Also Directed by Ben Hecht
A lonely man and woman meet on rainy afternoon in New York.
A famed Hungarian playwright arrives in American and, in order to secure the success of his new play, his friends dope him up and take him to the hospital with the idea of telling the world that he as become stricken and is dying. Of course, the critics are fooled and they give the playwright and his play all the favorable publicity and reviews. As a result, the playwright and all his friends get the opportunities they had long awaited.
Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a note, stuffs it in his pocket and goes for one last night on the town. He is pulled into a poker game by conman Bill O'Brien and singer Nina Barone, but when they discover the dropped note, they resolve to turn the tables, get Engle his $3,000 and save his life.
Caddish lawyer Lee Gentry is going out with Katy Costello, but carrying on an affair with dancer Carmen Brown. When he wants to end the dalliance with Carmen, she is so distraught that she becomes suicidal. Seizing the gun from Carmen, he accidentally shoots her, and thinking she's dead, concocts a series of increasingly outlandish alibis to cover his tracks under the guidance of a ghostly apparition that is his alter ego.
Earl Williams is due to be hanged tomorrow, and he's innocent. When Earl escapes from his cell, journalist Hildy Johnson seems likely to land the scoop of the century - but all he wants is to leave town.
Ballet dancer Sanine may have murdered his first wife. A detective thinks so, and he's not the only one.
A ruthless, cynical, hated publisher is killed in a plane crash, doomed to be a "restless" spirit for being unloved. A heavenly power gives him a month on Earth to find one person to shed a tear for him before his fate is sealed.
Two-part story--the first is about a washed-up Broadway actor and his tough daughter, who is a bigger star than he is; the second is about a literary agent whose newest client--a nine-year-old boy--is the author of a borderline pornographic book.
Tycoon Humphrey Craig is fearful that a "soak the rich" bill will pass in the United States Senate.
A group of Russian nobles fleeing the Bolshevik revolution meet up with a traveling circus. To escape their pursuers, they disguise themselves as members fo the circus troupe.