Starring George Walsh as Preston Platt and Doris Pawn as Patricia West this involved themes of wealth and social standing.
Poverty forces Jill Mackie to work in a department store, where she falls in love with its owner, Charles Hemingway. They form an illicit alliance when Mrs. Hemingway refuses to grant Charles a divorce. Eventually, Hemingway becomes ill and dies, leaving Jill a sum of money. She leaves the country and falls in love with a young man to whom she confides her past, but breaks with him when he suggests that they make a similar arrangement.
Two sisters, Julia Crossland and Evelyn Jefferson, happy lives are thrown into turmoil when a man from their past, Thomas Chadwick reappears unexpectedly. Both had at one time been smitten with Thomas writing indiscreet letters to him. When Chadwick is killed, they fear their secret will be revealed.
Hoping to reconcile her divorced parents, Norris Gradley remains with her father, Giles, after he marries another woman. The new Mrs. Gradley snubs and mistreats Norris, who earns money by disguising herself as a boy and playing the violin at dances. Claude Wolcott, employed by Giles to drill oil wells, falls in love with Norris.
A silent film about the famous Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, whose life intertwines with a young woman, Anna Damby, and Countess Koefeld. Kean, inspired by the Countess, becomes entangled in a plot involving Anna, her guardian, and a roué named Lord Melville. The story culminates in a benefit performance where Kean's passionate denouncement of the Prince of Wales leads to his downfall.
A cabaret hostess falls for a young aristocrat, ignoring her friend's warning that the affair will end in heartache.
After losing his factory job, virtuoso violinist Tommy Breen is inspired by June Norton, who lives in the same boardinghouse to write his song, "When You Smile with Your Eyes in Mine." Song publisher Simon Berg signs Tommy and the song becomes an enormous success. Success goes to Tommy’s head, he forgets June, surrounds himself with Broadway lowlife, spends extravagantly, and becomes infatuated with Mona Merwin, a musical comedy performer. He hits a rough patch, and June asks Berg to help her save Tommy from himself, so he decreases Tommy's royalty checks. Tommy's Broadway friends desert him when the checks stop coming. Now that Tommy has seen the error of his ways Berg sends him to a country cottage he purchased in Flatbush, where Tommy finds June waiting to marry him.
Gerry Sands dreams of being an editor but is forced by his employer, locksmith Nick Barket, to crack safes. During a robbery he experiences an epiphany and stops. His sweetheart Polly Ann Kerry is thrilled and gets him work at the hotel where she works, but Red Devlin, the brains behind the burglaries, frames Gerry for theft. In hopes that Gerry will resume the thefts Devlin bails him out, but Gerry leaves town for work on a Western newspaper. Afterwards Polly exposes the crooks, she falls ill. Risking arrest Gerry returns and goes to the police station seeking help locating her. The police captain gives him twenty-four hours’ probation. Upon finding Polly the police captain vouches for Gerry's integrity, and they marry.
Defying her obdurate Colonel father Betty Lewis elopes with Bob Hale. When Bob is killed in an automobile accident, the colonel discovers Betty is pregnant and after the birth cruelly tells Betty that the baby died while placing the child in an orphanage. When Betty later marries Ken Tyler she stays silent about her previous marriage, at the colonel's request. One day while visiting an orphanage with her sister, Barbara, who hopes to adopt, she finds her own daughter. Taking her home she admits to Ken the child's true parentage. Angered at first, he is persuaded by his own mother and accepts the child.
Early sound short starring Lionel Atwill.
When Bob Stratton returns from war in France, he soon discovers his ranch in the hands of a pretty girl, Mary Thorne, who explains that upon her father's death she became the sole owner. Thorne had been the executor of Stratton's will, and thinking that Bob had been killed, he had appropriated the place for himself.
John Weston leaves his wife and kids to marry adventuress Doris Clark and loses his mind when he realizes his mistake. A lost film.
Page Emlyn travels with his friend Jim Calvert to the Calvert family home. It doesn't turn out well: Calvert's fiancée breaks up with him and he later falls off a cliff to his death. His friend Emlyn was with him but was so drunk he doesn't remember anything that happened that night, and before long Emlyn is accused of pushing his friend off the cliff and tried for the murder.
Alice Lindsay arrives in New York from a small town and becomes part of Greenwich Village Bohemian life. Alice resists the advances of Gwenne Stevens, an advocate of free love, and marries civil engineer Samson Rathbone
U. S. Senator Frank Deering has spent his life trying to alleviate the misery of child labor. Judge Vernon, his closest friend, aids him in this struggle. Unexpected circumstances force Judge Vernon to borrow money from Henry McCarthy, one of the factory owners most responsible for the harsh and inhumane working conditions. Judge Vernon is unable to pay off the loan, and is reduced to accepting a bride from McCarthy. Later, the Judge is stricken with a heart-condition but, on his dying bed, he confesses the shameful act he committed to Deering. To keep his friend's name unsullied, Deering makes a deal with McCarthy and votes against the child-labor-act he sponsored. His colleagues and the world, unaware of his sacrifice, mock and jeer him.
Helene Blair is the wife of a prominent businessman who neglects to give her much attention. He is thoroughly engrossed in business affairs. A day comes when she meets Duke Tremaine, clubman, man-about-town, and social parasite. And taking advantage of her husband's absence he attempts to assert his personality upon her impressionable heart. The result is society starts to gossip with the husband the last to learn of the affair. He loses faith in his wife for a time, but she shows herself eventually as completely misunderstood. After a brief separation Blair learns that Helene is above reproach. So a reconciliation takes place, but not until the trespasser is punished.
Daniel Strathmore, has wealth and influence. He forms an infatuation for a beautiful adventuress and when a friend interferes he fights him and the friend is accidentally killed. Strathmore takes care of the friend's daughter, who later falls in love with him. She forgives the past and they marry. A lost film.
Orphaned sisters Kate and Irene are separated as children, but each keeps half of their mother's wedding ring. Years later Irene marries John West, the head of a munitions camp. Kate, as fate would have it, happens to run the saloon in the camp and she and Irene become friends, but neither has any idea that the other is her long-lost sister. Matters take a turn for the worse, however, when Kate starts a romance with Cliff, Irene's adopted brother--a relationship that Irene strongly disapproves of. Complications ensue.
Frenchman is engaged to marry South American heiress but a fortune-hunting friend disrupts the romance and marries the girl himself. She later realizes her mistake after her no-good husband has frittered away most of her fortune and she turns back to her first love.
Fearing that his daughter Patsy is becoming a tomboy, John Primmel sends her to a friend back East for education and refinement. Arriving in New York, Patsy discovers that her father's friend has died and his apartment is now inhabited by his son, Dick Hewitt. Dick allows Patsy to stay, and they hire a maid, a housekeeper, and a butler.