Robert Evans is a revivalist preacher who is desperate for money to build his own church. He romances a rich woman named Naomi Freshwater and kills her. Some time later, Robert meets Naomi's neice Laura. He tries to romance her as well, but she is not interested. When Laura discovers that Robert killed her aunt, the preacher kills her and stuffs her body in a trunk. He drags the trunk to a pit and sets it on fire. Later, as Robert is delivering a sermon, it begins to rain. The rain puts out the fire and the contents of the burned trunk are revealed. Robert is promptly arrested and charged with murder.

Larry Duke is an actor making his motion picture debut in Hollwood when he gets a phone call from his New York girlfriend Janice Brandt. Janice is an olderwoman who sacraficed her marriage and Hollywood career in order to advance Larry's career. She informs Larry that her husband Ed followed her to New York showed up drunk at her apartment and was knocked unconscious in a scuffle. Larry convinces Janice to smother Ed with a pillow so that she can come back to Hollywood. She agrees and reluctantly commits murder. In Hollywood, Larry calls the police and tells them about the murder in New York. He then head upstairs where he joins his new bride who he married to further advance his Hollywood career.

Miles Crawford is a former actor turned lawyer. He gets an oppotunity to practice both professions when his son Tod is arrested an put on trial for murder. Tod is guilty but Miles makes an impassioned summation that manages to sway both the judge and the jury. Unfortunately, the prosecutor is a movie fan and he points out that Miles's summation was lifted word for word from a old movie in which Crawford played a defense attorney in charge of a case very similar to the one he is in charge of now.

Jay Shaw is a young writer interested in writing a book on juvenile delinquency. He changes his identity and infiltrates a particularly violent gang named "The Barons". He manages to get the trust of Tiger the leader of the gang but trouble arises, when Filene, Tiger's girl friend, falls in love with him. Filene's love, however, is not the only source of tension. Other gang members grow jealous of Jay's growing power within the gang. When gang members break into his room and find his notes, they tell Tiger that Jay's an undercover cop. Jay is sentenced to death by Tiger and the gang. He manages to get away, but in the process Filene is killed. The murder is witnessed and Tiger and the rest of the gang are hauled off to jail.

Dexter Dailey and his wife Joyce hire a German nursemaid named Frieda to take care of their newborn infant. Dexter treats Frieda like one of the family, because long ago she was his nursemaid when he was a child. Joyce, however, doesn't feel the same way. She becomes worried when she hears about a nurse who is wanted for a child killing in San Francisco. When she calls the murdered baby's aunt she discovers that Frieda may be the baby killer and that her child may be the next victim.