Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink

Feature-length compilation of 1920s newsreel footage, with commentary about news, sports, lifestyles, and historical figures.

Against the backdrop of Vienna's hidebound caste system, aristocrat and army officer Nicki is attracted to peasant Mitzi, although he knows it cannot last. Acquiescing to familial pressure, he ultimately gives her up to marry the more socially acceptable – albeit crippled – heiress Cecelia. Mitzi, for her part, is heartbroken and must resign herself to marrying churlish butcher Schani Eberle.

Kathleen Gerard, a high society wife fed up with her husband's artistic "protegées", decides to take one of her own in Nino, a promising tenor, patronizing him to study in Paris. He and her girlfriend are perfectly happy until the Gerards pay a visit and Mrs. Gerard starts to show too much interest in him.

Frequent comedy co-stars Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand take viewers on a tour of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. Attractions shown include the U.S. Battleship "Oregon", the Australian convict ship "Success" (complete with such punishment devices as a flogging rack and a spiked Iron Maiden), the world's tallest flagpole (251 feet), the Court of Abundance, the Court of the Universe (with sunken garden) and the Tower of Jewels. Fatty and Mabel also visit Frisco's still-under-construction City Hall, accompanied by Frisco's then-Mayor James Rolph Jr. Also appearing in the film is opera star Ernestine Schumann-Heink.

Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink sing "Der Erlkönig", "Trees" and "Pirate Dreams".