Adele Watson

A mother from Arkansas is very possessive of her grown son. To prevent him from getting married she has him drafted into WW I.

The story begins in 1917 with Stan and Ollie being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in World War I. While in the Army, the pair befriend a man named Eddie Smith, who is killed by the enemy during a battle. After the war is over, Stan and Ollie venture to New York City, where they begin a quest to reunite Eddie's little daughter with her rightful family. The task proves both monumental and problematic as the boys discover just how many people in New York have the last name Smith.

Nightclub singer Joan Gordon runs away from her gangster boyfriend to become a mail-order bride to a struggling North Dakota farmer. Their relationship has a rocky start, but just as Joan realizes she's developing feelings for her husband, her old boyfriend arrives to win her back.

Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.

The gang trades places with a group of orphans about to take a train ride.

A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.

A wealthy young woman struggles to find love while surrounded by possible suitors.

The setting is a city block during a sweltering summer, where the residents serve as representatives of the not-very-idealized American melting pot. There is idle chitchat, gossip, jealousy, racism, adultery, and suddenly but not unexpectedly, a murder.

Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.

Lee is a fresh young kid from the South when he gets a job with The Press. His first assignment on gangsters gets his name in the paper, the police on a raid and Lee in the hospital.