Dr. Robert Lowndes of the British army practices in a small Indian outpost during a cholera epidemic, and to ease his fever, uses morphine. He becomes an addict, but his sweetheart, Betty Archer, makes him promise to reform. Another of Betty's suitors, however, Captain Guy Douglas, uses drugs to...
Sylvia Martin is a destitute young woman who is taken home by Louis Gordon. She doesn't realize he's the leader of a gang of crooks until after she marries him.
Alan Trent (Ronald Colman), his cousin Gerald Shannon (Wyndham Standing) and neighbor Kitty Vane (Vilma Bánky) have grown up together, as close playmates When World War I starts, both Alan and Gerald enlist in the British Army as officiers, and Kitty sees them off to war. Many months later, Alan...
Ruth Minchin is unhappily married to her father's former business partner, a drunken brute. She contracts a friendship for Severino, a pianist, who lives in the same apartment house, and Minchin, discovering them together, orders the pianist from the room and knocks his wife down. Severino kills...
Judge Robert Appleton (Winter Hall) has led an exemplary life. His four children, however, fell short once they grew up and had to fend for themselves. When Appleton dies, his widow (Lydia Knott) explains that his last request was that each child spend one hour of contemplation with his body. The...
During a party held in honor of his daughter Marion, Thomas Sterling announces that he will turn over his shipbuilding plant to the United States government for the duration of World War I. Sterling wants Marion to marry his partner, Hugo Smith, but she prefers Gordon Brett, who proposes to her...
Gloria Swann becomes a dancer at the Palm Garden cabaret, trying to secure a better future and accepts Judge Malvin's offer of marriage despite the disparity of their ages and social stations. One day while Gloria and the judge are driving in the park, their car nearly runs over Larry Gibson, a...
Naomi Sterling and John Bancroft are lovers. The girl loves frivolous things and Bancroft, a divinity student, finally estranges himself from her by his continual efforts to preach to her. Attracted by Hugh Wiley, a gambler, from a nearby city, Naomi finally elopes with him and eventually becomes...
Successful actress Vanna Du Maurier ignores her friends' advice and overworks herself toward her goal of having her own theater. She is introduced to Henri De Greve, a millionaire who might help her, but she recognizes him to be her former husband, the father of her son, Teddy, and therefore...
When her father's death leaves Virginia Hastings facing a life of poverty, she breaks her engagement to Robert Monti to marry millionaire James Vandam. Unaccustomed to wealth, she entertains lavishly and flirts with many men, although her husband's secretary remains immune to her wiles.
This morality play of the starts off with Grace Vaughn running off with married man Dudley Kent (Wyndham Standing). While sailing to England, they meet Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove. Mrs. Hargrove tries to talk Grace out of ruining her life, but the girl won't listen. After a few months, Kent leaves Grace...
Jockey Johnny Jones is hired to ride The Earl of Bloomsburg's horse at the English Derby. Crooked gambler Robert Anstead frames Johnny as a thief and kidnaps his sweetheart in order to make Johnny throw the race. Will he succeed?
Vania is a political refugee who travels from Russia to the United States. But even in America, she is pursued by assassins known as "the Ring of Death" because she carries certain papers given to her back home by her father. She marries a man who turns out to be a drug addict, and in a heated...
An idealistic milkman, Jimmy Burke, organizes the independents to combat the milk trust. Jimmy discovers that George Fairchild is conspiring to poison the independent milk supply.