Writing
Steve O'Dare, a young New Yorker who has gone off to Wyoming to be a cowboy, returns to New York to sell some cattle. He bores his friends with tales of the exciting Western life, so they plot to trick him with a mock abduction. But although Steve falls for the gag, he ends up turning the tables on his friends.
Robert Gordon wants Donald, his son, to marry Sir Ralph Fisher's sister, but Donald loves Alice, a working-class girl, and weds her in secret.
An odd belief that the dead can be tormented through their surviving loved ones prompts Dr. Miguel Hernandez to seek revenge against the woman who shunned him through her husband, Matthew Vane, and daughter Mildred.
Illiterate Blue Ridge Mountain girl Madge Brierly falls in love with vacationing Blue Grass aristocrat Frank Layson, when he stops Horace Holten from defrauding her of her coal-rich lands. For revenge, Holten tells moonshiner Joe Lorey, who loves Madge, that Frank is a revenue officer. After Madge rescues Frank from Joe's attack, they go to Frank's home, where he teaches her reading and writing, and she rescues his racehorse, Queen Bess, from a fire set by Holten. Because Frank has nearly all of his family's money riding on the big Kentucky race, Holten gets Frank's jockey drunk. Madge, discovering this, disguises herself and rides Queen Bess to victory. She leaves for home unnoticed, and comes across the Night Riders chasing Lorey. After she persuades them that Holten killed her father years earlier, and was responsible for Lorey's attack, they chase Holten who falls from a mountain and dies. Years later, Madge's and Frank's children play at feuding.
Traveling evangelist Ephram Judson (Albert Tavernier) is met with some formidable opposition in the person of avowed atheist Hugh Lee (Frank Mills). It seems that Lee disavowed the existence of God when his beloved sister was stricken with blindness. Judson's daughter Ruth (Jane Grey) does her best to convert Lee, but it's a losing battle. Even worse, a series of bizarre coincidences leads the villagers to conclude (wrongly) that Lee has tried to "have his way" with the virginal Ruth. On the verge of being lynched by the angry townsfolk, Lee is saved by a timely bolt of lightning -- whereupon he embraces that Old Time Religion in a real hurry. Cast as Ruth's ne'er-do-well brother Tom is diminutive Percy Helton, best known to latter-day film buffs for his raspy-voiced character roles in such talkies as The Robe, Kiss Me Deadly and The Music Man.
Posing as relatives, Ralph and Helen Gordon visit Col. Moncrief Gordon's Kentucky mansion, hoping to marry Helen to the colonel's son, Donald. The colonel agrees, but Donald balks at the suggestion, then reveals his secret marriage to Alice Brown. The colonel turns them out, and Ralph conspires with Bob Thurston to frame Donald for theft of Colonel Gordon's wager money and to shanghai him. After 3 years Donald discovers the source of his misfortune, returns, finds his wife, hears of a plot against his father's best racehorse, wrings a complete confession from Thurston, and saves the Derby for his repentant father.
Horse trainer Steve Tapley is caught between the feuding Martingale and Shattuck families. He sides with young Nancy Martingale and her grandfather Ezra, and the feud is to be resolved by a horse race between the favorites of each family. Unfortunately, the Martingale's horse, Greyboy, only runs well in mud. And it hasn't rained in a long time.
Crook Dave Darcy gets reformed by working in a steel mill owned by someone who witnessed his crime.
Young Brierly struggles to save his father, Major Brierly, from the clutches of alcohol after the Great War. At the same time, he prepares Major Brierly's horse, which served bravely with the Major at the front, for the Kentucky Derby.
Prosperous architect David Hunter, lives with his wife Evelyn, who loves gambling and admiration, as well as his small daughter Dora, and his sister-in-law Ruth. When Evelyn tells her husband she owes $10,000 in bridge losses, she promises not to gamble or see her lover, Stephen Dabney, again if he will pay the debt. Stephen's friend, Moira Lamson, however, entices her to the country club for one last game. David and Ruth, worried by her prolonged absence, go to the club where they find her in Stephen's arms. Evelyn accuses her sister of spying on her and demands a divorce from her husband. Ruth, weary of her sister's frailties, moves out of the household and takes up nursing. Evelyn's health suffers from the strain, and now with David and Ruth gone, she is ill and alone. David and Ruth take pity on her and return. A smarter Evelyn is reunited with David.
Tom "Wolf" Lowry confronts new settlers in his valley but has a change of heart when he sees Mary Davis.
A ruthless, miserly millionaire wakes up one day and finds that a quarantine sign reading "Danger Within!" has been tacked onto the front door of his mansion, and guards have been stationed outside to make sure that no one enters or leaves the building. The only other person in the house is Dolly, his chief clerk's six-year-old daughter, who went into the house out of curiosity just before it was quarantined.
A small-town girl returns home from schooling in the East to find that her father's small store and indeed the whole town are in danger of being eliminated by a ruthless land developer. The developer has a son who falls for the young girl, and together they try to come up with a plan to save her father's store and the town.
Financier Mark Harrold is responsible for the financial ruin and subsequent suicide of Stanton. Following his death, Stanton's daughter Margaret, seeking revenge, goes to work for Harrold's beloved daughter Helen. The latter plans to marry the dashing Lord Strathmore and thus attain her social ambitions, but Margaret, to avenge her father's death, wins Strathmore away from her by deception. After their marriage, Margaret leaves Strathmore, claiming that she never loved him. With the birth of their child, Margaret becomes ill and blind, but Strathmore finds her and gives her money under an assumed identity. Following an operation that restores her sight, Margaret recognizes her husband as her benefactor and realizes that she loves him.
A grandmother has an adventure for the first time in her life when she decides to have a night out.
Brothers George and Robert enlist on opposite sides in the Civil War. Robert is captured as a spy for the South, but escapes and hides in his parents' house. George leads the search party, but doesn't reveal his brother's hiding place, and Robert escapes. After the war, George is a hero and Robert is down on his luck. George cautiously welcomes him back into the family home.
A mountain girl with an army-hating father, meets a handsome army captain, who teaches her how to love her country.
The story of a girl who for months was in perpetual peril; on land, on sea, everywhere, Orient, Occident, and the Antipodes.
Poor ditch-digger, Pietro Massena, lovingly raises his daughter Rosina. After Phil Griswold's inheritance goes to his brother William, Phil orchestrates a series of crimes to get money framing Pietro. First he has a friend rob a flower shop then when William refuses him money, Phil kidnaps William's daughter Dorothy and sends a ransom note, blaming Pietro. William accidentally runs over Rosina while searching for Pietro in the slums. The grieving Pietro is then framed for the kidnapping when he visits the flower shop for a rose for Rosina's coffin on Christmas morning. The situation is resolved when William announces Dorothy has been found, and Pietro, despite an offer of compensation, sorrowfully returns home.
Helen Wynton, a society reporter, befriends Etta Stampa, who confesses that her heart is broken because her father has disinherited her because of a love story she had some years ago. Sent to St. Moritz for a story, Helen focuses on finding Etta's father, a Swiss mountain guide, to reconcile with her daughter. On the other hand, chasing Helen in St. Moritz is Mark Bower, an unscrupulous man. Aware of Bower's trip, Charles Spencer, who is in love with Helen, arrives in time to save Helen from Bower's evil intentions on the top of a mountain.
