University professor George Kingsley is struck by gangsters while crossing the street, leaving him with brain damage and one of the gangsters, Cannon, paralyzed. Kingsley's friend Dr. Sovac attends to both men, and when Cannon offers him a reward for aiding his recovery, Kovac transplants part of...
A fictionalized account of famous French writer Emile Zola and his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair. After struggling to establish himself, Zola wins success writing about the unsavory side of Paris and settles into a comfortable upper-class life. However, Zola's complacency is shaken when Jewish...
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany...
Ace reporter Curt Devlin and fellow reporter Ellen Garfield love one another, but Curt believes women are "bum newspapermen". When a murder investigation ensues, the two compete every step of the way, determined to not be scooped by the other.
Just after a jury finds Ann Grey guilty of murder, the car carrying her to prison crashes into another car. Ann escapes and ends up in lawyer Tony Baxter's car. Tony realizes Ann is innocent, so he vows to help her prove it, risking his neck in the process. Tony and Ann are pursued by the police...
After a roustabout sailor avoids being shanghaied in 1850s San Francisco, his audacity helps him rise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.
An alcoholic lawyer who successfully defended a notorious gambler on a murder charge objects when his free-spirited daughter becomes romantically involved with him.
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
His role in the plight of an unemployed man (Humphrey Bogart) and his disabled daughter profoundly affects an intractable Irish policeman (Pat O'Brien).
A railroad tycoon, disillusioned with his marriage, starts seeing a showgirl. Things go agreeably until the woman's manager decides to blackmail the millionaire.
President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.
Jack Brookfield, a gambler with clairvoyant and hypnotic powers, is able to win at cards through his unique gift. But when he inadvertently hypnotizes young Clay Thorne, Thorne kills an enemy of Brookfield's while under a trance. No one believes Brookfield's protestations that Thorne is innocent of...
Jeffrey and Glenda are two lovers about to embark on a three-day cruise to nowhere. Their plan is to be married on board by the ship's captain. As Glenda is packing to leave, she receives a threatening phone call from her obsessed, former lover Leo. Glenda confronts Leo and tells him that it's...
Suspected crime boss Nate Girard beats a murder rap, and newspaper photog Kent Murdock is on the story. Girard and lawyer Redfield throw a party for the news men where Murdock romances a mystery woman who confronted Girard in front of him, but Murdock's fiancée Hester shows up. After they return...
A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the...
