It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.
Romanian-French gigolo Georges Iscovescu wishes to enter the USA. Stopped in Mexico by the quota system, he decides to marry an American, then desert her and join his old partner Anita, who's done likewise. But after sweeping teacher Emmy Brown off her feet, he finds her so sweet that love and jealousy endanger his plans.
In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.
Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by claiming to be a friend of stage star Lillie Langtry, with whom the judge is obsessed, even though he has never met her. Tensions rise when Harden comes to the defense of a group of struggling homesteaders who Judge Bean is trying to drive away.
Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a twenty year period both love the same woman. McMasters and Sand come to oil towns to get rich. Betsy comes West intending to marry Sand but marries McMasters instead. Getting rich and losing it all teaches McMasters and Sand the value of personal ties.
Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.
Joel & Garda Sloan, a husband and wife detective team, who also sell rare books in New York, take a vacation to Seaside City. At Seaside, Joel's pal, Mike Stevens is managing and preparing for their beauty pageant. Joel is made one of the judges plus he has invested $5,000 in it, to Garda's dismay. Eric Bartell, promoter, arrives to dupe Stevens. When Ed Connors, New York racketeer arrives, Bartell is mysteriously murdered. Joel and Garda set out to investigate the murder.
Sheriff John Higgins quits and goes into prospecting after he thinks he has killed his best friend in shooting it out with robbers. He encounters his dead buddy's sister and helps her run her ranch. Then she finds out about his past.
In order to avoid a prearranged marriage, a rebellious French princess sheds her identity and escapes to colonial New Orleans, where she finds an unlikely true love.
Mary Linden is the secretary who is the unheralded power behind successful executive James Duneen. He takes her for granted until rival Wales tries to take her away from him.
Gwynplaine, son of Lord Clancharlie, has a permanent smile carved on his face by the King, in revenge for Gwynplaine's father's treachery. Gwynplaine is adopted by a travelling showman and becomes a popular idol. He falls in love with the blind Dea. The king dies, and his evil jester tries to destroy or corrupt Gwynplaine.