The Butterfly

After becoming a Supreme Court justice, Peter Graham is visited by Olive Martin, a singer from New Orleans, Louisiana, with whom he had an affair in his youth. Although Peter has been sending money to maintain Olive's silence and to support their son, she now sees an opportunity to join high society, and demands that Peter divorce his wife to marry her. Meanwhile, in Boston, Massachusetts, Olive's son, Harold, becomes engaged to Peter's daughter, Anita, but the young lovers are soon devastated by the news that they were both sired by the same man. Olive's dissolute brother-in-law, Thomas Donald, finds Peter on the brink of suicide and reveals that he is Harold's father. Thomas goes on to explain that Olive adopted the boy as a means to blackmail Peter. Harold and Anita marry, while Peter confesses to his wife and Olive leaves town.

Irving Robertson, a successful playwright, has just received a message from out of town to witness the initial performance of one of his plays. As he is about to leave, Henderson, the manager, calls to pay a sum due him for royalties. At the same time, Frank Wilson, a friend of the family, drops in.

Madame Vavin dies alone in a small French village without knowledge of her second marriage in England known to anyone. Consequentially her first husband James Fullerton and his tyrannical sister Cornelia take custody of her young daughter Dora. The puritanical pair take Dora to America but disapprove of her spirited nature especially when Dora decides upon a theatrical career. On stage, Dora meets and falls in love with playwright Willard Holcomb, but the fears implanted by Fullerton and his sister make Dora incapable of romantic commitment. As she despairs of her fate, Professor Vavin, who has spent years searching for Dora, discovers his daughter and explains there is nothing to fear from love. Her confidence thus restored, Dora can continue with her life.

Ruth Carroll, a schoolteacher in New York's Lower East Side, meets Bolshevist Alexis Minski at her grandfather's bookstore. After Ruth complains to her superintendent about undernourished schoolchildren, Minski's ravings cause her suspension, and she joins the Reds. Meanwhile, Captain Nathan Levison, returning from the Argonne, is assigned by the Secret Service to investigate New York's radicals. While visiting the Carrolls to announce the imminent arrival of Ruth's brother Davy, who saved Levison's life but lost his foot, Levison falls in love with Ruth. Chagrined, Minski convinces Ruth that Levison plans to arrest her and her grandfather, whereupon Ruth furiously requests that Levison be killed. After Governor Alfred E. Smith signs a bill making it illegal to display the Red flag, the Bolshevists plot to assassinate him, the Mayor of Seattle, and Attorney General Alexander Palmer, but Davy, with other soldiers, break up the meeting.

Indian Prince Rhandah is sent to be educated in England. After an English woman flirts with him to steal his betrothal amulet, he returns home embittered. When she and her fiancé are later captured in India, the prince ultimately relents to a plea for mercy.

In this apparently lost film, a beautiful dancer's sexual allure is used by an evil cripple to entice men to their deaths. Falling in love with one of the potential victims, she is told by the cripple that he will set her free if her lover, actually a murderer himself, survives and escapes a bizarre labyrinthe which runs beneath the cripple's house.

Belle Bennett plays as the widowed mother of seven children living in Sioux City, Iowa. She moves with them to Cambridge, Massachusetts in order to educate her children with culture and give them every advantage. Bennett, who is unversed in financial matters, soon faces poverty for herself and her children. She takes out a loan from an unscrupulous lender (played by Richard Tucker), who is so impressed by the charm and valiant spirit of Bennett than he neglects to ask her for collateral. Bennett, however, is only able to partially pay her creditors. Marion Nixon, Bennett's eldest daughter, is shocked by her mother's actions and attempts to sacrifice herself to Tucker in order to clear her mother's obligations, even though she is engaged to marry a well to do Harvard undergraduate, played by Rex Bell. This film is believed lost.

Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.

The Gray Ghost is a 1917 American crime-drama film serial directed by Stuart Paton. Chapters: 1. The Bank Mystery; 2. The Mysterious Message; 3. The Warning; 4. The Fight; 5. Plunder; 6. The House of Mystery; 7. Caught in the Web; 8. The Double Floor; 9. The Pearl Necklace; 10. Shadows; 11. The Flaming Meteor; 12. The Poisoned Ring; 13. The Tightening Snare; 14. At Bay; 15. The Duel; 16. From Out of the Past.

Rose Jorgenson, a poor tenement dweller who lives with her daughters Rose and Norma in a slum and whose husband is in prison, finds out that he is to be electrocuted. Distraught, she commits suicide. The children are adopted--Rose by the wealthy Judge Keith, who brings her up in the lap of luxury, and Norma by a poor neighbor, who raises her in the squalid tenement she was born in. After they reach adulthood Norma is hired as an assistant to the shady hypnotist Caistro, who also knows Rose and notices the strong resemblance between the two. Complications ensue.

Henry intends to leave his wife for Mrs. Lenning but seeks to retain custody of their son, leading to a situation where they attempt to force Mrs. Jackson to run away, allowing him to secure a divorce.

When Jack Greylock elopes with Jessica, wife of his lifelong friend David Drene, they are taken with remorse and she commits suicide. Later, Jack falls in love with Cecile, David's model, who loves Drene. A jealous rival, Quair, informs David about the elopement with Jessica, and to satisfy David's vengeance Jack proposes to kill himself. By mental telepathy, David prevents the tragedy and forgives him. —AFI

Yale graduate, Yale Durant, facing financial ruin and contemplating suicide, discovers his fiancée's father is also facing ruin; he tries to save them but ends up in a perilous situation, getting caught up in a family feud and a rival's plot.

Susanne Danbury and Walter Gaylord, the man she loves, are among the weekend guests of her publisher, Hugh Bemis, and his wife Agatha, who also loves Walter. Lost film.

Roy Conover has just returned to his village home from college.

Jane Abom, a woman unaware of her husband’s criminal life, begins working as a newspaper writer and later marries her editor after her husband is reported dead. A former associate of her first husband later attempts to blackmail Jane by revealing he is still alive. When Jane and her first husband finally confront one another, he is killed in the ensuing struggle. Ultimately, a friend clears Jane of any wrongdoing, allowing her to find happiness with the editor.

Dorothy Desmond, a naive young woman from Kentucky who becomes virtually penniless after her father (an editor) is shot by a political rival and her mother dies of shock. Believing she has a talent for writing, Dorothy travels to New York to find work at a newspaper. She secures a position and is assigned to the Chinatown section of the city to cover a story, which presumably involves the titular jade necklace and the "perils" hinted at by the serial's title.

A sorrowing mother, bereft of her infant, visits a foundling asylum and adopts a baby girl. The young window lavishes her love and care on the adopted infant and her environment is the finest. Father Time present the baby with an hour glass containing "The Sands of Time" which are all in the upper part of the glass.

Amy Lindel, a church choir singer, goes to the city to pursue a singing career, but finds herself only able to get cabaret gigs. She then becomes entangled in a situation involving stolen diamonds, and is saved by the "good guy" whom she later marries.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains Postmaster's daughter Sally Haston loves Steve Carey, but wants him to enlist and fight the Germans during the Great War. Steve is unhappy at the training camp Steve argues with his roughneck tentmate Billy Murphy. When Steve deserts to visit Sally she takes him back to the camp, where Captain Roderick Brooke sympathetically explains the purpose of the war. Later, moonshiner James Grogan holes up with a gun to escape the draft and holds Sally prisoner. Her father organizes a posse, but Steve, home on leave, rescues her and announces that he is leaving for Europe to fight for democracy.