Pretty young Nell Bradley is the daughter of a saloonkeeper in a "dry" town, and is looked down upon by townspeople, but Rev. Charles Alden, the town minister, finds himself attracted to her. One day at Nell's father's bar, a traveling salesman gets a young woman intoxicated, intending to "have his way" with her. Nell sees this and gets the bartender to save the young woman's virtue, but just at that moment Rev. Alden walks in and mistakenly believes that Nell has gotten the girl drunk. Complications ensue.
Laddie Ferguson arrives from overseas and gets work in a lumber camp in Nova Scotia. He becomes a rival with Ed Spencer for the hand of Mary, the foreman's daughter. Spencer is turned down and he calls a strike. Laddie calls upon the Cape Breton Highlanders, camped nearby, for assistance and they go to the camp and break up the strike, which clears the way for a happy future for Mary and Laddie.
Tom Devon, alias Reginald Briand, is the mastermind behind an organization of gentlemen thieves, including Jimmy Stevens and Rudolph Gambier. Jimmy falls in love with Tom's innocent daughter, Gloria, after he rescues her from an embarrassing scene in a restaurant. Tom disapproves of the romance and decides to dissolve the partnership. When an embittered Rudolph kills Tom he frames Jimmy, but Gloria is determined to clear him. Posing as a thief, she seeks the truth.
A scheme by a beautiful vamp to marry a wealthy young man fails, and the woman returns to her former lover, a sculptor. She is shocked to discover he has committed suicide, and the tragedy catapults her into insanity.
Girl is held at mercy of gang of crooks, her only friend being a half-wit. A murder is committed and blame shifted to the girl. The half-wit has seen it but cannot remember. When he is cured, his testimony frees the girl.
Starring director Ballin's wife Mabel as Becky Sharp and Hobart Bosworth as the Marquis of Steyne, this filmed version of the Thackeray novel included one sequence filmed in color by Prizmacolor.
One of the pictures to be seen in the machine, for example, was that of a blacksmith shop in which two men were working, one shoeing a horse, the other heating iron at the forge. One would be seen to drive the nail into the shoe of the horse's hoof, to change his position and every movement needed in the work was clearly shown as if the object was in real (life). In fact, the whole routine of the two men's labor and their movements for the day was presented to the view of the observer.
A power company floods a sleepy Tennessee Valley for a dam to run a hydraulic power plant. Garry, a Northern engineer on the project, falls in love with Caroline, Colonel Bradford's adopted daughter.
Allayne Norman's husband Bruce is a gambler and drunkard who kills her artist cousin in an argument. Bruce flees the studio with Allayne and their son, and places his identifying documents in the pockets of an amnesiac man. To avoid the consequences of his actions, Allayne identifies the man as her husband. When Bruce returns, he tries to kill the man but is shot instead. The man regains his memory and is cleared of wrongdoing.
Tim Goodwin and his wife Corrie are living in poverty when Tim's oil well strikes it rich. He soon works his way to the top of the social scale, but Corrie doesn't change at all--she stays a dour, drab woman with no social skills whatsoever. Tim gets so embarrassed by her that he hires a "social secretary" for her to teach her how to function in the social strata in which they find themselves.
Toyama wants to go to college in America but his alcoholic father won't supply the funds. He gets the money to go, however, from Sada, whom he has married in secret. But Sada has a secret of her own -- she told Toyama that she got the money from a relative, but the truth is that she has signed up to do a four-year stint as a Geisha girl.
Johnny Rooney is a fast-stepping young politician and Molly Taylor is an even faster-stepping showgirl in "George White's Scandals" in a tale of New York City's theatrical and political life during prohibition and the jazz-age.