In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.

In 1903, Doctor Huntington Bailey meets a friendly older lady during a train trip. She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died. Shortly afterward, he meets the strange couple and gets suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife.

In 1910s Paris, a sewer worker disillusioned with Christianity feels his prayers have been answered when he chances upon a street waif and they fall in love.

When a crafty reporter uses false pretenses to get a story out of heiress Tony Gateson, she turns the tables on him, telling the press that they are engaged. Suddenly he's front page news, every salesman is at his doorstep, and he loses his job. A series of misadventures ensues with him alternately back on his job and fired and her ex-fiancé showing up.

A temperamental Broadway producer trains an untutored actress, but when she becomes a star, she proves a match for him.

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.

Elderly schoolteacher Nora Trinell, waiting to meet presidential nominee Dewey Roberts, recalls him as her student back in 1916 and his relation to Dan Hopkins, the man she married and lost.

Alexander Graham Bell falls in love with deaf girl Mabel Hubbard while teaching the deaf and trying to invent means for telegraphing the human voice. She urges him to put off thoughts of marriage until his experiments are complete. He invents the telephone, marries and becomes rich and famous, though his happiness is threatened when a rival company sets out to ruin him.

An Eddie Cantor look-alike organizes an all-star show to help the war effort.

When a confused eyewitness identifies New York City cabbie Brick Tennant as a killer, he is sentenced to death for a murder that he wasn't involved in. Though no one is willing to listen to the innocent prisoner's pleas for freedom, Brick's faithful fiancée, Mary, knows that her lover is innocent because she was with him when the crime was committed. As the scheduled execution draws ever nearer, Mary begins to investigate the murder herself.

The blissful marriage of Homer and Marcia Bigelow is disrupted when Marcia hosts a party for one J. Hugh Ramsay, author of the bestselling book, "Marriage—The Living Death".

A man finds himself the father, by proxy, of a ten-month-old baby and becomes involved in the turbulent lives of the child's family.

An ex-convict tries to connect with the daughter who doesn't even know he exists.

A songwriter has to come up with a full-length theatrical piece within a few days.

A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.

Father goes to an American Legion convention in Hollywood and the family goes along, visiting a studio a causing havoc on the set.

Lem Schofield, a lawyer in a one-time small-town turned industrialized big city, runs his firm on examples set by Abraham Lincoln and is a friend to the poor. Clay Clinton, his late partner's son joins the firm but is anxious for fast success and considers Schofield's old-fashioned principles antiquated. Being in love with Schofield's daughter and impatient for success he moves to offices supplied by the city's most powerful industrialist, J.T. Tapley, who has plans to use Clay's good family lineage as a stepping stone to political power. The unscrupulous Tapley precipitates a strike in his factory mill which causes a rupture between the former partners. Schofield sets out to bring Tapley and his political henchmen to justice.