In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

Gloria works as a top nude model and prostitute, but she has a secret. In reality she is writer and social critic Sarah Asproon researching her new book. Peter finds out and blackmails her by demanding sex for his silence. Meanwhile Sarah develops feelings for computer whiz Cliff, who struggles to resolve his own sexual orientation.

A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.

Years after their teenage daughter’s death, Lois and Doug Riley, an upstanding Indiana couple, are frozen by estranging grief. Doug escapes to New Orleans on a business trip. Compelled by urgencies he doesn’t understand, he insinuates himself into the life of an underage hooker, becoming her platonic guardian.

The film shines a light on Kansas City’s less glorious past when it was a major distribution hub for heroin in the 1930s and 1940s. Black Hand Strawman explains how Kansas City’s Mafia exercised control over the Teamsters Union Local 41 from the 1950s into the 1980s.