Alfie is a totally hedonistic Cockney whose main concern is the conquest of women. After a brief affair with Siddie, a young married woman, he involves himself with a plain and simple Cockney, Gilda, who becomes his uncomplaining mistress, expecting neither love nor marriage; but when she has a child and Alfie refuses to marry her, despite obvious affection for his son, Gilda marries a devoted and understanding bus conductor who gives the child his name. Learning that he has a touch of tuberculosis, Alfie goes to a sanitarium where he easily seduces Carla, one of his pretty nurses. After his release, Alfie spends an afternoon with Lily, the wife of another patient, a seemingly harmless dalliance that results in another pregnancy. When the distraught woman turns to Alfie for help, he arranges for an abortion in his flat. The sight of his stillborn child has a shattering effect on Alfie, and he decides to settle down with Ruby, a rich and merry widow; but when he visits her apartment and learns she has a new and younger lover, he suffers still another emotional setback. As even his former girl friends seem to display a lack of interest in him, Alfie is forced to wonder if perhaps he may have the wrong approach to life.