The quiet life style of Ruth Heck and her brother Lem, who belong to a religious sect called the Seekers, is disrupted when a judge imprisons Lem for a crime he did not commit.
Dr. Stannard Wayne -- like all "good" men of the times -- is a God-fearing soul. He marries the former mistress of his friend, Dr. Arthur Richards, without knowing her past. Richards, an abortionist, resumes his affair with the woman and runs off with her. But before he leaves, he frames Wayne for one of the illegal operations he has done, and the innocent man is sent to prison for five years. When he gets out, Wayne has become angry and cynical.
Gordon Palmer is a lazy and cowardly rich man's son. When he and his fiancée, Aileen Merton, are held up by two crooks, Slug Williams and Beef O'Connell, he passively allows them to take whatever they want. At least he comes to life when they try to steal Aileen's engagement ring -- he scares them into giving that back. Aileen, however, is pretty fed up with him.
Nurse Lucy Weston, seeks revenge and marries a young millionaire she believes is responsible for her father's death.
A newly divorced woman falls in love with an artist and a hypnotist at the same time.
During a fashionable country house party, a guest suggests that everyone visit a nearby gypsy camp to have their fortunes told. Jack Harlow, the hostess's son, meets Draga, the gypsy chief's daughter, and immediately falls in love with her. Draga is also attracted to Jack, who persuades her to meet him secretly. Their secret meetings continue, and eventually, Jack convinces Draga to run away with him, despite the significant social divide and the disapproval their relationship would surely face from his family and her community. The plot centers on this forbidden romance and the ensuing dramatic conflict between their two vastly different worlds.
District Attorney Holden and his special investigator Betty Higgins are trying to convict brothers Joe and Lou Manson, silk-racket hoods, after they are indicted for murder.
John Reeves, steel magnate, wagers with his son Chester that he can earn twenty dollars a week and live on it. He procures work in the office of William Hart's steel plant. Against her brother's wish, Hart's sister Muriel adopts a little boy. Hart evens up by adopting John Reeves as his father. Reeves foils James Pettison's plot to ruin Hart. Chester also makes good as a workman and wins the affection of Hart's sister. The father reveals his identity and takes Hart as a partner.
U.S. Secret Service agent Truxton Darnley attires himself as a sailor and boards a schooner owned by arms smuggler Gus Olsen, who is in the employ of German spy Von Linterman to smuggle arms to German raiders in the South Seas. Truxton learns Gus’s plan to blow up the National Munitions Plant in San Francisco, just before his identity is discovery and he is thrown overboard. Washed ashore on the island of Moana, Truxton meets native girl Lurline. Promising to return to her, Truxton boards a steamer bound for San Francisco to foil the plot and soon afterwards Lurline’s father sells her into marriage with Gus. Escaping to Truxton's steamer, Lurline sails to San Francisco where Gus abducts her forcing her to dance in his Barbary Coast saloon. Truxton raids the bar, kills Gus is killed and the lovers are reunited.
A runaway becomes a thief and is sentenced to a reformatory.
A man is shipwrecked on a South Seas island, and although he has a fiancee back home, he falls in love with a Polynesian girl. When his fiancee finally finds him and arrives on the island to take him home, she finds out that he refuses to leave the local girl, who is now the mother of his child.
The plot concerns a war hero who returns home determined to give up his old ways as a crook. Bud Doyle (Milton Sills) is still being hounded by the cops, and both his wife (Marcia Nanon) and a former associate, a dishonest politician, want to do him in.
The Thompson-Thorpe automobile was once a great car but dissension between the owners led to the break-up of the company, and Thompson and Thorpe have each started their own car-manufacturing company. Not knowing his true identity, Earle Thorpe Jr. has been hired by Henry Thompson to drive his new car in an upcoming race. Unknown to Thompson has two crooked mechanic/engineers on his payroll who plan to make their own car, using Thompson's plans, and win the big race themselves. Etta, Thompson’s daughter, and Earle team up to re-unite Thompson and Thorpe Sr. by taking the best features of both cars and combine them into one super car.
Bob Spaulding, a manly fellow, meets Dr. Rankin and his wife on the street while they are engaged in a violent tiff. The doctor is about to strike his wife when Bob interferes, incurring the resentment of the doctor. During the flurry Mrs. Rankin drops her card case. From a card inside he learns the address and goes there to return it. They meet, and it is a case of love at first sight; but she is a wife, and beyond his reach.
Muriel Rossi (Mary Brian), the sister of a racketeer, Al Rossi (Harry Woods), falls in love with Bob Martel (Bruce Cabot), the son of a police detective, Joe Martel (Grant Mitchell). Their love affair causes bot families problems when Bob is framed, but saved as a result of his father's access to police department films.
Gypsy dancer Dolores flees an arranged marriage and faces ruin by a count. After her admirer kills the count the other gypsies swoop in to save her from destruction.
Set in “the white-bound heart of Canada that lies within the Arctic Circle,” and concerns a rifle-toting woman who convinces a government researcher to pose as her husband and help combat a villainous poacher who threatens her reputation.
Robert Stevens robs the bank where he is employed, and through the efforts of Calvin Stedman, the prosecuting attorney, he is sentenced to six years' imprisonment. While in jail his wife dies and his little daughter, Agnes, is placed in a convent.
When Rosamond, a convent girl, discovers that her mother is Baby Brabant, a notorious queen of Petworth's gambling house, her ideals are shattered and she denounces her mother's life.
Queen of the demi-monde, Cynthia is madly infatuated with Rogers, an unprincipled scoundrel, who, secure in his dominance over her, openly makes love to other women in her presence. In a moment of desperation, her womanhood coming to the fore, she calls on Father Sullivan, the good priest at the monastery, who soothes her hysteria and tries to show her the path of rectitude. Jackson pursues his prey into the very walls of the monastery, and triumphantly brings Cynthia back with him. Disheartened, the priest is inclined to let her go her way, but a vision of the Savior rise before him, holding out a saving hand to Mary Magdalene, kneeling at his feet. Filled with holy awe, the priest enters the gilded den of vice and calls on Cynthia.