This short follows the early career of actress Jane Barnes. She starts by doing extra work. After several months she is offered a studio contract (the "first step").
A newly hired police chief vows to clean up a notoriously corrupt police department. When he is murdered, investigators find that there is no shortage of suspects, most of them being fellow cops.
Joyce Reid, a wealthy young debutante, stows away on a cargo ship to China, carrying as passengers her dashing aviator sweetheart, Dan Bailey and and her munitions-producing father, E.
Frankie Reynolds (Frankie Darro' ), youngest member of a family of jockeys, borrows $4.85 (yes, four dollars and eighty-five cents) from his sister Phyllis (Gladys Blake), who is not a jockey, to buy a crippled colt from the stables owned by Clay Harrison (Kane Richmond).