Stars and Stripes Forever plot
"Strike up the band! Here comes The Greatest Musical Show on Earth!"
Around 1890, Sergeant Major John Philip Sousa, conductor of the Marine Corps, meets Private Willie Little and his girlfriend Lily Becker, a dancer. Willie invented a new musical instrument, a sousaphone. In order to support his growing family, Sousa leaves the navy and starts his own orchestra. Willie and Lily join him and soon Sousa's new march music is world famous. However, the romance between Willie and Lily is at stake because of Sousa's strict anti-relationship rules in the orchestra, as well as the intervention of the Spanish-American War.