Emilio Fernandez directs Dolores Del Rio and Pedro Armendariz in a classic tale of family and obsession. Raimunda's daughter Acacia hates her stepfather Esteban, and in order to escape her suffocating home life she's accepted a marriage proposal from a man she doesn't even love. But Esteban has become obsessed with Acacia, and in order to ensure that she doesn't leave he's plotting to murder the girl's unsuspecting fiancée. As Esteban's true nature emerges, mother and daughter must band together to support one another and make sure that their family bond remains strong even in the darkest of times.
Raised to believe that her mother Elois, is dead, 18-year-old Yvette Muree is aghast to learn that mom is a burlesque queen.
Agnes Belgradin is in love with a young doctor, Loring Brent. When Agnes' father dies, her mother takes her on a trip abroad. She insists that the young couple separate before they set sail, and promises that if they still love each other after a year they can reunite. But Mrs. Belgradin intercepts all the letters Agnes and Brent write one another, and convinces her daughter to marry a wealthy Australian millionaire.
Irving Lawrence owns some of the most decrepit tenements in town and is an all-around bad guy. He won't cooperate with the efforts of his wife, Barbara, to help the poor and sees other women behind her back. Muriel, one of his cast-offs, meets and marries Barbara's brother, Payne. Lawrence makes trouble for Muriel and fabricates a scandal involving his kindly brother Schuyler and Barbara.
Isabel Clifford sits to be painted. Her artist is Marion Leslie, a man distracted by matters of the flesh. Not Isabel’s flesh but Lorelei’s, the same Lorelei who wows the corrupt police chief, Sarpina, with her virtuoso vocal performances. She is Mexico’s most celebrated opera diva, Marion’s fiancé, and Sarpina’s passion, yet she boils with petty suspicion over Marion’s friendship with Isabel.
Mark Stetson, a scheming politician, entangles the Brandons, husband and wife, and their friend, Antoinette, in his smuggling schemes and engineers their arrest, to protect himself. Edited into Shadows of the Past (1919).
Freckles, a one-armed orphan tired of being tormented by others runs away eventually finding a place as a watchman in the timber camp, The Limberlost. He falls in love with Angel but feeling unworthy of her keeps his feelings silent until a near catastrophic incident reveals the bond between them.
A policeman falls for a teacher, and befriends her students. A gang of bootleggers threatens his newfound joys.
East Side gangster Buck Leslie attempts to stop a fight between chemist Gregory and a tough and is pursued by detective Phil Hoyt to a tenement roof where he takes refuge. On the roof he meets crippled Hilda Shea, who shelters him, and they eventually fall in love, the appeal of her innocence causing him to reform. Buck antagonizes the gang, however, and they try to frame him. Hoyt finds Buck on the roof, and during the ensuing fight the tenement catches on fire. Buck rescues Hilda, and she miraculously regains use of her limbs. The detective abandons his pursuit, leaving the lovers happy.
At his father’s insistence Billy Drake heads to the family’s South American ammunition company as an emissary. Before leaving, however, the movie-struck Billy spots a beautiful woman standing in front of a theater and imagines that she is a film star. To his delight, he finds the woman on board his ship, as well as political agitator Count Von Nuttenburg who has stolen a movie camera, thinking that it is a new brand of machine gun. Von Nuttenburg shows the camera to Billy. Thinking the Count is a director, and the ship a set for a movie melodrama when the boat lands at a port torn by revolution, Billy insists that the guns and soldiers are part of the show. Not until he and the girl are seized by the rebels and threatened with death, does he admit his error. By a clever ruse, he escapes from his captors and with the help of Federal troops defeats the Count and wins the heart of his pretty shipmate.
June Arbuthnot tries to make her bored husband jealous by feigning a scandal with another man, which ultimately backfires when the ruse becomes too believable.
A young man living in a cold southern village in South America, decides to start a trip looking for his father. By doing this he discovers unexpected facts about his Latin American essence.
An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
Beloved Mother
A dedicated wife and mother takes the blame for embezzling money that was actually stolen by her husband in order to buy medicine and a doctor's care for the couple's seriously ill infant son. Consequently, the well-meaning woman is willingly sentenced to years in prison for a crime she did not commit-all because she believes her son will fare better if the bond between father and son remains intact. Upon her release, she soon discovers that no good deed goes unpunished. Her once loving husband has remarried a woman that her son calls Mother, After just a brief glimpse of her loved ones, she simply leaves without saying a word. Many years later, she becomes a patient at her son's busy medical practice just so that she can keep an eye on his progress in secret. In a cruel twist of fate, it is only after he diagnoses her as being terminally ill does does she reveal her true identity. The poor woman subsequently learns that her former father-in-law lied about her initial release from ...
Confederate Col. Lafe Harvey (Earl Ross) travels home after the Civil War, where he must tell his niece, Betty (Frances Grant), that her father is presumed dead. Soon after he returns, scavengers destroy the family home and he and Betty escape westward. Meanwhile, Gen. John Harvey (William Welch), Betty's father, has been seriously injured but is not dead. He arrives at the deserted plantation with the help of Union soldier Tom (Bob Steele), who then pledges to help John find his family
Bored by her hardworking husband, Tess goes to an illegal gambling den with a former suitor, Arthur Sinclair. The den is robbed and subsequently raided by police. Tess loses her rings and lies to her husband about her whereabouts. Her lies are exposed when the rings are found by the police. While trying to manage the fallout, she writes a compromising letter that is intercepted and used to blackmail her for $15,000. After being embroiled in further dangerous, fraudulent activity, her innocence regarding the robbery and associated crimes is established through the confession of a criminal named Peter Vanetti.
Accused of theft by Mabel Arthur's brother, Dick Halpin accepts the blame and runs away to join the Navy to save Mabel from humiliation. Later he is shanghaied with Lieutenant Breen by Captain Bilker and his henchmen. They endure cruel treatment until they finally escape and rejoin their ships in Santiago Harbor just as war is breaking with Spain. Dick is commissioned for his courage in the battle with Spanish warships; Mabel's brother confesses his guilt of the theft; and the misunderstanding between Dick and Breen over Mabel and Bessie Fleming is cleared up to everyone's satisfaction.
A Confederate soldier battles with amnesia, vagrants, and tramps as he makes his way back home and to his sweetheart, Virginia.
Chorus girl Peggy Malone, supporting her father and brother, marries press agent Jimmy Parsons. They settle into a quiet life until her "shiftless" relatives move in, causing marital strain and financial pressure. To escape the domestic chaos and support her family, Peggy returns to the stage and eventually joins a motion picture company in Los Angeles. She quickly becomes a famous film star, continuing to provide for her ungrateful family while Jimmy moves to Arizona to recuperate from failing health. While filming a dangerous stunt, Peggy is seriously injured. During her recovery, she is forced to choose between the wealthy admirer Martin Fox and her husband Jimmy, who travels to Los Angeles to win her back. Peggy chooses love over wealth, reuniting with Jimmy (now a successful scenarist) and finally finding true happiness.