Acting
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
After the death of a United States Senator, the idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. The naive and earnest new senator soon finds himself battling political corruption.
Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.
A traveling performer arrives at a remote South American port town where the head of an air freight service must risk his pilots' lives to earn a major contract.
After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.
A showgirl with a dubious reputation flees the cops and transforms herself into a phony evangelist offering "cures" to the sick and disabled.
It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.
An easy-going cowboy is mistaken by the townsfolk for a notorious gunman. The cowboy decides it would be best to leave town, until he meets the gunman's girlfriend.
Spies force former jewel thief Michael Lanyard to steal defense secrets in Washington.
An auto engineer and a professor's daughter pose as married servants in a mobster's mansion.
The boys are stowaways on a train box-car filled with furniture bound for Hollywood where they hope to break into movies and become stars. Arriving at the Carnation Pictures Studios. Fuller Rath, the studio general manager, receives a telegram from the home office telling him that a certain "Mr. Smith and his two assistants" will arrive to take over the supervision of the studios. He mistakes the Stooges as the executives and gives them free reign over the studios, where they proceed to disrupt and destroy the production of a romantic drama.
Muriel Allen needs an escort to Alice Preston's dinner party, and her maid Petunia mistakenly places a telephone call to Acme Exterminators instead of Acme Escorts. It's Shemp and Tom to the rescue, and they're assumed to be cultured college seniors. Guest of honor Lord Wafflebottom follows the pest exterminators' lead in proper American party manners, turning the dinner party into an uncouth display. When mice are conveniently spotted, the boys go to work, disrupting the party and the entire mansion.
Theater manager James Guthrie's (Melvyn Douglas) career depends on famed soprano Elsa Terry (Grace Moore) singing in his Buenos Aires opera house, however, Elsa breaks the contract in favor of a more lucrative deal in Paris. Desperate, James begins showering her with flowers and candy in an attempt to woo her to the Argentinian opera house. When Elsa overhears James confess to his friend Pancho that he'd be willing to resort to kidnapping to get Elsa to Argentina, she mistakenly believes his motives to be solely romantic.
Harry, who can't resist a bargain, buys a St. Bernard dog.
Man relates how he outwitted the Yankee army during the Civil War.
A New York doctor saves a chorus girl from a window ledge, twice, and rounds up racketeers.
Gildersleeve has jury duty.
Pickpocket Kitty's life changes when painter Thomas Gainsborough makes her portrait. The artwork gains the attention of Sir Hugh Marcy, who later decides to use her for his benefit.
Left by a con man, Belle De Valle, a dancer, finds him again in gold-rush Alaska running an honest casino/dance hall.
