Paddy O'Riley and Ossie Merrill, Bellport high school football heroes, enroll in distant colleges; Paddy at a small school in the East, where he is barely a substitute, and Ossie at a powerhouse-football school, where he is an instant star and all-American candidate.
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).
Peyton Wells (Ben Lyon) rescues Judy Jones (Joan Marsh) from a very dull young man, at a sedate party given for her by her multi-millionaire grandfather Silas P.
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.
Although Larry "Buster" Crabbe earns top billing, the hero of Drift Fence is former Western star Tom Keene as Jim Travis, who, at a rodeo, meets city dweller Jim Traft, who has come west to erect a fence that will prevent Clay Jackson from continuing his cattle rustling business.