This film combines four short films under the title Bits Of Life. The Bad Samaritan is taken from a story in Popular Magazine in which the son of a Chinese father and a white mother is sold into slavery by his father. The boy becomes a criminal and a cunning but cruel thief. The one time he stops to help a lady in distress he is thrown in jail. Wesley Barry is the young boy and Lon Chaney the grown-up criminal.
When Dorothy's Southern, aristocratic father Colonel Raleigh refuses to let her marry Forbes Stewart, a Northern gambler, the couple elopes. When Dorothy soon thereafter becomes pregnant, Forbes vows to reform, but authorities arrest him on a gambling charge, and he serves a year in prison. During that time, and just before the birth of the baby, a woman comes to Dorothy and claims to be Forbes' wife. Stunned, Dorothy returns to her father, but the colonel throws her out, and so, on her own, she has her baby, whom the community believes to be illegitimate. Convinced that she has sinned, Dorothy is about to kill herself when Forbes, just out of jail, finds her and explains that the other woman simply had been an ex-sweetheart trying to win him back.
Gerrit Ammidon, despairing of any chance to marry his love, Nettie Vollar, because of a bitter feud between his father and her grandfather, sails to China to "get away from it all". While in Shanghai he rescues a beautiful young woman being attacked by a gang of street toughs. She turns out to be Taou Yuen, a Manchu princess. Gerrit discovers that, unless she finds a husband, she will be put to death, and he agrees to marry her. They return to Java Head, the Ammidon family home in Salem, Massachusetts, but Gerrit's "homecoming" has some unexpected consequences.
Mark is the captain of a whaling ship and he looks down on brother Joel, who has never gone to sea. But when Mark's ship arrives in port sans its captain, Joel takes over the command. His new bride, Priscilla, insists on coming along and they head for the South Seas, where Mark was last seen.
The wife of an American playwright in Paris becomes ensnared in the seductive wiles of an American Army officer, but her devotion to her husband convinces the officer to try to extricate her from the gossip and scandal that have ensued.
Silent film directed by Irvin Willat
Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa was one of the most popular leading men in American silent films-this despite the fact that orientals were traditionally (and stereotypically) cast as villains at the time. In The Bravest Way, Hayakawa carries self-sacrifice to the nth degree. He is so devoted-in a perfectly platonic manner-to the widow of his best friend (Tsuri Aoki) that he loses the love of his American fiancee (Florence Vidor). Lost film.
In the mountains of West Virginia, Alderson Cree is mortally wounded in an ambush by Kip Ryerson, after Kip's wife, Martha, seeks refuge at the Crees's home for herself and her stepdaughter, Eileen. Cree makes his young son, David, promise to avenge his death once he has grown into manhood. As David Cree runs for help, Alderson recants and instructs Martha Ryerson to release his son from his promise. However, to eliminate her brutal spouse, Martha Ryerson remains silent, and George Hedrick, the local storekeeper, leads a crowd to drive Kip out of town. Hedrick later announces Kip's death, relieving David of his obligation to his father. Years pass, and David, now an adult, is engaged to Mary Reddin. When Kip Ryerson returns to town, David's mother demands that he keep his promise to avenge his father.
Calvert's Valley
Henry Potter is the irresponsible playboy son of a New York millionaire. Fearing he will disgrace the family name if he stays in New York, the father sends him to San Francisco to work in the family shipyards and, to make a man out of him, he is told he will have to start at the bottom and work his way up. Henry decides this is not a good idea and resents it to the point he will indeed start at the bottom but will work his way down from there, and disgrace the family name in San Francisco.
As a derelict paints the face of a girl on a barroom floor, the plot is developed in a series of flashbacks: Robert Stevens, an artist engaged to marry Marion, a society girl, becomes charmed with a fisherman's daughter who poses for him. The society girl's brother brings dishonor upon the fisherman's daughter, and when she commits suicide the artist shields the brother. Stevens is blamed by his fiancée, who terminates their engagement. The artist becomes a derelict and is wrongfully imprisoned. Eventually Stevens is exonerated and reunited with Marion.
Devdas, the son of a zamindar, and Parvati, his neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. However, class and caste differences prevent their marriage. Devdas is sent off to Calcutta, while Paro is married off to an aged rich widower. In Calcutta, as remorse drives him to alcohol, Devdas meets Chandramukhi, a prostitute. All Indian prints of this Bengali version were destroyed in a fire that ravaged New Theatre’s studios. Today, only one copy of the film survives which belongs to the Bangladesh Film Archives. Of that copy almost forty percent is destroyed.
Intrigue and greed come between an immoral woman and the man who loves her. This film is believed lost.
Poor working-class girl Stella marries wealthy Sidney Brock, recently jilted by his fiancée and social equal Connie. The two go through contentious times with the Brock patriarch, but when Stella becomes a mother, she seems to becomes accepted, although it's used as a way to shift Sidney's and the child's affections from her. Connie comes back into their lives, now seeking to reclaim Sidney, and manipulates the situation to convince Stella that he's been seeing her. So Stella decides to get a divorce, but fortunately, Sidney becomes aware of the deception in time.
Lost short film about the encounter of Juan Diego with the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Lost short film about a Tlaxcaltec warrior noted for his skill and ethical standards named Tlahuicole.
Lost short film about the death of the last Aztec Emperor.
Why Women Love (1925)
Debutante Hope Merrill (Mabel Taliaferro) returns home one day to find her financier father Amos Merrill (Frank Currier) on the verge of committing suicide. Rather than reveal the truth -- that he has misappropriated funds from his own company -- Merrill claims that he has been ruined by young John Cook (Clifford Bruce), Hope's sweetheart.