Before millionaire opera benefactor and would-be big game hunter Lucius B. Blynn leaves Paris for Africa with his press agent, Corny Davis, Corny hears Suzette, an impressive French soprano, singing with a band lead by her boyfriend, American Jimmy James. Corny offers Suzette a chance to audition for Blynn in Africa, and Suzette, who longs to abandon jazz in favor of opera, accepts. While hunting in an African jungle, Corny leads Blynn to "discover" Suzette, now called Oogahunga, the Bird-Girl. Dressed in a costume made of bird feathers, Suzette sings her way into Blynn's heart and is transported back to New York, where she is coached by an unsuspecting voice teacher. At the same time, Jimmy, who has no knowledge of Suzette's antics, prepares to open a new club, "Chez Suzette," with Suzette as the show's headliner. When Suzette, posing as Blynn's exotic Bird-Girl, makes her American singing debut on the radio, Jimmy recognizes her voice and sneaks into her bedroom at Blynn's estate. Caught, Suzette reluctantly agrees to sing at Jimmy's club every night in order to maintain her Bird-Girl identity during the day. The arrangement works until Blynn invites opera maestro Andreas Mazzini and composer Carter Haig, who wants Suzette to perform his new opera, to hear his Bird-Girl. When Suzette appears, Mazzini and Haig are stunned but, anxious to keep their potential backer from humiliation, say nothing about their discovery. In spite of Mazzini and Corny's attempts at preventing Blynn from hearing Suzette's nightclub show, Suzette's ruse is finally revealed. Disgusted by the demands of both Mazzini and Blynn, however, Suzette announces that she is giving up opera to marry Jimmy and sing jazz.