The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.
When news reporter Walter Garrett arrives at the hotel room of bombshell actress Angela Merrova to conduct an interview, he finds her dead from multiple stab wounds. He returns with the police to find the hotel empty and the body vanished. Garrett writes about the incident but is fired when...
In the Northwest Frontier of India, the 41st Bengal Lancers leaded by the harsh Colonel Tom Stone are having trouble with the rebellious leader Mohammed Khan. After two casualties, the experienced but insubordinate Lieutenant Alan McGregor receives as replacement, the arrogant Lieutenant Forsythe...
A millionaire is found murdered in his apartment. Suspicion falls on a variety of suspects, including his fiancée and her parents, the butler, and a professional mentalist known as The Great Gambini.
Josephine Spiggins is thinking of marrying John Spear, the stuffed-shirt son of a department store owner. When John's free-spirit brother Tony returns from touring the South Seas in his boat, the "Vagabond Lady," Jo is attracted to him instead.
Enemy agents are everywhere and they are sabotaging all important war deliveries. The body of a hobo found in a train wreck had a money belt with $50,000 and a tattoo of a circle and arrow. This is a tattoo for saboteurs for hire and Brass must impersonate the dead man to find out what his orders...
A small-town barber finds himself short of stature but a giant in the world of stock promotion. As his bank account grows, Stone's ethics diminish, and soon he's playing fast and loose with other people's money. Disgruntled investor Fay Wray is the one who finally blows the whistle on the...
Buckley is an unethical reporter who manipulates the news for his own benefit as much as he reports it. When he is in Paris to get a medal for being rescued from his alleged kidnappers, he finds that his boss, Stevens, at the Chicago Globe is going with his old gal Dolly. When Stevens learns that...
Jimmy is a wiseguy press agent whose efforts to promote a meat-packing firm come to naught. Our hero is fired from his job, whereupon his sweetheart Sally steps in, immediately succeeding where Jimmy had failed.
Berlin, the center of pleasures and kingdom of small virtues. From all over Germany, young night owls come to burn themselves cheerfully in its lights, to drown in its champagne and fill its boxes and restaurants until dawn.