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.
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.
An on-the-lam New York card shark marries a small-town librarian who thinks he's a businessman.
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 trio of money-hungry women rent a luxurious penthouse, spending their dough on drink and debonair clothing, backbiting and catfighting as they steal each other's boyfriends.
A kind-hearted young man is thrown out of his corrupt home town of West Rome, Oklahoma. He falls asleep and dreams that he is back in the days of olden Rome, where he gets mixed up with court intrigue and a murder plot against the Emperor.
Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.
Apple Annie is an aging New York City fruit seller whose daughter Louise has been raised in a Spanish convent since she was an infant. As she grows up, Louise is led to believe that her mother is a society matron called Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. Annie worries that her lie is in danger of being uncovered when she learns that Louise is sailing to New York with her new fiancé and his nobleman father.
A professor gets mixed up with chorus girls in a Broadway musical.
Andre and Colette Bertier are happily married. When Colette introduces her husband to her flirtatious best friend, Mitzi, he does his best to resist her advances. But she is persistent, and very cute, and he succumbs. Mitzi's husband wants to divorce her, and has been having her tailed. Andre gets caught, and must confess to his wife. But Colette has had problems resisting the attentions of another man herself, and they forgive each other.
A New York gossip columnist feuds with a singer and enjoys the power of the press.
The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.
A reformer's daughter wins the lead role in a scandalous Broadway show.
A young man finds himself attracted to a cold and unfeeling waitress who may ultimately destroy them both.
An ex-gang member tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal influence after he suddenly becomes a Hollywood movie star.
Kurt Anderson is the tyrannical manager of a New York department store in financial straits. He thinks nothing of firing an employee of more than 20 years or of toying with the affections of every woman he meets. One such victim is Madeline, a beautiful young woman in need of a job. Anderson hires her as a salesgirl, but not before the two spend the night together. Madeline is ashamed, especially after she falls for Martin West, a rising young star at the store. Her biggest fear is that Martin finds out the truth about her "career move."
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.
A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
The Great McGonigle and his troupe of third-rate vaudevillians manage to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors and the sheriff.