An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

A freight train loses control and is barreling wildly toward the town of Benbow. A mail train is traveling in the opposite direction on the exact same set of tracks. The Midnight Limited, A passenger train carrying 300 people—including the dispatcher’s own sweetheart—is running on a parallel track. The dispatcher's desperate attempts to avert a catastrophic disaster as all three trains converge at the same point simultaneously fuels the narrative.

In a packed courtroom, Butch Long vows revenge on 'squealers' Laurel and Hardy whose evidence has helped to send him to prison. Frightened, the boys plan to leave town and advertise for someone to share expenses with them. The woman who answers the ad is actually Butch's girlfriend. Meanwhile Butch escapes and hides in a trunk in his girlfriend's apartment where he gets locked inside. Not realizing who it is, Stan and Ollie finally manage to get the trunk open and then Butch exacts his revenge.

Stable hands Stan and Ollie are tending a thoroughbred named "Blue Boy." But when they overhear two men talking about a $5000 reward for the return of the stolen "Blue Boy," they miss the part about it being the painting, not the horse. They take the horse to the owner's house to claim the reward. The owner instructs them to put "Blue Boy" on the piano and Ollie explains, "these millionaires are peculiar."

A doctor fights an epidemic that breaks out in the poor section of town and tries to get the rest of the town to help out.

Detective Alfalfa and his assistants Buckwheat and Porky try to solve a missing-candy case but find themselves in an amusement park haunted house.

The kids try to raise money to buy a doll for Marianne.

The girls buy a country home that turns out to be a sand trap.

Following a political coup in the Balkan kingdom of Roxenburg, young King Alexis and his American governess Janet Holbrooke flee to America. Out west, Tom Potter, a rancher, gives them shelter.