Directing
Ted Vandeveer, a lawyer without clients, receives notice that he has been included in his rich uncle's will, he and his partner, James Sweeney, are excited, then they find that Ted's cousin Archie inherited nearly everything. With the $700 left after paying their creditors, Ted and James go to a fashionable resort, where the hotel clerk mistakenly puts them in the exclusive suite reserved for Archie. Passing for a wealthy man, Ted attracts many eligible girls, among them Mildred Niles, the daughter of a wealthy broker.
When a woman's husband is presumed dead in the war, her sister, for her own unscrupulous reasons, attempts to get her remarried. But the husband, it seems, is not dead after all.
Nancy Bradshaw (Katherine MacDonald) is a popular stage star who quits her career to marry millionaire clubman Dick Cunningham (Charles Richman). But after a few years of marriage, he starts seeing other women. Figuring that her public was more faithful to her than her husband, Nancy returns to the stage.
Stereotypical Jewish man Isadore Solomon (Dore Davidson) arrives with his daughter Essie (Virginia Brown Faire) in a small, predominantly-Christian New England town. The discriminating viewpoints of the populace, including the Mayor, drive them to try to get rid of the newcomers. Solomon is persuaded by Clem (William V. Mong) to invest in an electric-light plant. The town is brought prosperity and the Solomons' former adversaries honor him.
American surveyor William MacDonald visits an Ojibway village in the Canadian Northwest. He seduces a local half-breed girl named Annette while her fiancé Baptiste and half-brother Jules are away trapping. MacDonald then abandons her. When Annette realizes she is pregnant, she wanders into the forest while delirious and is killed by wolves. Jules and Baptiste seek revenge. They track MacDonald to the cabin of a cruel Scotsman, Andrew MacTavish, whose daughter Hilda is loved by Jules. MacDonald tries to convince MacTavish to let him take Hilda to America. Hilda falls in love with Jules instead. When Hilda, Jules, and Baptiste try to escape in a canoe, MacDonald follows them. Jules fights MacDonald in a duel with guns and knives, killing MacDonald before leaving for Montreal with Hilda.
A scientist resurrects his dead daughter, only to realize she now lacks a soul.
Alice takes her little siblings Billy and Kitty to a matinee. They immediately become imbued with the wonderful idea that they are actors. They set up a miniature stage of their own in the summer house on the grounds. They spy upon their sister and her sweetheart Bob, and reproduce their affairs. A quarrel furnishes material for an interesting production, which is a revelation and a lesson to Bob. He goes and makes amends, acting upon the suggestions of the performance.
Keen competition is aroused among a group of young artists in New York City by the announcement of a valuable prize for the greatest portrait of the year, six months being given as the time limit of the competition.
John Loder looks exactly like his cousin, John Chilcote, who is a member of Parliament. Because of his dissolute ways, Chilcote collapses, and Loder is called in to take his place so that the family honor can remain unsullied. Loder's masquerade is so successful that no one suspects him of being an impostor, not even Chilcote's estranged wife, Eve. Loder distinguishes himself with his actions, both in public and private, while the real Chilcote sinks further into the gutter until he finally dies. Loder decides to remain as John Chilcote, and marries Eve, who, up until Loder reveals his true identity, has believed she was falling in love with her husband all over again.
Eric Temple is a composer whose rival, both in romance and work, is Sir Geoffrey Pomfret , a nobleman with few scruples. The woman they both love is Margaret, the daughter of Lord Neville. To get rid of his competition, Pomfret tells Lord Neville that his wife, Lady Neville, is in love with Eric. Then, when Eric is attacked by thugs and lays unconscious in a hospital, he steals his opera too.
Brought into contact with each other, Runa and Shep, a dog, become great chums. Their companionship is looked upon with evident interest and amusement by Runa's parents, who do not seem to be very greatly concerned for their daughter's childish affairs, leaving that entirely to her nurse.
Compelled to leave England to escape the notoriety following her involvement in a divorce scandal, Gaenor Lisle meets and falls in love with Peter Garstin. They are wed, Peter knowing nothing of the scandal in which his wife was involved. In Paris, Peter encounters a friend who mentions the affair, but when Peter confronts Gaenor with the accusations, she refuses to defend herself and runs away to England. While crossing the channel, Gaenor encounters Craven, the man who permitted her to be unjustly named as correspondent in his divorce suit.
The daughter of straitlaced parents, Bessie Bowden is attracted to the social life of the fast set and finds Austin Trull, lounge lizard and sometime artist, more interesting than hard-working John Hargraves. Mr. Bowden and John try to compete with Bessie's new friends and spend all the family savings on making the Bowden home appear wealthy and a part of the social whirl. Bessie and Geraldine Horton finally catch Trull at his double-dealing, and Bessie wisely returns to home and Hargraves.
About Omar Khayyam of Persia, the poet and mathematician, who wrote the Iranian first solar calendar circa A.D. 1073. His fiancé was forced to marry the shah, but she eventually escaped and, with help of grand Vazir, joined Omar Khayyam. Hollywood made a film based on the same story with Connell Wilde, the life and adventures of Omar Khayyam.
After quarreling with his stepfather, John Ashton runs away to London. At the same time, Lord John Hertford marries Lady Mercy Covington, but he disappears on the wedding night. Ashton is injured in a traffic accident in London, and is believed to be Hertford, even by Lady Mercy.
To start a little in advance of our story, Lord Rintoul, of the English nobility, finds a little Gypsy girl three years old, who had been deserted by her parents. Fifteen years later, Gavin Dishart, the Little Minister, receives an appointment, his first, at Thrums, Scotland. This was made possible through the self-sacrifices of his widowed mother, to educate him for the ministry. The community of Thrums is made up of weavers, who work hard, have little and accomplish much. They are ultra-religious and look upon their pastor with such reverence that he is a little lower than the angels. While naturally intelligent, they are grounded in dogma and intolerance. Just after the Little Minister takes charge of the "Auld Licht Kirk" and the Manse, the weavers resent a reduction, by the manufacturers, in their pay and a strike is declared.
A British engineer in India takes a simple native girl as his bride, an act which defies social strictures and leads to tragedy.
When she goes to tell her husband Hubert that she is expecting a child, Caroline Knollys finds him in the arms of another woman. Caroline leaves him and, not telling him of her pregnancy, runs off to Europe where she has her child and becomes the toast of European society. Then she returns to settle with her husband once and for all.
Advised by his friends to seek a second wife so that his children, Helen and Dolores, may know a mother's care, Sir Edward Tilbury marries Phyllis, the daughter of Lady Olivia Gower, a leading social light in Calcutta.
A kindly but desperate Alsatian innkeeper named Mathias murders and robs a rich Jewish merchant staying at his inn, but the ghost of his victim will not let him rest. Meanwhile, a mysterious Mesmerist has come to town, claiming he has made many criminals confess their crimes...
