Ivan Abramson

A story of violence, deceit, deception and malfeasance among the rich set and the hoodlums with whom they unknowingly become involved.

Grace Ainsworth wants to return to her career as an opera singer, and her mother-in-law supports her. Grace's husband, Edwin, wants her to stay at home and to convince her, he relates the story of his latest play about a man who allows his wife to return to the stage. Edwin comes to believe that Grace is in love with Harold Chase, a manager, and the couple separates. Edwin has an affair with a dancer, Madeline, and he winds up in a fight with her dancing partner, Vincenti, which causes him to lose his memory.

Andrew Kane, the spoiled and wayward son of once wealthy parents, vies with stockbroker James Surbrun for the hand of Jule Grayton, the wild and willful daughter of a philanthropist. Accused of murdering his rival, Kane is convicted but later cleared of the charge. The "wild" couple settle down and find happiness in reconciliation.

In order to provide for her widowed mother, Louise Mordyke, Ethel marries Arthur Woodridge, a wealthy philanthropist who is considerably older than she. Although she respects her husband, Ethel resumes an affair with Howard Rosedale, the husband of her cousin Helen. Helen hires a detective, who discovers the lovers at a roadhouse. Rushing from the inn, Ethel is caught in a thunderstorm, after which she contracts pneumonia and dies, repentant but unconfessed. Arthur grieves so deeply that Louise and Helen fear for his sanity, and when Louise learns that he is contemplating suicide, she reveals the truth about Ethel's infidelity. Arthur, incredulous, denounces her. Following Howard's sudden death, however, Helen confirms the story. Louise and Arthur marry, and Helen weds an old friend.

Wealthy Richard Covington, although aging and lonely, distresses his children, Waverly and Beatrice, by marrying a heartless seductress named Fay Hope. Because Fay's extravagant spending threatens to ruin Richard, Beatrice confronts her, which prompts Richard, who is hopelessly in love with the beautiful vampire, to order his daughter from the house.

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Duplicitous Patricia Chase schemes to break up the new marriage of Margery and Wallace Graham because she yearns for Wallace despite her marriage to another. She nearly succeeds but the revelation of a secret thwarts her at the last moment and she gets her just desserts shortly after.

A jealous politician tries to force a woman to marry him by framing her father for a crime.

Elga Pulaski and her brother Ossip live in Warsaw. They belong to a secret society whose goal is to liberate Poland and Russia from the Romanoffs. Elga is loved by Baron Jan Slozek. But Slozek is a spy who has Ossip and other members of the society arrested. When Slozek is slain, Ossip is the key suspect. He escapes to America with his sister. There, Elga meets Norman Hutchinson, and marries him without telling him her past. When Hutchinson learns the truth, he leaves Elga. Eventually, when Elga appeals to him, he sees the light.

Lillian Hill, a poor stenographer, sacrifices her romance with an equally poor playwright, Henry Parker, to marry her boss Wilbur Mason. She does this only so that she will have the means to pay for surgery to restore her mother's sight. But the surgery is unsuccessful, and her coldness towards Mason arouses his jealousy.

Robert Worthing marries his sweetheart, Madeline Francis, but the wedding is ruined by his mother, who announces that because she and her parents are insane, he possesses tainted genes. Fearing that he will pass the disease on to his children, the bridegroom avoids his new wife and locks the door between their rooms. Deeply in love with Madeline, whom he is forced to love only as a sister, Robert considers suicide, but all ends well when the young man learns that he was adopted.

Broker Henry Taylor is furious at the attention his wife Regina receives from Charles Bryant, an elderly bachelor. When he comes home one night and finds Regina in Bryant's arms, he orders him to leave. Bryant obliges, but he doesn't go away -- when the Taylors' daughter, Vivian, has a birthday, Bryant gives her a Shetland pony.

Charles Stoddard is a poor artist living with his wife and two children in Greenwich Village. Destitute after his wife dies, he is forced to sell one of his children to a childless rich woman. He soon comes his senses however, and tries to back out of the deal.

A remake of the 1917 picture of the same name. Ruth, the offspring of Stevens' hypocritical brother, is neglected by her parents in matters of sex education; as consequence, she trods the primrose path, ending up pregnant, then dead.

After becoming a Supreme Court justice, Peter Graham is visited by Olive Martin, a singer from New Orleans, Louisiana, with whom he had an affair in his youth. Although Peter has been sending money to maintain Olive's silence and to support their son, she now sees an opportunity to join high society, and demands that Peter divorce his wife to marry her. Meanwhile, in Boston, Massachusetts, Olive's son, Harold, becomes engaged to Peter's daughter, Anita, but the young lovers are soon devastated by the news that they were both sired by the same man. Olive's dissolute brother-in-law, Thomas Donald, finds Peter on the brink of suicide and reveals that he is Harold's father. Thomas goes on to explain that Olive adopted the boy as a means to blackmail Peter. Harold and Anita marry, while Peter confesses to his wife and Olive leaves town.

Ada Forbes loves Eugene Cory, but she marries Stapleton, a political boss who promises Ada's father a Senate seat in return for his daughter. After several years of an unhappy marriage, Ada leaves Stapleton and returns to Cory, now married to Alice Wood, to be his mistress. Alice finds out about the affair and confronts Ada, who promises never to see Eugene again. Then, Ada learns that her mother is dying. The double shock of losing Eugene and her mother brings on a breakdown, and Ada is put under a doctor's care. Her round-the-clock nurse falls asleep, however, and a half-insane Ada wanders away, falls into a river and drowns.

Wealthy capitalist, Clinton Reynolds, and his wife, Laura, have lost their son, Arthur, kidnapped and possibly dead. Attempting to write a wrong in his factory, he adopts the daughter of one of his workers who is killed on site. The girl, Rose, grows up resentful of her adoptive father and as she grows older, seduces him in order to break up his marriage. Long lost Arthur returns and, finding his parents' married life in disarray, becomes romantically involved with Rose in order to end the relationship she has forged with his father. Reynolds comes to his senses and makes amends with Laura, at which point Arthur leaves Rose.

Lillian Stevens was raised without care, attention, or education on the ways of the world. When she becomes pregnant by the reckless Harold Winthrop, her mother takes her to an abortionist. Harold then falls for Ruth Stevens, raised by an attentive and loving mother, who is not so easily taken advantage of.

Unable to support her second child, a boy, Alice Baldwin gives him up to the wife of Edward Stevens, a wealthy manufacturer. Her other child, a daughter, grows up, marries, and selfishly neglects her mother. Twenty years pass, and Alice's son, Edward, Jr., wins a place in the Stevens piano factory and falls in love with Julia Brennon, the owner's daughter. Meanwhile, the mother leaves home when her son-in-law objects to her presence, and she is rescued from a suicide attempt by Edward and Julia. At his foster father's home he realizes her identity, and at last they find happiness together.

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