Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his...
Jazz age youngster Smoke Thatcher "borrows" a neighbor's car to take Patsy, his sweetheart, to a dance after his father refuses to lend him his car. A car-fight with a rival results in the borrowed automobile's being so wrecked that Smoke cannot return it. The garage to which he and Patsy take the...
A nobleman, posing as a necktie salesman, falls in love with the daughter of a circus puppeteer, even though he is already married to the daughter of his country's war minister.
Maud and Cecil have been in love since they were children in the pre-Civil War South, but Howard, Maud's domineering brother, disapproves of a marriage between them. Instead, he has chosen English nobleman Lord Lovelace as the ideal fiancé for Maud. On the night that the engagement is to be...
M'liss, raised in the mountains as an unruly tomboy, is orphaned and is offered "protection" by Calaveras John and Johnny Cake, friends of her father's murderer. She shows no interest in anything until the new schoolmaster persuades her to tidy herself and get some education. Believing the...
Jim Warren, a crook, is married to Norma, but there was a flaw in their marriage papers and he must marry her again to protect their unborn child. He returns home and gives her some money but it has been stolen and she is sent to jail as an accomplice. To get her out, he is forced to marry another...
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio,...
In the early eighteenth century, pirate captain Jean Lafitte fights a rival pirate and wins a treasure and a beautiful female captive. Although the girl offers herself to Lafitte to save her English lover, Lafitte makes him walk the plank. The girl then places a curse on Lafitte and his...
During an uprising in Algeria in 1869, two Frenchmen--Anatole, the brother of Gabrielle, and Pierre, her sweetheart--join the colors and are later reported dead. Gabrielle is kidnaped and taken to Paris, and the soldiers return.
Lucille, a beautiful and romantic young woman, marries John Linforth, a wealthy businessman, who is twice her age, and too distracted by his business affairs to give her the attention she craves.
When her husband dies and leaves her penniless, Mrs. Lawrence Evringham moves in with her wealthy but grim father-in-law and schemes to marry Eloise, her daughter, to the rich Dr. Ballard.
An American sailor comes to a seedy banana republic, and finds a fellow yank, a stranded girl, as a saloon singer. They fall in love, but a misunderstanding about her feelings toward the local dictator threatens their happiness.
Mrs. Standing, an old-fashioned country mother, sacrifices to put her son John through college so that he might have a better life. Upon completing school, John goes to the city where his financial success blinds him to the basic values taught to him by his mother.
Judy Nichols (Leatrice Joy), a poor girl from Chicago, has decided she cannot marry without money. Her sweetheart, Ronald McKane, a struggling civil engineer (Edmund Burns), is encouraging her to join him in New York, but she only goes when she is bequeathed an inheritance. Unfortunately, the...
