Die Diktatur der Liebe. 1. Die böse Lust

After his beloved daughter leaves for the city to pay off his debt, an old farmer goes mad when her letters become less frequent and it is suspected she may be using her body to get the money.

Mary Boyne, who made shirts at four dollars a week, had no place for love in her life - only despair and hate for the son of the man who had plunged her family into deepest distress. Peter Kenwitz loved Mary, but because he was a mathematician and a pessimist by trade, his love was as hopeless as her chance for happiness.

Albert Jordan, publishing house manager, lavishes his salary on his adored wife, Rita, and little daughter Edna. She is a churchgoing woman, while his home and his family is his religion. While returning home one day, Jordan sees his little daughter in the path of an auto. He runs to snatch her from instant death. He saves her but is seriously injured himself.

John Hampstead gives up his career as an actor and his actress sweetheart, Marian Dounay, to become a minister in a western town. Marian appears, and failing to win him back she tries to ruin his reputation. Hampstead is accused of stealing some jewelry though actually he is protecting the scapegrace brother of his current sweetheart, Bessie.

Betsy Thorne (Bennett) travels to investigate a missing man where she overhears a conversation between the sheriff and an imported detective that reporters are barred from the house and grounds where the mystery has taken place. She comes across a maid sent to the house from Richmond, and so frightens her that she gains a chance to act in her place. During the first night at the house she is terrified when she sees a ghostly figure come from the grand organ. The house is roused by her screams as she flees the room, and she is forbidden from going back there by the sister of the missing man. During the following night she is locked in her room during a thunderstorm, and while escaping through a window sees the ghostly figure again in the family graveyard. She makes an investigation which starts from a particular chord played at the grand organ. They find that certain keys cause a secret door in the organ to open, revealing a secret passage to a family tomb.

To receive the $5,000 promised in her Uncle Stephen's will, Dulcie Culpepper must live with her Uncle John in New York for six months so that her father, a Confederate colonel, will be reconciled with his brother whose marriage to a Northern woman long ago caused a breach.

A son tries to overturn the disgrace of his father, who committed suicide.

Therese Roger, daughter of a West Indian planter, whose parents are murdered while she is a baby, becomes the adopted daughter of her aunt, Madame Roger, keeper of a haberdashery shop in one of the smaller villages in southern France. She grows up with Camille, Madame Roger's son, a sickly, sexless creature, whom she ultimately marries in deference to her aunt's wishes.

At a party thrown by millionaire Max Goldberg, Charles Howard, an aristocratic young artist, succumbs to the charms of chorus girl Lita O'Farrell, Goldberg's erstwhile girl friend. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and then their incompatibilities begin to surface.

Jan Saxe and Peter Harlingen, two young men from Holland, arrive in America with little orphan Bertha Kruger whom they have befriended during the trip and whom they both love. Bertha has come to live with her blind Aunt Sophie, and when Jan secretly raises $500 for an operation to restore her aunt's sight, Bertha marries Peter, believing that he was the donor of the "secret gift."

Auf der Höhe

In their small village, Romanian peasant girl Katinka Veche falls in love with the studious Jan Drakachu. Jan wins a scholarship to an American university eventually becoming a successful engineer. Unbeknownst to him, Katinka, whom he had to leave behind in the village, is sold into slavery by her cruel, dissolute father. Her owner, Victor Dravich, beats her into submission forcing her to become his mistress in his Syrian gambling den. When the house is raided, Dravich takes her on his travels around the world until they finally settle in a small Arizona mining camp. Broken, she sees Jan but is too ashamed to speak to him sending instead for her old tutor Boris. Upon arrival Boris kills Dravich but is shot by the sheriff. Katinka, now free, follows Jan to New York. After further travail the pair are finally reunited.

When Edith Graham returns from school to live with her father, Lieutenant Graham, at a Northwest Mounted Police post in Hudson's Bay, she finds herself courted by two suitors, Corporal John Emerson and Reginald Annesley, the latter of whom is a wealthy purchasing agent for the post. Annesley however is also involved with the half-breed Marie. When Marie tells him she is carrying his child Annesley kills her and attempts to frame Emerson. However, Edith is suspicious and sets out to find the truth.

Although the prominent Hollywood family prides itself on its illustrious family tree, young Winifred Hollywood exhibits a fondness for wild adventures that greatly disturbs her parents. When Winifred becomes engaged to bank official Harold Burton, his equally snobbish parents visit the Hollywood home and are shocked by the young woman's spirited outbursts and mischievous tricks, and the engagement is broken after she decides to perform bareback feats with a traveling circus.

In his crusade against the city’s gambling houses District Attorney Graham runs afoul of lawyer Judson Flagg who owns a notorious joint. Trying to deflect Graham, Flagg introduces his aide Joe Hunter to the D.A.’s daughter Aline. The slick Hunter convinces Aline to marry in secret. When Hunter shots Graham during a raid he extorts a necklace from Aline by confessing their marriage is a sham arranged to politically harm her father and threatening exposure. Hunter flees but Flagg attempts to put the girl in a compromising position, but she is saved in the nick of time.

Glory Quayle, a natural-born mimic, leaves her country home, reaches London, goes on the stage, gains fame and affluence. John Storm, her country sweetheart, believing he has lost Glory forever, enters a monastery, tries to forget her, cannot kill his love, returns to the world, becomes a famous slum worker and friend of the poor.

Howard Peyton served two years for forgery. Jerry Grafton, a genteel crook, is on the lookout for him when Howard comes out of prison. He is met at the jail door by his young wife. Jerry also meets him and offers him help, but urged on by his wife, Howard refuses it. When they reach home, his wife, who has a little money, induces him to go to New York and start life anew, and send, for her when he has a position. In New York, he manages to obtain a position in the office of Arthur Jamieson, an importer. Howard sends for his wife to join him. While he is waiting, Grafton finds him and insists that he forge his employer's name, or he will expose his past offense. Naturally weak, Howard yields.

Just previous to his departure for South Africa and the Boer War, Gordon Frazier, a young officer in the English Army, bids an affectionate farewell to his fiancée, Gladys Mayford. In Africa, engaged in battle, Gordon is rescued from death by a young soldier, with whom he formed a slight acquaintance.

During Nick Austin's imprisonment, his wife passes away. Before she dies, she writes a note to her husband, asking him to put her little girl in the care of an orphan asylum. Mrs. Downes, while bringing some of her dead daughter's clothes to the asylum, takes a fancy to Nina Austin and adopts her.

An assassinated Lord's daughter refuses to marry a Chinese prince but agrees to be his mistress.