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.
Mrs. Brown, who is a widow, finds it a rather difficult matter to clothe and feed her large family of children, so when she becomes acquainted on the beach with Captain Jenks she is not slow in inviting him to her house. That evening the Captain calls with an engagement ring. He asks the widow to become his wife, but just as he is accepted Mrs. Brown's numerous offspring come running into the room. Upon being told that they are her children the Captain nearly faints and does not know how to break the engagement.
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.
When his aunt disapproves of his marriage to Mabel Deering and threatens to disinherit him, Percy elicits the aid of his buddy Billy Haskell, who is engaged to Eileen Stanley. It is arranged that Billy and Mabel be found together in compromising circumstances by Percy and his aunt, but matters are complicated by the arrival of Billy's uncle in the city, and Aunt Emma becomes very fond of him. All is subsequently explained and thoughts of "divorce" are smoothed away as Uncle Todd couples up with Aunt Emma, and Billy and Eileen, and Percy and Mabel, reinstitute their carefree engagements.
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.
Charles Jackson, an American sea-captain and singing soldier-of-fortune, is arrested by the French Foreign Legion for running guns to the rebel forces in Morocco fighting against the rule of the French in north Africa. He is saved by Lili La Fleur, a singer/dance in a Morocco café and, through her, eventually becomes a hero to the Foreign Legion.
Office boy Bill encounters a group of anarchists and inadvertently involves one of them in a scheme to open a safe. The "W.W.W.'s" stands for "We Won't Work", a comedic take on the real-life labor movement, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies").
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.
Andrew Maxwell is so intent on creating a universal language that he completely neglects his wife, Laurette, and daughter, Ruth. Laurette decides she wants to return to the stage and is encouraged by Charles Prescott, a former suitor. When Maxwell discovers Laurette and Prescott together, he berates her, and she angrily moves out, taking Ruth along with her.
Geoffrey Brooke, an African explorer, becomes a friend of Rodney Miller, a struggling young artist. Through his influence Miller becomes celebrated. Brooke is called to the Congo, leaving behind his bride of a few months. Miller is about to despair of finding a suitable model for his supreme artistic effort, a painting of Circe, the temptress, when Cleo, a bewitchingly beautiful woman enters and offers to pose for it.
The Isle of Lost Men is one of those lawless tropical island colonies so beloved of adventure-story writers.
Bonnie and Cliff meet cute when she gives him a lift after his car has broken down. Turns out she’s getting ready to open a beauty parlor and bleaches her hair platinum blonde to drum up business much to the chagrin of a local woman’s group. However, when Cliff’s wealthy mother invites Bonnie to be guest of honor at her yacht party things turn around both business and personally for the pair.
The Jewish Nate Cohen and the Irish-Catholic Patrick Kelly are business partners who are constantly fighting. When they find out that Nate's daughter Sadye and Patrick's son Pat Jr. are getting married in Paris, the two and their wives take an ocean liner to France to stop the marriage. When they get there, they find that the situation has radically changed, and not for the better.
Jack Pickford got his own production company when his sister Mary signed a huge contract with First National, and this was its first product. the story takes place in the Blue Ridge mountains, where the Appersons and the Yartons have an ongoing feud.
A mystery-comedy with multiple backgrounds set in a back-stage and penthouse backgrounds finds actress Rita Witherspoon mistakenly entering the apartment of Ricardo Souchet, a rich bachelor. He immediately suspects her of a murder that has just been committed in the apartment next to his. His prisoner for the night, she slips out at dawn, after two more murders have happened.
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.
When elderly Joseph Moreau and his young wife Therese offer refuge to starving young dramatist Paul Savary, gossips begin to spread rumors of a love affair between the wife and the writer. For the good of all concerned, Paul moves into separate quarters. One day Paul overhears the gossip again at a café and challenges the purveyor of the lie to a duel. Moreau, for his own satisfaction, takes Paul's place in combat and is mortally wounded. Moreau staggers to Paul's apartment where he discovers Therese, who has come to beg the writer to refuse to fight.
Rich cousins marry after they are both bankrupted.