Child star Jackie Cooper was riding the crest of his fame, thanks to The Champ, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tapped him for this unique drama tackling divorce from the child's point of view. Young Terry Parker (Cooper) returns home to a most unexpected and unwelcome surprise after spending an idyllic summer at a dig with his ethnologist father John Parker (Lewis Stone) and elder sibling Al (Maurice Murphy) following his parents' divorce. Terry's mother, Grace (Lois Wilson), has married the town doctor, Phil Shumaker (Conrad Nagel), in his absence! Finding life with his much stricter stepfather a misery, Terry sends a missive to his pop, who promptly leaves work to tend to his son's welfare. John recruits Al to be his paternal stand-in. Al, however, is distracted by the girl next door (Jean Parker), and Terry takes off escalating events to a near-tragic finish.