一个流浪汉为了出风头，总是在赛车场的电影镜头前晃来晃去，电影导演则不得不频繁地将他推打出镜头之外。

　　巴特斯（巴斯特·基顿 Buster Keaton 饰）是一位名不见经传的街头摄影师，在意外之中结识了米高梅公司新闻短片部门的女秘书萨利（玛赛莲·黛 Marceline Day 饰），在萨利的引荐之下，巴特斯来到了米高梅，想要应聘成为那里的摄影师。 　　然而，巴特斯的职业之路从一开始就风波不断，虽然屡遭失败，但善良的萨利一直都信任和支持着巴特斯，这让巴特斯十分感动深受鼓舞。斯塔格（哈罗德·古德温 Harold Goodwin 饰）是巴特斯的同事，正火热的追求着萨利，根本不把穷酸蹩脚的巴特斯放在眼里。某日，巴特斯接到萨利的线报赶到唐人街拍摄重大新闻，哪知道经历了千辛万苦回到新闻部却发现自己的摄影机中根本就没有安装录影带，萨利亦因此受到牵连。

A newsreel photographer neglects his love life to get the perfect shot.

Robert Armstrong stars as Scoop Adams, an ace newsreel cameraman whose love affair with the bottle all but destroys him professionally. Scoop manages to get his photographer pal Dick (Richard Cromwell) fired as well, but he promises to restore Dick's reputation, some way or another. He gets his chance while covering a dirigible wreck (some three years before the Hindenburg), saving the day for both Dick and himself.

Bob Adams, ace newsreel cameraman, is told by his boss, "Get the picture---we can't screen alibis." He heads for Samari, a desert hot-bed of tribal unrest in Africa, to do just that, which includes getting footage of El Kadar, bandit and rebel leader. He gets his pictures but only after a romance with the Colonel's daughter Pamela, saving his wimpy, hacked-off brother Don from being a dupe of the gun-runners, and run-ins with spies and throat-cutting tribesman. For a finale, he saves the British Army.

While in Shanghai reporting on the Sino-Japanese war, Chris Hunter, a shrewd news reporter, meets pilot Alma Harding. She does not trust him, but he manages to hire her as his assistant. During an adventurous expedition through the jungles of South America, her opinion of him begins to change.