Mary Boyne, who made shirts at four dollars a week, had no place for love in her life - only despair and hate for the son of the man who had plunged her family into deepest distress. Peter Kenwitz loved Mary, but because he was a mathematician and a pessimist by trade, his love was as hopeless as her chance for happiness.
Lillian Travers, a New York heiress, pops down to Florida to surprise her fiancé, Fred Cassadene, the house doctor at a prominent Saint Augustine hotel. The surprise, however, is Lillian's when she finds Fred in a series of compromising situations with a certain wealthy widow staying there. When she can take no more, Lillian discovers a box forgotten at an old curiosity shop in which lies a hundred-year-old secret: a vial of four rare and exotic African seeds that promises to transform whoever swallows one from a woman to a man or vice versa.
A one-armed street peddler notices that a well-to-do man has dropped his ring. He returns it to him. The wealthy man is very grateful and, to show his appreciation, takes the peddler to a 'Limb Store', where he buys him a new arm. The recipient soon discovers that this new arm has a will of its own - causing him considerable embarrassment.
The Craigs and Smiths, next-door neighbors, are the best of friends until Smith builds a chicken house. Their two gardens are connected and their children fraternize as if all belonged to one large family. Sidney Craig manages to set loose Smith's chickens, who get into Craig's garden and work havoc among his pet seedlings.
A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.
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.
From his apartment, where he lives a cheerless widower's life, overlooking Washington Park, Alan Dale sees a refined, but poverty-stricken old gentleman on one of the park benches. Calling his butler, he instructs him to go down and tell the old man he would like to see him. When the butler approaches the elderly man the old fellow is somewhat skeptical, but finally consents to go with him. Alan receives his guest cordially and tells him why he has requested him to come and invites him to dinner. During the meal the old man tells his life's story: how he married a young woman, and after the birth of a little daughter, she died. How his daughter had married a young fellow and gone to live in New York, and how he had lost his money. The last news he had received of her was of her death.
Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.
An old doctor hires a young new doctor to join his practice, particularly to attract women for more business.
The Roman setting provides ample opportunity for a very high concentration of gag titles, many of which are quite witty and many of which are quaint for deriving their humor from the juxtaposition of having ancient Romans use a lot of hip 1918-era slang. The whole thing is an excuse for a good send-up of how the Roman Empire has been depicted in "serious" plays, movies, &c.
Tea is served during an afternoon visit of Sybil with her friend Mabel Brown. Sybil begs Mabel to tell her fortune from the tea leaves in her cup. Walter, Mabel's older brother, is in love with Sybil. Mabel complies, and at the same time puts in a good word for Walter. She tells Sybil that she will cross the water, come into possession of a fortune and marry a man with a title. This is the way her fortune came true: Mabel's little brother hides his little clay pig bank with its savings at the foot of a tree on the opposite side of a brook in a nearby wood.
When sawmill owner Helen Cole is kidnapped by bandits, it falls on lumberjack Dan Stevens to rescue her, but "Wirenail" Hedges is not willing to give up without a fight. Originally a fifteen-episode serial, all that is known to survive of "Smashing Barriers" today is this single reel abridgment created for the home movie market in 1932.
After her father dies, Chloe, played by Edith Storey, is left alone in the world. She is discovered and taken home to their cave by brothers Dagban and Eric, who vie for her affection in an allegory about “brain vs. brawn.” When “Dagban threatens to do her bodily harm unless she accedes to his intentions” Eric beats up his brother to protect Chloe, and then subsequently leaves the cave he calls home to avoid further conflict. By this point, he has won Chloe’s affection with his kindness and love, and she decides to follow him and “together they continue their journey, seeking happiness in the land beyond the horizon, which joins earth with heaven.”
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".
Joan, a refined young Salvation Army volunteer, fall in love with a gangster.
A prince, aiming to avoid an unwanted marriage, hires an American as a double to evade his pursuing father.
A smoker falls asleep, and two mischievious fairies play with his pipe. He discovers this, and imprisons them in a cigar box. He removes a flower from the box, which contains a fairy smoking a cigarette. Next, he leaves briefly while his smoking paraphenalia clears itself from the table and the flower reassembles itself into a cigar. He lights the cigar, then breaks a bottle containing the fairy, who interacts with him in various ways reeling from his cigar smoke, building a bonfire that he extinguishes, etc.
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.
