Lydia Jansen is happily married to a young customs inspector, but she harbors a dark secret. She is addicted to smoking opium or in slang parlance “hop.” To keep her secret, she willingly pays the blackmail her maid extorts from her having learned of Lydia’s habit through her own fiancée who is part of the ring importing the devil’s brew. Something unknown to all is that the operation is run by Lydia’s father an important politician in the city where this all occurs. As her husband’s investigation tightens the noose on the organization Lydia faces a crisis.
A young girl is kept ignorant of her mother by her aunt. After her aunt dies, the girl is used by crooks and arrested. In prison she meets a kindly woman, who is married to a judge. The woman, unbeknownst to the girl, is her mother, and adopts her. The companion of the deceased aunt, in the midst of a ball, denounces the mother and reveals her secret to the judge and guests. The judge will not forgive his wife, so the mother and daughter leave and work among the slums to benefit humanity. Eventually, the judge relents, and seeks his wife for forgiveness, but he is too late.
Tarnish
Babs Weston agrees to marry adventurer Richard Forestall before his hasty departure, accepting his ring and promising to be faithful. Richard returns to find that his fiancée has become a "victim of jazz" and is engaged to two other men, one of whom is not yet divorced. He leaves Babs and visits his parents on their island in the Caribbean Sea, where, by coincidence, Babs and some of her thrill-seeking friends become stranded. Richard proceeds to reform the young wastrels by giving them useful occupations, and wins Babs over to a more healthful life.
A group of young people made a bet, according to the terms of which they had to visit a cemetery at midnight.
A doctor kills and embalms a woman in order to preserve her beauty.
A young man discovers the reason his new bride killed herself.
When brilliant lawyer Harry Sevier, an alcoholic, cannot cope with the prosecution's tactics, his innocent client Paddy the Brick goes to prison. After Harry's sweetheart Echo Allen, the daughter of Judge Beverly Allen, breaks their engagement, Harry leaves to combat his problem. Meanwhile, Cameron Craig, whose interest in a distilling corporation is threatened when a suit is brought before Judge Allen, steals incriminating love letters written by the Judge years earlier. Echo boards a train to offer to marry Craig for returning the letters. Harry, on the same train, and now beardless, follows Echo to Craig's home, where a burglary occurs. After Harry, not recognized by Echo, gives her the letters, Craig is shot, and Harry, along with Paddy--now a burglar--is sent to prison. Harry escapes and finds himself nominated to run for governor on the "dry" ticket. After Echo confirms that he was innocent of shooting Craig, Harry wins the election and her love.
Roman Regent of Police Baron Scarpia, loves Floria Tosca, a beautiful opera singer, but she is engaged to artist Maurice Saranof. Inspired by jealousy, Scarpia orders his soldiers to torture Saranof for information leading to the location of a friend suspected of being an Austrian spy. Forced to listen to Saranof's cries of pain, Tosca relents and reveals the whereabouts of the friend. Spurned by Saranof for her weakness, she must then negotiate with Scarpia for his life and offers herself to the baron in exchange for a phony execution. While embracing, Tosca stabs and kills Scarpia, who supposedly has arranged for blank bullets to be put in the soldiers' guns. In spite of the baron's promise, Saranof is executed, and Tosca, destroyed, climbs the prison wall. Shot while climbing, she falls to her death.
When her father goes broke in the stock market, Jane Lee is forced to leave her prestigious boarding school. Glad-handing John Brock, an old friend of Jane's father, arranges for the girl to be hired as his stenographer. But Brock's lecherous ulterior motives become obvious when he locks Jane in the office and tries to rape her. When she manages to escape his advances, Brock vengefully frames the girl on a robbery charge.
Robert Skalski passionately confesses Ludwice's love and begs her to marry him. The girl resists because she does not want to conflict with her uncle and aunt who raised her.
WWI spirit raiser about the title character who enlists and comes back a new man. Final film of stage star Shelly Hull before his death in the Spanish flu epidemic.
Marion Leonard plays a young woman struggling to earn a livelihood by writing stories. The plot takes the path of looking at that phase of modern literary life.
This part-talkie (17 minutes of dialogue in its 83-minute running time) tells the tale of Christina, the daughter of Dutch toymaker Niklaas. Much to her dad's dismay, Christina falls in love with sideshow huckster Jan. Likewise disapproving of the romance is Jan's jealous employer Mme. Bosman, who frames the young man on an embezzlement charge.
Nora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed lives in fear of her husband's finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career.
Having been misinformed that all French girls are morally suspect, American soldier David Kendall (Edwin August) is in for quite a shock when he's shipped Over There. After meeting several "nice" Frenchwomen, David returns to the states with a whole new perspective on things. It isn't long before he falls in love with Nenette (Carmel Myers), the daughter of French-born restaurateur Armande Bisson (Andrew Robson). But when Nenette is implicated in a murder, the disillusioned David instantly repudiates her -- and by extension, all Daughters of France.
Chorus girl Rosa Carillo (Carmel Myers) finds herself in dire straits when the troupe she works with is disbanded and her last fifty dollars is stolen. Artist Billy Leeds (Earl Rodney) offers to take care of her, but she's leery of his proposition. Instead she finds work with an Italian grocer, Tony Bonchi (Edwin August). One of the other ex-members of the troupe has Tony arrested on a trumped up charge. Rosa returns to Billy and offers herself to him if only he'll get Tony out of jail.
The Moon Beauty
When an casual comment about a straying friend leads to despair a woman finds grief returning to her door in kind.
A girl marries a wealthy pawnbroker in order to get money for her poor lover, who is an artist. When the pawnbroker dies, his son forces the girl to marry him, but he is killed and she marries the artist. Various problems arise after their marriage, but eventually they are happy together.