What's the Matter with Helen?

In Hollywood, California in the mid-1930s, dancer Adelle Stewart owns a dance academy for young girls that is aimed at parents who want their young daughters both to become the next Shirley Temple and thus become famous. Adelle, who is obsessed with all things Hollywood herself, runs the academy with her friend Helen Martin who, because of her sheltered life and extreme religious faith, is the more conservative and cautious one of the two. The two have recently escaped the notoriety of actually being Adelle Bruckner and Helen Hill of Braddock, Iowa, the middle-aged mothers of two convicted young murderers named Wesley Bruckner and Leonard Hill who both received life sentences in prison for their crime of killing a young woman named Ellie Banner. The two women bonded while dealing with their shared problems that were a result of their sons' actions, and it was Adelle who came up with a plan to move from Braddock to Hollywood and change their names, especially after they received an anonymous implied death threat that blamed both of them for what their sons had done. Adelle tries to live her life to the fullest, first by expanding the academy through accepting an offer that is made by Hamilton Starr, a mysterious and flamboyant man, to teach elocution classes at it, and second by letting herself fall in love with Lincoln Palmer, the wealthy Southern "stage father" of one of her young students, who will seemingly give her whatever she wants. At the same time, however, Helen is consumed with guilt, being constantly reminded by whatever she sees or does of the murder and the possibility that someone is out there who wants to kill both her and Adelle because of it. Their fundamental differences threaten to tear their new life apart mostly because of the threat, whether it is real or imaginary.