At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.
A young woman's suicide attempt is stopped by an old man passing by. The two fall in love -- but the relationship between the young girl and old man is threatened when a blackmailer from her past shows up.
Bill Miller is an unsuccessful Broadway performer until his handlers convince him to enhance his act with a stooge—Ted Rogers, a guy positioned in the audience to be the butt of Bill's jokes. After Ted begins to steal the show, Bill's girlfriend and his pals advise him to make Ted an equal partner.
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
In the 1830's beaver trapper Flint Mitchell and other white men hunt and trap in the then unnamed territories of Montana and Idaho. Flint marries a Blackfoot woman as a way to gain entrance into her people's rich lands, but finds she means more to him than a ticket to good beaver habitat.
Jim and Connie's postwar New York building troubles keep Jim from working on his novel. Ex-WAC from Jim's army days Roberta moves in, further upsetting Connie but pleasing Jim's friend Ed. Tenant Charley, who marries tenant Eadie, loans money to Jim to help him keep the building, money which this Casanova obtains from rich widows.
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
The Winfield family moves into a new house in a small town in Indiana. Tomboy Marjorie Winfield begins a romance with William Sherman who lives across the street. Marjorie has to learn how to dance and act like a proper young lady. Unfortunately William Sherman has unconventional ideas for the time. His ideas include not believing in marriage or money, which causes friction with Marjorie's father, who is the local bank vice president
Mirian Wilkins, the teenage daughter of Senator Wilkins, starts a Society for the Rehabilitation of Criminals and, without the approval or knowledge of her father, elects him to the position of honorary president. When the family's new gardener, Baxter, turns out to be a notorious ex-convict who was sentenced to prison by Senator Wilkins when he was a judge, Wilkins considers firing him until his daughter points out that would be an unwise decision considering the position her father held on society.