In 1930s New York, Mickey Fine, waiter and entertainer, is offered a job at Gorlick’s Greenhouse as a ‘funny boy’ – an all-round entertainer, who can keep the patrons in laughs. Not far away, Mutzie Feder, nearly eighteen and seemingly headed for domesticity, throws over her would-be fiancé, eager for a life as glamorous as that of her film-star idol Jean Harlow. Soon installed at Gorlick’s as a gangster’s mistress, her exciting new life proves not nearly all it cracked up to be, when her lover turns out to be a member of a gang of violent criminals and hired killers. When she begins to fall for Mickey, their lives are placed in danger, and the two hatch a daring plan to catch Mutzie’s lover in the act of one of his crimes, and see him brought to justice.