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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Don Sebastian, Portuguese Premier, sets a price on the head of royalist Ricardo Madons. Madons is in love with actress Lola Montez, whom Sebastian also adores. Madons abducts Lola and compels her to wed him, but then does not hold her to the compact. Lola, who is really in love with him, repents having sent for assistance when she was taken. When Sebastian's soldiers arrive, Lola is nearly slain when she stops a bullet meant for Madons. She escapes with Madons. The couple find happiness across the border.
Millionaire Kent Whitney is warned by Bob Harkness, one of her rejected suitors, about the fickleness of his girlfriend, socialite Myra Hastings. Together they concoct a scheme to teach her a lesson. Kent invites Myra home to meet his family, and she goes, expecting to find an atmosphere of elegance and refinement. Instead, she is greeted by Kent's eccentric father, who affronts her with crude jokes; Kent's mother is introduced reclining on a couch, surrounded by yapping dogs and Myra flees. Upon discovering that the evening was a ruse, Myra decides to retaliate. She hires a fake minister, pretends to marry Kent and then deserts him, leaving behind a message explaining that the ceremony was a farce. Kent pursues Myra and persuades her that a real marriage is in order.
Hiram Danforth (William Farnum) is on a quest to find his birth mother, a search complicated by his upbringing and the social context of the time. The movie explores the themes of his murky, repressed past, and the journey he undertakes to uncover it.
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.
When his horse is conscripted by the government for service in France, Buck Thomas enlists and becomes the orderly to the captain entrusted with the horse.
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.
When jealousy and envy lead Mary Vantyne to make a foolish decision and commit an impulsive act she sets off a series of events that nearly bring heartbreak to all those in her circle.
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.
John Merrick and Vilma Walden, who fall in love at an embassy fundraiser in Vienna before World War I. Vilma's brother, Carl, who is a war veteran, poses as a rival for Vilma's affections. When war erupts, John requests a transfer to the Italian front, where he confronts Carl, who had borrowed his aircraft for a mission. John is devastated to learn the pilot he downed was actually Carl, leading him to announce he will no longer kill.
A man's life is ruined by the treachery of someone he once thought was a close friend. Enraged, he determines to track the man down and get his revenge. He follows the culprit over two continents and across the ocean, and when the ship sinks he finds himself washed up on a desert island with his nemesis and a beautiful young woman.
Wealthy New York contractor Wilton Demarest falls victim to the wiles of beautiful adventuress Mazora. Soon, he becomes addicted to drugs, neglects his wife and child, and his business is on the verge of ruin. By chance he meets his double, western mining engineer Martin Stanley. Demarest, half mad due to his drug addiction, conceives the fantastic idea of having Stanley take his place in the world enabling him to indulge in his degraded desires. Stanely, penniless and alone in the world accepts the proposition despite his reservations. Demarest drops into oblivion and Stanley picks up the scattered threads of his life, both in business and at home. The "at home" part is what causes complications.
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.
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.
After being disinherited by their wealthy father for their wild and irresponsible ways, two brothers embark on vastly different paths. One turns to crime and the other follows the straight and narrow falling in love along the way. When their paths cross again both find their lives in danger and only one will emerge safely.