Fearing for both her waning career and for the reputation of her young daughter April, good-hearted Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan), aging dime-store doyen of New York"s gritty burlesque nether world, sends April away to a convent school free of the hard knocks that showbiz life guarantees. When, years later, Kitty is reunited with the grown April (Joan Peers), motherhood and career clash in the fading limelight. Loyal to a mother she"s never known and both repulsed and fascinated by a beckoning world of sleaze and sawdust, April fends off Kitty"s predatory lover while shyly fanning the fires of first love.