In what is being billed as "The Race of the Ages," the new forty-million-dollar “radio powered” Streamlined Ocean Liner S.S. "Gigantic" (“America’s Challenge for Crossing Record”) is about to race its rival, the slightly smaller S.S. "Colossal" across the Atlantic from New York’s Pier 97 to Cherbourg in two-and-a-half days. "Gigantic" owner T. Frothingill “T.F.” Bellows (W. C. Fields) intends to send his nearly identical younger brother S.B. (also Fields) to sail aboard the "Colossal", hoping he will cause trouble and sabotage the rival ship, enabling the "Gigantic" and his own Bellows Line to win.