Acting
Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit show so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he just may pull it off until temperamental star Dorthy Brock breaks her ankle on the eve of the show's premiere and has to be replaced by her understudy Peggy.
When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.
Bubbles is a tomboy who resists her Aunt Amelia's attempts to transform her into a lady. One day, while dressed in masculine attire, she meets Jack Corrigan and they become friends.
An artist in England is torn between an old flame and the now grown up little girl he has adopted.
In Oklahoma, kindhearted outlaw Brick Willock rescues little Lahoma Gledware and her father Henry from certain death at the hands of his outlaw band. In the course of the rescue, he kills Kansas Kimball, the brother of the outlaws' leader Red Kimball, who vows vengeance against Brick. Brick renounces his life of crime, and after Gledware relinquishes custody of his daughter to marry an Indian princess, the old cowboy gives refuge to the little girl, raising her with the help of neighbor Bill Atkins.
Joe, a good natured Italian, runs a basement ice, coal, and wood establishment in the cheap Italian "East Side." Trina, daughter of old Capino, a cobbler, lives next door. She is fond of Joe and is relieved when she learns that Joe's "sweetheart," who arrives from Italy, is none other than his little old "Mama Mia," his mother.
A young Belgian girl, raised by her longtime nanny, flees Europe at the advent of World War I and travels to America to find her real mother.
Former playboy Victor Olney becomes jealous of his wife's love soon after he and Constance are married. He is especially hostile toward Clint Mowbray, a former suitor. When Mowbray implies that there was an affair between Olney and a dancer who was injured at Olney's bachelor party, Constance leaves her husband to nurse the girl back to health. Olney's mother-in-law convinces him that Constance was not unfaithful. They are reconciled when Olney goes to Constance and it is ascertained that there was nothing between him and the dancer.
Harry Shelby has been kept in knee pants for years by his overprotective parents, but the day finally comes when Harry is given his first pair of long pants. Almost immediately, he is expected to marry his childhood sweetheart Priscilla... but instead, Harry's first heady whiff of manhood has got him panting after Bebe, a "fast" woman from the big city. Mistakenly thinking that Bebe fancies him too, Harry risks everything to help her out when she lands in jail, only to end up in hot water himself. Through it all, sweet Priscilla waits for her man to come to his senses.
A welcome guest of the French aristocracy, Monsieur Picard having been awarded the Croix De Guerre, is also a master thief who baffles the Parisian police. One night, while Picard watches an Apache dance, he learns that one of his three adopted children is seriously ill. When his car breaks down, Picard politely forces Helen Deprenay to loan him her auto, and leaves his cross as security. The next day, the police pursue Picard to the Deprenay home where the prefect warns Helen about Picard. Helen writes to the entreating Picard, and refuses to see him until he proves himself of worth to society. Disguised as Scotland Yard agent Armand DuBois, Picard is present at the Deprenay home when a necklace is stolen. After Helen covers for him, Picard catches the thief in an attempt to swindle the entire community in a stock market scheme. He informs the police that Picard no longer exists, and escapes with Helen to a new life.
After his mining partner Joe Pelton's death, wealthy bachelor Richard Chester adopts Joe's five young children and takes them East by train. The children are hellions upsetting the calm of the Pullman car en route to New York City, and his home upon arrival. Richard enrolls them all in school except for the youngest. His frosty society fiancée Ethel McVae refuses to have anything to do with the children. After seeing how Richard interacts with his stenographer Sally Lockwood when she helps him nurse the youngest child through a night's illness Ethel breaks the engagement. Richard declares his love for Sally, and they join to raise a family.
Though betrothed to fellow socialite Richard, Iris weds her chauffeur Tom leaving Richard to marry the family laundress' daughter Shamrock. Class differences lead to divorces and remarriages.
Traffic cop Larry Hayes takes care of four-year-old Mary Jane, the daughter of Gus Andrews, a criminal sent to prison because of Larry, and Nellie, a shop girl who visits often.
Lee Randon, weary of business duties and a conventional home life, acquires a long-lost sense of excitement and romance with young flapper Claire Morris. When he meets her married aunt, Savina Grove, she appears to be the woman he imagines whenever he gazes at a doll he has christened Cytherea, goddess of love -----Cytherea features two dream sequences filmed in an early version of the Technicolor color film process.
When her drunken father dies from falling downstairs on the night of her engagement announcement, Helen Winthrop finds a note from him warning that drinking has ruined the family's past four generations. She breaks her engagement to lawyer Robert Craig so that she can test herself as she fears that her children might inherit the habit. After sacrificing her reputation to save that of her adulterous married friend Stella Scarr, Helen goes to a resort hotel where she wins a tennis tournament and flirts with Percy Farwell, the son of social climber Mrs. Honorah Farwell. In order to break up her son's romance with a supposedly disgraced woman, Mrs. Farwell hires Robert Craig.
When a smart-alec street kid's father, a policeman, is killed in the line of duty, the boy turns over a new leaf and goes to work to support his mother, brothers, and sisters. He gets a job as an usher in a theater but really wants to become a policeman to avenge the death of his father. He soon finds himself involved in a fake kidnapping, real gangsters and a tip on the identity of the man who killed his dad.
Because Bob Meredith (Jack Holt) spends all his time working, his wife Margaret (Lois Wilson) feels the romance has ebbed away from their marriage. One night, while Meredith is at the office, family friend Julian Osborn (Conrad Nagel) -- whose own spouse (Lila Lee) is out of town -takes Margaret to a dance. They wind up at a hunting lodge and begin to get carried away, but stop before things get out of hand. The pair agree to keep their encounter a secret, but unfortunately, they've been seen and word gets back to their spouses.
Beverly Arnold is a secretary in the law firm of John Cumberland and Stephen Gray. Both men court her, but Beverly succumbs to the charms of Gray. With her help, he writes a bestselling novel which leads him to give up his law career. After their marriage, Beverly continues to aid Gray with his writing, bringing a touch to his work that makes him famous. Gray, however, in his conceit, becomes bored with his wife and divorces her for Hedda Kossiter, a vampirish artist. Beverly, freed from Gray, becomes a literary success in her own right. Gray, anxious to win her back, is dismayed to discover that her heart has turned to his former partner, John Cumberland.
A wealthy socialite poses as a magazine editor living in a boardinghouse to learn more about an intriguing woman who wants to publish her stories.
A doctor serving the slums questions his faith after transitioning to a position with more prestige and wealth.
