Based on the life and achievements of W.T.G. Morton, the dentist who discovered the anesthetic qualities of ether.
Two decades after a game-winning touchdown and praise as a college football hero, the once hopeful Harold Diddlebock (Harold Lloyd) has been beaten down by the drudgery of office life. When Harold is fired by his egotistical boss, E.J. Waggleberry (Raymond Walburn), he wanders into a bar and orders a drink -- the first of his life. After the kindly bartender (Edgar Kennedy) invents a cocktail just for him, Harold goes on a wild binge, and his luck starts to change.
In a dive south of the border, bartender Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) stops a young man from committing suicide after a moment of dishonesty, and relates how a moment of honesty brought him down in a flashback. As a young man, McGinty joins a crooked political boss and rises from extortionist to alderman. Urged by the boss to marry his secretary to give respectability to his run for mayor, McGinty agrees -- only to fall in love with his wife and decide to do an honest thing for once in his life.
When the coworkers of Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) play a prank and trick him into thinking that's he's won the grand prize money in a slogan contest for a coffee company, he is thrilled and makes plans to marry his sweetheart, Betty Casey (Ellen Drew). To everyone's surprise, the coffee company owner, Dr. Maxford (Raymond Walburn), also falls for the prank and awards the prize check to Jimmy. Eventually the ruse is discovered, jeopardizing Jimmy and Betty's newfound happiness.
Before he left for a brief European visit, symphony conductor Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison) casually asked his staid brother-in-law August (Rudy Vallee) to look out for his young wife, Daphne (Linda Darnell), during his absence. August has hired a private detective (Edgar Kennedy) to keep tabs on her. But when the private eye's report suggests Daphne might have been canoodling with his secretary (Kurt Kreuger), Sir Alfred begins to imagine how he might take his revenge.
Like his war-hero father who was killed in action during World War I, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) leaves his small town to join the Marines during World War II. But when he's given a medical discharge after only a month, he takes a job at a San Diego shipyard and writes letters to his mother about his fictitious wartime exploits. When he returns home, he discovers that his innocent lies have spread further than he expected.
This screwball comedy finds married couple Tom (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) in a strained relationship, largely due to financial difficulties. Gerry decides to leave Tom, a struggling architect, and head to Palm Beach in order to marry a wealthy man who could fund Tom's projects. When Tom follows Gerry, they cross paths with the quirky millionaire John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee) and his chatty, husband-seeking sister, Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor).
In this wacky Preston Sturges comedy, the soldier-smitten Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) discovers that she is both married and pregnant after a raucous troop send-off party. While she has no idea who her new husband is, her longtime admirer, Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), seizes the opportunity to help. When Trudy's cop father (William Demarest) catches wind of the situation, however, wacky misunderstandings follow, with the well-meaning Norval on the wrong side of the law.
It's no accident when wealthy Charles (Henry Fonda) falls for Jean (Barbara Stanwyck). Jean is a con artist with her sights set on Charles' fortune. Matters complicate when Jean starts falling for her mark. When Charles suspects Jean is a gold digger, he dumps her. Jean, fixated on revenge and still pining for the millionaire, devises a plan to get back in Charles' life. With love and payback on her mind, she re-introduces herself to Charles, this time as an aristocrat named Lady Eve Sidwich.
Successful movie director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to "know trouble" first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion (Veronica Lake), he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.
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