When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

Honey Skinner is proud of her successful husband. When he tells her he's going to ask for a raise, she knows he'll get it. He asks his boss just as their big client announces he's not renewing his contract. He doesn't get the raise, but he's too embarrassed to tell his wife the truth. She starts making plans to spend that extra $10 a week; the first thing is a new dress suit for him and a new outfit for her so they can fit in at a swanky party. They're the hit of the party, and Honey is embraced by the 'smart set.' Meanwhile, business is bad and Skinner loses his job. The tailor is after him for payment on the suit, and Honey is still spending the salary he doesn't have.

Belle Bennett plays as the widowed mother of seven children living in Sioux City, Iowa. She moves with them to Cambridge, Massachusetts in order to educate her children with culture and give them every advantage. Bennett, who is unversed in financial matters, soon faces poverty for herself and her children. She takes out a loan from an unscrupulous lender (played by Richard Tucker), who is so impressed by the charm and valiant spirit of Bennett than he neglects to ask her for collateral. Bennett, however, is only able to partially pay her creditors. Marion Nixon, Bennett's eldest daughter, is shocked by her mother's actions and attempts to sacrifice herself to Tucker in order to clear her mother's obligations, even though she is engaged to marry a well to do Harvard undergraduate, played by Rex Bell. This film is believed lost.

An old man unethically provides an income for his two grandchildren.

Dawn, a young white girl who has been kidnapped in infancy and reared by Mooda, an African woman who operates a canteen in the German cantonment, meets and falls in love with Tom Allen, an English rubber planter who is a prisoner of war. Shep Keyes, who has joined the German troops, covets her but realizes he cannot possess her because she is betrothed to the tribal god, Mulunghu. On the eve of the ceremony, he learns of her love for Tom. Tom, meanwhile, is sent back to England, and when the English take the territory from the Germans, Shep tries to incite the natives, who are experiencing a drought, against Dawn because of her love of a mortal. Tom learns from Mooda that Dawn was stolen from a white trader and finds her seeking refuge in a convent. Shep arouses the natives, but Dawn declares her faith in the white man's God, and a thunderstorm brings relief to the parched land, after which Tom claims her for his bride.

A middle-aged magician is in love with his beautiful young assistant. She, on the other hand, is in love with the magician's young protege, who turns out to be a bum and a thief.

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

Nora Mason becomes entangled in a family mix-up of murder and scandal that threatens to ruin her career and entire future; Unless the mother she does not know can find a way to save her.

A composer and his daughter emigrate to America in the hope that he can sell his symphony. But he meets with little success and begins to give up hope. His daughter and her friends, however, never give up hope.

An orphan boy wins a prize for his drawing.