The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

In order to impress the father of a girl he is keen on, a young man goes to the city in search of work. In his letters home he writes of his various jobs which her imagination expands into much nobler ones than those that he is actually attempting.

William Lowry rescues Claudia Royce from a burning building, and upon hearing that her parents are trying to force her to accept millionaire Leland, whom she does not love, he proposes a marriage of convenience to himself. She accepts, and Bill arranges a fake ceremony; but when she falls in love with Davidge, Bill refuses her a "divorce." Later, Bill gets rich in the manufacture of a patented fireman's pole, and when he buys a house for Claudia she realizes her love for him and they are legally married.

When Mandarin Wu's unmarried daughter becomes pregnant by a young Englishman, he seeks vengeance.

A World War I veteran takes on the Ku Klux Klan when he loses his wife to a womanizing Klansman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation.

Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.

Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall in love with the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.

California's gold discovery in 1848 draws a "tide of empire" to the area, which becomes ripe for bandits.

In Russia in the early 1900s, Fedya, a handsome, self-indulgent womanizer, falls in love with and marries Lisa, his friend Victor's fiancée. Fedya quickly tires of domestic life and resumes his profligate ways, drinking and gambling away his family's fortune. Lisa refuses to leave him despite his deplorable ways, so he takes drastic measures to ensure that she will no longer be harmed by his actions and reputation.

Henry, the pagan son of a white father and native mother, has inherited land and a store, but he prefers the simple life. When he falls in love with a native girl, her guardian, who is trying to bring her up as a 'proper' Christian, but who also lusts after her himself, plots to keep them apart.