John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
Theatrical manager Isaac Shuman has a reputation for "taking advantage" of young girls who want to become stars on Broadway. Reporter Tom Warder investigates these stories and exposes Shuman in his newspaper.
A 1910 short directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Marion Leonard.
Harvy, the heavy, and Bella, the ingenue, of a cheap theatrical company are encumbered with an infant girl. The husband, a worthless, dissipated character, annoyed by the presence of the child and the care the wife is compelled to give it. deserts them both. The show then "busts" and the mother and the infant are left stranded in a small California town.
Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.
A 1914 silent Western short
A poor widow dies, leaving her two young children, Bob and Mabel, in the care of a poor neighbor, who later is forced by circumstances to give them to an asylum. Twenty years pass and Jack, who has been adopted by a good family, has now gone into business for himself and is a rising young broker. He has been searching the detective agencies for his sister, without success, for some years. Mabel ran away from the asylum and has been brought up by a poor family, is without education and is now employed as a servant, and on a certain day is hanging clothes on a roof nearby a large office building, in which Bob has his office, and a small boy is flying his kite from the same rooftop.
Marie is a village girl, very religious. Her mother, fearing some man will make her unhappy (as she had been made by a man) made her promise on her deathbed that she would enter a nunnery. Marie considers that promise sacred and will allow nothing to interfere with her keeping that promise.
Secretly engaged to Bernice, Albert becomes infatuated with the gypsy Mina. The rich and jealous Renard is in love with Mina enticing her father to take revenge on Albert. A scuffle ensues during which Renard accidentally stabs Mina's father but allows everyone to believe Albert guilty of the crime. Bernice hears of the events and breaks off her engagement to Albert. He is pursued by the police until a last-minute confession saves him.
Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.
English sleuths Grace Burton and Stephen Pryde are in love, but when Stephen inherits wealth and a title, he does not tell Grace, fearing that she will stop loving him. Grace provides support for her sister Stella Ford, whose husband is frequently away on business trips, so Stephen, hoping to alleviate Grace's financial burden, pays all of Stella's debts and provides her with an allowance. When Grace learns of the arrangement, she is hurt that he did not confide in her. Stella lives in a building occupied by a wild crowd. In the flat above her lives Netta, who has numerous boyfriends, including Jerome, an older man, and Bartlett, a young fop. One evening, the rivals mistakenly enter Stella's apartment and in an ensuing fight, Jerome kills Bartlett.
Helen and Joe are in love. He receives a letter from his uncle offering him a good position in his law office. He shows Helen the letter and she shows him one from the Standard, also a check for a short story. They have a quarrel over a slight thing and he leaves for his uncle's place. Six years go by and Helen is now a very successful writer on a large daily.
The Old Man is a 1914 film short
A feud between the families of Gourd and Fork Ranches
Set in Rome, during the feudal period. The heroine, the daughter of an armor manufacturer, is in love with a humble tradesman. The resistance expressed by the armorer towards this romance inexorably leads to disaster for everyone concerned.
William Rock, assistant cashier in a business concern, has a sick daughter. The doctor urges that she be taken immediately to another climate, and Rock, unable to get an advance on his pay, is desperate. He has been in the habit of taking the deposits to the bank every Saturday, and then going direct from the bank home. He determines that week to steal the money. On Saturday Rock is followed on the street by a couple of crooks. He goes into a telephone booth to phone his daughter May and her fiancé, a young physician, that they can start south with the younger sister at once. Taking the money out of the bank satchel, he stuffs it in his inside vest pocket and leaves with the empty bag in his hand. He goes down an alleyway to get rid of the satchel, but is assaulted by the gunmen and the bag taken from him.
When the Civil War was declared, it caused great consternation in the home of John Wilson, as he was of Southern birth, while his wife was a Northern woman, and she favored the Federal cause.
