Dorian Doubleday, "Dodo" to his friends, works as a clerk at a railway station but he has the ability of photographic memory. When he is drafted in the Army, he memorizes all the manuals for Army procedure immediately before starting his service.
New York taxicab driver Malowski (George Tobias) and his cab Betsy enlist in the "First Armored Force" and get caught up in large-scale mechanized maneuvers. The tank featured in the short was the U.S Army's M3 Light Tank known as the Stuart.
A famous director, Robert Grimble, comes to Australia to make a film about pioneering women and seeks for an unknown to play the lead role. He casts socialist Miss Hemingway, who soon proves to be temperamental. She is tricked into walking off the job by Jimmie Jones who wants his girlfriend Patsy cast. He succeeds and Patsy becomes a star.
Larry Martin (Don Ameche) is an American entertainer in the Casino Samba in Rio de Janeiro. He has a skit in his show, making fun of the womanizing Baron Manuel Duarte (also Ameche). On one particular evening, the Baron and his wife, Baroness Cecilia Duarte (Alice Faye) come to see Larry's impersonation. To the surprise of the couple, the act is amazingly realistic. Backstage, the Baron meets Larry's girlfriend, Carmen (Carmen Miranda), and invites her to a party he is going to hold. Carmen declines.
Tim Kelly (James Ellison) is a Texan in the oil business who travels to Argentina to bid for some land. When his bid is unsuccessful, he teams up with colleague Duke Ferrell (Buddy Ebsen) to buy their employer a successful racehorse, Lucero, in the hope that this will compensate for the failed bid. Tim falls in love with Lolita O'Shea (Maureen O'Hara), the daughter of the racehorse's owner, Don Enrique (Robert Barrat). Don Enrique is against selling Lucero, but when he realises his daughter is in love with Tim, he offers him the racehorse on the condition that he immediately returns to the USA. When Lolita realises Tim has left, she pursues him on horseback.
Our narrator, Pete Smith, gets a phone call asking for help at an old castle. Smith arrives and is attacked by a witch, a skeleton, an Indian warrior, an archer, and the Frankenstein monster (Ed Payson). The latter character was specifically modeled after Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein.
The Merchants Hotel is hosting a convention for morticians and a mediation meeting between aircraft manufacturers and their workers. This makes hotel manager Puddle worry about an article in the papers criticizing the hotel's policy on employing hostesses.
Harvard educated Danny Collins (Rudy Vallée) and street-wise Mike Armstrong (Richard Lane) team up after a chance meeting to form the most successful talent agency in New York City. Mike is in love with nightclub and Broadway songstress Frances Lewis (Rosemary Lane), determined to make her nationally famous with his and Danny's help. Danny sees her, correctly, as a self-centered opportunist willing to capitalize on Mike's affections to further her career.
Francisco Mega (Ribeirinho), a clerk at the then leading department stores of Lisbon, "Grandes Armazéns do Grandella", is in love with Tatão (Leonor Maia), who works in front at "Perfumaria da Moda". Tatão, however, is a cinephile who largely ignores him, whereas Francisco is also an amateur theatre player; so his amateur theatre company, the Grandellinhas, uses its rehearsals of the play O Pai Tirano (ou O Último dos Almeidas) to present Francisco as a son who split from his tyrant father for love, and woo Tatão.
Having read horror stories about wicked stepmothers, the gang is determined to break up the marriage between Darla Hood's widowed father and his new bride. Never bothering to find out, as Darla has, that the second Mrs. Hood is a wonderful woman, the kids pull off all sorts of pranks at the wedding ceremony, from playing the radio too loud to releasing a cylinder of laughing gas. The wedding guests start smiling then laughing as the gas fills the room. Someone in the building discovers what they're doing and shuts off the canister. The wedding is temporarily postponed and the gang is sentenced to a spanking, assembly-line style.
De retour d'Orient la jeune Ann Carrington se rend en taxi au manoir de son père qu'elle ne connait pas en compagnie de son amie Gail Richards. En chemin un mystérieux tireur embusqué fait éclater les pneus du taxi qui verse dans le fossé. Personne n'est blessé, mais le chauffeur de taxi laisse les deux jeunes femmes pendant qu'il s'en va chercher des secours. Celui-ci tardant à revenir, ils se font prendre (pratiquement de force) en stop par Topper et son chauffeur. Arrivé au manoir le médecin de famille met en garde Ann sur le fait que son père n'en a plus pour longtemps et qu'il ne fait pas le fatiguer. L'aspect morgue et lugubre des gens de maison de Carrington les amuse plutôt qu'autre chose, mais en passant sous un immense plafonnier celui-ci se dégringole et manque de justesse de s'écraser sur Ann. Les deux jeunes femmes sont logées dans de luxueuses chambres mais par caprice se les échangent. La nuit un mystérieux personnage pénètre dans la chambre d'Ann (qui n'y est donc pas) et poignarde à mort Gail. Le fantôme de Gail se détache de son corps et se rend chez Topper en l'obligeant à l'aider à retrouver son assassin. Le chauffeur de ce dernier qui les a accompagnés est terrorisé par le personnage invisible de Gail qui laisse des traces de pas sur le sol enneigé, prend la fuite et retourne chez ses maîtres. Madame Topper l'interroge et scandalisée par cette escapade nocturne de son mari s'en va à son tour chez les Carrington avec sa bonne et son chauffeur. Chez les Carrington, Gail et Topper retrouvent le corps assassiné, mais ce dernier se fait surprendre, finit par parler d'un cadavre, mais celui-ci vient de disparaître. Il s'ensuit un impressionnant et long chassé-croisé de tous ces personnages qui se croisent, se cachent, disparaissent, reviennent et passent par des passages secrets, d'autant qu'il faut maintenant y ajouter le chauffeur de taxi revenu toucher le prix de sa course et l'inspecteur de police accompagné de policiers. Le chauffeur de Topper disparaît dans une trappe, tombe dans un égout et voit des mystérieux personnages embarquer le cadavre de Gail. Finalement Topper arrivera à confondre l'assassin qui n'est autre que la personne qui se faisait passer pour le père d'Ann, (avec la complicité de la bonne) il prendra la fuite poursuivi en voiture par le fantôme de Gail et victime d'un accident il deviendra fantôme à son tour.