Acting
After squandering his entire estate, Roy Schuyler is forced by his creditors to marry wealthy Laura Reid. Her half-sister Ann tries to warn her of Roy's motives, but is kidnapped by Roy and incarcerated in an asylum before she can. Roy then tries to force Laura to sign a document which would accord him control of her estate.
Variety short from Warner Brothers' Vitaphone unit: acrobats, a sister act who sings about their days as child movie actors -- two decades earlier -- and dance, a group who sing "Nagasaki", and an acrobatic monkey act to end it all.
After her husband's death in the West, Mrs. Lehr, a young widow who grew up in Cuttleback, decides to return there with her two daughters, Jane and Katherine, and make her home on the old family estate which had been looked after in her absence by Job Jenkins, a caretaker who had been in the Lehr family's employ since boyhood, and by now he has been the estate's sole occupant for so many years that he regards it as part of his life, and is disturbed when his mistress returns with her children.
As the name suggests, this two-reeler contains racial stereotypes common in its day (the Teens) but which are offensive to modern sensibilities. With vaudevillians Jane and Catherine Lee and a large African-American cast.
Two prosperous young brokers, Bill and Bert, compete for the affections of Florence. Bert's stenographer, Violet, who supports her mother, also plays a role in the story. The plot involves themes of competition, love, and possibly social dynamics between the characters.
When their father is reported missing at the front during World War I, Jane and Katherine are stamped and sent by parcel post across the country to their Aunt Lucille Forrest in New Jersey. The two girls manage to smuggle their dog into the mail bag as well. Aunt Lucille is in love with Lt. Tom Hayes, but she is angry with him after he resigns his commission at the start of the war. She does not know that Tom is in the Secret Service, and she becomes jealous of a female spy whom Tom is trailing. Jane and Katherine's mischievous pranks finally assist in capturing the spy and the secret plans, and getting Aunt Lucille back together with Tom.
Jane and Katharine are the sweetest youngsters in the world, in their mother's eyes. The family is summering at a seaside resort when mama is called to town for a week. Not wishing to interrupt her darling's good time, she has her young bachelor brother come to the hotel to take care of the children until she returns. "Billy" Parke undertakes the job.
Grace Leonard, a typical woman of the New York stage, beautiful but old in sin, seduces William Craig, who becomes a thief in order to shower luxuries upon her. He is sentenced to prison and emerges five years later as a sad-faced, gray-haired man, entirely cured of his mad passion for La Valencia. But she sees him and her old passion is stirred, meaning nothing to her that since his release from prison, he has fallen in love and married a good woman who knows nothing of his past. When William is not swayed by her fascinations, Grace threatens to expose his past life. A lost film.
After a busy day of playing pranks on their father's servants and guests, Harry Williams' daughters Jane and Katherine tumble into bed and fall asleep. Having seen a film depicting World War I fighting in Europe, little Jane dreams that two armies, consisting entirely of mechanical dolls, are advancing against each other in battle. While Trik leads the German troops, who are guilty of committing a score of atrocities, Trak heads the Allied army, which ultimately wins the war. In the end, Jane awakens with a start to find that it has all been a dream.
Little Kate and Janie O'Dowd are sent to their wealthy American uncle, Michael O'Dowd, after their Irish father loses his life on a World War I battlefield. Having been locked accidentally into O'Dowd's munitions plant one evening, the children catch sight of their intoxicated cousin Miles O'Dowd admitting two men into the factory. The girls recognize the two as spies they had seen on the boat to America sending signals to a German submarine. After the spies knock Miles cold, the children trap them in a die-stamping machine until help arrives.
Twin sisters Anne and Katherine are separated as children when their parents decide to go their separate ways. Under her mother's influence, Anne develops into a respectable young woman, while Katherine, under her father's tutelage, becomes a callous adventuress.
Jack exchanges his cow for some magic beans. The beans grow overnight into a beanstalk, which Jack climbs, arriving at a castle that is his. Jack sets a deal with the giant in exchange for their fortune.
Francesca Brabaut, who married an artist against her father's advice, regrets her decision when her husband Antoine, in debt, sends her to his misanthropic uncle to plead for money.
Jack Calvert bets four friends that he can travel from New York to Constantinople without a cent.
Mary Doone (Theda Bara) is a poor British girl who runs away from her adopted family because the father made a pass at her. She lives at a parish house, and at the outbreak of World War I, she becomes a Red Cross nurse.
Orphaned sisters Kate and Irene are separated as children, but each keeps half of their mother's wedding ring. Years later Irene marries John West, the head of a munitions camp. Kate, as fate would have it, happens to run the saloon in the camp and she and Irene become friends, but neither has any idea that the other is her long-lost sister. Matters take a turn for the worse, however, when Kate starts a romance with Cliff, Irene's adopted brother--a relationship that Irene strongly disapproves of. Complications ensue.
Andrew Sheldon is so busy perfecting a new explosive for the United States effort in World War I that he fails to realize that his butler, cook, housekeeper and chauffeur are all German spies. His two mischievous daughters, Jane and Katherine, however, make life difficult for the spies by throwing pies at the Kaiser's picture and clipping the butler's long, Prussian-style mustache while he sleeps. When Andrew's wife announces that she is pregnant, he tells the girls that he has written a letter requesting a baby brother for them, whereupon they decide to steal the letter, convinced that two children are enough for their family. Breaking into Andrew's laboratory, they take the "letter," actually the secret formula, but after Andrew reveals that his plans are missing, the butler enters the laboratory and seizes the invention itself.
Letters from the late mother of orphaned sisters Jane and Katherine seem to indicate that their father is Capt. Bob Dutton. Under orders from his superior, Colonel Harding, to acknowledge the children or quit the service, Dutton accepts responsibility for them. Shocked by his presumably checkered past, Cecile Harding, Dutton's fiancée and the colonel's daughter, breaks their engagement. One evening Jane surprises Capt. Robert Duncan, Dutton's rival for Cecile, stealing Bob's papers.
After running away from an orphanage, young Alicia Jones disguises herself as a boy and gets a job on a farm. She falls in love with Harry Deigan, a farmhand who knows her secret, but when the farm's owner finds out, he fires her. Alicia is forced to return to the city, where she meets up with a wealthy man who adopts her. He turns out to be Thomas Deigan, the half-brother of Alice's love Harry Deigan. Harry finds out that Thomas is his half-brother, but also finds out something that could change his, Thomas' and Alicia's lives forever.
When her lover deserts her, Gioconda Dianti seeks revenge by wrecking the lives of other men. When famous sculptor Lucio Settala meets her and asks her to pose for him, she sets out to ruin him. She captivates the artist with her charms, and he soon forgets his wife Silvia, their daughter Little Beata, and even his work. After Gioconda defies Silvia to take her husband back, Lucio shoots himself in a fit of desperation. Although Silvia nurses him back to health, Lucio soon returns to the enticing Gioconda. When Silvia's subsequent quarrel with Gioconda becomes a fight, Gioconda attempts to destroy Lucio's statue, but it falls on Silvia and is saved. Silvia, however, is crippled for life. Because of this, Lucio's sanity is affected and he becomes a raving maniac. Later, cast aside by her "man of the world," Gioconda also descends into madness. A lost film.
