 Young Phil Dolan, Jr. has been doing the same vaudeville act with his parents for most of his life. Sensing the demise of vaudeville, he quits the act to earn his living as a composer, having been well schooled in music. He meets Russian composer Ivan Boultonoff at a bar and they instantly take a liking to one another, sharing drinks in Ivan s room. As Ivan sleeps, Phil completes his ballet, "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" during the night. It so impresses Ivan that he takes Phil to the area where an entire ballet troupe is headquartered. He tells Phil the ballet will be more likely to accepted if he claims to have written it, and Phil agrees. At the hotel, Phil re-acquaints himself with the prima ballerina, Vera Barnova, whom he met 14 years earlier on the vaudeville circuit. But when Ivan shows the ballet to the impresario, Sergei Alexandrovitch, it is not only dismissed by him, but Sergei also takes a disliking towards Phil and orders him out of the room. Vera intercedes and Phil is approached to take the part of a slave in the upcoming ballet "Princess Zenobia." Because of Phil s mistakes (he had no rehearsal) the ballet turns into a riotous comedy and is a big hit. But Sergei is not amused and his dislike of Phil increases. Sergei s backer, Peggy Porterfield, insists they do Ivan s new ballet, forcing Sergei to sacrifice his principles for her backing, since he owes the hotel $10,000 he doesn t have. Once it is learned that Phil wrote the ballet, Vera insists he take the leading male role, and Sergei agrees, but hatches a wicked plot. He instructs two assassins to shoot him at the same time he is supposed to kill himself at the end of the ballet.