Acting
Mildred Garson, secretary and fiancée of playwright Anthony Moore, would like to play the leading role in his new play, a crook drama. Her brother Jim and sister Rita arrange to stage a fake robbery at Moore's home so that Mildred can demonstrate her ability. However, real thieves led by Dan "The Fox" Grogan appear, shoot Moore's butler, and kidnap Mildred. She manages to escape and find refuge with Chong Wo, a Chinese philosopher. In a fight to the finish, Wong arranges for Grogan to be captured, leaving Anthony and Milfred to get married.
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
Alice Davis and Charles Turner are arrested for petting in an automobile and marry on impulse.
Robert Ardis, a small-town youth studying for the ministry, encounters a visiting Gypsy, Marcheta, and is displeased by her pagan conduct. When she saves the life of his younger brother, however, Robert becomes fascinated with her. Though scorning his religion, Marcheta saves his life during a storm by praying for a miracle, and in rescuing him she comes to believe in God.
After five years of marriage, Beth and Peter Marsh's life together is a series of rows and reconciliations. Beth is frivolous and extravagant; Peter is domineering and ambitious and has difficulty paying the bills. Daniel Rankin, who lives in the same apartment building, becomes attracted to Beth and arranges with the Marsh chauffeur to have her car break down, allowing him to offer assistance and gracefully introduce himself; Rankin later invites her to a dance. Resenting Rankin's attentions to his wife, Peter forbids her to go. However, Beth accompanies Rankin to spite her husband, and Rankin proposes that she divorce Peter and become his wife. A lost film.
With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?
Three United States soldiers are lost in the Rhineland on Armistice Day and accepted as conquering overlords by a village... except for Lady Bountiful.
Herman Melville's mad Capt. Ahab (John Barrymore) spends years hunting the white whale that got his leg.
The story of the famous battle between the Scots clans of Macdonald and Campbell, and the young woman who comes between them, Annie Laurie.
John Steel is a poor boy with a gentle spirit, but he has a natural gift for fighting. His mother is a strict pacifist, so although he has opportunities to make a career as a boxer, he refuses--until hard times force him to enter the ring despite his mother's pleas.
Jerry Willard, a clerk in a publishing house who is possessed of a massive inferiority complex, is fired from his job and, on the way out of the office, is mistaken for the boss, Watson, by Anne Rogers, the daughter of an author.
While Scotty McTavish is driving around his his big automobile, he sees a very pretty girl enter his father's railroad yards and falls in love at first sight. He borrows some blue overalls, gets by the gate-man and applies to the yard-foreman, "Slugger" Martin for a job. Scotty tells Martin his main objective is to meet the girl. The girl is Patsy Thorne, daughter of the yardmaster, and also the apple of Martin's eye. Martin also is more than a little bit crooked and he makes things very complicated before Scotty and Patsy can get together.
A country boarding house story
A pretty young girl from the country arrives in New York, hoping to become a Broadway star. She achieves that goal, but when she hears untrue stories that she became a star because she's the mistress of her show's wealthy backer, she leaves the show and joins a traveling stock company. Page Brookins, a farmer who doesn't know who she really is, sees one of her shows, meets her, they fall in love and plan to be married. However, her wealthy backer in New York hears about it and sets out to break up the engagement and bring her back to New York.
Jerry always wins in his rivalry with Red over women, gunrunning, and diamond smuggling. While running booze into the U.S. during Prohibition, Jerry seizes Jane's seaside home. When she tries to turn him in, he kidnaps her and her fiance John. Jane, now in love with Jerry, must watch as Jerry and Red shoot it out on board Jerry's boat.
The Thompson-Thorpe automobile was once a great car but dissension between the owners led to the break-up of the company, and Thompson and Thorpe have each started their own car-manufacturing company. Not knowing his true identity, Earle Thorpe Jr. has been hired by Henry Thompson to drive his new car in an upcoming race. Unknown to Thompson has two crooked mechanic/engineers on his payroll who plan to make their own car, using Thompson's plans, and win the big race themselves. Etta, Thompson’s daughter, and Earle team up to re-unite Thompson and Thorpe Sr. by taking the best features of both cars and combine them into one super car.
North-West Mounted Police Sgt. David Carrigan takes a breather from fighting as he brings a convict to trial and woos the lovely Jeanne-Marie.
Under the name of Jack Nelson, Don McLean goes to work in his father's factory. He meets a restaurant cashier, Jeanie; they are married and have a child. Stricken by amnesia as a result of an accident, Jack forgets his family and returns to his former life. Eventually his memory is restored, and he is reunited with his wife and child.
Schlock-movie producer J. Pierpont Ginsburg, after declaring, in a Yiddish accent, that "talking pictures are in their infantry," decides to put all of his savings into a big-budgeted musical, starring the sensation of Paris (with a bad French accent), Adore Renee, and a swishy leading man, Reginald Whitlock. Meanwhile, his daughter, Judy Ginsburg, gets involved in a romance with Ginsburg's Gentile lawyer, John Applegate. His efforts aren't helped any by the projectionist who mixes up the sound-disc reels, with the images not matching the dialogue and sound effects, during a showing for prospective film buyers and exhibitors.
Ted Howard, a vaudevillian left, stranded in a tank town. A local girl, Mary (Sally O'Neil), proposes to finance a new act with her savings and the team succeeds in a minor way until Ted is discovered by Broadway femme fatale Valeska (Carmel Myers). Not wishing to stand in her partner's way, Mary nobly resigns from the act and instead accepts a minor role in the show. She proves a sensation on opening night, however, and a jealous Valeska demands her ousted. But Ted, who is in love with Mary, reorganizes their old act and they begin a new life together as man and wife.