The Aryan 1916
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cecil Weatherby, travelling in the Arabian desert, comes upon a hidden and secret city. There he finds love in the form of a beautiful priestess, Ameera. Their love results in their being condemned to death, but even in the City of Death, love will find a way.
Sisters Helen and Ruth Fiske work in a department store and live in an East Side tenement. While Ruth is satisfied with her "regular fellow," a mechanic, Helen yearns for fine clothes, wealth, and attention. Ruth marries the mechanic and they struggle for a modest existence. Helen leaves her squalor to be the mistress of wealthy John Ward, despite Ruth's pleas. As the years pass, Helen goes from one man to the next, looking for more luxuries. When James Kellerman, who really loves her, proposes, she laughs at him.
Ballerina Poppea is adored by all the men of Calcutta, especially British soldier Captain Drake and Indian PrinceYar Khan. Because of his title and wealth, Poppea decides to marry the prince, while keeping Drake as a lover. But the prince eventually discovers what she's up to and goes out of his way to catch the adulterers together. He takes two glasses of wine, pours arsenic into one, and tells Poppea to choose which glass each man will drink. She innocently picks the poisoned glass for Drake and he dies horribly. The prince disposes of the body and drives Poppea out into the desert.
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.
The Devil, in the guise of a human, meets a young couple who remark upon looking at a Renaissance painting of a martyr that Evil could never triumph over Good. The Devil, taking this as a challenge, decides to bring about the couple's downfall.
An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.
Wealthy John Steele has a handsome young son, Frank, on whom he pins his hopes. But riches lead Frank not into social standing and duty, but into depravity, drug-addiction, criminal activity, and finally to tragedy.
A deserting soldier encounters a wagon train of settlers. When they are faced with an Indian attack, he risks court martial to return to the Army post for help.
Bob Evans, a telegraph operator, together with a group of soldiers gets ambushed by Sioux Indians. Wounded, he climbs into a telegraph pole and asks through the telegraph wires for help from the fort. Bob's fiancée Edith comes along with the soldiers. The soldiers find only dead bodies and decide to chase the Indians. Edith stays behind to search for Bob. She finds him and together they return to the fort. The Sioux then attack the fort, but when the situation seems hopeless, the army returns and the Indians are expelled.
An immigrant leaves his sweetheart in Italy to find a better life across the sea in the grimy slums of New York.
Pete Larson is a brute whose battered wife, Anne, finally finds courage to leave. The woman gets lost in the wilderness and is taken in by a young hunter, who later proposes marriage. Mistakenly believing her husband to be dead, Anne accepts only to find her first husband returning to perform a bit of blackmail.
After the bandit known as the Two-Gun Man Jim Stokes robs the stage, he is wounded in his flight from the scene. Recuperating at a ranch, he falls in love with a local settler's daughter. Now wishing to go straight, Stokes encounters trouble when the Sheriff-- not entirely incorruptible-- Catches wind of his location.
William H. Thompson plays a likeable old lighthouse keeper who must contend with his less likeable fellow villagers. One of Thompson's acts of kindness is to bless the "scandalous" romance between hero and heroine.
An narcissistic woman with the ability to charm, Leila Aradella reaps delight from preying upon weak men. Her first victim is John Morton, a talented lawyer, whom she ruins both morally and financially. Her second victim, Rex Walden, the generous son of society matron Mrs. Walden, becomes her complete slave. Mrs. Walden sends her elder son Franklin to try to dissuade Leila from toying with Rex's affections. Franklin, however, also falls under Leila's spell, and Rex is driven to suicide by her callous behavior. Desperate, Mrs. Walden enlists Adele Harley, a girl of strong moral character, to fight Leila for Franklin's affections. Adele's determined victory causes Leila to lose her confidence, and in a drunken state, she cuts her own face with a shard from her shattered mirror. Permanently disfigured, Leila ends a broken and lonely woman.
Larry Thomas works as a minor employee in a large insurance company. He loves Ellen Horton, who has great faith in him. When Larry is falsely accused of murder, it is Ellen who saves the day. She also manages to help him achieve the position in the business he deserves.