A listless teenager, Rick, in Florida gets a job helping with a survey of the pelican population; he finds an injured bird and nurses it back to health.
A young man, Bert Cates, is arrested in a small Bible Belt town for teaching the theory of Evolution in the public school. Two of the finest legal minds in the U.S. are called to the trial: Henry Drummond for the defense, and Matthew Harrison Brady for the prosecution. The trial proceeds on three levels, the guilt or innocence of Cates, the issue of the Bible vs. Darwin, and finally, the personal confrontation between Drummond and Brady.
An alcoholic captain sails a two-master through danger with a call girl and others on board.
A silver-tongued poet and self-proclaimed "King of the Beggars" searches old Baghdad for a rich bachelor to marry his dreamy daughter, Marsinah. Along the way, he poses as the renowned sorcerer Hajj and gets in and out of scrapes with an elderly thief, a dim-witted wazir, and his wife. Meanwhile, his daughter develops feelings for a handsome caliph.
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.