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").
Carrie Snyder is a prostitute, who is forced out of the fictional southern town of Crebillon, after forming a friendship with a young boy named Paul, whose dying mother is unable to protest against her son visiting such a woman.
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.
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.