Acting
Aside from the fact that Polly had red hair in abundance, she was not otherwise an exceptional child, save for one thing. She was willing to work and slave, if need be, to keep her baby brother, affectionately termed "The Lump," from being sent to the poor house. So she did housework and prepared breakfasts for John Ruffin, an attorney, and Hon. Gedge-Tompkins. John Ruffin's sister, Lady Osterly, has separated from her husband, and he holds their child. When Lady Osterly calls on Ruffin she is struck with the remarkable resemblance Polly bears to her own child. Ruffin and Lady Osterly formulate a plan to come into possession of her daughter, by using Polly as a substitute.
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.
Doris Standish's father insists upon her marriage to aging millionaire Cyrus W. Hopkins, but just before the wedding, the young woman runs from the house and leaps into a parked car, ordering the chauffeur to drive her quickly away. The driver is Jimmy Nevin, who, because Hopkins financially ruined his father, has agreed to help a gang of crooks in their plot to steal the bride's jewels and wedding presents. Realizing that Doris is not Mary Butler, his accomplice, Jimmy offers to accompany her home, but when she refuses to return, he takes her to the thieves' hideout.
An American missionary is gradually seduced by a courtly warlord holding her in Shanghai.
An American agent exchanges places in prison with a condemned British officer and brother of a woman he greatly admires and goes to the gallows.
Because Dan McDowell is unable to operate the new mechanized fire equipment, he is retired with a small pension; his son, Johnny, quits school to work in the fire department; and his old horse, Bullet, is sold to a dirt-hauler. Dan is charged with stealing Bullet and is jailed, but he is cleared in time to give valuable aid in a fire that traps Johnny's sweetheart, June Rutherford.
Elspeth Marner is a seventeen-year-old premiere danseuse. Frank Masterson is the most hated as well as the most respected critic of dramatic art in New York. When the story opens, Elspeth, flushed with applause, enters her dressing room where her mother and the maid rush to do her bidding. The next morning, in bed, Elspeth reads Masterson's scathing criticism: that her real name is doubtless Lizzie Schmitt; that she is spoiled and petulant and not at all a lady, etc. Elspeth is furious, hysterical, angry and her mother, after telephoning Masterson to tell him her opinion of him, calls in the doctor.
Eve Edgarton decides to devote her life solely to her love of botany, but unexpectedly falls in love with a man who shares none of her intellectual interests.
Angela, a lovely young woman of eighteen, lives with her grandmother in Virginia but knows very little about her mother, Lady Eldone, who after the death of Angela's father, moved to Europe and married an English army captain. When Captain Eldone is reported dead, Lady Eldone returns to the United States determined to marry a wealthy man.
Rosarita, a young relative of the powerful Doña Perfecta in the small Spanish village of Orbajosa, has been betrothed since infancy to her cousin, Pepe Rey Don Jose, although the two have never met. When Pepe comes to visit Rosarita, she immediately falls in love with him, but his offhand remark about the lack of enterprise in the small town alienates Doña Perfecta, and the old woman becomes determined to prevent the marriage.
Wracked with illness and discarded by a wealthy and unscrupulous aristocrat, Yvonne Lamour seeks out her former sweetheart Anatole in order to beg him to care for her infant daughter Yvonne. She finds him in a monastery, now Pere Anatole, having joined to ease the pain of her leaving him. Soon after, Yvonne dies and little Yvonne grows to adulthood and falls in love with Jean Duval, a young violinist. When the war devastates the land, Anatole flees to America, taking Jean and Yvonne with him. There, beset by poverty, Jean endeavors to earn a living by playing the violin, but fails. In desperation, he pawns his violin to buy food and falls victim to the charms of Sonia Maroff, a wealthy woman whose fancy he has captured.
In an English mining town during the 1870's, Joan Lowrie falls in love with Fergus Derrick, the new chief engineer who vows to improve working conditions. Joan's father Don, however, runs the mine and likes conditions just as they are. As a result, he quickly learns to detest the crusading Fergus, even to the point of trying to murder him.
Gabrielle Picard (Elda Hall) and Pierre Dupont (Rupert Julian) are lovers in a small French village in the early 1870s; Gabrielle's brother Anatole (Kingsley Benedict) is Pierre's best friend. The two young men are called to service by their country and go to Algiers. Anatole becomes the bugler and one day when he is commanded to sound the retreat, he sounds for the troops to charge instead. Anatole becomes a hero because of his action, but when the two men make their victorious return home, they find the Picard home ransacked and Gabrielle gone.
Three bachelor buddies, David Clark (Jack Conway), Dick Porter (Richard LeReno), and Jerry Mathers (George Webb) adopt three Belgian children who have been orphaned by the war. David winds up with Rene Lescere (Ella Hall), who -- much to his dismay -- comes with a pet goat and chicken. But Rene comes to love her foster father and vice versa. In fact, she's determined to find him a wife who will also serve as a foster mom for her.
A girl who loves dancing more than anything must prove her identity in order to keep her inheritance.
At a mountain resort, Kenneth Scott falls in love with Marie Beauchamp, an older woman who merely amuses herself with him. When she deserts him to open a roadhouse, he sadly leaves the mountains and, in the company of an old wandering poet named "Doc" Podden, travels to a little village in the woods.
A movie serial from 1914
A girl is hypnotized and kidnapped by the swami her aunt is devoted to.
Jimmie, a small-town boy, visits a traveling circus passing through town. he falls in love with Pansy, the daughter of the circus' tightrope walker, after he saves her from a gang of thugs...
A group of jealous men conspire to defeat a romantic rival who has captured the attention of all of the ladies at a summer hotel. (Note: The majority of this film is considered lost. Only a fragment survives.)
