Charles "Chick" Miller (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), is a hobo released from jail along with fellow drifter "Scrap Iron" Scratch (Guy Kibbee). Through a series of chance encounters with travelers in a large train station, he becomes, in his own words, a "Gentleman for a Day" (the name under which the film was released in the United Kingdom).
Ricardo Cortez plays a jewel dealer who hopes to provoke, and catch, an international jewel thief, so he transports the famous Karenina diamonds from Paris across Europe to Istanbul on the Orient Express, along with a trainload of suspicious characters.
In the face of seriously declining railroad passenger travel, engineer Tom Caldwell presents to the president of the CB&D Railroad, B.J. Dexter, a design for a revolutionary diesel-electric train that will increase efficiency and lower costs. Dexter opposes change, however, and the railroad's conservative board of directors agrees with him, rejecting Tom's design. Tom quits in frustration. Sure that Tom's theory is sound, Dexter's daughter Ruth convinces Ed Tyler, a locomotive manufacturer, to look into Tom's design. Tyler is impressed with the concept and initiates immediate construction of a prototype. Soon Tom and his team prepare the Silver Streak for a well-publicized trial run with Dexter and Ruth aboard as passengers.
Bulldog Drummond (Atholl Fleming) is injured when his car that has been sabotaged is involved in a crash. When Jack Pennington (Jack Hulbert) agrees to masquerade as a sleuth, he is enlisted to help Ann Manders (Fay Wray) find her jeweller grandfather who has been kidnapped by a gang of crooks who want him to copy a valuable necklace they want to steal. Their plan backfires in the British Museum and the film climaxes in a chase on a runaway train in the London Underground.
The film tells the story of Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, a British officer who, while on a drive with his friend Algy Longworth and valet Tenny, is the first to discover a mysterious suitcase that is parachuted from an aircraft above, minutes before the plane crashes. The case is found to contain a highly explosive chemical, the plans for which have been stolen, and despite the urging of his fiancee Phyllis Claverling, Drummond is dragged into the mystery surrounding the whole affair, traveling by both train and ship to recover the formula.
After being wrongly implicated in the murder of her scientist boss by foreign agents, a young immigrant woman is placed on board an "exile express" from California to New York City where she is to be deported from Ellis Island. With the help of a journalist who has fallen in love with her, she jumps the train and sets out to prove her innocence.
The film shows Christmas 1940, in the middle of the Blitz. Christmas traditions are depicted in juxtaposition with a wartime backdrop: Christmas trees are dug up for air raid shelters; housewives buy food for the Christmas dinner; theatres stage pantomime productions; schoolchildren produce handmade Christmas cards. People are shown celebrating Christmas while sheltering in the London Underground, accompanied by a carol sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge.
Tommy Gander (Arthur Askey), a vaudeville comedian, pulls the communication cord on a GWR express train, bringing it to a stop so he can retrieve his hat. Returning to the train, he escapes an angry conductor by ducking into a compartment occupied by attractive blonde Jackie Winthrop (Carole Lynne), whom Gander flirts with. Another passenger, Teddy (Richard Murdoch), has his eye on Jackie as well, but her companion Richard Winthrop (Peter Murray-Hill) ejects both of them from the compartment.
Railroad sleuth Tom Logan (Bob Steele) is on a mission to stop the unlawfulness of his criminal brother, Duke Logan (Milburn Stone). Duke's gang have stolen a train filled with gold and have taken the passengers hostage as well. Amongst the many passengers is nightclub entertainer Kay Stevens (Claire Carlton) who is looking to be rescued.
Jean-Baptiste Emmerich, né à Limoges, artiste peintre scandaleux et tyrannique mort à Paris, veut qu'on l'enterre à Limoges au cimetière de Louyat. C'est par cette phrase qu'il règle ses dernières volontés, lui qui voyait arriver la mort et ne voulait pas partir en laissant les autres en paix.