Outside the Los
Angeles Mirror building,
former reporter Dick Meadows meets news photographer Stubby. Dick
left the paper three years earlier when a play he had written was
optioned and now wants his old job back. Although Stubby informs
him that the paper recently dismissed two reporters, Dick is able
to persuade G. B. Barton, the paper's owner, to rehire him. While
they chat, G. B.'s son Clyde arrives with his girl friend, Helen
Carter, of whom G. B. does not approve.
The next day, Dick and
Stubby look into a story about a farmer named Bradley, who is
about to be run off his farm. Dick encourages Bradley to hold out
against the authorities while he tries to generate public support.
At the Bradley farm, Dick meets Brooke Peters (Anne Gwynne), who tells him that
she is a local teacher. Dick then invites her to bring some of her
students to the paper. Back at the paper, Dick is surprised to
learn that his former mentor, Tippy Miller, is now working there.
G. B. explains that Tippy began to drink after his wife died, and
his work is no longer up to standard.
Later, Brooke, now more
stylishly dressed than she was in the country, hires some street
urchins to pretend to be her students and disrupt Dick's office.
As she is leaving, Stubby recognizes her as a magazine writer and
persuades her to accompany him to the office to observe the
results of her joke. To Brooke's disappointment, things are quiet
in the office as Dick enthralls the boys with stories of his
reporting triumphs. Dick is delighted to see Brooke again,
however, and they have a drink together.
Later, in hopes of ending
his son's relationship with Helen, G. B. asks Dick to look into
her background. After Dick befriends Helen's French maid, Yvette,
he breaks a date with Brooke, prompting a quarrel. Using his
friendship with Yvette to gain access to Helen's apartment, Dick
helps Stubby rig a camera to go off automatically when someone
sits on the couch. Meanwhile, Dick learns that his stories have
inspired the governor to intervene on Bradley's behalf.
Some time
later, Stubby retrieves the exposed film from the hidden camera,
which contains pictures of Helen and Ransome, the paper's drama
critic, but before Dick can show them to G. B., Clyde announces
his engagement to Helen, and Dick decides to remain silent. When
he learns that Tippy is going to be fired, Dick files a story
under his name. The success of the story helps restore Tippy's
confidence.
When Brooke learns what Dick has done, she decides to
make up with him. That night, however, Brooke sees Dick with
Yvette in a nightclub, where he has taken her prior to retrieving
the hidden camera, and gives him a showy kiss. Yvette jealously
storms away, and Brooke follows her. By the time Brooke arrives at
Helen's apartment, Yvette has found Helen's body. Brooke calls the
police, who arrive shortly after Dick and Stubby.
Later, Ransome
confesses that he killed Helen, with whom he had been having an
affair, when he struck her, but the autopsy reveals that she was
poisoned. Although this seems to clear Ransome, Dick is convinced
that he is guilty. He and Stubby retrieve the hidden camera, which
reveals that Ransome poisoned Helen before he struck her. Brooke
and Dick are reconciled, and Yvette, who is really from Brooklyn,
heads off with fellow Brooklynite Stubby for a drink.
Robert
Shayne and Anne Gwynne make personable leads and contrive to help things
out considerably while Roscoe Karns supplies his usual comedy as a news
photographer.
Shayne returns to his old reporting job after flunking
as a playwright and puts himself through various adventures as a star
reporter. Murder melodrama enters into scheme of things when his
publisher has him trying to get the goods on a gold-digging blonde out for the
old man's son. Shayne courts the blonde's French maid so he can stash a
camera in the girl's apartment. The blonde is bumped off, Shayne produces his
film of the crime and breaks alibi of the killer, who turns out to be the
newspaper's drama crtic !! 
