Ella Cinders is a slave in the household with her stepmother and two stepsisters. The one joy in her life is her iceman boyfriend, Waite Lifter. She reads in a movie magazine of a beauty contest with the winner being awarded a Hollywood contract. Despite the fact that the picture the photographer submitted of her was snapped when a fly had landed on her nose and she was looking cross-eyed at it, the judges declare her the winner when they see her in person. Waite, really a rich-man's son and only hauling ice to get in shape for football, tells his father he is going to marry Ella. In Hollywood, through an accident, a director signs her up for a film and sends her on a desert location.