Walter Mitty, a daydreaming writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine that he is a hero who experiences fantastic adventures. His dream becomes reality when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her, it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II. Soon, Mitty finds himself in the middle of a confusing conspiracy, where he has difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.
A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.
The swamp folk of the deep Okefenokee live a brutal primitive life untouched by modern times - they support themselves by hunting alligators and selling them to the outside world. Jeff returns home from college with an engineering degree and dreams of bringing modern medical care and education to the swamps. He is immediately confronted by his old boyhood rival, "Gator-Bait" Blair, who thinks things are just fine the way the are. "Gator" whips the ignorant locals into a frenzy of fear and resistance. When Jeff is unintimidated by their threats, Blair sets out to stop his plans once and for all - with a rifle.
Ronnie Jackson is a lowly baby photographer who secretly fantasizes about being a private detective. When a lovely baroness actually mistakes him for one and asks him to help locate her missing husband, Baron Montay, Ronnie finds himself agreeing. Several days later he is on death row whiling away the hours until his execution by recounting to a group of reporters the bizarre tale of how he ended up there.
Notorious shootist and womanizer Quirt Evans' horse collapses as he passes a Quaker family's home. Quirt has been wounded, and the kindly family takes him in to nurse him back to health against the advice of others. The handsome Evans quickly attracts the affections of their beautiful daughter, Penelope. He develops an affection for the family and their faith, but his troubled past follows him.
Around the turn of the century, two young men, Johnnie Bennett, a composer and Steve Adams, an artist, go to New York City to make their fortune. They both fall in love with the same girl, Patricia O'Neill. The artist paints a picture of her which outrages her father's sensibilities; but, as a result of the picture, she wins a chance to star in a Broadway play. She soon learns that the artist is just a trifler; and she turns to the composer, who loves her sincerely
It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.
A young outlaw gets involved with a gang of crooks. When he tells them he is breaking away, they threaten to pin a false murder charge on him. But he is rescued and reformed by his sister, and an undercover agent for the express company.
The story takes place in 1940. On the eve of America's entry in World War II, a colonel retired to his small Southern town, and discovers that there is a plan afoot to tear down Confederate Monument Square. He begins a campaign to rally the townspeople to save the square.
A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day's paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act.
A naval officer who had deserted several years earlier is drawn back to the Navy when World War II begins. He re-enlists under an assumed name, and is assigned to a minesweeper, where he has to perform hazardous duties while at the same time keeping his real identity a secret.
Wounded while stopping the James gang from robbing the local bank, a cowboy wakes up in the hospital to find that he's been elected town marshal. He soon comes into conflict with the town banker, who controls everything in town and is squeezing the townspeople for every penny he can get out of them.
The East Side Kids find a young girl in the apartment of a man who has just been murdered. Believing her to be innocent, they hide her in their clubhouse while they try to find the real killer. The killer, however, used a baseball bat as his murder weapon, and the bat has the fingerprints of one of the gang on it.