Acting
Veteran postman Bob Morley and his son Johnnie are honored for their service to the U. S. Mail Service. When Johnnie takes a position on the Enterprise, he is falsely convicted of theft and murder when the cargo is stolen and the ship's officer is shot.
An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.
Jan Bokak is a self-educated steelworker who finds himself in the middle of a romantic triangle. Two different girls -- wealthy socialite Claire Pitt and blue-collar worker Mary Berwick -- simultaneously fall for Bokak. It later develops that Claire and Mary are actually sisters, the first of a series of surprising plot twists leading to Bokak being accused of a murder he didn't commit.
Lulu Bett lives in the home of her sister Diana and Diana's husband, Dwight. One day Dwight's brother, Ninian, shows up, and he and Lulu Bett have a mock marriage. Dwight declares the marriage legal, but it turns out that Ninian already has a wife.
When old rancher Mark Ridgeway passes away, his property goes to relatives in the East instead of to trusted foreman Tom Taylor as promised. The relatives, Reginald (Taylor Graves) and his sister Marion, arrive to take over the ranch, and Tom quickly falls for the lovely Marion. The weak Reginald, on the other hand, sells his part of the property to evil Indian Joe Deerfoot, who then kidnaps Marion to get her share as well.
Dan Merrill is discharged from the fire department where he has distinguished himself because he is physically unable to stay in a smoking room. His enemies tell his girl, Mary Fenton, that he is a coward. But he proves his efficiency by trailing a gang of crooks who have been responsible for robberies in which they covered their tracks by starting fires.
Quincy Adams Sawyer is a young attorney who one day meets a girl in the park and is immediately smitten with her.
The plot, old-hat though it is, does provide an opportunity for that wonderfully seedy villain, David Dirby, to do his dirty work and more importantly, to tie all the thrillingly on-the-spot railroad footage together. Railroad buffs will enjoy all the atmospheric detail director Johnson has obtained by filming in real freight yards and inside and alongside real steam engines and rolling stock.
