Back home in Texas following the Civil War, former Confederate officer Chad Morgan (Alan Ladd) leads a cattle drive to Missouri, assuring fellow ranchers that their stock will bring $10 a head at auction. Instead, ruthless cattle baron Brog (Anthony Caruso) has scared off all competition and offers much less.

Jean Harlow arrives in Los Angeles as a teenager, pushed into showbiz by her mother and stepfather. Kindhearted agent Arthur Landau becomes Jean's mentor, while a devious Howard Hughes-like mogul grows infatuated with the beautiful young actress. Harlow herself falls for producer Paul Bern before tragedy strikes.

Vigilante Slaughter comes under attack from Duncan, a local money launderer whose hit-man traps Slaughter in a car at a cliff, but Slaughter escapes, arms himself, and goes after Duncan's hideout.

Alcoholic newspaperman Lew Marsh hits bottom, loses his job and is rehabilitated by Charley Dolan. After six years on the wagon he gets his job back and devotes himself to other recovering alcoholics. His boss enlists his help to sober up his nephew, Boyd Copeland, who has married Lew's old sweetheart. Boyd, who is involved with a cabaret singer and the mob, presents quite a challenge.

In prohibition-era Chicago, the corrupt sheriff and Guy Gisborne, a south-side racketeer, knock off the boss Big Jim. Everyone falls in line behind Guy except Robbo, who controls the north side. Although he's outgunned, Robbo wants to keep his own territory. A pool-playing dude from Indiana and the director of a boys' orphanage join forces with Robbo; and, when he gives some money to the orphanage, he becomes the toast of the town as a hood like Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Guy schemes to get rid of Robbo, and Big Jim's heretofore unknown daughter Marian appears and goes from man to man trying to find an ally in her quest to run the whole show. Can Robbo hold things together?

A female doctor in the Congo is torn between two loves.

Fur-trapper Shawn Garrett gets out of a horse-stealing charge in a small, frontier town by agreeing to buy the horse with a gold nugget. This nugget attracts the attention of a man named McCracken who, with his gang, secretly follows Garrett across the desert in the hope of finding the source of his gold. Garrett joins up with his partner, Jim Rainbolt, and together they manage to hold off McCracken's gang long enough to hide their gold before seeking refuge in the hacienda of a landowner named Gondora. Gondora soon finds out about the gold, however, and Rainbolt and Garrett now find themselves in a fight to save their gold and their lives as well.

During an ocean dive, Miami gumshoe Tony Rome finds a woman's body with its feet encased in a concrete block and sets-out to solve the murder case.