Editing
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.
George Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor, has to postpone a vacation with his wife - again - when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence that he is the killer.
Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley led a colorful life of sports, song, and romance before joining the Roman Catholic clergy. After being appointed to a run-down New York parish, O'Malley's worldly knowledge helps him connect with a gang of boys looking for direction, eventually winning over the aging, conventional Parish priest.
Ogden Spencer Trulow III is a wealthy kleptomaniac who turned to stealing when he was spurned by a girl. His psychoanalyst advises him to find another girl for a cure. He fastens his interest upon Sally Martin, who happens to be engaged in helping some crooks steal a valuable necklace.
Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who can't stay committed to anything in life for very long.
Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.
A bumbling senator investigating graft in Louisiana is the target of a scheme involving a Viennese beauty.
An elderly couple are forced to separate themselves from each other after their children refuse to take both into one house.
During a carnival in Venice, Horace Pierpont, a wealthy American (Lewis Stone), falls in love with Fay Kennion (Virginia Valli). Their romance is derailed when she goes over to his apartment and finds the vampy Fifi (Nita Naldi) there. Fay goes down to Algiers, where she marries a former sweetheart, Dr. Alan Mortimer (Edward Earle).
Farmboy Harold moves to the city and there attends high school. Soon he is very popular, his spirited nature causing much excitement on the campus. He joins a fraternity, goes out for football, and directs his class theatrical effort. Instead of a school play, Harold suggests doing a western motion picture. Part of the plot requires them to blow up the dam that has cut off the water supply to Harold's homestead in the country. After the explosion Harold runs away because he is afraid of being arrested, but he returns just in time to win a football game for his team.
Prototype dumb blonde Irma and her slacker, wheeler-dealer boyfriend Al interfere in the love life of Irma's level-headed room mate Jane.
In 1890, two British expatriates, Robert Herrick and Huish, and German Captain Jakob Thorbecke, are commissioned to sail a Yankee schooner called The Golden State , whose captain and crew have died of smallpox. From Tehua in the South Seas to Australia, they are to deliver a cargo of champagne. Thorbecke decides to head for Peru, however, so he can sell the merchandise and pocket the money. While sailing, Faith Wishart, daughter of the deceased captain, comes out of her hiding place on board and, by briefly holding Thorbecke at gunpoint, demands he make the delivery.
Producer Bob Temple, who's brought an American show to London, loves his star Diana, but she won't take him seriously as a lover. To show her, he picks up stranger Lady Arlington, whose financier husband neglects her. On a weekend at the Arlington country house, Bob is used by both Lady A. and her friend to make their husbands jealous; this works all too well, and Bob is in danger from both husbands.
On Chicago's South Side reporter Ed Ames finds the body of a dead girl. Her address book leads to a host of names of men frightened by her death but claiming never to have known her. Ames comes to know quite a lot, dangerously so.
In late 1941, with no hope of relief or re-supply, a small band of United States Marines tries to keep the Japanese Navy from capturing their island base.
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.
Pete Marshall is sent as a replacement to the mountain district town of Plainville when a public opinion surveyor who went there goes missing. Visiting the hillbilly family of Mamie Fleagle, Pete begins to suspect that she and her two sons have murdered the surveyor. Pete also believes that Mamie is slowly poisoning wealthy Grandma Fleagle, who has put a vital clue to her fortune in a nonsensical embroidered sampler.
After the Civil War, an ex-Confederate soldier faces new battles, including the elements and a carpetbagger intent on destroying him.
Al Goddard, a detective who works for the United States Postal Inspection Service, is assigned to arrest two criminals who've allegedly murdered a U.S. postal detective.
Timid milkman, Burleigh Sullivan, somehow knocks out a boxing champ in a brawl. The fighter's manager decides to build up the milkman's reputation in a series of fixed fights and then have the champ beat him to regain his title.