A young hoofer quits vaudeville to become a composer and hooks up with a Russian ballet troupe.

Junior Dolan, an ex-vaudevillian now teaching music at Knickerbocker University in New York, enlists to help of patroness Peggy Porterfield to persuade Sergei Alexandrovitch, the director of the Russian Ballet, to stage a friend's jazzy "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" ballet. Junior becomes involved with the company's prima ballerina, Vera Barnova, and even takes over the male lead in "Slaughter". This so enrages Vera's lover and regular dancing partner that he hires two thugs to kill Junior while he is performing on stage.—Alessandro Martini <[email protected]>

Soft-hearted Phil Dolan III - Junior to his friends - grew up as one-third of the Dancing Dolans, a vaudeville dance troupe, with his parents being the other two-thirds. Especially as the now stale act has not changed in fifteen years and as he sees vaudeville as a dying form of entertainment, Junior, against the wishes of his Pop, decides to leave the act, instead wanting to use the schooling his mother wanted him to get to move onto what he sees as his true calling as a career, that of composer. He believes he gets his chance when he meets Russian composer Ivan Boultonoff, who has been commissioned again to write music for a new ballet for the Alexandrovitch Ballet, a Russian ballet troupe currently in New York led by ballet impresario Sergei Alexandrovitch. Junior, using many musical idioms that have been running through his head, ends up writing a jazz ballet he calls "Slaughter on Tenth Ave", it with an urban crime/murder text. Junior envisions it being a mix of ballet and the type of dance more familiar to him. Because Alexandrovitch is pro-Russian/anti-American and a traditionalist to an extreme, Junior allows Igor to peddle "Slaughter" as his own to Alexandrovitch as that commissioned work to soften what would be already outside of Alexandrovitch's mentality. Although Igor does get paid for "his" work, Alexandrovitch hates it. Regardless, through Igor, Junior is excited to be accidentally reacquainted with Vera Barnova, the troupe's lead ballerina, the two who knew each other and were friends as children on the vaudeville circuit. As such, Junior starts hanging around the troupe to be close to Vera, which further irks Alexandrovitch, who hates Junior. The fate of "Slaughter" could change with the troupe being broke and Alexandrovitch acquiring a new backer, Peggy Porterfield, who is in favor of the troupe moving in a more modern direction. It still does not change how Alexandrovitch feels about it or Junior, he who decides to use it to show his true feelings especially about Junior without Junior knowing it until it's too late.—Huggo

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.—Arthur Hausner <[email protected]>