This domestic melodrama chronicles three generations of a family of music-hall owners. In the early 1900s, two variety stars, Kit Burns and Joe Swann, are staunch friends even when Kit marries Joe's dancing partner Evelyn. Joe fights in the Boer War where a bullet puts an end to his dancing days. He goes to work on the staff at Burns' Music Hall where Kit Jr. soon finds a place in his affections. Kit and Joe purchase the music hall and soon become a success.

Biography of popular English composer Leslie Stuart (Robert Morley), who rose to fame through performances of his songs by the tenor Ellaline Terriss (Dorothy Hyson). The peak of Stuart's success in the early 1900s is followed by poverty and obscurity with the arriving Jazz Age. In debtor's prison, Stuart is rescued by friends from happier times, and achieves a comeback in British music halls shortly before his death.