Musical comedy antics in an art deco bakery (motto: "Glorifying the American Doughnut") where Eddie Cantor, the overworked assistant to a phony psychic, is mistaken for an efficiency expert and placed in charge. Complications ensue when the psychic and his gang attempt to rob the payroll.
Wall Street wizard, Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl.
New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.
Western sheriff Bob Wells is preparing to marry Sally Morgan; she loves part-Indian Wanenis, whose race is an obstacle. Sally flees the wedding with hypochondriac Henry Williams, who thinks he's just giving her a ride; but she left a note saying they've eloped! Chasing them are jilted Bob, Henry's nurse Mary (who's been trying to seduce him) and others.
The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.
A circus performer falls in love with the son of a plantation owner in antebellum New Orleans. When the young man's stepmother objects to the wedding, the couple break apart and go their separate ways for a time. Also in the mix are two circus comics who feud over the heart of another Southern belle.
Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help Elvira with her career and he also wants to be her man. Movie stardom does come to the Gopher City entourage, but to whom is a surprise. And who will win the lovely Elvira's hand?
Sally is an orphan who was named by the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. Working as a waitress, she serves Blair (Alexander Gray), and they both fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to socialite Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova, but at that engagement, she is found to be a phoney. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and has a show on Broadway, but she still thinks of Blair.
Molly and Bee, sweet young 'working girls,' live in a cheap room over a New York grocery store. Molly's idol, wealthy Jack Cromwell, lives in a Long Island mansion but is markedly less happy, since his fiancée Jane won't discourage her other admirers. Fleeing in his car, Jack ends up in an urban block party where he meets you-know-who.
A young woman, who wants to be in the Follies, is making ends meet by working at a department store's sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits. She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend, who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an opportunity to make her dream come true. Upon arriving in New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.
This early example of the "backstage" musical genre tells the story of Kitty Darling, a fading burlesque star who tries to save her convent-educated daughter April from following in mom's footsteps.
Capt. James Stewart pursues the bandit "The Kinkajou" over the Mexican border and falls in love with Rita, though he suspects that her brother is the bandit.
At the conclusion of World War I, a French girl is romanced by an American doughboy even though she is promised to a French soldier who was sent to the front.