The Eavesdropper

Karsten Bernick is a wealthy Norwegian shipping tycoon and community leader who hides a past built on lies and moral hypocrisy. He was involved in a youthful affair in Paris with a married Bohemian actress; Bernick let his brother-in-law take the blame and fled to America, while also spreading a rumor that the man stole family money. When the wronged brother-in-law returns home years later demanding that Bernick clear his name Bernick tries to protect his social standing and financial empire from ruin, forcing a dramatic reckoning with his deceit.

Hal Whitney, an irresponsible young millionaire, befriends Timothy Payne, a wise old college professor whose life had been ruined by alcohol. After "adopting" Timothy as his father, Hal introduces him to his sweetheart, Helen Maynard. The outraged Helen breaks their engagement, certain that Timothy will be a bad influence on her hard-drinking fiancé. However, both men assist in each other's reformation, and Hal is soon reunited with Helen, while Timothy marries Hal's mother, Elizabeth, whom he had loved in his youth.

War buddies Whitey and Skeeter have become safecrackers. On a job, Skeeter is surprised by the police and killed. Later Whitey discovers that the lowlife Mal is the police informer responsible for Skeeter's death. Whitey sets out to find his moll Kitty, hearing she has gone to the country to find peace and quiet he finds her in a small town. She is involved with bank clerk Fred Morton, so Whitey pretends he has found someone else too. When Mal arrives in town as the advance man for a con and he pursues Skeeter’s sister Evelyn, Kitty tells the story of her own criminal past to save her. Fred drops her, and Kitty tries to drown herself in the river. Whitey saves her life and exposes Fred as an embezzler.

Genevieve Connors, a young woman from the slums who is given a chance at a better life through the help of a wealthy family, but faces class prejudice and is later involved in a criminal plot.

Doris is driven from her small New England fishing village when a jealous admirer implies that her mild flirtation with visiting artist Stuart Kendall was an intimate love affair. Arriving in New York, alone and penniless, Doris finds employment in a Greenwich Village café, where she again meets Stuart and agrees to become his model. Unaware of his true intentions, Doris lives at Stuart's expense and innocently evades his advances. Out West, rancher Jack Masterson sees Doris' face on a poster and journeys East to propose to her.

A lonely wife becomes obsessed with furs and keeps bad company in an effort to obtain more.

Joe (Tearle) and Bessie (Ayres), living in sin and just scraping by. Bessie thinks Joe has stolen their meagre savings, so she leaves him and becomes a manicurist eventually marrying a wealthy man who turns out to be stingy and cruel. Joe saves heiress Marion (Mills) from drowning, makes good as a civil engineer and eventually marries her. Joe and Bessie meet again by chance and Joe, in helping her to keep her secret, incurs Marion's jealousy. Bessie, extorted by a former acquaintance in desperation, decides to tell everything to her husband. However, to aid Joe she accuses Wallace (Miljan), with whom Marion is preparing to go away. Finally, Joe and Marion are reconciled, but Bessie learns that the world never forgives a woman who sins even when she has reformed.

Marta asks her husband Jose to buy her a new dress she saw at the market. On his way home, he goes with a friend to a saloon and drunkenly gives the dress to a barmaid. At home Jose tells his wife he lost the dress. She retraces his steps and finds the barmaid modeling her new dress. Faced with the truth, she goes mad.

A gentleman thief has for a sweetheart and accomplice a maid, whose plan it is to get employment in a house and tip him off as to the lay of the land.

A blind princess is informed that her sight can be restored by the first kiss of unselfish love she receives. She remains blind until a humble poet steals a kiss.

Because Thornwood's portraits of comely model Sally Dennis are in such great demand, he is obliged to spend virtually all his time with Sally, which prompts Toni to seek retribution in divorce court.

The wanton dancer Thais, tries to entice Paphnutius from becoming a monk but fails. He later returns to reclaim her soul and follow in his footsteps. They attempt to live lives of simplicity, but the pull of worldliness is too strong.

In 1941, folklorist Alan Lomax traveled from the Library of Congress to the Mississippi Delta to record an oral history of the blues. Equipped with 500 pounds of audio equipment powered by his car battery, he ventured across nameless roads to discover the most beautiful and harrowing songs ever sung.

Ruth and her father stay at an inn run by the malicious Scroogles. The Scroogles rob Ruth's father, throw his seemingly dead body over a cliff, and deny he was ever there when Ruth asks. Ruth seeks help from artist Richard Foster. Together, they find evidence, confront the Scroogles, leading to a struggle where Mr. Scroogles accidentally kills his wife before being shot and dying himself. Ruth and Foster (now engaged) find her father alive but dazed; he recovers, and adopts a mistreated girl from the inn. The traumatic "empty room" incident leaves a lasting impression on Ruth.

Buck and Charlie, two hard-boiled cowboys, arrive at the Bar Nothing Ranch in Arizona and determine to take advantage of the peculiarity of the owner, Fred Saunders, known as "Lone Hand" because he never uses his right hand.

Businessman John Lawson is seriously injured in an accident, his wife Ruth travels from their New England village to New York to find a job that will support them both. Ruth works in a sweatshop at first, but then makes it big on Broadway.

A daughter and devious ex-wife complicate an executive's marriage to his secretary.

Claire Barrington falls heir to a famous racing stable with many debts, whose payment is dependent upon the sweepstakes in which the horse Wildfire is entered.

Wealthy young Billy Bates's greatest fear is that he has inherited his family curse: drink. But when he falls for a beautiful showgirl from the Ziegfeld Follies, she shows him he has nothing to fear.

Dick Allison comes to the aid of Mary Ann Hubbard, a young, dispossessed woman in the South, and the two become close friends. Dick leaves the South to move to New York, and Mary soon finds herself in dire financial straits. She decides to ask her friend Dick in New York for help, and travels there to see him. Unfortunately, she arrives at Dick's place on the evening of his bachelor party, but Dick persuades his fiancée, Betsy Caldwell, to put up Mary for the night. Mary soon finds out something about Betsy that Dick does not know.