When war is declared in 1914, glamorous Russian Carla Vanirska manages to get to Vienna from Luxembourg, with the help of Captain Rudolph Ritter of the Austrian army. Meanwhile, Ritter is assigned to detect the identity of a spy.
Socially-conscious banker Thomas Dickson faces a crisis when his protégé is wrongly accused of robbing the bank, gossip of the robbery starts a bank run, and evidence suggests Dickson's wife had an affair... all in the same day.
A newlywed discovers her husband is a cheating phony.
A professor tires of the direction his life is going and wants to move west, but his girlfriend doesn't understand why he is so dissatisfied.
On the wharfs of San Francisco, saloon girl Toy, also known as Mary, lives over Mother Bright's bar. When Como Murphy, a fugitive from the law, hides in her room, she falls in love with him. He explains that after he spoke out about the rights of man to a crowd, a riot ensued, during which a policeman was killed. Como took the gun from the killer, but is thought to be guilty of the crime himself. Como, who reciprocates Mary's love, spends the night with her, but leaves to keep her out of danger. He joins the crew of a ship sailing to China after he is befriended by Turk, a big lumbering sailor who is also in love with Mary. Each man is unaware that they love the same woman.
Jim Hutton and Mary Archer are two liberals who are content to remain faithful to each other in spirit only. They are married with all the ritual of a church wedding, the bride believing that each should be allowed perfect freedom in personal contacts. Complications arise when these ideals are put into practice.
A young Russian woman marries a wealthy Englishman, and has a daughter with him. After she has an affair with one of his friends, she is forced to leave Britain and moves to Paris. Many years later, her daughter approaches her, needing her help.
The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.
When a popular radio singer is knocked unconscious during a robbery, a squeaky-voiced college boy fills in for him. To everyone's amazement, especially his recent girlfriend, who just broke up with him, he becomes an overnight sensation.
A successful songwriter, dazzled by high society, falls for a society girl who is just playing around.
A bandleader tries to romance a dancer by sending her boyfriend, a musician, out of town. However, things get complicated when he finds out that a gangster has designs on her too.
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
When Captain Howland decides that his daughter Tess is getting a bit to old to continue to go to sea with him, they move into a small cottage on the coast of Maine, but not for long. A local millionaire, Frederick Garfield, lays a false claim to the property and has them evicted. Later, when Tess saves a young man about her age from drowning, she is a bit dismayed to learn that he is Garfield's son. But when her father is jailed on a false-accusation charge of murder, the younger Garfield comes to their aid and proves he himself.
A society gigolo goes after a rich mother and her daughter, but tries to find true happiness with his girlfriend, who is neither rich nor in "society."
A bank teller's love life falls apart when he's accused of embezzling.
Mazie, a poor orphan girl, is mistreated by cruel farmer Slag and his wife for whom she works. Mazie, who is growing into a woman, does not like they way Slag has been looking at her lately.
Gabby Denton, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck drifter, seems to get a chance at redemption when his brother-in-law helps get him a job as a mechanic. Not realizing the garage he works for is actually a front for a stolen car ring, Gabby soon finds himself mixed up in both murder and a liaison with the boss's girl.
A lawyer is haunted by a previous case in which he manipulated evidence and convicted an innocent man.
A carnival girl pretends to be Swedish in order to win a movie role.
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.