Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.
Judge Hardy faces problems at work and at home. Powerful men in town are upset with his decisions and want to see him impeached; his daughters, Joan and Marion, have romantic problems; and his son, Andy discovers Polly Benedict. As usual, Judge Hardy is concerned with everyone in the family and lends wisdom and calmness to all.
Dan Adams resigns his position as prosecutor on the district attorney's staff and sets out to clean up a gang of fake-accident racketeers. He gets a job with an insurance company, and assures the company president he will get the goods on the gang or die in the attempt. At the company offices, he meets Carol Carter and she, believing he is a shyster (possibly redundant) lawyer in the employ of the racketeers gives him as little help as possible. Dan visits his brother Eddie, who is mixed up with the gang and tries to make him break away. Eddie is belligerent but finally, because of the pressure brought by Dan and his wife Tonia, agrees to go straight. The gang, led by "Duke" Trotti, fears he will squeal and they kill him, plus they make his death look like an accident and plan to collect on it. Dan is closing in on the gang when Carol, who is now his assistant, comes up with some conclusive evidence, but "Duke" has plans to get rid of her before she can give the information to Dan.
Teenage orphan Jenny Yates becomes starstruck when a revival of an old Victorian melodrama passes through her small New England town, to the disapproval of her stern grandfather, Uriah. Stowing away in the car of Philip Greene, a wealthy young man working with the theater troupe, Jenny talks her way into the play's lead role. But director Archie Fisher doesn't tell her that the new version of the play is meant as a spoof.
An unemployed loafer who spends his time playing pool decides he's ready to look for a job so he can secure his girlfriend's parents' approval for their marriage.
Managing Editor Brad Bradshaw refuses to run a story linking the disappearance of Frank Canfield with embezzlement of the bank. He considers Frank a straight shooter and he goes easy on the story. Every other paper goes with the story that Frank took the money and Brad is demoted, by the publisher, to the Heartthrob column - writing advice to the lovelorn. After feeling sorry for himself for two months, he takes the column seriously and makes it the talk of the town. But Brad still wants his old job back so he will have to find Canfield and the missing money.
Despite loving another man, a young woman is talked into marrying a wealthy and boorish prince in order to help her financially-strapped father.
An architect has an affair with a woman who inspires him. Her brother is in love with the architect's daughter. The complicated entanglement leads to misunderstanding and dissolution, but ultimately love.
Donald Ingals and his wife Eunice are conventional and loving parents who are shocked when their son Bradley comes home from college with ideas that they consider to be outrageous. His parents would like him to get involved with Mary Burke, a prim and proper young lady. More complications ensue because Bradley's sister Lois is attracted to the flapper lifestyle, but she isn't sure whether she can handle its emotional demands.