Elwin 'Bix' Bixby (James Cagney) is an unemployed Broadway theatre musical theatre director who agrees to stage the annual United States Military Academy#Activities at West Point . He is offered the job by theatrical producer Harry Eberhart (Roland Winters), with whom he has had a rocky relationship over the years. Eberhart has an underhanded goal in mind: He wants to get his talented nephew Tom Fletcher (Gordon MacRae) out of the Corps of Cadets and turn him into a Broadway star. Bix, who is broke or nearly, agrees to arrange this in return for a cut of Fletcher's future earnings.