Five O. Henry stories, each separate. The primary one from the critics' acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem". Soapy tells fellow bum Horace that he is going to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a nice jail cell. He fails. He can't even accost a woman; she turns out to be a streetwalker. The other stories are "The Clarion Call", "The Last Leaf", "The Ransom of Red Chief", and "The Gift of the Magi".

A woman divorces her husband of 20 years because he gambles too much.

A young woman living in Manhattan pretends to be the mother of an infant in order to get a seat on the subway.

In this reworking of "No, No, Nanette," wealthy heiress Nanette Carter bets her uncle $25,000 that she can say "no" to everything for 48 hours. If she wins, she can invest the money in a Broadway show featuring songs written by her beau, and of course, in which she will star. Trouble is, she doesn't realize her uncle's been wiped out by the Stock Market crash.

The wedding of Ellen and David is halted by a stranger who insists that the bride is already married to someone else. Though the flabbergasted Ellen denies the charge, the interloper produces enough evidence that his accusation must be investigated. Ellen and David travel to the small coastal town where her first wedding allegedly occurred. There, they meet a number of individuals whose stories make Ellen question her own sanity.

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

A revenge-seeking gangster is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac who set him up.

In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that she made throughout the year. Her wish comes true but cheating fate proves more difficult than she anticipated.

An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Radio singing star, Eve Porter, wants a vacation during her show's summer hiatus, but her manager and press have booked her for additional work. She refuses and goes to Las Vegas. When she finds them there hunting her down, she manages to escape them by hiding in the car of a newspaper reporter. She comes out of hiding while he is driving, but everything she says is misconstrued, making him believe that she is a recently-escaped convict, "The Singing Widow". He plans to use this as a story to get back into the good graces of his editor. Through some comic mishaps, he learns who she really is. He then decides to take her back to Hollywood to collect the reward for her return. But now love has entered the mix, and must be resolved with his job and her engagement to another.

Small-town soda-jerk Peggy Evans quits her dead-end job and moves to New York where she invents a new identity.

A New York doctor saves a chorus girl from a window ledge, twice, and rounds up racketeers.

A mentally unstable man, who has been kept in isolation for years, escapes and causes trouble for his identical twin brother.

Jimmy, the owner of a failed music shop, goes to work with his uncle, the owner of a food factory. Before he gets there, he befriends an Irish family who happens to be his uncle's worst enemy because of their love for music and in-house band who constantly practices. Soon, Jimmy finds himself trying to help the band by getting them gigs and trying to reconcile the family with his uncle.

A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.

A waiter becomes a singing prizefighter.

Hans Memling, a young intellectual, patriotic German, is secretly opposed to the Nazi regime. With the aid of Gustav Schultz, Father Pommer, Anna Wahl and others, he is gleaning accurate information from foreign radio broadcasts and distributing it through Germany with an underground-press operation.

Addie Fippany, her father Jean Paul Batiste Fippany, her mother Josephine and her sister Cecile roam the country-side in a mule-drawn wagon, trading trinkets to farmers for chickens which they sell in the cities. Addie and her father love the care-free life, but Mrs. Fippany and Cecile want to settle down in New York City. As soon as the "chicken wagon family" reaches New York, Addie gets into mischief and a policeman, Matt Hibbard, helps her and falls in love with Cecile. He helps the family settle into a deserted firehouse which is up for public sale.