A man strolling in a city street is attacked by three assailants. A policeman comes to the rescue and the men struggle with each other.
Thieves decide to steal the money an old miser has hidden away. He refuses to open the safe for them, so they threaten to kill a little girl who lives in his building.
The physician's death orphans his two adolescent daughters. Their older brother is able to convert some of the doctor's small estate to cash. But it is late in the day, and with the banks closed he stores the money in his father's household safe. The slatternly housekeeper, aware of the money, enlists a criminal acquaintance to crack the safe. She attempts to get into the adjacent room where the sisters tremble in fear, but finds that the door is locked. The drunken housekeeper menaces them by brandishing a gun through a hole in the wall.
A swindler scams a newspaper reporter-photographer and then, not realizing where the man is employed, applies for a job at his newspaper.
Mr. Snookie steals an umbrella and then, while trying to help a woman to cross a puddle, the Tramp appears and intervenes.
Jim Dodson, a poor workman, has been in the habit of begging a streetcar transfer in town, in order to ride home each night from work. Ford and Ransom, a couple of crooks, rob a store and among the things taken are a quantity of stamped envelopes with the name and address of the firm printed thereon.
Mabel, in the park with her mother, sees her boyfriend and asks him to join them.
The Tramp and his dog companion struggle to survive in the inner city.
At a party thrown at the Metcalf estate, the Marquise D'Irancy's Sultana diamond disappears when the lights go out during a power failure. Suspected of the crime is William Kirkland, the wastrel son of the wealthy Kirkland family, but William's sister Diana comes to his defense. Aiding her in the investigation is Clamp, a wandering peddler.
Mary Franklin has a drunken father, an invalid mother, and a kid brother and sister to support. To make ends meet she is works as a hostess in a sleazy cafe, where she steals jewelry from her dancing partners.
A young girl is struck and seriously injured by a wealthy society matron's car. The woman brings the girl back to her house. Later, a hardened thief is told by the girl of a goblet, that could be the Holy Grail, which has healing powers and could help her. The thief, touched by her predicament, sets out to steal the goblet and bring it to her.
A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.
Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall in love with the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.
In San Francisco, Sylvia Douglas and her fiancée, James Callahan, a reformed crook, make their getaway after Jim, disgusted with his inability to find a job, un-reforms and steals a diamond necklace. Graham, a detective, gives chase to a desolate island in the South Pacific where a rum-running gangster, Murdock, holds him captive. Callahan becomes infatuated with a native girl, Leona, and Sylvia turns to Graham for protection against the offensive Murdock. A volcano eruption causes problems for all.
The most important family in Hickoryville is (not surprisingly) the Hickorys, with sheriff Jim and his tough manly sons Leo and Olin. The timid youngest son, Harold, doesn't have the muscles to match up to them, so he has to use his wits to win the respect of his strong father and also the love of beautiful Mary.
Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.
In the Crimea, the Reds and the Whites aren't done fighting, and Jeanne discovers that the man she loves is a Bolshevik (when he kills her father). Penniless, she returns to Paris where she works for her uncle. Soon after, her lover Andreas is in France to organize the sailors in Toulon. So also is a thief, traitor, and libertine, Khalibiev, who wants to seduce Jeanne. His schemes, Jeanne and Andreas's naivete, and a lost diamond bring the lovers to the brink of tragedy.
Tad's dream is to attend a military academy so he can grow up to be a great soldier and a war hero, like his father. What he doesn't know is that his father, Slag, is actually a thief and a derelict. Slag robs a factory in order to get the money to send Tad to military school, then gets a job at the academy's horse stables to be close to his son, who doesn't know he's alive.
There is a big charity function at the house of Mrs. Cheyney and a lot of society is present. With her rich husband, deceased, rich old Lord Elton and playboy Lord Arthur Dilling are both very interested in the mysterious Fay. Invited to the house of Mrs. Webley, Fay is again the center of attention for Arthur and Elton with her leaning towards stuffy old Elton. When Arthur sees Charles, Fay's Butler, lurking in the gardens, he remembers that Charles was a thief caught in Monte Carlo and he figures that Fay may be more interested in the pearls of Mrs. Webley, which she is. After Fay takes the pearls, but before she can toss them out the window, she is caught by Arthur who is very disappointed in how things are turning out.
Loretta Young plays dual roles in this 1930 crime drama about a young thief planning to steal jewels from a wealthy socialite.