor Floyd Vandecarm whose twin children, Floyd Jr. and Fledra, were kidnapped in early infancy. Their abductor was Lon Cronk, a man sent to prison by Vandecar when the latter was a district attorney of the county. The twins grow up in Cronk's shack as "Flea" and "Flukey." Despite her rough surroundings Fledra/Flea grows into lovely young womanhood and she and her brother run away from Cronk's cruelty. They reach Tarrytown and peer into the lighted windows of the home of siblings Horace and Anne Shellington. Anne brings the two young vagrants into the house and ultimately adopts them. But Cronk, aided by Everett, wages a long, evil campaign to regain possession of the children.
A young secretary falls in love with her boss, a middle-aged playwright. Complications ensue when her boss' son falls for her.
Bruce Blakely, a meek, mild-mannered certified public accountant, finally gets fed up with his money-grubbing family sponging off of him, and decides to partake of a different side and slice of life. A blonde secretary helps guide him.
Heiress Hedda Nillson certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in love with humble chauffeur Eric Landstrom.
Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.
Jean Servian's eyesight is failing and is desperate for money, marries wealthy widower Geoffrey Vane after telling him that he must be satisfied with her gratitude rather than her love. Then, following an affair with artist Philip Derblay, who finally leaves her, Jean settles down to a quiet, boring life with Geoffrey, who knows nothing about her failed romance. Years later, however, after Lucille, Geoffrey's daughter by his first wife, becomes engaged to Philip, Jean feels compelled to tell the story of her own affair with him. The disclosure has little effect as Lucille makes no change in her wedding plans, but then, when she breaks in on a violent argument between Philip and Lucille, Jean accidentally shoots and kills her former lover. A trial results in her acquittal, however, after which Jean realizes that she really does love Geoffrey, who easily forgives his wife for her past indiscretion.
A wealthy society girl must live on $150 a month to prove to her father that she can stand being married to a poor man.
The daughter of a radio-program sponsor wants to get on the air too, but her father doesn't allow it, so she enters an amateur contest on his radio program under an assumed name.