Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.

Starstruck Indiana small-town girl Lily is pestering theatrical producer John Thornway for a role but he is reluctant.

A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous sister Jean, unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.

Beverly Ross, the switchboard operator at a local radio station, jumps at the chance to be the DJ for an early morning show before the soldiers at a nearby army camp assemble for reveille. Beverly, with her modern music, camp bulletins and chatter, is a hit with the soldiers. Beverly's younger brother and his two buddies are soldiers at the camp. The buddies vie for Beverly's attentions.

Andy is going to Wainwright College as did his father. He sees a pretty blonde on the train and he is alternately winked at or slapped every time he sees her. Andy is clueless. On the train Andy meets Kay and Dr. Standish who are both headed for Wainwright. Andy likes Kay, but Dr. Standish also seems to take an interest in her. Things are going well at College with Kay, but the blonde is nice one minute and ignores Andy the next. When Andy finds out that the blonde is really identical twins, he tries to help them out with their father but gets caught at their rooming house after midnight.

Stephanie and Terry are identical twins who have been raised separately since their parents divorced seven years earlier. Each envies the lifestyle of the other; and they decide, without telling Jeff or Mary, to switch families for a day or two. They soon find that it is harder to do what the other person is expected to do, and that looking alike is not enough. When they find that their charade may bring their parents back together, they agree to continue it. A major complication begins when Alice, Jeff's girlfriend and co-worker, finds out the real story.

After getting her start in her parents' vaudeville act, Marilyn Miller is taken under the wing of dance sensation Jack Donahue. He senses the girl's enormous talent, and before long she's performing on Broadway. There, she is extremely successful and finds love with songwriter Frank Carter. Yet obstacles remain for the rising star, especially when he proposes marriage just before he's set to be deployed in World War I.

Roger Wadsworth is a salesman for a company that supplies jukeboxes with classical music recordings, as Mrs. Horton, chief stockholder of the company hates swing music. Because of that, and the fact that Mrs. Horton is the mother of his fiancée, Genevieve Horton, Roger can only sit by and watch the competitors, who sell swing-and-jive music records get most of the business. Some of the other salesmen play a joke on Roger by getting Charlie Barnet and his orchestra to make a recording which they slip into Roger's packet marked as classical. They also get showgirl Jinx Corey to tell the newspapers that she and Roger are married. Malcolm Hammond goes to Genevieve to plead Roger's case, and tricks her into making a recording as "Jukebox Jenny." This leads to further complications.

Bob Watson and Ricky Adams, and the Hughes twins, Skipper and Patricia, cannot register at Opalocka University until they find lodgings in the school's overcrowded quarters. They pretend they are married to get the last two units in the married veteran's housing project, with the girls in one unit and the boys in the other. A noisy kid, Junior Ormsbee, the nephew of the landlords, voices his suspicions and nearly gets them evicted. And a U.S. Senator, investigating veteran's projects, adds new complications.

Gloria Jean sings two songs in the Universal musical short, which also features The Sportsman Quartette, the Milt Herth Trio, the singing trio of Lee, Lyn and Lou, and the Schuplatter Dancers