Miss Annie Rooney is about a teenager (Shirley Temple) from a humble background who falls in love with a rich high school boy (Dickie Moore).

She is snubbed by his social set, but, when her father (William Gargan) invents a better rubber synthetic substitute, her prestige rises.

Annie Rooney, the 14-year-old daughter of a struggling salesman, falls in love with rich, 16-year-old Marty White.

While at first, Marty's snobbish friends give Annie the cold shoulder, her jitterbug dancing skills impress, and soon, she is a welcome addition to their circle.

Instead, we now see a Miss Temple in the awkward age between the paper-doll and sweater-girl period, an adolescent phenomenon who talks like a dictionary of jive, and combines this somehow with quotations from Shakespeare and Shaw.