Acting
After complaining about her dull life, shop girl Sally Manvers falls asleep on the roof of her apartment. Drenched from a downpour, Sally awakens and finds the roof entrance locked. She enters the apartment of society woman Mrs. Standish and encounters Mrs. Standish's brother, Walter Arden Savage, opening the safe. Sally protects Savage from a burglar, and after learning that he and his sister plan to steal their jewels to collect insurance money, she agrees to keep quiet if they take her with them to Newport.
Robert Armstrong, falsely accused of a murder committed thirty years ago in a western gambling hall, faces the alternative of imprisonment or paying blackmail. A letter from Tom Mason, formerly a miner, prepares him for a visit, at which time he must make his choice.
Howard Sherbrooke, a wealthy senior at a law university, is infatuated with Ethel Stratton, a girl who is a favorite with the students. Dick Leslie, his chum, is also in love with her. Dick is from the west, working his way through college, and Howard has assisted him financially. Howard does not know of Dick's love for Ethel.
Annie Leigh, a factory worker who marries Earle Courtney, the son of a millionaire. However, Earle's father, Major James Courtney, is determined to see his son marry a wealthy socialite, Ethel Ainsworth. To achieve this, the Major orchestrates a cruel scheme:
Sheltered young Sylvia Fairponts reads about the scandals originating from the Beaulieu Inn and determines to go there at any cost. Anxious to know whether life promises any excitement for her, Sylvia consults clairvoyant Mme. Claire St. Claire, who, for a large fee, predicts that she will soon meet a dashing young lover.
Clover Ames's life consists only of the drudge work that she performs at her Aunt Sarah's boardinghouse. No longer able to withstand her aunt's abuse, Clover runs away and obtains a job as a maid to a wealthy woman. Willed $7,000 by Pierre Dubois, a boarder at her aunt's house, Clover, inspired by a novel that she has read, poses as a duchess at a fashionable winter resort. There she meets and falls in love with Walter Gray, who is also traveling incognito as a ribbon clerk. When Clover's money runs out, her trick is discovered and she vanishes. Obtaining employment in Gray's department store, Clover learns that her ribbon clerk is actually the owner's son, who rushes her to the wedding bureau.
Sylvia Mason, a mysterious girl, lives in a cabin by herself and sells her bead work to the visitors at a large hotel nearby. At the hotel, Sylvia meets Easterner Henry Hilliard, who falls in love with her, but she refuses to marry him and will not explain her reasons. Thus Henry returns East without learning that Sylvia's father had been murdered by his private secretary Jack Leslie in revenge for her refusal to marry him. One night after Henry's departure, Leslie, now known as the outlaw "The Shadow", breaks into Sylvia's cabin. There is a struggle that leaves Sylvia unconscious, and when she awakens she finds a note claiming that because Leslie has violated her, she must marry him.
Rich, spoiled social butterfly Pamela Sayre lives the good life with her two maiden aunts. Bertie Holden, the somewhat slacker son of a wealthy couple, is in love with Pamela, who seems to prefer muscular, daredevil-type men, which Bertie definitely isn't. Pamela flirts with the wealthy but much older Charles Van Gordon in order to make Bertie jealous, but her plan seems to backfire.
When Mary Worthington will not sign a document absolving the executors of her late father's estate from the loss of money due to mismanagement, they lock her up to force her to comply. Meanwhile, Danny Abbott, a press agent for Mary's friend, Gloria Morning, and two East Side Jewish backers, worry that Gloria's failing musical, The Purple Pagoda , will ruin them. Danny persuades his friend Robert Garrison to kidnap Gloria and release her before showtime, thus creating a news item to attract ticket buyers. When Mary escapes and approaches Gloria's apartment, Garrison, thinking that she is Gloria, kidnaps her. Mary plays along to escape the executors and falls in love with him at his cabin where they fight off Gloria's would-be rescuers. After the executors find Mary and take her to an insane asylum, Garrison saves her, they marry, and Gloria's show becomes a success.
After Pamela Martin's fiancé, lawyer Frank Steele, leaves for South America on business, her mother and another suitor, Douglas Martin, trick her into marrying Douglas by telling her that Frank is a thief. Douglas commonly hosts Bacchanalian parties at the couple's home, and after one of these revelries, during which Pamela explained the reason for her marriage to Frank, who had recently returned from South America, her husband in a drunken rage insults and then attempts to embrace her. Pamela reaches for a knife, but at that instant, she faints and awakens to find Douglas dead and herself charged with murder.
Although her husband and children want to continue living modestly after they acquire a fortune from munitions, Mrs. Tompkins has social aspirations and persuades them to move into an exclusive country neighborhood and send their son Dick to Yale. When Mrs. Tompkins mistakes Louise Allenby, the daughter of her aristocratic neighbors, for a maid, Louise in jest pretends to be the Allenby social secretary. Dick, returning home, hears some girls giggling about Louise's joke on the Tompkins family and for revenge he becomes a groom for the Allenbys, but he and Louise fall in love. During a party, swindler Cholly Van Dusen steals some of the Allenby jewels and blames Louise who is put under arrest until her parents return. Cholly is then caught, Louise and Dick with revealed identities announce their love, and the Tompkinses are accepted socially.
No description available.
Norma Wood, a fed-up stenographer leaves her miserly fiancé, charges lavish gowns to her lecherous boss, and sets out to experience life. She is subsequently hired by a wealthy widow to seduce the woman's son away from his current girlfriend.
Upon striking oil on his farm, Silas T. Pettingill (Charles Eldridge) moves to Park Avenue at the behest of his social-climbing wife Maria (Kate Blancke) and daughter Helen (Emmy Wehlen). But like Jiggs in the comic strip, Pettingill never loses his common touch, and one evening he goes out on a toot with his new chauffeur Hubert Stanwood (Paul Gordon).
New York confidence man "Silk" Wilkins ingratiates himself with millionaire Lawrence Gray, knowing Gray’s wife and daughter Zelda were lost in a flood eighteen years earlier. After promising to find Gray's daughter, Silk returns to his boardinghouse, where he finds Alice Sheldon, broke and about to commit suicide. Silk convinces Alice to pose as Zelda Gray and then notifies Lawrence via a note placed in an almond shell that he has found the lost daughter. Lawrence treats Alice so kindly that when Silk demands payment from her on Christmas morning, she refuses. Lawrence, who has overheard the conversation, enters and laughingly reveals that he had known of the frame-up all along. Grateful to Silk for finding him a wife, Lawrence writes the confidence man a large check.
Vania is a political refugee who travels from Russia to the United States. But even in America, she is pursued by assassins known as "the Ring of Death" because she carries certain papers given to her back home by her father. She marries a man who turns out to be a drug addict, and in a heated argument, she shoots him. A young lawyer defends her, then falls in love with her.
The Belle of the Season is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film, directed by S. Rankin Drew, and stars Emmy Wehlen, S. Rankin Drew, and Walter Hitchcock.
