After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.

Avis and Franklin Hilliard are the spoiled, overbearing children of a wealthy father who has just died. Lord Cecil Oakleigh, a fortune hunter, is Avis's fiancée, although there is no love between them, he marrying her for her fortune and she marrying him for his title. Mr. Hilliard has left the superintendent of his mine in full charge of his fortune.

"Bowie" Blake is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton comes to town with his wife, Naomi. He sees Bowie and decides he is perfect as a model for Lucifer in his latest painting. At first he refuses to pose, but Naomi talks him into it. Tarleton sees that Bowie is attracted to his wife, and purposely insults her just to get the right evil look in his eyes. But finally Bowie, whose feelings have become too much for him, quits.

The Lion of the Hills is a Western film.

Sisters Helen and Ruth Fiske work in a department store and live in an East Side tenement. While Ruth is satisfied with her "regular fellow," a mechanic, Helen yearns for fine clothes, wealth, and attention. Ruth marries the mechanic and they struggle for a modest existence. Helen leaves her squalor to be the mistress of wealthy John Ward, despite Ruth's pleas. As the years pass, Helen goes from one man to the next, looking for more luxuries. When James Kellerman, who really loves her, proposes, she laughs at him.

The story is set in Alaska, where spoiled and pampered heiress Octavia Van Ness has come for her health. Here she meets 'Chuck' Hemingway, who despite his rough exterior is likewise a child of wealth, and a Yale graduate to boot. When Van Ness violently rejects his romantic overtures, Hemingway turns to an old Indian chum for advice. The Indian suggests rather chauvinistically that the way to win a headstrong girl is to "tame" her -- that is, treat 'er rough and make 'er like it.

A female ape takes to mothering the orphaned boy (Tarzan) and raises him over the course of many years until a rescue mission is finally launched and the search party combs the jungle for the long-time missing Lord Greystoke. But then, one of the search members, Jane Porter, gets separated from the group and comes face to face with fearsome wild animals. Tarzan saves her from harm just in the knick of time and love begins to blossom.

When young Eva Stanley comes home from college, she finds that her mother is deeply involved in the movement to rescue "wayward" girls. Eva's boyfriend John Gilbert is sent west on a government job, and Eva finds herself lonely and neglected. She is lured onto the yacht of lecherous Leo Spencer, the dissolute brother of the district attorney.

Beautiful young Dagmar is torn between getting married and supporting her family by signing to host a new television show. The putative program sponsor wants to meet Dagmar to determine if her character is suitable to market his product, but his efforts are hindered by Dagmar's father and her cousin who insists on acting as her agent.

On his wedding day, in the few remaining hours of his bachelorhood, Barney Kempinski goes off to tour the city and sing his song to life, love and the city of New York.