With a screenplay written by C. J. Dennis, based on his collection of verse published as The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, this cinematic adaptation similarly tells the story of Bill, a larrikin of the Little Lonsdale Street Push, who is introduced to a young woman called Doreen. Through the course of their courtship and eventual marriage, Bill transforms from a violence-prone gang member to a contented husband and father.
Although Dennis retains the basic storyline of the poems, he also adds a sub-plot in which Bill saves Doreen's Uncle Jim from an attempted swindle.
Fragments of the original verse appear in titles superimposed over either the action or Hal Gye's accompanying drawings (the same drawings published in the original 1915 volume of poems).