A well-bred young English lad living in lower Manhattan tries to gain acceptance from his not-so-well-bred peers at school.

Corrupt alcoholic attorney Tom Cardigan is one of the best lawyers around, commanding the courtroom like a stage and often winning his cases. Mobster Valentine Powers, who employs Cardigan and put him through school, asks him to represent a woman, June Perry, accused of prostitution. Cardigan agrees. But he never expected to fall for her, which is problematic since he's angling to become governor and will need the right kind of wife.

Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father.

A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.

A prison-camp convict learns that his younger brother will soon be joining him behind bars.

Nightclub singer Alice Carroll is found in the office of club owner Al Barrow, who is lying dead on the floor. Alice has been overheard threatening to kill Barrow rather than give in to his advances. She protests her innocence, but the District Attorney doesn't believe her and charges her with Barrow's murder. However, things aren't quite as cut-and-dried as the D.A. believes them to be.

In 1940s Los Angeles, when womanizing composer Keith Vincent is found dead, the inquest concludes it was a suicide but police detective Joe Warne isn't so sure.

A vicious crime lord decides that he has had enough and much to the shock of his colleagues decides to give the business to his second in command and retire to Florida after marrying his moll. Unfortunately, he has no idea that she and the man are lovers.

Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.