Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall work as power company linesmen. Hank is injured in an accident and subsequently promoted to foreman of the gang. Tensions start to show in the road crew as rivalry between Hank and Johnny increases.
During World War II, Captain Cassidy and his crew of submariners are ordered into Tokyo Bay on a secret mission. They are to gather information in advance of the planned bombing of Tokyo. Along the way, the crew learn about each other as they face the enemy and some of them lose their lives.
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.
Passengers on an ocean liner can't recall how they got onboard or where they are going. Soon it becomes apparent that they all have something in common.
A con artist falls for the rich widow he's trying to fleece.
A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.
Helen Chernen pushes her younger sister Katherine into show business in order to escape their small town poverty.
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 drunken ex-cop gets a shot at redemption when his young son is kidnapped after a smuggling deal goes belly up.
Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at a club offering free of charge food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen on their way overseas. Club founders Bette Davis and John Garfield give talks on the history of the place.
A nightclub singer can't choose between a charismatic small-time gangster and an honest newspaperman.
In occupied France, a convicted thief and murderer escapes the guillotine when a bombing raid strikes the prison, but is quickly re-captured by the inspector of the Surete responsible for his original arrest. Fearing the guillotine more than his actual death, the convict inveigles the inspector to help him with a plan to rescue 100 Frenchmen taken by the Gestapo following an act of sabotage: he will confess to being the saboteur and allow himself to be executed by firing squad, the Gestapo's method of execution, thus freeing the 100 men.
A private eye is hired by a mayoral candidate to prevent any sort of adverse publicity. It seems that, somewhere in town, there's a talking blackbird who insists upon saying that the candidate will commit a murder. When the killing occurs, the candidate is implicated, and the detective is off on a hectic pursuit of the incriminating crow and the actual murderer.
A reporter is constantly in trouble for jumping to conclusions.
The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend.
Three young women arrive at the Women's Army Corps facility in Fort Des Moines for varied reasons and with different goals. Mary Savage is a war widow who wants to become an officer, farm girl Stormy Hart wants to become involved in motor transport, and Lorna Travis seeks to win the approval of her father, a major general, who has very chauvinist views on the role of women in the military. Intensive training and guidance prepares the three to make a contribution to the success of the upcoming war games conducted by General Travis and validate the value of the WACS to the war effort.
During the depths of the Great Depression a hitch-hiker Steve Talbot and jukebox-joint hostess Lola Mears stumble into Cat-Tail Florida where farmers and pickers struggle under the buyer who rules by monopoly, dirty contracts and violence. Steve helps organize against the buyer, leading to further escalation ending in a lynch mob.
A private eye and his secretary probe a murder and find an international spy.
When a prisoner on Death Row is "accidentally" killed just before his execution, a reporter smells something fishy...
FBI agents Carl Becker and John Trent raid a New York hotel, sending Nazi spies to an upstate hunting lodge.
An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.
Paul Hudson, leads a group of desert bandits against some Nazis, who want to use them as cheap labor for their railroad.
Army sergeants Dave and "Fixit" spend a three-day pass in Pasadena, where they meet Janet and Cora, two young women who work in a parachute factory.
In New York, a surly, down-on-his-heels playwright meets a country girl who's giving up trying to act and returning home. He goes with her for inspiration when his agent convinces a stage star to take his next effort. When he returns to Broadway, his girl stays behind and starts seeing a local businessman.
An apparent suicide by a rich woman leads her nurse and a policeman to an insurance scam.
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
This entry in Warner's "Broadway Brevity" series of shorts is based on Damon Runyon's short story, "The Old Doll's House". Racketeer Lance McGowan, on the night he has decided to go straight, finds himself caught between the gunfire of two rival gangsters and, wounded by a bullet, he finds refuge in the home of a wealthy recluse. One of the gangsters is found riddled with bullets from the gun Lance dropped while making his escape, and he is arrested and tried for murder. The reclusive widow comes to the trail and testifies that Lance was her guest that night when the clock struck twelve, the time of the killing. Lance, while innocent, is also lucky, as the widow had her all her clocks set to always strike twelve, as the time her husband had died.
The Younger brothers return to Missouri after the Civil War with intent to avenge the misdeeds of William Merrick, a crooked banker who has been buying up warrants on back-taxes and dispossessing the farmers.
A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.
A sideshow barker uses magic and visual aids to alert the public that proper food management is both a resource and a weapon that could be to America's advantage if conserved properly in winning the then current World War. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Academy War Film Collection, in 2008.
It is early 1939 in Poland when Mrs. Bromley and Jennifer come to buy antiques for her business in London. Jennifer meets Count Stephen and they wine, dine and see the sights though out the city. He wishes to marry, but his family is against plain Jennifer. When she tries to leave, he catches her at the train station and they are married. To be self sufficient, they modernize the family farm with tractors and increase production, but then Germany starts the war.