Acting
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
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.
Marianne falls in love with con man Valentine who uses their relation to get her father's endorsement on a money-raising scheme. He runs off with the money and Marianne, later dumping her. Her sister Laura loves Dr. Lindley although she knows he loves Marianne. Marianne returns and marries a wealthy young man, and Lindley turns his love toward Laura.
Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.
Manicurists Sally, Irene and Mary hope to be Broadway entertainers. When Mary inherits an old ferry boat, they turn it into a successful supper club.
Jay Rountree, a young, rising businessman and a son of a wealthy manufacturer gets caught up in a web involving an escort service or 'party girls' and trapped into an unhappy marriage.
Andy gets into hot water because of his frequent lodge meetings.
Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...
After a young woman is coerced into prostitution and her brother framed for murder by an organized crime syndicate, retribution in the form of an ape visits the mobsters.
A war journalist escorts a spirited teen band back to NYC post-WWII, turning the journey into a musical comedy filled with memorable performances.
A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the crook's operation and bring in his gang--including the man who saved his life.
An on-the-lam New York card shark marries a small-town librarian who thinks he's a businessman.
A meat inspector sets out to rid his town of payoff deals affecting the quality of meat being sold to the public.
Suave amateur detective Tom Lawrence--aka Michael Arlen's literary hero The Falcon--arrives in Hollywood for some rest and relaxation, only to find himself involved in the murder of a movie actor. There's no shortage of suspects: the costume designer to whom he was married, a tyrannical director, a beautiful young French starlet, a Shakespeare-quoting producer, even a New York gangster. Helping The Falcon solve the crime is a cute, wise-cracking cab driver and a pair of bumbling cops.
"Happy" MacDonald and his unfaithful wife own a Prohibition era night club. On this eventful night, he is threatened by bootleggers, and the club's star dancer falls in love with a young socialite who drinks to forget a personal tragedy, among other incidents.
Prizefighter Mason loses his opening fight so wife Rose leaves him for Hollywood. Without her around Mason trains and starts winning. Rose comes back and wants Mason to dump his manager Regan and replace him with her secret lover Lewis.
While building an irrigation system for a Southwestern desert community, an engineer vies with a local cowboy for the affections of a rancher's daughter.
Spies force former jewel thief Michael Lanyard to steal defense secrets in Washington.
Leon (Leon Errol) wants to spend quiet evenings at home but his wife, Dorothy (Dorothy Granger) wants to go dancing. Leon's twin brother berates him for not taking his wife out, so Leon aks her out but she thinks it is his twin that takes her. Leon carries out the deception and this leads to the usual Errol complications.
A carnival showman tries to keep Japanese spies from sabotaging the Panama Canal.
