Kinetophote

Unscrupulous gambler and drug addict Dunstan Leech has embezzled money entrusted to him. Hoping to cover the theft he plans to wed his mother’s ward Kate Heathcote, who is tutor to his disabled brother Cecil, only to discover she loves Richard Blunt. Unhinged, due to his drug use, he poisons his brother’s food to clear the way to an inheritance while his equally dishonest mother Mrs. Jelf attempts to frame Blunt for theft. That plan fails and Kate & Richard marry departing for the diamond mines of South Africa. Obsessed, Leech follows and kidnaps Kate and the couple’s child fleeing back to England pursued by Richard. Held hostage at Leech’s estate, his dying mother gives Kate the evidence to prove Dunstan’s culpability in Cecil’s slaying but driven mad with guilt and haunted by Cecil’s spirit he commits suicide, and the young family are reunited.

A psychological study of the effects of drug addiction on humanity. Helene Ford has been injected with heroin by an unscrupulous physician, causing her to act irrationally. Her husband Stephen, a noted artist, hires a model whom Helene, inflamed by their friend Jack Murray, suspects of having an affair with Stephen. The model is also addicted to drugs and convinces Stephen to try heroin to forget his troubles. Both Stephen and Helene then become addicted to drugs. They abandon their home and then separate, after which Stephen resorts to crime to support his heroin addiction. During an escape from the police after a robbery, Stephen encounters Helene again, this time near death. She sacrifices her own life to shield her husband, but Stephen and his former model plunge to their deaths.