Acting
During the Franco-Prussian War, Jean Renyea wins the love of Helene, thus incurring the enmity of Pierre, her hunchbacked suitor.
Sylvia, a model in the shop of a fashionable dressmaker, is introduced to the Hicks family, which recently has acquired a fortune through iron ore deposits discovered on their farm. Octavia Hicks sees in the cultured but unpretentious Sylvia a good match for her son Henry and invites the young woman to visit the Hicks home. Two other visitors, Frank Hayward and his accomplice Annie, are masquerading as a count and a princess in order to con the country-born millionaires out of their money. The two are introduced to Sylvia, who soon discovers their plots and exposes them. A mysterious foreign gentleman appears and announces that the fashion model is actually the Princess Sylvia of Karalyn, but she renounces her title to marry Henry.
Impressed with Margaret Hill's singing ability, Al Levering takes her from the notorious dive in which she is performing and pays for her musical education. Just as she is about to join an opera company, Levering is arrested for embezzlement and Margaret, out of gratitude, promises to marry him when he is released. Later, Margaret meets and falls in love with nobleman John Ordham. Separated during a shipwreck, the two lose track of each other and five years pass, during which time Margaret has become a famous opera star.
George Dryden, an atheist since he saw his mother struck and killed by lightning as a kid, becomes a prominent surgeon and marries a woman who soon dies of heart disease. Years later, on his daughter's wedding day, he discovers that his wife had a serious love affair with an artist. Infuriated, he drives his daughter away. She becomes ill, suffering an emotional collapse. The doctor exhausts his knowledge trying to save her and finally, in desperation, he calls upon God. The girl is miraculously cured and George Dryden's faith is restored. A lost film.
Although her husband is wealthy, he's also cheap, and Helen Porter often finds herself in the embarrassing position of running out of cash while out and about. One day she accompanies a friend to a gambling hall which is run out of the back of a dress shop. She loses what money she has, then borrows more and loses that, and is finally forced to hock her jewels to Milton Howard in order to pay her debts. Howard gets her to steal a valuable jewel at a society reception. Complications ensue.
Pierre Landis is insanely jealous of his beautiful young wife Joan, and his jealousy makes him take a branding iron to her to mark her as his property.
John Masters leaves his lumber mining camp when he is summoned East by his dying father, a political boss who wishes to turn over the position he has won. The father dies and leaves his son papers that could convict the rest of his gang of henchmen. John falls in love with Frances, the daughter of Armitage, another politician. Frances is not interested in John, but marries him to save her father from exposure. The gang tries to get the papers away from John, who has taken his wife back to the woods. When John exposes the crooked politicians, including his own father, he wins Frances' respect and love. John staves off the revengeful ward gangsters with a single gun until Frances rounds up the other lumberjacks who come to his rescue.
Andrew Maxwell is so intent on creating a universal language that he completely neglects his wife, Laurette, and daughter, Ruth. Laurette decides she wants to return to the stage and is encouraged by Charles Prescott, a former suitor. When Maxwell discovers Laurette and Prescott together, he berates her, and she angrily moves out, taking Ruth along with her.
On her wedding day, Norma Huntley wants to tell Edward Berkley, her husband-to-be, her secret -- that she mothered a child out of wedlock which subsequently died. Her mother forbids her to reveal this. Only moments after the ceremony, it is discovered that the child, now three, is actually alive. Berkley, incensed at this turn of events, agrees to adopt the child and remain married for appearance's sake -- but when he finds the father, he will kill him.
Badger, a clerk at a Wall Street brokerage, discovers that his boss Gideon Bloodgood has swindled an investor, Fairweather, out of his money. Fairweather dies of a heart attack after an argument with Bloodgood, and Badger uses this knowledge to blackmail him. By a strange coincidence, Bloodgood's daughter Lucy runs over Fairweather's son, Paul, and cripples him.
In the African desert, a white man, embittered at an injustice, turns his back on his kind and becomes the leader of a band of outlaws. But a chance encounter with a lovely young woman restores his faith in his race.
Arnold L'Hommedieu and his friends Archie Hartogensis and Hugo Waldemar go to New York to find work after being unfairly expelled from college. Arnold starts off as helpful and idealistic, but after being beaten down by life, he decides he is only after money and becomes an opium smuggler. His pals have fared no better: Archie becomes a drug addict and is in debt thanks to his spendthrift fiancee, while Hugo has lost his money after investing in a show that flopped. The two go to Arnold for financial aid. They await a shipment of opium, but the police are onto them and raid the hideout; only Arnold evades the cops.
Idealistic young American falls under the influence of Communist agitators.
When British gentleman Wilfred Denver weds the beautiful Nellie, he earns the undying hatred of Nellie's former sweetheart, Geoffrey Ware. After several years of cozy matrimonial contentment, Denver finds himself heavily in debt.
"Peg" O'Connell, a cheerful, unrefined Irish girl from a fishing village, moves in with her wealthy, haughty aunt, Mrs. Chichester, in England to satisfy the terms of her grandfather's will. Peg faces cold treatment from her aunt and cousin, who are in financial trouble and covet the inheritance, creating a "clash of classes" dynamic. Peg falls for Jerry, a family friend who is actually Sir Gerald Adair, the executor of her estate and her guardian. After overcoming misunderstandings and an attempt to return to her father, Peg finds happiness, love, and acceptance, with the story highlighting the superiority of her honest nature over aristocratic snobbery.
Robert Strickland, the self-confessed murderer of Gerald Trask, refuses to defend himself on the witness stand. His attorney, however, cross-examines Strickland's wife.
Allayne Norman's husband Bruce is a gambler and drunkard who kills her artist cousin in an argument. Bruce flees the studio with Allayne and their son, and places his identifying documents in the pockets of an amnesiac man. To avoid the consequences of his actions, Allayne identifies the man as her husband. When Bruce returns, he tries to kill the man but is shot instead. The man regains his memory and is cleared of wrongdoing.
Patriotism, love and treason in the United States during the First World War. Barker manages to give every scene the right climate through inventive use of color. From semi-documentary to cruel melodrama.
Men try to understand the women in their lives.
