George Raft, billed sixth, was listed much lower in the cast than the size of his role indicated because he was at the dawn of his career.

[1] At a downtown dance hall, Duke Taylor is the band leader, Gloria Bishop the singer, Floyd Stevens the saxophonist and Louie Brooks a local gangster and regular patron.

Duke manoeuvres him out of town for a few months and sets about luring Gloria back to him to expose her shallow nature.

Floyd comes back and after a rapid sequence of misunderstandings and the arrival of the police looking for Louie everything works out nicely.

In October 1931 Paramount bought screen rights to the play which was also known as St Louis Blues and Master of Ceremonies.