Paris-New York is set aboard the French luxury liner Normandie, and it goes without saying that the story takes place before that great ship went down in New York Harbor. Most of the passengers in this seafaring "Grand Hotel" are en route to the Big Apple to attend the 1939 World's Fair, which shows up in brief newsreel vignettes. The main storyline involves the forbidden romance between wealthy Giselle Preville and impoverished journalist Claude Dauphin. When Preville disappears, Dauphin is accused of kidnapping by the girl's snobbish father Rene Alexander. By the time the Normandie reaches New York, however, the "mystery" is solved and all misunderstandings blithely swept away.