Teenage singer Cheryl Williams (Jane Powell) tries hard to to prove to her classmates that her older sister, Josephine (Constance Moore), is really the Broadway actress she claims to be. Believing Josephine’s fabricated stories, Cheryl is crushed to discover her sister is actually a performer in a bawdy burlesque house. But, when the siblings meet theatrical impresario Arthur Hale (Ralph Bellamy), he promises to make them both stars, and falls for Josephine in the process.

Jenny Blake is the owner of a gambling steamer on the Mississippi who yearns to be accepted into society. Marrying aristocratic bankrupt gambler Alan Alderson in return for cancelling his debts, she finds herself shunned by both his family and friends. Worse is to come when he is poisoned and she is accused of his murder, but her business partner Jack Morgan, who has always been in love with her, stands by her.