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.
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier community.
A poor young boy falls for a chorus girl after he finds out that she is not like the "loose women" she works with. He determines to get her to leave the immoral show-business life and marry him.
Bessie Wheaton returns from Europe to find her nouveau riche family has adopted and magnified the worst characteristics of the upper class. Her father spends all of his time at the club, her mother cultivates snobbishness, and her sister thinks only of marrying into royalty. To shake them out of their aristocratic poses, Bessie decides to reflect all of their faults, becoming as lazy as her father and as status conscious as her mother. She even rejects her own sweetheart, Allan Shelby, to lure Count d'Orr away from her sister. Finally, the members of the family confront Bessie, and she angrily tells them that she was only mirroring their behavior. Bessie then runs away, but Allan, with whom she quickly reconciles, brings her back, just as her family acknowledges its recent burlesque of the upper crust.
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.
Tokoramo, a Japanese diplomat on a mission to Paris, begins a love affair with Helene, a chorus girl, who subsequently rejects her American fiancé, Richard Bernisky. When the Japanese discover the affair, they try to force Tokoramo to end it, but Helene refuses to stop visiting him. One night, during one of her visits, Bernisky comes to Tokoramo's apartment and, while Helene hides, rebukes her to her lover. After Bernisky leaves, Tokoramo orders Helene out, but when he realizes his love for her, he calls her back. Suddenly, she rejects and insults him to the point that he strangles her. Tokoramo wants to confess his crime, but he must complete his work, and so his countrymen sacrifice a boy, Hironari, who pleads guilty to the murder and eventually is guillotined. In the end, Tokoramo also dies and his colleagues burn his valuable papers in order to protect Japan. -From the TCM.com Database, powered by the AFI.
An immigrant leaves his sweetheart in Italy to find a better life across the sea in the grimy slums of New York.
1915 film by Thomas H. Ince
Truthful Tulliver, a Westerner and a journeying newspaperman, followed by Silver Lode Thompson, printer and compositor, arrives in Glory Hole to start a newspaper.
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...
The prologue shows the life of a trapper, living in the solitude of the forest. He digs a bear trap, which is covered with boughs and grass. An Indian girl, armed with a bow and arrow, creeps close to a wild turkey, which she brings down. As she runs forward to gather up her prey she falls into the trap. Evans, the trapper, finds her there and on lifting her from the pit, finds that she has sprained her ankle, and takes her to his cabin, and makes her as comfortable as possible. As the shades of evening fall and the pain subsides, the girl drops into a slumber, and loath to awaken her, Evans leaves her in possession of his cabin and, wrapped in a blanket, sleeps outside. In the morning, the girl having recovered sufficiently, he lifts her to his horse, and mounting behind her, proceeds to the Indian camp. On the way he is attacked by a trio of Indians, who fire at him from behind a tree, and the trapper brings down one of his assailants.
Parker, an Army lieutenant at a Western outpost, falls in love with Barbara Taylor, daughter of his commanding officer. But when Barbara rejects him, Parker fights with another soldier and deserts. An Indian attack gives him a chance to redeem himself.
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.
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.
Scott Wells, a lowly clerk in the offices of railroad magnate David Haldeman, overhears a plot to ruin Haldeman.
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.
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.
The Colonel is at a financial low ebb, and his only recourse is to get his horse safely to the big race and win. But obstacles appear at every turn.
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.
