Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.
Unable to find open range near Hollywood, western actor Tom Baxter and his troop head to Judy Blake's ranch to shoot their film.
A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.
A bible publisher is falling in love with a chorus girl and finds himself backing a Broadway show.
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner.
Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.
The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.
New York City tenement dwelling neighbors Blondie and Lottie are longtime best friends. When Lottie makes the cast of the Follies and moves up in the world, she arranges for Blondie, as well, to join the cast and gain the advantages. But the friendship goes awry when Lottie's sweetheart, wealthy Larry Belmont, falls for Blondie and she for him.
A husband and wife detective team takes on the search for a missing inventor and almost get killed for their efforts.
Story of a girl who tries to live down the past and marries a wealthy man. Blackmail attempt by old associate foiled by friendly detective.
An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.
Sailors Pike and Shorty are on leave when a street woman swindles them out of some money by telling them she is looking for her long-lost brother, a sailor.
An American bandleader woos a Brazilian beauty who is already engaged to his employer. His friends try to help him, while learning the local dance, The Carioca. The first pairing of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, and their only pre-Code film.
A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.
Ann Schuyler is an upper-crust socialite who bullies her reporter husband into conforming to her highfalutin ways. The husband chafes at the confinement of high society, though, and yearns for a creative outlet. He decides to write a play and collaborates with a fellow reporter.
Infamous burglar "The Bat" commits a daring jewelry theft despite heavy police presence. Soon after, a bank theft occurs, which may be the work of the criminal as well. Meanwhile, Cornelia Van Gorder has various people arrive at her old mansion, including her niece, Dale, a bank employee, and police detective Anderson. When guests start turning up dead, Cornelia begins to suspect that The Bat may be lurking around the estate.
Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help.
Foreign investors converge on a luxury hotel in China to bid on a new kind of radioscope. But, this is a hotel where Burns and Allen are the in-house medical staff, a measles risk sends the whole building into quarantine, and a madcap millionaire crashes dinner in his autogyro. Hotel and radioscope become a stage for an all-star cast of comedians and musicians, from vaudeville to the new generation.