During a lawn party at his New York home, steel magnate Theodore Morton claims he is bankrupt as a deterrent to Lord Dormer and the Duke of Medonia, two fortune hunters competing for his niece, Betty. After the suitors depart, unscrupulous Carl Gates is informed by his fiancée, banker's secretary Adele Shelby, that Theodore was lying. Carl pursues Betty, who accepts his proposal with the belief that the marriage will benefit her uncle. During a yachting expedition with Carl, Betty falls overboard and is rescued by architect Tom Waring, who is competing in a race. Tom wins with Betty on board, and a romance develops.
Little Betty has a luxurious home, an army of servants and the costliest of toys. But she hasn't what a child wants most of all, other children to play with. The result is that she runs away and joins a group of children from the ghetto district on the beach. In play she exchanges clothing with a little boy. That evening Betty doesn't return home. Her maiden aunt, an over-zealous guardian, is frantic. She notifies the police. The same evening the father of the boy, who has lost his position and is facing starvation, decides to turn burglar. He steals into the home of Betty's father. The household is awakened and the intruder captured.
Hubby is anxious to get away for a little time at the beach with the boys, and works up a quarrel with wifey over a new hat, the bill for which he is asked to pay. Making this excuse, he goes off with his chums. The wife is an expert swimmer and diver and is invited to attend a meet of the ladies' swimming club, of which she was formerly a member. Her husband's treatment induces her to accept the invitation. The affair takes place at the very beach to which the husband hied himself. One may imagine that hubby has not only plunged into the cooling waters of the surf, but into domestic hot water as well.
Upon hearing that his daughter Elizabeth, is coming from America to visit him in Paris, wealthy Willoughby Quimby, decides to give up dry martinis and women. However, Elizabeth seeks a wild time and ends up leaving France with her father's drinking buddy, Freddie, and Willoughby goes back to his dry martinis.
A reporter and a detective team up to solve the murder of a nightclub singer who had been involved in a divorce scandal.
Short film about the title subject played for laughs.
Fatty, his wife and mother-in-law are on a ferry to Catalina Island for an outing. So are Mabel and her father. Mabel and Fatty flirt with each other, and Fatty tosses her father overboard, thinking he is another suitor. The boat docks and the two go their separate ways. Mack Swain tries to pick Mabel up, too. All go to rent bathing suits, Fatty locks Mack in a dressing room with mother-in-law. Fatty and Mabel feed a large fish to a seal at the water's edge, and then engage in some graceful and comic diving. Swain, Avery, Durfee and Davenport see them diving and corner them...everyone's relationship to each other is revealed. —Ben Model, [email protected]
Male and female sales agents, Phil and Ruth, for rival hosiery concerns try to land an order. For a while Phil succeeds and puts on an exhibition but Ruby makes the mannequins use her own brand of hose, flirts with the buyer and wins order away from her rival.
Discouraged chorus girl is torn between a rich man and all he can offer and a starving artist which is where her heart truly lies.
Brewster, the bean king, has an option of renewal on a certain bean canning plant owned by Ellis. Ellis does not want to renew so hires shyster lawyer Wingate to help him. Brewster sends Betty to renew the contract but Ellis declines. Later Brewster sends his lawyer along with Ellis' man to persuades her that he isn't crooked. There follows plot and counter-plot, but innocent Betty carries the day.
Mabel has two suitors, Smith and Jones. Smith is an elderly man who impetuously sweeps everything before him, and his dashing ways win Mabel's heart. Poor Jones is downcast when he learns that Mabel is to marry Smith, and follows Smith home. He learns that Smith is already married and has ten little children.
Mabel Normand first starring role is a familiar story of a woman living beyond her means.
The manager of a small town hotel installs a cabaret in an attempt to achieve the standard set by restaurants in the large cities. His effort is ludicrous because of the fact that his talent is all recruited from the help in the hotel. Roscoe, the cook, is forced to appear in a dress suit and when Al St. John appears from the bar there is a lively rivalry between the two for the applause of the crowd. Mabel, the waitress, vies with a professional dancer from the city. Into this setting comes William Jefferson, a polished sharper, who takes the innocent Mabel by storm.
Mary Sundale is a young woman who spurns her childhood sweetheart to attach herself to a large group of riotous, semi-artistic young people and becomes infatuated with a superficial poet and critic. One night this poet becomes too bold in his advances and is thrashed by the man who has been rejected. On a later night, the group holds a party in a dirigible. The ship crashes and fear grips the revelers. Mary, now disgusted with the group and all it represents, mends her manner of living and plans a future with the man who has always sincerely loved her. A lost film.
The sinister mesmerist Svengali hypnotizes a group of people and compels them to perform various humorous acts in a Trilby segment from David Henderson's Aladdin, Jr. burlesque. Lost.
A 1919 film directed by Sidney Franklin.
Clarence Brooks is a shy, timid man working for Mr. Flavell. He is love with Flavell's daughter, Nancy. Nancy is shallow and fickle, always chasing after other, less-upstanding men. Clarence enlists when World War I erupts. While Clarence is off defending his country, Nancy's mother arranges for her daughter to marry the wealthy Mr. Braille. When Braille is drafted, Nancy's mother starts arranging a rush wedding, against Nancy's wishes. Nancy claims that she and Clarence are already secretly married. When the war is over and Clarence returns home, he refuses to be a part of her charade. When Clarence declines the offer to marry Nancy for real, she must mature to win his affections back. A lost film.
A short comedy in which two lovers post their letters in a box in a tree. The old man gets wise and sets a snare, by which he catches Fatty's hand. The girl releases the snare and Fatty hooks the old man by the leg.
"'Boxcar' Simmons, a tramp, represents himself as a mining millionaire in a small town. The population accepts him at his own valuation, and two of the town's 'slickers' make desperate efforts to 'take him for his roll.' One of their schemes is to sell him a worthless ranch, but he turns the tables on them by making them believe that the ranch is a veritable bed of silver ore, and then, after they buy it, he presents the major part of the proceeds to the girl who owns the place and with whom he had fallen in love." (Moving Picture World, 24 Jun 1922, p. 736.)
Upon striking oil on his farm, Silas T. Pettingill (Charles Eldridge) moves to Park Avenue at the behest of his social-climbing wife Maria (Kate Blancke) and daughter Helen (Emmy Wehlen). But like Jiggs in the comic strip, Pettingill never loses his common touch, and one evening he goes out on a toot with his new chauffeur Hubert Stanwood (Paul Gordon).