Writing
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.
Jack Donovan, a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, refuses to throw a game for gambler Mike Moran. Moran retaliates by breaking up Donovan's family. Believing that his wife and son died in the sinking of an ocean liner, Donovan stays in baseball and, 20 years later, becomes manager of the New York Giants. What he doesn't know is that his family isn't dead and his son, Jack Jr., is now grown and looking for revenge against his father for what he believes was his abandonment of them.
Johnnie Gains, son of a farming couple, is industrious and imbued with a spirit of sacrifice. Rejected for military service because of an eye injury, he enlists in the Salvation Army.
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.
Diamond thieves have infiltrated the staff of O'Day Jewelry. The Los Angeles Police Dept. employs their newest weapon, an airplane, to help smash the diamond theft ring.
During WWI to prove his mettle against a charge of cowardice to everyone including his girl Mimi, American pilot Lieutenant Billy Holmes accepts an assignment with the Royal Flying Corps. He downs a German aircraft piloted by the brother of squadron leader Lebrun. Out of bitterness Lebrun challenges him to a dogfight from which Billy emerges victorious restoring his lustre and reputation.
The story of the firemen at Engine House No.8, where widower Frank "Dad" Brooks is the beloved veteran and whose children, Milly and Jimmie, are especially fond of firemen Dan and "Beauty" Johnson. The problem of the day is concern whether or not Brooks is going to qualify for a pension...until a three-alarm inferno breaks out at the orphanage.
In 1898 friends John Thomas and Lars Larson travel to the Yukon with their wives to make their fortunes. While in Alaska Thomas' wife gives birth to a boy, and Larson's wife has a girl, Julia. However, Larson spots a birthmark on his daughter's shoulder that resembles one on Thomas' shoulder, and he begins to suspect that he may not actually be the girl's father. Over the next 20 years the two become millionaires, but Larson's wife dies. Julia and Thomas fall in love and wish to marry, but Larson is determined to oppose it.
A twenty-year veteran of the printing room of The San Francisco Chronicle is passed up for a promotion at the same time his son is accused of graft and involved in scandal. The historical landmarks of old San Francisco are present: The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building, City Hall and the Pickwick Hotel-- but they don't distract from the dramatic and emotional perforamces at the film's center.
When his long-suffering wife leaves him, the hard-driving captain of a whaling ship turns bitter and takes out his anger, resentment and frustrations on all those around him, leading to tensions with his crew that come up to the point of mutiny.
Following a reversal in the Graham family fortune, a childhood love affair between Gordon Graham and Marjorie Miller is frustrated by the socially ambitious Mrs. Miller.
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.
In 1906 Sweden, Captain Lars Larson (Knute Erickson) goes on a sea voyage, leaving his wife (Marcella Daly) behind expecting their first child. Unbeknownst to him while he is at sea, a bitter rival kidnaps her and makes it look as though she left him willingly. When he returns and discovers their home abandoned, he all but goes mad with bitterness and rage, destroying their home. In the years that follow, Larson becomes a sadistic, drunken reprobate of the sea, working for smugglers carrying all kinds of illegal cargo, including drugs -- and human cargo.
