Clay Whipple is convicted of murdering the governor following an incident involving a cat's eye pin. Whipple is sentenced to death, but a mentalist named Psychic Jack believes he is innocent since Whipple had been hypnotized at the time of the murder. The psychic persuades the judge to grant the condemned man a retrial, and he sets out to uncover the identity of the real killer, during which time he manages to prevent a second murder from occurring.
Artist Standish using his wife Mary as his model finishes a painting of the Madonna. When the Connoisseur and the Parishioner inspect the picture, the Connoisseur tells Standish that the model was a one-time paramour. Buying the painting they depart. Standish confronts Mary, who tells him that she believed herself legally married to the Connoisseur. Unbelieving he ejects her and their baby son. Penniless Mary leaves her boy on the steps of a monastery. Years later before becoming a monk the boy is sent to see the world. Wandering into a café he is seduced by Beauty as the other inmates of the place, Lust, Rum, Avarice and Passion dance around him. The proprietor enters; it is Mary. Recognizing the crucifix, she left with him as a baby she persuades him to go back without revealing her identity. After he becomes a priest Mary, now a bedraggled old woman enters his church. She recognizes him and just before she dies her son gives her absolution.
War buddies Whitey and Skeeter have become safecrackers. On a job, Skeeter is surprised by the police and killed. Later Whitey discovers that the lowlife Mal is the police informer responsible for Skeeter's death. Whitey sets out to find his moll Kitty, hearing she has gone to the country to find peace and quiet he finds her in a small town. She is involved with bank clerk Fred Morton, so Whitey pretends he has found someone else too. When Mal arrives in town as the advance man for a con and he pursues Skeeter’s sister Evelyn, Kitty tells the story of her own criminal past to save her. Fred drops her, and Kitty tries to drown herself in the river. Whitey saves her life and exposes Fred as an embezzler.
Shakespeare Clancy is a jailbird who walks out with a crowd of visitors about the time "Skeeter" Burns, the prison printer, is discharged. Learning that a legacy awaits them in Dodson, the pair depart for the small Western town. Discovering that the bequest consists of a failing county newspaper and a plot of barren land, they hatch a plan to fleece the townspeople by selling shares in a bogus oil well. Problems arise when Clancy falls in love with society editor Alice Whitney. Clancy is conflicted but then they do strike oil! Concluding that his destiny is to be an honest man, Clancy returns to jail to finish serving his term. Slipping into the crowd of visitors, he dons his prison clothes and resumes work as though nothing had happened.
A recently widowed and destitute young mother (Jane Novak) appeals to her wealthy and heartless father-in-law (Robert Edeson) for financial aid. Instead, he convinces her to hand over her new baby to his care so that the child will be brought up with "everything money can buy." Unbeknownst to the grandfather, we learn that there are twin sons and our heroine keeps one baby to raise herself. The narrative jumps ahead to the boy's twenty-first birthday and we see what's become of them. Not surprisingly, the wealthy son has grown up spoiled and greedy while the poor one works hard and loves his mother.
A lawyer is worried about his client. He's infatuated with a dubious woman who's scheming to get his money. The lawyer gets the idea to have him marry an honest woman and protect his fortune in her name, but who? "Cigars. Cigarettes."
Constance, the beautiful wife of Mark Barr, is in fear of her husband's jealousy. Among the guests at their reception are Myrtle Gale and her fiancé, Billy Craig, to whom Constance was at one time engaged. Mark misinterprets a friendly chat between the two and forbids Billy to visit his house. Myrtle goes to the city, and is to return on an early evening train, on which Constance also expects her husband.
Hal Whitney, an irresponsible young millionaire, befriends Timothy Payne, a wise old college professor whose life had been ruined by alcohol. After "adopting" Timothy as his father, Hal introduces him to his sweetheart, Helen Maynard. The outraged Helen breaks their engagement, certain that Timothy will be a bad influence on her hard-drinking fiancé. However, both men assist in each other's reformation, and Hal is soon reunited with Helen, while Timothy marries Hal's mother, Elizabeth, whom he had loved in his youth.
Uncle Sam is mistaken for Marion's uncle Sam.
To keep his social-climbing wife and daughters in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, wealthy George Hunter makes some large investments in the stock market, but the stocks crash and he loses a great deal of money. His wealthy aunt offers to bail the family out, but complications ensue.
Mary Manning lives in the Wisconsin woods with her stern old grandfather, an uncle, and her mother who, for eighteen years has daily looked for the return of her husband. Into the drab life comes Tom Gale, who gives the girl her first taste of pleasure.
Orphan Mary Wade, is the ward of a family of farmers who keep her busy with drudgery. Mr. Jenkins, the head of the household, makes advances to Mary, she flees to the city with her dog Zippy and lands in court for imitating a beggar who pretends to be blind.
Hafsa, a beautiful Arab girl (Lenore Ulrich), wants the right to choose her own mate, instead of the husband picked out by her father, Malik (Herschel Mayall). Naturally, the man she falls in love with is unacceptable, since he's an American.
Dick Allison comes to the aid of Mary Ann Hubbard, a young, dispossessed woman in the South, and the two become close friends. Dick leaves the South to move to New York, and Mary soon finds herself in dire financial straits. She decides to ask her friend Dick in New York for help, and travels there to see him. Unfortunately, she arrives at Dick's place on the evening of his bachelor party, but Dick persuades his fiancée, Betsy Caldwell, to put up Mary for the night. Mary soon finds out something about Betsy that Dick does not know.
While visiting Atlanta, pampered Northern heiress Olive Thurston meets and marries Southerner John Ames, a member of an impoverished but old aristocratic family. John attempts to force his wife to conform to Southern ideals of womanhood, resulting in many conflicts between the newlyweds, but after a brief separation, Olive and John are reunited, resolving to look for each other's virtues and forgive the faults.
J. Gordon Edwards silent adventure melodrama about a famous poet who is allowed to rule France for a week!
A love quadrangle in a Western mining town leads to fisticuffs and reconciliation before the fade out.
Wealthy young Billy Bates's greatest fear is that he has inherited his family curse: drink. But when he falls for a beautiful showgirl from the Ziegfeld Follies, she shows him he has nothing to fear.
Big Steve and Little Lefty, a pair of hobos, are happily drifting through life until the First World War comes and enter it and find their lives forever changed.
Buck and Charlie, two hard-boiled cowboys, arrive at the Bar Nothing Ranch in Arizona and determine to take advantage of the peculiarity of the owner, Fred Saunders, known as "Lone Hand" because he never uses his right hand.