Chorus girl Peggy Malone marries press agent Jimmy Parsons but faces hardship when her shiftless family moves in, causing Jimmy to fall ill and go West for health. Peggy follows, becomes a film star, and ultimately chooses the now-successful Jimmy over a wealthy suitor, securing their future together.
Seduced and abandoned by the caddish Louis La Farge shepherdess Marie Beaupre is cast out of the village and forced to survive in the mountains alone. Driven mad she becomes known as “the witch woman” until hypnotist Dr. Cochefort and his friend Delaunay encounter her while on a hunting trip, take her to Paris, and effectuate a cure at which time she becomes heir to Delaunay's fortune. All seems clear sailing until Marie is introduced to Louis's twin brother Maurice and mistaking him for Louis sets forth on a plan for revenge.
Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian Martin) in Sato's care. Sato loves the girl, but as he is Japanese he cannot hope to ever marry her (at least not in the racially prejudiced era of the early 1900s). Besides, Mildred loves Harry Maxwell (Tom Forman), who was raised alongside her.
Barbara Rand is blinded when she leaps through a window to escape an assailant. Her sister, Natalie, reluctantly abandons her fiancé, Ned Gardiner, and marries Oliver Landis, who can provide the money needed for Barbara's operation. Unaware that Oliver was Barbara's attacker, Natalie blames his business partner, Howard Pollard, who was with Barbara on the night she was injured. Natalie holds Howard at gunpoint, but when her husband arrives, he promises to deal with the villain making sure Howard falls to his death. Upon Barbara’s release from the hospital, Oliver tries to blind her once. Natalie threatens him with a pistol, but Oliver wrests it away from her. He then realizes that he can no longer hide his guilt from Natalie or the police and shoots himself. Barbara has been avenged, and Natalie is free to marry Ned.
Barbara Winslow helps her rebel brother, Rupert, escape from the king's forces by disguising herself as him. Captain Prothero captures her, but he has fallen for Barbara's charms so he lets her go. As a result they are both arrested and imprisoned.
Minister John Hodder becomes rector of a prestigious church in the Midwestern city of Bremerton but finds dissension and malfeasance among his congregation. When he calls it out both tragedy and a way forward are revealed.
In a jealous rage dancer Anna Janssen shoots her common-law husband Alastair De Vries in a cafe when she discovers him with a chorus girl. Fleeing to Tahiti she is tracked by detective Thomas McCarthy who arrests her. On their return journey they are marooned on a deserted island. After 2 years together, they realize their love and take marriage vows, but when a ship is sighted, she insists, against his wishes, that she return to face trial.
Addicted youth Roy Wilson steals his architect father's bid for a railway contract to pay gambling debts to Graham Madison, but the theft leads to his father's death and an attempt to frame Roy's sister Jessie's sweetheart, Carew. After Carew is wrongly accused, a confession from Roy and the exposure of Madison and Carew's plotting lead to Madison's arrest, Carew's vindication, and hope for the future.
Crooked banker Peter V. Wilkinson intentionally drives his own company into bankruptcy and puts the bank's deposits into a secret account he has set up using his daughter Leslie's name. A series of events occurs in which Leslie finds out what her father has done and sets out to get him to return all the money he has stolen.
Jimmy Nevins--once wealthy and now engaged to Doris Standish--is reduced to poverty and jilted by her when he is befriended by Mary Butler, the leader of a gang of crooks.
The redemption journey of Moll O'Hara, a woman struggling with alcoholism and a challenging past. Moll, rescued from a life of drinking and fighting by Ruth Thompson, a settlement worker, finds love with Bill Hubbell, a saloon-keeper, and embraces a new life free from alcohol. However, her past and a rival, Douglas Ames, threaten her happiness.
A young English nobleman is sent to Switzerland by his parents, where he meets a mysterious older woman with whom he has a torrid three-week romance.
The story of a ruddy-cheeked rural postman who dabbles in poetry-writing on the side. He utilizes his hobby to spread a bit of sunshine throughout the village, at one point reuniting a long-estranged family.
Clay Whipple is convicted of murdering the governor following an incident involving a cat's eye pin. Whipple is sentenced to death, but a mentalist named Psychic Jack believes he is innocent since Whipple had been hypnotized at the time of the murder. The psychic persuades the judge to grant the condemned man a retrial, and he sets out to uncover the identity of the real killer, during which time he manages to prevent a second murder from occurring.
Felix, the King of Wallonia, has to marry Louise, Princess of the neighboring State of Trebizond. The old Prince, her father, craves the elixir of youth, and gets drunk so often that Trebizond is in bad shape. Thus, it is up to Felix to be King of both States. But Louise has a love affair with Stepan, the heir presumptive to his throne, and Felix flees to America in disguise. By a strange twist of circumstance he takes a job as butler in the home of J.P. Morton, multi-millionaire. There he meets Marcia, Morton's daughter, and the jig is up. He loves her.
A gangster running a protection racket gets information that he's about to be prosecuted on income-tax-evasion charges. He hires a man with a photographic memory to memorize his books, then destroys them all so the police won't have any evidence to link him to the racket.
Uncle Sam is mistaken for Marion's uncle Sam.
Most mothers are more or less wrong about their children. Mrs. Reed loved her youngest son, Edward, who was a clever rascal, so blindly that her eldest son, Jim, a generous but somewhat stupid boy, did not get his due dose of maternal affection. Jim was always unlucky, while Edward was never short of good clothes and plenty of money to make his pockets ring.
Two eccentric Frenchmen argue for the hand of an eligible American girl, who finally discouraged both of them by introducing her betrothed.
An international jewel thief tries to keep his secret from his niece.