Acting
When oil is discovered just outside a small New England town, the residents go wild at the prospect of newfound wealth, and they invest their money with the head of the venture, a young man named Bruce Merlin.
John living a Bohemian life in Paris when his twin brother James, a British financier, appears and implores John to assume his identity so that he can secretly cross the Atlantic for a business deal. John consents and soon discovers that James is a cruel, unethical man who has forced his wife June into their marriage. John attempts to rectify the situation, and June falls in love with him.
Robert Ardis, a small-town youth studying for the ministry, encounters a visiting Gypsy, Marcheta, and is displeased by her pagan conduct. When she saves the life of his younger brother, however, Robert becomes fascinated with her. Though scorning his religion, Marcheta saves his life during a storm by praying for a miracle, and in rescuing him she comes to believe in God.
Pampy lives in a quaint little Dutch village, where she supports her invalid father by selling flowers to tourists. Pampy is so beautiful that she provides inspiration to Donald Luther, an American artist who is visiting the village, and at his request, poses for him. Just as his interest starts to blossom into love, he is called away for two weeks. During his absence Pampy's father dies, leaving her only with directions to her wealthy grandfather's home in New York.
Love and double-crosses at the bank.
Bessie Wheaton returns from Europe to find her nouveau riche family has adopted and magnified the worst characteristics of the upper class. Her father spends all of his time at the club, her mother cultivates snobbishness, and her sister thinks only of marrying into royalty. To shake them out of their aristocratic poses, Bessie decides to reflect all of their faults, becoming as lazy as her father and as status conscious as her mother. She even rejects her own sweetheart, Allan Shelby, to lure Count d'Orr away from her sister. Finally, the members of the family confront Bessie, and she angrily tells them that she was only mirroring their behavior. Bessie then runs away, but Allan, with whom she quickly reconciles, brings her back, just as her family acknowledges its recent burlesque of the upper crust.
Nell Saunders is the daughter of an innkeeper in a college town. She is loved by Glen Dale, the quarterback of the college team, and also Pierson, the fullback.
Unknown to his proud and wealthy family, Granger Hollister marries Margery Harding, a telephone operator. Granger presents his new wife at an engagement party given for his sister Jane, but Jane's fiance, Lord Cecil Graydon, threatens to break off the betrothal unless Granger's marriage is annulled. To please his sister, Granger sacrifices Margery, who seeks work and later gives birth to a child. Following the baby's death, Margery goes West, where she befriends an old miner who later leaves her his fortune. Meanwhile, Granger becomes involved in a fraudulent mining deal, and because of George Osborne's perjured testimony, he is sent to prison for five years. When he escapes, Margery agrees to hide him and is ultimately responsible for obtaining his pardon. Granger then remarries the wife he once abandoned.
A young Italian immigrant girl, uneducated and superstitious, finds an abandoned baby on the stairs of her tenement, with a note attached explaining the baby is illegitimate. A young newspaper reporter, whom the girl knows from waiting on him at the restaurant where she works, reads the note for her. But the police arrest her, at no evidence whatsoever other than possession of the baby, for kidnapping.
Wealthy wastrel Neil Sparks devotes more attention to the pursuit of pleasure than to his inherited oil business. Neil's neglect allows two schemers, Craig and Abbott, to siphon the Sparks' Texas oil through the construction of an illegal pipeline. Upon receiving notification that his wells are running dry, and in an attempt to rid himself of the unwelcome attentions of his mercenary fiancée, Bess Kinloch, Neil ventures West to investigate, using an assumed name. Discovering the theft, Neil sends for his butler, and the two of them force the crooks to buy a parcel of land and deed the property to Myrtle Pratt, whose father had been swindled and murdered by the scoundrels. Justice served, Neil returns East to be followed by Myrtle and her five brothers, who arrive during his engagement party to Bess. Neil shocks his guests by announcing that the children are his, and he and Myrtle wed.
Delmar Spavinaw, an educated "half-breed," loves Evelyn Huntington, daughter of a racist judge. Evelyn's other suitor is Ross Kennion, a widower with one child, and owner of a vast tract of land which Spavinaw insists belongs to his Indian mother. Spavinaw seeks revenge when Judge Huntington decides to evict the squaw. Assisted by Juan Del Rey, a cattle rustler, Spavinaw steals the title to the land, wounds Kennion, stages a raid on the judge's cattle, and attempts to kidnap Kennion's son and Evelyn. The arrival of the sheriff forces him into flight across the border without his hostages. En route he meets Doll Pardeau, a school friend of Evelyn's, and together they ride for the Mexican border. Caught between a cattle stampede and a sheriff's posse, the couple catch a passing freight train, leaving calamity behind as the train slowly passes.
Julian Randolph, a disreputable lawyer, gains an ad interim appointment to the Supreme bench as a reward for fixing a jury that acquits the brother of the political boss of a charge of murder. He was promised the nomination for the full term at the next election, but gains it only through threat of exposure of a bigamous marriage contracted by the boss. Then comes love for a noble woman and the question whether he shall take defeat with honor or gain seeming honor at the cost of his manhood. It is a momentous problem, but he makes a decision that proves him worthy of the robes of honor.
Shenanigans at a small town movie theater.
When Marquita Shay, the adopted daughter of Canadian farmer John Grayson, reaches womanhood, Grayson enrolls her in a St. Louis boarding school where she meets and marries Humphrey Wells, the son of a wealthy financier. Treated like a servant by her in-laws, Marquita leaves the Humphrey's home to return to Grayson. She discovers that Grayson has committed suicide after falling victim to a phony stock deal perpetrated by Wells senior. Time passes and Marquita travels to New York where she becomes secretary to Baron Brinker who, with Wells, swindled Grayson. She brings Wells and Brinker to their financial ruin and reunites with her husband who renounces his father.
Young Southerners Buck Hineman and Remington Osbury both are in love with the same woman, who promises to marry the one who returns when the Civil War breaks out. On the battlefield, Remington is wounded and left for dead, and Buck returns to marry her. Shortly afterward, Remington returns and contents himself with becoming one of the Hineman family.
Adele Bleneau is a young nurse who assists her father, a renowned surgeon/. While in Washington, DC, she meets and falls in love with a British army officer, Capt. Fraser. While traveling by ship to France with her father, she meets Count von Schulling, a German diplomat who is an acquaintance of her father. Von Schulling falls for the pretty young Adele. While in France, Adele organizes a rescue party to save Capt. Fraser, who has been on a secret mission behind enemy lines and has been wounded. In a twist of fate, Adele finds the wounded Fraser and takes him to a hospital, but Count von Schuling, who has also been wounded, is placed in the same room as Fraser. When the hospital is overrun by German forces, Adele is placed in a delicate position by von Sculling: either spy for the Germans or Fraser will be shot.
Illustrator Donald Barstow living in a run-down studio building develops an interest in the married Mrs. Blakely. She invites him to Philadelphia for the weekend and he accepts leading to unexpected complications for both.
Gordon Elliott, a student at one of the big universities, is unable to make the football team until his senior year. He is then awarded a position at center because of his superior method of passing the ball, though his lightness is against him. He overhears the head coach say that Dick Blackwood would make a better center if only he could master the pass. In his loyalty to the college Elliott teaches Blackwood the pass, thereby eliminating himself, not merely from the team, but also, as he supposes, from the possibility of winning Marjorie Burgess, who has commanded him to return for his answer after he has played his first big game.
After her father dies and a banker, to whom he owed $5,000, insults the family's honor, dancing instructor Mary Lee, the last of a long line of Southern aristocrats, goes to New York vowing to repay the debt. In Paris, Raoul Garson, an American theatrical manager, signs dancing sensation Anna Gerard, who resembles Mary, to appear on Broadway against the wishes of her Apache lover Pierre La Rouge.
Forced to abandon his ancestral castle, William Tudor accompanies his granddaughter Irene to London, while millionaire John Kershaw buys the castle for his son, "Kit." Irene joins the Gaiety Theatre company, hoping that her lover, Owen, who has gone to Africa, will return and purchase the castle from the Kershaws.
