Victor Ballard, a happy-go-lucky albeit impoverished sidewalk photographer, shares a New York City studio apartment with Polish immigrant painter Stefan Janowski. The big city doles out joy and misery indiscriminately: In the apartment below Victor and Steve, Gus Nelson learns that his wife has given birth to quintuplets, while the lonely tenant in the apartment below Gus has given up on life and committed suicide.

Fred MacMurray
as Victor Ballard

Mary Martin
as Alexandra Curtis

Robert Preston
as Paul Bryson, Jr.

Akim Tamiroff
as Stefan Janowski

Lynne Overman
as Sam

Eric Blore
as Vivian

Fuzzy Knight
as Gus Nelson

Cecil Kellaway
as Shipboard Host

Oliver Blake
as Bender

Edward McNamara
as Brody