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.
Aurelie, an orphan, escapes from a New Orleans convent and is adopted by Mississippi riverboat captain Lindstrom. So that she can have a more settled life, he sends her to live with his brother, John Lindstrom, a squatter in a small river valley town. There she develops into a beautiful woman and wins a newspaper's beauty contest, attracting an offer from a theatrical producer, which she accepts. She rapidly achieves success, but when she returns to town, she is spurned.
A young man raised in the American South discovers he is an Indian prince whose throne was taken by usurpers.
Film star Ruth Breton has a habit of falling in love. When dating Walter she meets Von Zornhorst. When Zornhorst discards her, she pines away. As a last token of his love for Ruth, Walter writes a play for her, but during the final act of "Pierrot's Death", Ruth expires.
The Curse of Quon Gwon is the oldest known Chinese-American film and one of the earliest American silent features made by a woman. Only two reels of the film survive, and no intertitles are known to exist, making it difficult to parse out the exact plot. An article in the July 17, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World states that the film "deals with the curse of a Chinese god that follows his people because of the influence of western civilization." The film also touches on themes of Chinese assimilation into American society. Formally premiering in 1917, no distributor was willing to purchase a Chinese-American film without racial stereotypes. Considered a devastating financial failure, the film was only screened two more times until its rediscovery in 2004. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
Tells of Caleb Plummer, his son Edward and blind daughter Bertha, and rivalry over neighbor May Fielding. May's friend Dot weds John Peerybingle; they find a lucky cricket in their cottage. A mortgage and house on fire figure in the story.
Seven years after the death of their first child, a couple has grown apart and decides to divorce. Their second child asks a question about who will keep the first child's most cherished toy after they separate. This leads the couple to reconsider their actions.
Hidalgo offers his daughter's hand in marriage when he can't repay a loan to Manuella. But when Manuella overhears the daughter bidding farewell to her lover, he is so moved by their devotion that he cancels the debt.
Pastor TalnoŃ… furiously urges the flock to fight temptations, but he himself becomes a victim of temptation. In his house appears Satan, pushing the hero to theft and spiritual fall.
Duplicitous Patricia Chase schemes to break up the new marriage of Margery and Wallace Graham because she yearns for Wallace despite her marriage to another. She nearly succeeds but the revelation of a secret thwarts her at the last moment and she gets her just desserts shortly after.
Grace Ainsworth wants to return to her career as an opera singer, and her mother-in-law supports her. Grace's husband, Edwin, wants her to stay at home and to convince her, he relates the story of his latest play about a man who allows his wife to return to the stage. Edwin comes to believe that Grace is in love with Harold Chase, a manager, and the couple separates. Edwin has an affair with a dancer, Madeline, and he winds up in a fight with her dancing partner, Vincenti, which causes him to lose his memory.
A love triangle set against the turn-of-the-century gold rush.
A shoe-factory worker puts a note in a shoe box offering to marry the lucky buyer. As a result, she is dismissed from her job, but her employer finds her so attractive that he suggests a new job for her, as his wife.
Vantyne Carter is a playboy living in luxury off his father. Vantyne's cousin Teddy, meanwhile, leads a fine upstanding life -- or at least he appears to, so he can curry favor with his wealthy uncle, Vantyne's father. One day, the senior Carter, fed up with his son's antics, decides to play a trick on both Vantyne and Teddy. The old man and his lawyer go off on a hunting trip, and then the lawyer returns with news that Carter was killed in an accident.
Khokhlova, a girl-reporter on a Moscow newpaper, falls in love with factory manager Petrovsky. To her he's the epitome of manliness--virile, decisive, strong-minded. Conversely, she rejects the sensitive, diffident editor Vasilchikov, who's in love with her, as unmanly. Her infatuation affects her work, and she is fired.
Lovely Mary, an orphan girl, reluctantly takes charge of her sister's child when her sister Kate is jailed.
Ellen McHugh, a poor Irish immigrant to America, finds work in a carnival and is thus able to send her son Brian to a fine school. But when her position is found out, the school expels Brian. Mrs. McHugh feels compelled to allow the school principal and his wife to adopt Brian. The widow McHugh becomes a housekeeper and raises her employer's daughter Edith, who grows up to fall in love with Brian McHugh.
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.
This partially-extant silent film focuses on the lives of people in rural China during the early twentieth century. Wang Guisheng (played by Wang Yuanlong) is an orphan who grew up at his uncle's, working as a farmhand. Since childhood, he has been close with his female cousin, Li Ah Zhen (played by Li Minghui), and they expect to marry. But when her mother dies of illness and overwork, Ah Zhen's father re-marries, and the evil stepmother connives to marry Ah Zhen off to the stepmother's nephew. Then a government representative comes to the village recruiting peasants to establish a new settlement on the borderlands, she persuades the despondent Guisheng to sign up. Guisheng leaves his love behind, only to find hardship on the frontier. Ah Zhen, who has fallen ill, is set upon by her groom on her wedding night...BUT the next morning his stabbed corpse is found in the bridal chamber and a body in a bridal gown is found down a well. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!!
Alice Guy's version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. This film is partially lost.