Ex-baseball player Bill Johnson, failing at many jobs when his ball-playing days are over, reluctantly takes the advice of his father-in-law, Jonah Evans, a retired umpire, and enters an umpire-training school. Assigned to the Texas League, he does fine until the championship play-offs when a riot develops over one of his calls. The involved player is knocked unconscious in the proceedings and cannot verify that Bill made the correct call. Despite lynch mob plans to at least tar-and-feather him, Bill's family - his daughters Lucy (Gloria Henry and Susan and his wife Betty - help Bill reach the ballpark safely the next day through a series of hair-raising encounters.

A group of people find themselves trapped in a creepy mansion, complete with secret passageways, a mad doctor and a murderous gorilla.

A woman who has been married and divorced five times comes back to her small hometown, where she proceeds to complicate, and potentially destroy, the marriage of her childhood boyfriend.

The students of Lakeview Elementary devise comedic ways to torment their new teacher.

Three sisters find romance in post-Civil War Indiana.

Cass Brown is about to marry for the second time; his first marriage, to Isabel was annulled. But when he discovers that Isabel just had their baby, Cass kidnaps the infant to keep her from being adopted. Isabel's parents hunt for the child and discover that Cass and Isabel are still hopelessly in love.

Tacey and Harry King are a suburban couple with three sons and a serious need of a babysitter. Tacey puts an ad in the paper for a live-in babysitter, and the ad is answered by Lynn Belvedere. But when she arrives, she turns out to be a man. And not just any man, but a most eccentric, outrageously forthright genius with seemingly a million careers and experiences behind him.

Passengers on an ocean liner recall their greatest loves.

A soldier becomes quite upset when he is transferred from the highly coveted machine-gun unit to the canine corps. He begins to change his opinion when he learns that his army dog Mike was a gift from an eight-year-old whose father was killed in the war. Now the soldier becomes committed to training Mike into the best army dog there ever was.

Lin McAdam rides into town on the trail of Dutch Henry Brown, only to find himself in a shooting competition against him. McAdam wins the prize, a one-in-a-thousand Winchester rifle, but Dutch steals it and leaves town. McAdam follows, intent on settling his old quarrel, while the rifle keeps changing hands and touching a number of lives.

Anne and "Poppy" Rose have three quirky kids. Anne has a generous heart and the belief in the innocence of children. To the unhappy surprise of her husband she takes in the orphan Jane, a problem child who already tried to kill herself once.

An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.

Citizens of Fairview are outraged when they learn children from the "Patch", a squalid migrant camp on the outskirts of town, will soon be attending Fairview's school.

A mad scramble for stolen loot ensues after Boston Blackie has prisoners released for work in a wartime defence plant.

When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.