Harold Meadows is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guidebook, The Secret of Making Love, for other bashful young men. Fate has him meet rich girl Mary, and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.

An unemployed American showgirl poses as Hungarian royalty to infiltrate Parisian high society.

A devoted secretary embarks on a dangerous mission to try to find the elusive woman who may prove her boss didn't murder his wife.

A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

When composer George Harvey Bone wakes with no memory of the previous night and a bloody knife in his pocket, he worries that he has committed a crime. On the advice of Dr. Middleton, Bone agrees to relax, going to a music performance by singer Netta Longdon. Riveted by Netta, Bone agrees to write songs for her rather than his own concerto. However, Bone soon grows jealous of Netta and worries about controlling himself during his spells.

An unemployed man finds his life sinking more and more into trouble as he hides his situation from his family and friends.

Holly Parker, the wife of a wealthy diplomat, is compromised by the accidental death of a man who has been romantically pursuing her. She is forced by her mother-in-law to assume a new identity in order to save the reputation of her husband and infant son. She wanders the world, trying to forget her heartbreak with the aid of alcohol and unsavory men. Eventually returning to the city of her downfall, she murders a blackmailer who threatens to expose her past. Amazingly, Holly is represented at her murder trial by her now adult son, who has become a public defender. In the hope of protecting her family, she refuses to reveal her real name and is known to the court as "Madame X".

A reporter is murdered while driving to his job. The Police are contacted by a clairvoyant who saw the death in a vision, but some dark force is preventing him from seeing the man behind the crime...

The film consists of six short stories created by different directors, but all the stories share one thing: a warm irony to current events.

When a man asks another man more facile with words to do his wooing for him, there are always complications. The man with no talent for writing marries the girl, confesses one night he didn't write the letters and ends up with a knife in his back. The writer of the letters fell in love with the woman he wrote to and wants to become her second husband even if she did murder husband number one. Singleton doesn't remember the murder or anything about the first 22 years of her life as Victoria Remington. Then at her second wedding she wonders why she said "I take you, Roger," instead of "I take you, Allen."

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.

A 60-year-old artist shares a secret, platonic romance with a 16-year-old girl.

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

Two lifelong friends navigate complex sexual encounters and emotional entanglements, wrestling with societal norms and personal desires.

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?

A woman suffers a nervous breakdown and an oppressive mother before being freed by the love of a man she meets on a cruise.

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.