Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!
Just when Charlie is feeling especially frustrated by the lack of excitement in her small town in California, she receives wonderful news: Her uncle and namesake, Charlie, is coming to visit. However, as secrets about him come to the fore, her admiration turns into suspicion.
Appointed editor of his high school newspaper, hapless Henry becomes intrigued by a series of mysterious fires. A mild, timid little fellow named Nero Smith shows up to tip off Henry as to the time and place of the next conflagration. Henry prints the story-and is immediately accused of being the firebug himself!
Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.
Eddie Barnes, tired of being a nobody and living with his parents, decides to cash in his mother's legacy and use the money to buy a business. Unfortunately, Eddie's mother has to die before the broker can collect the full value of the policy and the broker's gangster partner doesn't want to wait for nature to take its course.
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.
At a family gathering, an elderly man reflects on the follies of his youth during his freshman year at college.