A.C.Baker, advertising executive for an insurance company, approaches test pilot Terry Moore with a proposition that in return for using his picture and endorsement he will get a paid-for-a-year $1000 policy. High-risk Terry agrees. George MacAlister fires his secretary, Miss Tracy, just as she is typing up the policy and she, for spite, changes the amount from a thousand dollars to one million dollars. A.C. delivers the policy, without noticing the difference, to Terry at a party at the Frolics Club, a cheap joint wedged between a burlesque house and a flop house hotel. Three characters, an elderly hat-check "girl" known as Mother Hodges; Avery Jamieson, a broken-down actor; and bartender Harry Gargan are named beneficiaries. When the company discovers the error, A.C. is sent to get back the policy and, pending that, don't let Terry make any test flights.

Nightclub singer Joan Gordon runs away from her gangster boyfriend to become a mail-order bride to a struggling North Dakota farmer. Their relationship has a rocky start, but just as Joan realizes she's developing feelings for her husband, her old boyfriend arrives to win her back.

A waitress from Chicago falls in love with a man from rural Minnesota and marries him, with the intent of living a better life - but life on the farm has its own challenges.

A shoplifter gets sentenced to a women's prison.

An inventor and his bride get testy in the city as they try to make ends meet.

A Louisiana con man enters his steamboat into a winner-take-all race with a rival while trying to find a witness to free his nephew, about to be hanged for murder.