The friendship of Damon, the senator, and Pythias, the soldier, is famous in Ancient Syracuse.

When Jim is released from prison, he returns to his Chinatown neighborhood determined to lead a virtuous life. While walking, he hears a woman's cries issuing from a house and enters to investigate. In her delirium, the dying woman mistakes Jim for her nephew and entrusts him to deliver a package to her daughter.

Restored by the George Eastman House in 2001, this 1928 serial was considered a “last hurrah” for the silent-era serial, and brought together some of the biggest names of the era: director J.P. McGowan, actors Francis Ford and Joe Bonomo (a carnival strongman-turned-actor), producer Trem Carr (who would later help found Monogram Pictures), and a slew of silent-era supporting icons such as Ruth Hiatt, Grace Cunard, and more. Chapter names like “The Clutching Claw,” “The Devil’s Dice, “Galloping Fury,” and “The Invisible Hand” offer all one needs to know of the film’s concerns: to promise and deliver as much action and suspense as possible, and move our intrepid hero and heroine from one perilous situation to another. One of the biggest stars of the early silent era and a successful serials director in his own right, Francis Ford was the brother of director John Ford.

Cunard turns into The Queen of the Apaches, an outlaw who steals from the rich to gives to the poor, always leaving a purple mask behind as a trademark.

Jeanne La Roche lives alone with her brother in the great northwestern country. Jacques is a ne'er-do-well and has fallen under the suspicion of the mounted police, two of whom are dispatched to arrest him for robbery. The stolen goods are found in his home. Jeanne is too young to be left in their lonely cabin, so she is taken to the post, where the wife of the proprietor welcomes her and gives her a home. Several years later, Donald McLean wins her for his wife. Meantime Jacques escapes from prison, eludes his pursuers and takes refuge in McLean's home.

An Indian scholar seeks an American colleague who is working on a powerful explosive, trying to get to his formula by taking advantage of his drinking problem.

When bandits capture the wife of a US army lieutenant stationed in the Philippines, along with her lover, the choice is his whether to forgive.

Bored with the ranch, Buck's girl goes off to the city and gets involved (innocently) in a brothel. When Buck brings a herd of cattle to town, a streetwalker lures him to the house just in time for him to save his girl from Martin.

The Tornado mostly followed pulp Western formula -- bad guys hold up a town, take a girl hostage, and the hero rides to the rescue. But there were a couple of twists that made it seem more personal than the usual cowboy fare. Ford's Jack Dayton ... is known as "the No-Gun Man" because he faces the villains unarmed, anticipating the character played by James Stewart in George Marshall's 1939 Western comedy classic Destry Rides Again. Dayton is an immigrant who uses the reward money to bring over his mother (Jean Hathaway) from Ireland, a prototypically Fordian situation if there ever was one.

Though a spendthrift and a layabout, Lord Arthur Waring (J. Warren Kerrigan) is universally loved by his tenants. The same cannot be said for Arthur's half-brother Mark (Bertram Grassby), a tyrannical tightwad. Disowned by his family, Arthur finds himself strapped for cash when he promises to finance the operation of Helene von Gerald (Lois Wilson), whom he accidentally crippled in a riding mishap.