Family relationships of a New Mexico family are just one part of this silent cowboy western about a war veteran who finds a goldmine. He wants to earn enough money to take care of his young son, but crooked officials swindle him out of the mine, and then his son is killed. He swears vengeance and joins up with Mexican bandit, "Pancho Zapilla", who intends to destroy his whole town.
Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rage, he kidnaps the woman most responsible and makes her his slave in a desert hideaway.
When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.
Movie mogul Thomas H. Ince may well have been the director of The Despoiler as indicated by the credits; but since Ince was known far and wide as a glory-hogger, it's also possible that one of his talented lieutenants wielded the megaphone. A Civil War drama, The Despoiler refuses to take sides, demonstrating that there are heroes and villains in both camps. Capturing a small town, Colonel Charles K. French orders his men to reclaim the funds raised for the enemy by the townsfolk. French's drunken, lacivious second-in-command Frank Keenan intends to extort money from the citizens by threatening the virtue of the town's female population.
A "scientific detective" story about the attempted murder of a wealthy New Yorker in his mountain lodge is framed with a satire of Hollywood as the writer of the story comically tries to get the script read and accepted by a studio.
Jules Ingram ( William Desmond ), the sole survivor of an old Puritan family, seeks solace and forgetfulness in drink. Unable to pay his debts, Jules is driven from his house when banker Rufus Moore ( Robert McKim ) forecloses on the mortgage. Offered shelter by Mercy Reed ( Margery Wilson ), a woman who in her youth naively sinned and has remained rejected by the community ever since, Jules begins to reform. Climbing his way back to respectability, Jules attends church with Mercy, causing a storm of protest. Moore's wife Agnes urges the mob to violence, and as they attempt to tar and feather Jules and Mercy, Mercy delivers an eloquent speech condemning Moore as her betrayer. The mob then takes Moore as their victim, leaving Jules and Mercy in peace.
Jack Harding, a wealthy ne'er-do-well, becomes involved with a Broadway vamp. When she is murdered, Jack is falsely accused of the crime and must turn for help to his lawyer--his wife.
Fred Martin is a Southern spy. A northern dispatch bearer is captured, the signature to his messages is forged, and Martin is sent on the dangerous mission of luring the Northern troops into an ambush. He accomplishes this and a terrible battle results, in which the Federals are driven back. The work of Martin is so damaging to the North that plans are laid for his capture, and John Bruce, a secret service man, is assigned to the task.
Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.
D'Artagnan leaves home travelling to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
William Berner is an English spy who is doing his job behind German lines. While working for the allies, he proves sympathetic toward a German Lieutenant and saves his life. He gives up his own romance for the cause and is killed when the Allies shell the German trench where he happens to be.
It all begins when Mrs. Rossmore (Dean) discovers that her husband (Howard Hickman) has begun "playing the field" with other women. Too much the lady to make an issue of Mr. Rossmore's infidelities, Mrs. Rossmore nonetheless begins plotting her strategy to win him back. She does so by putting on a great show of pretending not to want her husband to return to the nest.
Truthful Tulliver, a Westerner and a journeying newspaperman, followed by Silver Lode Thompson, printer and compositor, arrives in Glory Hole to start a newspaper.
James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.
"Bowie" Blake is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton comes to town with his wife, Naomi. He sees Bowie and decides he is perfect as a model for Lucifer in his latest painting. At first he refuses to pose, but Naomi talks him into it. Tarleton sees that Bowie is attracted to his wife, and purposely insults her just to get the right evil look in his eyes. But finally Bowie, whose feelings have become too much for him, quits.
The heroine, Peggy Cameron, is a high-society debutante with a mind of her own. After making a public spectacle of herself once too often, Peggy is bundled off to Scotland, where she is to be looked after by her no-nonsense uncle Andrew Cameron (William H. Thompson). If Peggy's family had hoped that she would straighten up and behave herself in Scotland, they were sorely mistaken. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive with restoration funding provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.
When Ashley Hampdon becomes the target of a scheme to ruin him by his daughter's suitor, Hampdon sends for his old friend Bob White. Bob discovers that the suitor, Gregg Lewiston, cannot hope to win Lina Hampdon while her father's wealth remains intact. Lewiston hopes that if her family becomes destitute, she will turn to him. But Bob White is there to upset the scheme.
Mr. Burns, a student of Theosophy, has a dream in the hammock. He sees himself, his wife and her admirer, in a previous existence.
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier community.
Prince Tonio of Bothalia, a mythical kingdom in the Balkan Mountains, escapes an arranged marriage to Princess Athalia, the elderly daughter of a neighboring king. Filled with wanderlust, he becomes a sailor and goes to San Francisco where he meets a young singer...
