The Great Elmer and Company, two out-of-work magicians, help lovelorn Jerry Bronson adopt Spanky Milford, to distract him. When Bronson makes up and elopes, the pair are stuck with the little boy. But Spanky inherits a Kentucky fortune, so they head south to Banesville, where the Milfords and Wakefields are conducting a bitter feud.
Unscrupulous Chicago janitor Paul Kroll uses deceit to fund a return trip to his homeland of Sweden. There, via ongoing continuing deceit and manipulation, he gradually attains a monopoly on the matchstick market in several countries and becomes an influential international figure. Based on the true story of Ivar Kreuger.
Two destitute New Yorkers meet cute in Central Park and then separate and independently get tangled up with some gangsters only to be reunited again in the end.
An innocent, young, small town church organist is thrown out of her home, told she was adopted and that her mother was an evil woman. She follows a crush to the big-city and left fending for herself.
Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.
Scion of the once-rich Mitchell family, Herbert Wynn is found shot to death. Nurse Adams, bored by hospital routine, is recruited by the police to ferret out clues as she tends to Wynn's elderly aunt Julia. Jokingly given the 'rank' of Miss Pinkerson, after the famous detective agency, Adams probes into the mystery, but not before a second death.
