A day in the maternity ward from the lens of accepted morals and medical attitudes of 1932. The ward includes women from all walks of life and situations.
Dr. Robert Cromwell performs a delicate operation, that has never been done before, and the patient dies. Charged with malpractice and manslaughter, his trial is national news but the jury acquits him. But the court of public opinion is still against him, and the medical board is meeting to decide whether or not to take his medical license away from him. Before they do, Cromwell, an amateur pilot, decides to join his friend, WWI Ace Donald Evans, on a flight to Alaska looking for a shorter route to Japan by following the Aleutian Islands. They crash in Alaska and Evans is killed, but Cromwell is rescued by a fur trapper named Tom Ross. He takes Cromwell to Armstrong's Trading Post, where is is nursed back to health by Klondike, a girl who works for Armstrong, and was engaged to marry Armstrong's son Jim. The latter is suffering from the same disease that Cromwell's last patient had...
A fast-talking reporter befriends a young woman and her male companion who are wanted for a policeman's shooting.
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.
As the demand for raw silk goes sky high, crooked businessman Wallace Myton corners the market with plans to drive up the price. Determined to fulfill his contracts, manufacturer Donald Kilgore imports $3 million worth of silk to Seattle and accompanies it by special train to New York. But when his secretary is found murdered, Kilgore soon discovers Myton has planted three killers on board with orders to stop the express and its passengers dead in their tracks.
A man is convicted of killing his boss, whom he suspected of having an affair with his wife. On board the train taking him to prison for his execution are a reporter, who is dying of lung cancer and wants to interview the condemned man--and who also has some inside knowledge of the circumstances of the man's case. Also aboard is the prisoner's wife, who doesn't believe her husband is a killer and desperately wants to talk to him about it but he refuses to speak to her.
'Natural' Davis (William Powell) is a respected gambler who follows a ruthless code of honor with those who cheat against him. His wife, Alma (Kay Francis), wants to divorce him because of his addiction and lifestyle, but they agree on a reconciliation and second honeymoon together and 'Natural' promises to give up gambling. However, his plans change when his brother, 'Babe' (Regis Toomey), arrives in town looking to score big, and 'Natural' has to devise a plan quickly to put him off gambling forever.
A prominent New York attorney defends his estranged wife's lover, who's been charged with the murder of a model in Greenwich Village.
During the Russian Revolution, a young nobleman and his peasant maid flee from their homeland to Constantinople where they marry and begin a challenging new life.
Head railroad man Dan is as ugly as he is honorable. When he spots a drifter who'd hopped a freight held up by a landslide, Dan offers the man a job; then he finds the man was a railroader, too, and takes him under his wing. Engaged to Mary, Dan doesn't notice the growing attraction between his protégé and his intended but focuses instead on running the railroad.
A thug robs a young engaged couple of their last few dollars. When the thug's gang boss hears of the robbery, he gives them back their money and takes them under his wing. The thug, resentful of the couple, plans to organize a mutiny against the gang's boss, but when he is killed in a botched robbery, the police focus their attention on the young couple.
Andress, Watson and Johnson, pilots with a Royal Air Force squadron in France, are tasked with a deadly mission.
A district attorney commits the perfect murder when he kills his daughter's womanizing fiancé and then tries framing the fiancé's lover.
In this brutal prison drama a hen-pecked husband is sentenced to prison after getting caught with his hand in the company till. He is sent to a high-rise facility in LA. It seems the fellow was only following the instructions of his domineering, constantly nagging wife who, as soon as he is put away, takes up with a more successful businessman. This causes her new lover's ex-lover to get insanely jealous and kill the conniving wife.
When a mother dies of heart failure in a doctor's office, the physician--feeling somewhat guilty because he couldn't save her--takes an interest in the woman's young daughter, and makes her his ward, but his fiancé doesn't particularly like it. After he returns from a three-year engagement in Europe, the doctor discovers that his ward is now a beautiful, full-grown woman, and finds himself falling for her--even though she's engaged to his fiancé's brother.
The wife of a businessman and his secretary attempt to trick her husband's double into impersonating him so they can get their hands on what remains of his wealth.
Dawn, a young white girl who has been kidnapped in infancy and reared by Mooda, an African woman who operates a canteen in the German cantonment, meets and falls in love with Tom Allen, an English rubber planter who is a prisoner of war. Shep Keyes, who has joined the German troops, covets her but realizes he cannot possess her because she is betrothed to the tribal god, Mulunghu. On the eve of the ceremony, he learns of her love for Tom. Tom, meanwhile, is sent back to England, and when the English take the territory from the Germans, Shep tries to incite the natives, who are experiencing a drought, against Dawn because of her love of a mortal. Tom learns from Mooda that Dawn was stolen from a white trader and finds her seeking refuge in a convent. Shep arouses the natives, but Dawn declares her faith in the white man's God, and a thunderstorm brings relief to the parched land, after which Tom claims her for his bride.
A hopelessly silly young flibbertigibbet from Mississippi is faced with the choice of her poor, boorish New Jersey boyfriend or a dashing Opera star, a man of experience.
Four survivors of a ship wreck are stranded on a deserted island, including a woman and the man she believes is responsible for the murder which her brother is in prison for.
An Air Force washout and his buddy room with a pretty young lady. Desperate for jobs during the Depression, they finally land employment with the mob.