Mogador, Morocco. Late 1920s. A complex romance develops between a womanizing Legionnaire and a disillusioned Parisian cabaret singer.

Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.

Myra Pendleton was sent away to be raised after her mother died in childbirth. Now that she's a young woman, her father wants her to return, but instead of simply welcoming her back, he pretends to be the Pendleton Family attorney, who presents her with a lovely home. But the house actually belongs to Kirk Waring (Warner Baxter), who has been abroad. Waring returns to find that he's been swindled out of both house and fortune.

Grace Merrill works as a shill in a gambling hall. Her five roommates are even less honestly employed. One of them, Elsie Brown commits suicide because her main squeeze, Frank Norwood has left her. Elsie's small town mother comes to the city and meets Elsie's roommates. But Mother Brown's faith and purity are so compelling that the ladies of the night reform. Grace, in fact, gives up her affair with a married man -- even though she really loves him -- to go live with Mrs. Brown in the country.

Four heirs to a family fortune are summoned to appear at the family estate for the reading of the will, where they meet the estate's staff, which includes a nurse, a crazed doctor, and a sinister handyman.

When her latest show closes, Pat O'Brien returns home. The stable owned by her fiancé, Dan Mallory, catches fire, and Pat helps save his prize horse, Lady Belle, who is blinded. Because of the fire, Pat and Dan have to put their wedding plans on hold, and Pat returns to the stage.

Forced into a loveless marriage by her mother, Joan Coolidge, a beautiful American girl, finds her husband a brute. She runs away to Paris and studies dancing and becomes The Rage of Paris.

Clint Belmet is a bit of a firebrand and is sentenced to at least 30 days in jail, but his partners, Bill Jackson and Jim Bridger talk a sympathetic Frenchwoman named Felice into telling the bumbling, drunken marshal that Clint had married her the previous night. Clint is released so he can accompany Felice on the wagon train heading west to California.

Serama, the consort of Lucifer, is driven from Paradise by the Archangel Michael, who commands Conscience to enter human souls to judge and punish them. In the main story, society girl Ruth Somers, a reincarnation of Serama, prepares to marry Cecil Brooke, the wealthiest man of her set. Her guardian, Dr. Norton, an incarnation of Lucifer, constantly accompanies her. Ruth is summoned to the Court of Conscience, where the witnesses, Lust, Avarice, Hate, Revenge and Vanity, testify about Ruth's history of seducing and abandoning men. This behavior resulted in the suicide of Madge, the lover of Ned Langley, whom Ruth enthralled and promised to marry, and also the deaths of two rivals for her love. Ruth is ordered back to earth to learn her sentence. When Ned interrupts the wedding, Ruth scorns him and he shoots himself. After Brooke leaves her, the Court dooms Ruth to live with the torment of remembrance. Ruth sends Norton away, and then kneels and repents.

Mildred Harker loses custody of her child in a messy divorce settlement. Leaving her hometown in disgrace, Mildred heads to New York, where after a crash course in the school of hard knocks she joins the chorus of a Ziegfeld-like musical revue. Now a full-fledged gold-digger, she enjoys the favors of backstage johnnies and elderly sugar daddies, but finally finds true love in the form of Park Avenue socialite Ted Willing.