After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.

When a couple of scammers hold young Alice Faulkner against her will to discover the whereabouts of letters whose dissemination could cause a scandal affecting the royal family, Sherlock Holmes decides to take over the case. (Considered lost, a copy was found in 2014, in the vaults of the Cinémathèque Française.)

I. Noah Heap, after giving a number of the race track patrons some poor tips, is chased by the copper, Welland Strong, who is ever on his trail. Noah's attempts to panhandle the crowd are also thwarted by the ever watchful Strong, who seizes and throws him bodily into the street. Noah wanders into a Chinese laundry and induces the owners to give him a smoke. He plants himself in the old man's bunk and after a couple of drags at the pipe he is off for a wonderful dream.

The boy has a camera and snaps Sweedie, the cook, while sitting on the bench in the back yard. Later he takes a picture of his father while sitting on the same bench. He forgets to turn the film in his camera, so gets a double exposure, giving the effect of Sweedie sitting on his father's lap

Sweedie's father is the owner of a grocery store, and Sweedie takes care of the trade while father plays checkers all day. She is in love with a member of the police department, and at every possible opportunity slips out and holds hands with him.

Robert Strickland, the self-confessed murderer of Gerald Trask, refuses to defend himself on the witness stand. His attorney, however, cross-examines Strickland's wife.

A twisted man holds a TV newswoman and a girl hostage in the bowels of Grand Central Station.