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A gang consisting of the Frog, who can dislocate his limbs; the Dope, a drug addict; Rose, who poses as the Dope's brutalized mistress; and Burke, the leader; prey on the sympathies and contributions of Chinatown sightseers, until Tom, reading about a deaf, mute, and nearly-blind supposed faith-healer called the Patriarch, living upstate, plans to take greater advantage of the public's gullibility. and Rose poses as the patriarch's long-lost niece and the Frog fakes a cure, when a real crippled boy, inspired by seeing the Frog's contorted limbs healed, walks for the first time. When news spreads and other cures occur, the gang collects much money, but gradually, each member, influenced by the Patriarch and the country atmosphere, changes for the better. The Frog becomes a widow's adopted son, while the Dope falls in love. When Rose almost falls for a millionaire, Tom overcomes his murderous jealousy and, renouncing his past, declares his love. After the Patriarch dies, Tom and Rose marry.

William Grogan (James Kirkwood), lives in New York city and meets the outside world only through the little basement window of his plumbing shop. One day he sees and falls in love with a pretty pair of feet, belonging to Ruth Warren (Anna Q. Nilsson), a schoolteacher who is lusted after by Norton Colburton, a dissolute playboy. Ruth is about to marry Colburton, but at the last minute runs away and decides to take a Cook's tour. On the boat, she meets Grogan, who has inherited a fortune, and recognizing the feet, he falls in love with their owner. Meanwhile, Colburton sends a henchman to locate Ruth. In various foreign cities, Grogan is attacked and Ruth is accosted by Colburton, who has followed her. Finally, Ruth is imprisoned in a house of prostitution, Grogan comes to her rescue, and the two are married.

Civil engineer Robert Clay (Norman Kerry) is commissioned by wealthy New Yorker Mr. Langham to open iron deposits in the tiny South American republic of Olancho. General Mendoza (Wallace Beery), the unscrupulous head of the army, unsuccessfully tries to persuade President Alvarez, and then Clay, to divide the spoils of the contract. Mendoza begins a revolution against Alvarez, but Clay and his men set out to stop the plan. Meanwhile, Mr. Langham arrives with his two enchanting daughters, Alice (Anna Q. Nilsson) and Hope (Pauline Starke), on board a yacht owned by Reginald King, Alice's suitor. Clay's long-lived attraction for Alice has been met with coldness, but Hope wins his heart by shooting down some of Mendoza's men when they try to kill him. After a savage battle, and the arrival of a U.S. battleship with sailors, Mendoza is finally beaten.

Martha Queed joins her lover Arnold Barry, who is vacationing in the mountains, and feigns a sprained ankle to see the inside of his cabin. They are noticed by David Boyd, a drunken-ruffian relative of the Queeds, who informs her domineering and puritanical father, Marvin, who forces Martha to marry Arnold to save the family's reputation. When David is found dead the next morning, evidence points to Arnold as the murderer. Martha disappears and is later discovered in a state of delirium by a deformed boy named Atlas. Upon hearing that Arnold is to be sentenced, Atlas rushes to the courtroom and confesses to the murder, then commits suicide. While Martha is convalescing, she and Arnold are married in the presence of her mother, who has left the cruel Marvin.

Laura Nesbit, daughter of old Dr. Nesbit and belle of the younger social set in the town of Harvey, plans to marry Grant Adams, the editor of the local paper, until she flirts with rising but unethical lawyer Tom VanDorn to arouse her beau's jealousy. A saddened Grant is drawn into an affair with town siren Margaret Muller, with whom he has an illegitimate son. On the rebound, Laura marries VanDorn and Margaret weds attorney Henry Fenn. History repeats itself when Laura's husband becomes infatuated with Margaret, which breaks up both marriages. Meanwhile, Grant has given up his newspaper to become a foreman in the mines. After he is injured in an explosion, Grant is taken to the Nesbit home, where Laura's care restores his health. When Grant's little son is shot and killed during a strike, he becomes so overwrought with grief that he confesses the boy's parentage to Laura, who forgives his past and they begin a new life together.

Two con men, Pop Clark and Harry Leland, take rooms in a small town boardinghouse, where Leland makes love to Doris Moore, a young woman restless to leave her village. Leland convinces Doris to follow the con men to New York City, where she stays in a boardinghouse run by Kate Fallon, a woman with a disreputable past who poses as Leland's aunt. Clark and Leland plan to use Doris to lure young engineer William Lake into a compromising situation, but Kate, who has befriended Doris, tells Lake of the con men's plan, and Lake removes Doris from the clutches of Clark and Leland. Meanwhile, Laylock, a reformed crook and a friend of Kate's, is freed from jail, where he was placed through the contrivance of Clark and Leland, and kills Leland in a pistol duel. Lake persuades his friend, Inspector Bruce, that Leland has committed suicide, and Laylock goes free. Finally, Doris and Lake become engaged.

As children, Clyde meets Miriam, and seem to fall in love, but when they get older, a misunderstanding prevents their marrying, and he instead takes Winifred, a social climber, resulting in a loveless union. Miriam has a mysterious second sight and can see the conniving Henry that is pursuing her, has deceived a woman terribly in the past, the woman being Winfred.

God-fearing Dr. Stannard Wayne marries Alice Porn, the former mistress of his friend, unethical Dr. Arthur Richards. When Richards performs an illegal abortion, he makes it look like Wayne is guilty, which gets Wayne sent to prison for five years. He emerges a changed man, a scoffer. By coincidence, he retreats to a village in the Northwest where Richards has gone with Alice. A kind townwoman, Margaret Haddon, urges Wayne to help a boy crippled by a beating from his father, but Wayne refuses. Margaret finally influences Wayne to perform the surgery, but during the operation an angry mob led by Richards descends upon the house. Wayne calls on Heaven for help and, by a miracle, the boy's life is saved and Wayne is deeply moved and his faith is restored.

Mathilde Stangerson delays marrying Robert Darzac, as she wants to continue to aide her father, a scientist, in his experiments. Later, on the evening of her engagement announcement, Mathilde leaves her father in his laboratory at midnight, and goes to her adjoining yellow room. The professor, hearing gunshots and screaming, breaks Mathilde's locked door to find her bloodied, and the room in disarray, with papers of their studies stolen. How the assailant escaped the room, with a locked door and windows secured with iron shutters, is a mystery which baffles the renowned police detective Frederic Larsan, and cub reporter Rouletabille, assigned to the case. While Larsan investigates at the house, the professor's gamekeeper is murdered. Although clues lead to Robert, who, when arrested, refuses to explain his actions, Rouletabille returns from America to interrupt the trial with the solution to the mystery and prove that Larsan is the killer.

Karl Breitman, obsessed with the notion that he is a descendant of Napoleon, is driven to restore the monarchy in France. To accomplish this, he courts Hedda Gobert, who, he has learned, possesses Napoleon's papers. Upon winning Hedda, Breitman steals the documents, which lead him to America and the home of Admiral Killigrew where, the papers allege, the emperor's hidden wealth resides. Breitman locates a treasure map in the Killigrew house, which sends him to Corsica. However, before he can reach the buried riches, he overhears some men mocking him and challenges them to a duel. Wounded, Breitman dies with Hedda, who has lovingly followed him, at his side, taking the secret of the treasure with him.

Morgan Kleath, fleeing an unfaithful wife in San Francisco, goes to the Yukon to establish a daily newspaper. Shortly after arriving, he meets Goldie Meadows, the ward of dance hall proprietor Tim Meadows. Upon exhibiting an interest in Goldie, Morgan arouses the jealousy of Joe Duke, one of her admirers, and during a fight between the two, Goldie comes to Kleath's aid when he is stabbed in the back. Later, when Duke's associates rob Meadow's safe, a number of clues point to Kleath and he is arrested and charged with the crime. Just as the court declares him guilty, Kleath's wife arrives from San Francisco and testifies that she had seen Kleath and Goldie together the night of the robbery. To save Goldie's reputation, Kleath had refused to defend himself with this alibi. After completing her testimony, Mrs. Kleath is shot and killed by members of the Duke gang, freeing Kleath to make Goldie an "honest woman."

Schooled by her wealthy brother-in-law William Hollins, Christine Bleeker plans to marry Ralph Lincourt when he is divorced. He, however, is equally pursued by Nancy Barron, whom Christine dislikes. Ned Klegg loves social secretary Barbara, and resents the attention paid her by Barron, Nancy's elderly husband. Nell Martin, a servant in the Hollins home, is in love with the gardener but is persecuted by the butler. Aviator Mulvain and his mechanic Le Prim arrive, and Le Prim absconds with Nancy in an auto, pursued by Mulvain and Christine, who force him to release her. Christine announces her engagement to Mulvain, who declares he is a poor man. In the resulting commotion, it transpires that Nell, threatened with exposure, has drowned herself. The shock brings a change of emotion: Barbara rejects Barron and accepts Klegg, and Christine accepts Mulvain, content to share his poverty.

Hugh Coleman, a poor young man, secretly marries Minna Hart, the daughter of a wealthy banker. Hugh attempts to break the news to Minna's father gently by appearing to ask permission to marry her, but before the truth is revealed, the father staunchly forbids the marriage of his Jewish daughter to a Gentile of no means. When Minna's father is murdered, Hugh becomes the prime suspect.

Society melodrama about a wealthy father who purchases an island to prove to his son that communism won't work.

Dixon Grant, a reporter, is instructed to run down a band of high financiers suspected by the editor of being involved in a number of illegitimate deals. Masterman, the head of the crooked syndicate, effects an alliance with two others in putting over a traction deal. The signed agreement is blown out of the window and - falls into the hands of Grant. This fact is soon discovered by Masterman who offers to bribe the reporter and his sweetheart into surrendering the papers. They are tricked by Bray - and tortured until Grant discloses the hiding place of the papers. Masterman sets out to locate the papers. Meanwhile, Grant and his sweetheart escape and manage to secure the necessary evidence to publish the traction scandal. Masterman - has sought refuge in his house boat, which is caught in the strong current and its destruction follows.