The story traces Marjorie's (Eleanor Parker) long, hard road to the top, her success on two continents, and her turbulent marriage to American doctor Thomas King (Glenn Ford). While touring South America in 1941, Lawrence is stricken with polio, which not only abruptly ends her career but briefly robs her of the will to live.
Le jeune et riche Danny Churchill ne s'intéresse qu'aux filles, au vin et à la musique. Qu'à cela ne tienne, son père décide de l'envoyer dans un établissement scolaire strict où aucune présence féminine n'est tolérée. Mais la rencontre du jeune homme avec la dénommée Ginger Gray va changer la donne.
American conductor John Meredith (Robert Taylor) and his manager, Hank Higgins (Robert Benchley), go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova (Susan Peters) while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Their bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
In New York City, a performance by noted violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield) is cancelled. At his apartment, Boray is at rock bottom emotionally. His manager Frederic Bauer (Richard Gaines) is angry with him for misunderstanding what a performing career would be like, and for thinking that music is no longer part of his life. To the more sympathetic Sid Jeffers (Oscar Levant), Boray says he has always wanted to do the right thing, but has always been "on the outside, looking in," and cannot "get back to that happy kid" he once was.
Based on the novel Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson, the film is about a wealthy and beautiful woman who follows the man she loves and hopes to marry to Zurich where he studies violin at a conservatory.
Marc, cascadeur équestre, se retrouve en chaise roulante à la suite d'un accident sur un tournage : jeté à bas de son cheval Othello, il est piétiné par celui-ci. Florence est chargée du dossier d'indemnisation par la compagnie d'assurances. Mais Marc refuse le compromis proposé. De son côté, Florence supporte de plus en plus difficilement les pressions exercées par sa compagnie à l'encontre de Marc, qu'elle va finalement protéger de la malhonnêteté des assureurs. Elle se prend d'affection pour Marc, déterminé à remonter sur son cheval, et qui va lui redonner la passion du piano.
Paulina Escobar (Weaver) is a housewife married to a prominent lawyer in an unnamed South American country. One day a storm forces her husband Gerardo (Wilson) to ride home with a charming stranger. She is convinced that the stranger, Dr. Miranda (Kingsley), was part of the old fascist regime and that he tortured and raped her for weeks while she was blindfolded. Paulina takes him captive to determine the truth. Despite attempts by both her husband and Miranda to convince her that he is innocent, Paulina is certain that he is the one, and forces her husband to be Miranda's "attorney" in the "trial" she arranges for him.
Ageing court composer Marin Marais recalls his former master and un-equalled viol player, the jansenist Monsieur de Sainte Colombe. Sainte Colombe buried himself in his music after the death of his wife bringing up his two daughters on his own, and teaching them to be musicians, and playing in a consort with them for local noble audiences. His reputation reaching the court of Louis XIV, the king sent an envoy, Caignet, to request him to play at court. But Sainte Colombe sent the envoy away as well as the abbé Mathieu, and shut himself away in a cabin in his garden in order to perfect the art of viol playing.
Fictionalized romance in the 19th century of musicians Clara Wieck Schumann (Katharine Hepburn), Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid) and Johannes Brahms (Robert Walker). Clara gives up her thriving career as a concert pianist to devote herself to her struggling composer husband Robert. Unable to cope with disappointment and failure, Robert dies in an asylum, leaving poor Clara to cope with seven children and mounting debts.
Cynthia Pilgrim (Betty Grable) is the top typewriting (Typewriter) student of the first graduating class of the Packard Business College in New York City, and as such she is offered a position with the Pritchard Shipping Company in Boston. There, she finds an office of men overseen by office manager Mr. Saxon (Gene Lockhart). When Cynthia introduces herself to company co-owner John Pritchard (Dick Haymes), he tells her he thought all expert typists were male and his policy is to hire only men. Cynthia asks for an opportunity to prove she's as efficient as her male counterparts, but John refuses and offers her train fare back to New York.
Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) is a fashion magazine publisher and editor, for Quality magazine, who is looking for the next big fashion trend. She wants a new look for the magazine. Maggie wants the look to be both "beautiful" and "intellectual". She and famous fashion photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) want models who can "think as well as they look." The two brainstorm and come up with the idea to find a "sinister-looking" book store in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. They subsequently find a bookstore named "Embryo Concepts."
The highly fictionalised story sees 'Schani' dismissed from his job in a bank. He puts together a group of unemployed musicians who wangle a performance at Dommayer's cafe. The audience is minimal, but when two opera singers, Carla Donner and Fritz Schiller, visit whilst their carriage is being repaired, the music attracts a wider audience.
Christine Radcliffe (Bette Davis) runs up the stairs of a college concert hall in the rain. The hall is filled with enraptured students, and her eyes fill with tears as she recognizes the cellist on stage: Karel Novak (Paul Henreid) who spent the war trapped in neutral Sweden. After the performance, Novak is mobbed by well-wishers, and a student reporter questions him about his favorite composers. Novak lists some famous ones, then adds, "And, of course, Hollenius."
Peter P. Peters (Fred Astaire), an American ballet dancer billed as "Petrov", dances for a ballet company in Paris owned by the bumbling Jeffrey Baird (Edward Everett Horton). Peters secretly wants to blend classical ballet with modern jazz dancing, and when he sees a photo of famous tap dancer Linda Keene (Ginger Rogers), he falls in love with her. He contrives to meet her, but she is less than impressed. They meet again on an ocean liner traveling back to New York, and Linda warms to Petrov. Unknown to them, a plot is launched as a publicity stunt "proving" that they are actually married. Outraged, Linda becomes engaged to the bumbling Jim Montgomery (William Brisbane), much to the chagrin of both Peters and Arthur Miller (Jerome Cowan), her manager, who secretly launches more fake publicity. Peters and Keene, unable to squelch the rumor, decide to actually marry and then immediately get divorced. Linda begins to fall in love with her husband, but then discovers him with another woman, Lady Denise Tarrington (Ketti Gallian), and leaves before he can explain. Later, when she comes to his new show to personally serve him divorce papers, she sees him dancing with dozens of women, all wearing masks with her face on them: Peters has decided that if he cannot dance with Linda, he will dance with images of Linda. Seeing that he truly loves her, she happily joins him onstage.
Riccardo Broschi décide de faire castrer son petit frère Carlo, futur Farinelli, en maquillant cela sous la forme d'un « accident », afin qu'il puisse conserver cette voix cristalline sensationnelle sans laquelle la musique de Riccardo, qui est compositeur, ne vaudrait rien. Le jeune homme parcourt les opéras avec son frère. Une jeune femme, Alexandra, vient un jour demander aux frères Broschi de donner une représentation dans un petit théâtre anglais en pleine faillite. Ils acceptent. C'est alors que s'engage la concurrence entre les Broschi qui veulent sauver le théâtre et Haendel, l'ancien maître des deux frères et célèbre compositeur. Le théâtre gagne considérablement en popularité, mais Haendel tente par tous les moyens de récupérer la voix exceptionnelle de Farinelli. Haendel fait une allusion à « l'accident » qui a coûté sa virilité à Farinelli. Ce dernier découvre alors la vérité et la relation privilégiée qu'il avait avec Riccardo s'efface. Farinelli et Alexandra sont amoureux. Riccardo, qui cherche à se faire pardonner et à rendre une vie « normale » à son petit frère, fait un enfant à Alexandra, puis part s'engager dans l'armée. Il disparaît de la vie de Farinelli, que l'on voit, dans l'une des dernières scènes du film, embrasser le ventre arrondi par la grossesse d’Alexandra.