The setting is a city block during a sweltering summer, where the residents serve as representatives of the not-very-idealized American melting pot. There is idle chitchat, gossip, jealousy, racism, adultery, and suddenly but not unexpectedly, a murder.
Small-time showgirl poses as a stripper to infiltrate a nightclub whose owner is believed responsible for her father's murder.
A college economics professor's "radical" ideas about capitalism get him fired. When he decides to put those ideas into practice, he finds that they actually do generate him huge amounts of money. Soon a local banker and others who scoffed at his ideas see the amount of money he's making and try to cheat him out of his system.
