In 1912, the notorious and violent prisoner Robert Franklin Stroud is transferred to the Leavenworth Prison convicted for murdering a man. When a guard cancels the visit of his mother, Elizabeth Stroud, due to a violation of the internal rules, he stabs and kills the guard and goes to trial three times. He is sentenced to be executed by the gallows, but his mother appeals to President Woodrow Wilson who commutes his sentence to life imprisonment. However, the warden, Harvey Shoemaker, decides to keep Stroud in solitary for the rest of his life. One day, Stroud finds a sparrow that has fallen from the nest in the yard and he raises the bird until it is strong enough to fly. Stroud finds a motivation for his life raising and caring for birds and becomes an expert in birds. He marries Stella Johnson and together they run a business, providing medicine developed by Stroud. But a few years after, Stroud is transferred to Alcatraz and has to leave his birds behind.

On a trip to France, millionaire Jervis Pendelton sees an 18 year old girl in an orphanage. Enchanted with her, but mindful of the difference in their ages, he sponsors her to college in New England. She writes him letters, which he doesn't read. After 3 years, he goes to visit her at a dance, not telling her that he is her benefactor. They fall in love, but the usual movie-type difficulties get in the way before they can get together at the end.

Tony Manetta runs an unsuccessful Miami hotel, on which he can't meet the payments. Another liability is his weakness for dames (Shirl, his sexy current flame, is even less responsible than Tony). But a solid asset is Ally, his sensible 12-year-old son. When Tony wants stolid brother Mario to bail him out again, Mario makes conditions: give up Ally, or at least get married to a "nice, quiet little woman" of his selection. Tony and Ally just play along to be diplomatic, but when the woman in question proves to look like Eleanor Parker...

Roslyn divorces Ray in Reno and then meets widower Guido. He likes her but introduces her to cowboy Gay, and those two fall in love. When she learns that Gay, Guido and Perce are going to turn wild horses ("misfits") into dog food, she protests.

In New York, the interior decorator Jan Morrow and the wolf composer Brad Allen share a party line, but Brad keeps it busy most of the time flirting with his girlfriends. They do not know each other but Jan hates Brads since she needs the telephone for her business and can not use it. Coincidently Jan's wealthy client Jonathan Forbes that woos her is the best friend of Brad and he comments with him that he feels an unrequited love for Jan, who is a gorgeous woman. When Brad meets Jan by chance in a restaurant, he poses as a naive tourist from Texas named Rex Stetson and seduces her. But Jonathan hires a private eye to find who Rex Stetson is.