The Broken Melody

In the mountains and hills of Kentucky, a feud has raged for many years between the McTriggers and the Sampsons. In vain did the authorities intervene, threaten arrests and endeavor to patch up the mimic war; all these efforts were of no avail.

Some valuable pearls are stolen in China and transported to San Francisco. Jane Hampton learns that her father is the smuggler, and that police are on his trail. Under pressure, she takes the pearls to a Chinese man named Woo Fong.

Mildred Manning is the spoiled daughter of wealthy parents. She has a host of admirers, but does not permit them to become serious. Jimmie Blake, who frequents the household more than anybody else, is a rattle-brained young chap who fancies that he is in love with Mildred and insists that he wants her to marry him. Mildred jokes him and refuses to take him seriously.

Professor Duane, an ethnologist, and his assistant, Roscoe Harding, plan a journey into the wilds of Hindustan. Harding is in love with Lydia, the daughter of Professor Duane, and they are engaged to be married. Lieutenant Tavish, a British army officer, is attracted to Lydia and plans to take her away from Harding by fair means or foul.

When young Eva Stanley comes home from college, she finds that her mother is deeply involved in the movement to rescue "wayward" girls. Eva's boyfriend John Gilbert is sent west on a government job, and Eva finds herself lonely and neglected. She is lured onto the yacht of lecherous Leo Spencer, the dissolute brother of the district attorney.

Brian Godfrey and Arnold Lambert are clerks in the diamond broker's office, both interested in Mildred St. Pierre, the daughter of an old employee. For a while she is impartial but Arnold is too impetuous in his addresses and she repulses him. Gilbert Howell, a traveling salesman of the firm, puts into the vault a sealed package containing valuable private papers. On the same day is placed in the vault, a number of fine uncut stones in a similar package. When Howard starts on his usual tour, he takes from the vault what he thinks are his papers. That same evening, old St. Pierre, recalling the fact of leaving some very important papers on his desk is worried and decides to make sure by going back to the office alone to place them in the vault.

Two men in love with the same woman are further complicated by the arrival of a second woman.

In the prophecy of a palm reading hag that he will find his fate through his bravery, Rudolph, the inn-keeper's assistant, obtains encouragement for his fond fancy that he was born to a noble career. Elsa. the pretty daughter of the inn-keeper, refuses to elope with Rudolph, and he seeks his fortune in the great world.

John Morning, rich, without family, dreams of things that might have been. He discovers a poverty-stricken woman who is fatally injured, takes her to her home in the slum district, where she dies, and John Morning assumes charge of the woman's daughter of fourteen, Ritta. He determines to try his "great experiment," and Ritta is unaware of whom her benefactor is.

Hamad, an Arab half-breed, is in command of the ivory traders. Allan Deane is sent to take charge of the ivory traders' camp, and Hamad is told that he can serve as assistant hereafter. Allan Deane and Naila love each other. She informs Allan that Hamad is a slave trader and sells the native men and women like beasts.

John Power is a hard-nosed financier who has neglected his domestic life and who tries to ruin the Wray family. But a revelation concerning a Wray family member sends Power into a climactic delirium in which he believes he is being judged by people in his life.

Patricia Reynolds, the belle of the summer resort she is visiting with her friend, Amy Powellson, attracts the attention of Arthur Kirby, whom Amy loves. On an evening drive, Arthur tries to kiss Patricia , whereupon she leaps from the car and walks home. While Amy, disguised in Patricia 's clothing, accompanies Arthur to a roadhouse, Patricia , walking near the beach, sees her invalid friend, Jim Wheeler, jump into the ocean intending to kill himself. After rescuing him, Patricia persuades Jim to visit a specialist, but when she later is accused of spending the night with Arthur, she refuses to defend herself in order to conceal Jim's attempted suicide.

Sally Carter Rand, married to an elderly senator, is accused of espionage, but she is able to clear herself by proving that her mysterious knitting is actually a baby sweater.

Sylvia Hamilton rehabilitates an alcoholic attorney and marries him. When World War I breaks out, she is persuaded to help the German cause and later commits suicide rather than compromise her husbands career.

When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.

Russell Carrington accepts the blame for a murder charge to protect Rita, the woman he loves, from being accused of killing her husband. He escapes the police, and in a fishing village he assumes the name of Carr and is about to marry Dorothy Wheeler, the town belle, when detectives hired by Rita break up the ceremony and arrest him. Refusing to defend himself, Carrington is sentenced to life imprisonment but is released a year later as the result of the statement of "Sly Sam," a burglar who saw Rita shoot her husband. Dorothy, who has been living with a wealthy aunt in New York, is about to marry wealthy Ross Gunther, but Carrington is released and visits her home on the night of her engagement party. He thrashes a newspaper reporter who threatens to expose her affair with him, and the lovers are happily reunited.

Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his "mad doctor" roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions -- least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the "heroine" and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.

A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.