Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation.
A harried propman backstage at a theater must put up with malfunctioning wind machines, roosters that spit nitroglycerine, and a gang planning to rob the theater's payroll.
Cartoon figures announce, via comic strip balloons, that they will move - and move they do, in a wildly exaggerated style. Also known as "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics".
Emphatically opposed to Jack Moss, old Mr. McGillicuddy puts the ban on his marriage to his daughter Dolly. The old gentleman is adamant to the appeals of the young lovers and interposes his interference on every occasion, when they get together. McGillicuddy is seized with an attack of the gout, which handicaps him, and it is then Jack arranges with Dolly to elope.
A bumbling sawmill employee tries to win the hand of the owner's daughter while staying out of the clutches of the mill's bullying foreman.
Young and spunky Alannah, an Irish immigrant living in a tenement, sells newspapers to support her family. She is soon helping a district attorney secure proof that the unjust town mayor is collecting bribes. For her reward, Alannah and her boyfriend Jimmy are appointed managers of a municipal restaurant.
To avoid ruin, an impoverished count arranges a marriage between his daughter and a wealthy man she does not love. After an accident, she is taken in by a gifted artist who saves her from an unseemly fate.
Making his departure from home. Captain Jack of the Confederate army, leaves to rejoin his regiment, but before doing so promises his boy that he will return to celebrate the little fellow's fifth birthday. One month later the Captain gets a leave of absence for three days and goes back to keep faith with his son.
Romantic comedy in which a woman who no longer wants to marry her fiance when it turns out he doesn't have an inheritance. After his father is deceased, Stephen Fiske travels to New York, where he learns that his father has left him nothing. His fiancée Doris now refuses to marry him because he is not rich. Doris has, however, an old aunt, whose last wish is that Doris marry Stephan.
Elizabeth Browne is the daughter of nouveau riche parents, who became wealthy when they struck oil. While she attends finishing school, her folks travel to England in search of a family tree so that they can enter society. They encounter Lady Dysart, an adventuress who married Lord Dysart shortly before his death. Lady Dysart tries to convince the Brownes that Cecil, her son from a previous marriage, is the new Lord Dysart.
King Henry VIII smitten with Anne Boleyn wishes to displace his estimable Queen Catherine for her. He appeals to Cardinal Wolsey to set aside the tenets of the Church and consent to his divorce from the Queen. The cardinal absolutely refuses to do anything so inimical to his office, as representative of the Holy See. Angered King Henry induces the Archbishop of Canterbury to call a special council through which he divorces himself from Queen Catherine. In punishment for his refusal to accede to the king's wishes, the cardinal is exiled to Leicester Abbey where he dies three days afterward, conscious that he had sustained the sacredness of his office, a martyr to his faith and of service to his king.
Eric Temple is a composer whose rival, both in romance and work, is Sir Geoffrey Pomfret , a nobleman with few scruples. The woman they both love is Margaret, the daughter of Lord Neville. To get rid of his competition, Pomfret tells Lord Neville that his wife, Lady Neville, is in love with Eric. Then, when Eric is attacked by thugs and lays unconscious in a hospital, he steals his opera too.
When WWI breaks out previously best friends in their New York neighborhood, The Schultz and Du Bois families, take opposite sides in the conflict. When their youngest Little Johnnie Du Bois and Heinie Schultz, backed up by their "allies," decide to fight it out in a vacant lot a battle royal takes place between the two families. But by this time the Schultze’s' eldest son Fritz and the Du Bois’ pretty daughter Marie have fallen in love so when they embrace in front of the families all agree to put their differences aside since "First and foremost we're all good Americans."
Dr. Hugh Loring, whose hobby is heredity, has evolved the theory that physical or mental peculiarities of children reveal the parents. The doctor's intense desire for children is only equaled by his wife's aversion. On the occasion of the doctor admonishing his wife for being friendly with an admirer she leaves him, and when her child is born she swears Ruth Carden, an employee of her husband's, who has accompanied her, to secrecy, so that she may keep from the doctor his greatest joy. Mrs. Loring dies, and Ruth returns to the doctor's office, leaving the child in the care of the nurse. Three years later the nurse finds it necessary to give up the child, and the doctor, who has fallen in love with Ruth, is stunned, for he believes that the child is hers.
King Herod is enchanted by Salome's dance and grants her wish for the head of John the Baptist.
To assuage his grief over the death of his wife during childbirth, newspaper publisher John Briscoe resettles in Paris. Twenty-five years pass, during which time Briscoe's estranged son Jason has taken charge of his dad's newspaper. When Jason refuses to support crooked politician Stange in an upcoming election, he receives a cablegram from Briscoe Sr., who overrides his son's decision.
Well-meaning but accident-prone bakery employee Larry is involved in numerous slapstick mishaps on the job. After accidentally causing the bakery owner to fall into a vat of cake batter Larry finds his job in jeopardy, but he redeems himself by foiling a robbery planned by the bakery foreman.
No matter how absorbed with affairs of state, Abraham Lincoln was always ready to give audience to his little son Tad. Little Tad, playing at the boat landing of the White House lake, falls into the water and is saved from drowning by a young fellow named Jasper Brinton. When young Brinton carries Tad into the White House, the president is very grateful to him and says if there is anything that he can do for him at any time he will be glad to do it. Young Brinton's mother is an enthusiastic supporter of the Federal cause, and when the war breaks out, she urges her son to join the Union army. He has an inherent dread of danger and naturally hesitates. He finally enlists. On the battlefield his natural fear takes possession of him.
Mrs. String, sitting under the rose bushes with her baby, Helen, on her knee, is approached lovingly by her husband, who lovingly speaks to his family and then shakes the rose bushes over their heads, causing the white leaves to fall upon their heads in a shower of rarest sun tints.
