In 1920s rural Mississippi, Nancy Mannigoe, an African-American servant, is placed on death row for the murder of Temple Drake's infant child. Temple, the daughter of the governor, pleads with her father to exonerate Nancy of the charges, explaining that Nancy acted in haste to prevent her from resuming her affair with a roguish Cajun called Candy Man. Details of Temple's sordid past are uncovered as she begs mercy for her faithful servant.

A rich young society girl falls in love with a car mechanic. Her family is appalled and stops her seeing him. The girl attempts to commit suicide and then decides to elope.

Stephen Ghent, a mineowner, falls in love with Ruth Jordan, an arrogant girl from the East, unaware that she is the daughter of his dead partner. Ruth is vacationing in Arizona and Mexico with a fast set of friends, including her fiancé, Edgar. Manuella, a Spanish halfbreed hopelessly in love with Ghent, causes Ruth to return to her fiancé when she insinuates that Ghent belongs to her. Ghent follows Ruth, kidnaps her, and takes her into the wilderness to endure hardship. There she discovers that she loves Ghent, and she discards Edgar in favor of him.

Evelyn Palmer, a débutante society girl who also is a property landlord, becomes interested in the plight of one of her tenants, a struggling band-leader, to the extent she becomes a hostess in a dance club, incognito, where the band plays, and soon is the band's singer.

A bored society girl cuts a hundred dollar bill in half, writes a message on one half for whoever finds it and throws it out the window of her apartment. The person who finds it turns out to be the driver of a coal truck. So she decides to give him a complete makeover in order to make him presentable to her society friends.