Two families, a tribe of abolitionist Northerners and Southern landowners tangle during the Civil War conflict when Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, and his assigned nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. However, trouble soon begets the pair again back in Reconstruction-era South Carolina, when Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
Der tückische Iago plant, das Leben von Othello zu ruinieren, indem er ihn zur Eifersucht provoziert.
Cantor Rabinowitz is concerned and upset because his son Jakie shows so little interest in carrying on the family's traditions and heritage. For five generations, men in the family have been cantors in the synagogue, but Jakie is more interested in jazz and ragtime music. One day, they have such a bitter argument that Jakie leaves home for good. After a few years on his own, now calling himself Jack Robin, he gets an important opportunity through the help of well-known stage performer Mary Dale. But Jakie finds that in order to balance his career, his relationship with Mary, and his memories of his family, he will be forced to make some difficult choices.
In 1861 in the Old South, Virgie Cary (Shirley Temple) is celebrating her sixth birthday in the ballroom of the family Plantations in the American South. A family slave, Uncle Billy (Bill Robinson), dances for her party guests, but the celebration is brought abruptly to an end when a messenger arrives with news of the Battle of Fort Sumter on Fort Sumter and a declaration of war. Virgie's father (John Boles (actor)) is ordered to the Armory with horse and side-arms. He becomes a scout for the Confederate Army, crossing enemy lines to gather information. On these expeditions, he sometimes briefly visits his family at their plantation behind Union lines.
In 1921 vaudeville performer Joe Moran announces the birth of a son; but after the advent of talking pictures in 1928, vaudeville fails. His son Mickey Moran writes songs, and Patsy Barton sings "Good Morning." Mickey sells the song for $100. He gives Patsy his pin and kisses her. Mickey learns that his parents Joe and Florrie are going on the road without the children, and he disagrees. Patsy and Molly Moran sing "You Are My Lucky Star" and "Broadway Rhythm," but Joe says no to their going. So Mickey proposes the kids put on a show, and Don Brice sings "Babes in Arms" as they march and make a bonfire. Joe dismisses Mickey.
Young Judy Bellaire (Judy Garland) has trouble fitting in at school, causing trouble by introducing her jazzy style into music class and being expelled as a result. Returning home to her dysfunctional and financially challenged family, where her playwright father, actress mother, and beautiful elder sister, Sylvia (Lynne Carver) compete for attention along with the funny Russian maid, Olga (Fanny Brice) and the hunky cook, Ricky (Allan Jones (actor)), who is not-so-secretly in love with Sylvia. Judy foils her father's attempt to ship her off to Europe by escaping from the ship and then trying out for a musical show as a blackface singer, taking advantage of her love of jazz to enchant the show's producer, who hires her and makes her a star of his new show. Meanwhile, Ricky cuts a record, musically expressing his love for Sylvia. Nevertheless, Sylvia is forced into engagement with another man.
Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in a small Southern town. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another. One of Jolson's fellow minstrels (Lowell Sherman) is shot backstage, and it is assumed thanks to several plot convolutions that Jolson is guilty of the deed.
