In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
A family suffers greatly during the First World War.
Marian marries Arthur, a party-loving man, hoping to reform him, but he becomes restless and starts an affair with a dancer, leading Marian to seek comfort in her old friend Tom.
Minnie, the homeliest girl in town, is devoted to her father, a discouraged inventor who has been working on a wireless device. Subject to the sneers of her neighbors, Minnie "invents" a lover and sends herself letters and flowers. Her stepsister suspects the truth and threatens to expose her. Desperate, she claims an unidentified body at the morgue and tells a reporter that this is her lover, unaware that the body is that of a Chinese man. The absent-minded reporter sees her heart and forgets about the big story. After further disappointments in the invention, Minnie's stepmother decides to leave her father. Her father then has a success and becomes rich. At a celebration, the stepsister and townspeople are surprised when a new couple appear, which turn out to be the former reporter and his lovely wife Minnie.
Headstrong Mavis Cole defying her grandfather runs away with the wealthy but caddish Herbert Whitman. Proving he’s no good Herbert plants a stolen necklace on Mavis and attempts to have her arrested when he comes under suspicion, so Mavis flees to a hunting lodge then entering into a marriage of convenience with Jimmy Ryder to hide her identity. Meanwhile, Herbert bribes ex-convict Steve La Marche to steal a jewel from Dorothy Grosscup but Jimmy captures the thief, though he claims innocence. Dorothy accuses Mavis of the theft, but she is cleared by Steve, resulting in Herbert's arrest.
New York City society girl Evelyn Whitney is determined to prove that she can make her own living on the Lower East Side. Having no luck with her first attempts she succeeds as cafe singer Mary Malone falling for former gang leader Larry Marshall along the way. Trouble comes when the jealous Stella attempts to stab Evelyn and is shot by Larry. Evelyn flees to her home and becomes seriously ill, but learning that Larry is on trial for murder, she rallies to testify on his behalf.
Young Elsie Duchanier, maid of the star dancer in the French Brunel's Follies, is deceived by a lascivious doctor into believing she has only one year to leave in his effort to seduce her. Separated from her true love American soldier Capt. Tom Kendrick when he is reassigned to the United States, she accepts Maurice Brunel's offer to make her the main attraction of his new Follies. She meets with enormous success, but Brunel demands she submit to his advances as the price he demands for making her a star which she refuses. Tom returns to France just in time to save her virtue and whisk her away.
The brute is a gambler, boxing manager and underworld boss who mistreats a young woman. She is forced into marriage with him for money after her original fiance is thought dead. When that man returns, he attempts to rescue her.
Snobbish attorney Charles 'Beauty' Steele loses his wife due to his drinking and his airs at the same time that his brother-in-law absconds with funds belonging to one of Steele's clients. In search of the thief, Steele is attacked and left for dead. He is rescued by a kindly couple, but suffers from amnesia. He starts life afresh and is happy, until the return of his memory sends him back to resolve his old involvements.
The Legion's mascot, Cigarette falls for an Englishman, Bertie Cecil (Herbert Heyes), and when he is sentenced to a firing squad, she heroically takes the bullet herself.
Rev. Robert Martin is an ex-minister who has lost his faith because of his wife's faithlessness, and taken up a life of crime as head of a band of pickpockets masquerading as religious workers who ply their trade in the wake of a traveling carnival company. He tries to keep the true nature of his work secret from his daughter Julie, but she learns the truth while traveling with his band for a week.
Jose Fernand seems interested in luring Helen Barnes onto his ship than he is in smuggling. The innocent orphan miss goes, accompanied by her younger sister Alice. With the boat out to sea, Fernand proceeds to attack the girls.
"A senorita. With whom two young matadors, Jose and Pepe, are in love, tries in keep both on the string. She lends each to believe that he is the chosen one, creating a strong jealousy between them. Pepe calls to see the girl and she receives him with a show of great affection and preferment. While they are courting, a caballero, friendly to the other lover, Jose, tells him of the girl's duplicity. In a rage he goes to his inamorata and, demanding an explanation, accuses her of harboring his rival in the house. She cajoles him, and playfully stealing his dagger from him without his knowing it, endeavors to hold his attention by caresses as Pepe tries to make his escape. Unfortunately he is seen and pursued by the enraged Jose, who, coming up with him as he seeks the protection of a priest busy pruning trees in the grounds of the monastery, engages in a terrible struggle in which the priest Is powerless to interfere." - Moving Picture World synopsis excerpt
A woman with a sordid past is redeemed by love in this silent melodrama from low-budget Sanford Productions.
"Swift Arrow, a lithe and willowy Indian, leaving the encampment of his fellow braves, is well on his journey when he is thrown from his horse and receives a broken leg and injuries from which he is disabled and lies helpless and alone." -Moving Picture World Synopsis excerpt
A short silent film produced by Gaston Mèliès in San Antonio.
A young corporal in the United States Cavalry in the Black Hills is very much in love with a young ranchman's daughter who lives near the military barracks. He asks her to marry him and she promises to do so when he has won his third stripe, making him sergeant. It is not long before he receives an assignment from his superior officer to carry an important dispatch to the commanding general at Fort Darrow. In the successful fulfillment of his mission he would be promoted to the office of sergeant, secure his third stripe and his girl.
Against the backdrop of New York City of the early 1850s, a young woman -- naively seeking to win the love she reads about in the romance novels she devours -- finds one prospect in an earnest denizen of the Bowery, and another in an elegant young aristocrat. Focusing on the bygone era's fashions, the novelty of the bicycle-built-for-two, and an inventor's quest for the horseless carriage, the film gently stirs the audiences' nostalgia for simpler times.
A young man spends so much time at work on his airplane that he neglects his girl. She goes out on her own to live the high life, but her reputation is soiled by an adventurer. The young woman resolves to kill herself, and throws herself into the water rushing towards Niagara Falls, but is saved at the last minute by her former sweetheart.
Barry Craven meets former sweetheart Gillian Locke, who is visiting India with her father. Craven's love for Gillian is revived, but he already has a wife, Lolaire, a native. In a jealous rage, Lolaire kills herself, freeing Craven, who returns to England and marries Gillian. His Indian servant, Kunwar Singh, casts a spell on Craven, causing him to leave Gillian and to go into the Algerian desert. There he joins Said, an old university friend who is the son of an Algerian sheik. Gillian follows, the servant is killed, and with him dies the spell, "The Shadow of the East."