A benefactor ejects a tramp who covets his wife and later adopts the child of the girl the tramp saved from suicide.
Social & External
The Wife
The Woman
The Husband
The Brute
The Man
The Friend
The Thinker
An early satirical anthology of socially conscious shorts.
Lelia Crofton, a Louisiana belle of the 1860s, loves Burleigh Mavor. By chance, she sees one of her father's black stablemen making love to a neighbor's maid, whom she supposed was white. The incident shocks Lelia and leaves a great impression upon her. When she rejects suitor Steve Daubeney, he threatens to expose a damaging secret about her mother, whom she has never met. Remembering the incident with the neighbor's maid, Lelia worries that her mother might be black, and when Daubeney learns of her fears, he leads her to believe that they are well-founded.
After a stirring performance, Cleo Martell, a renowned stage actress, is visited in her dressing room by Gordon Trent, a too ardent admirer. When Cleo's husband enters, a fight ensues, and Trent kills his rival in the struggle. Jack Stanley arrives on the scene to help but is accused of the murder by Cleo and is sent off to prison. The opportunistic Trent marries Jack's rich fiancée Helen Forde, who believes that her former lover is guilty of unfaithfulness. Jealous of the arrangement, Cleo eventually tells Helen the truth about the killing, causing Betty, Helen's daughter, to cry over her mother's unhappiness. Moved by the girl's tears, Cleo joins forces with Helen against Trent, and the two women go West where Jack, escaped from prison, works as a cowboy.
When her husband dies and leaves her penniless, Mrs. Lawrence Evringham moves in with her wealthy but grim father-in-law and schemes to marry Eloise, her daughter, to the rich Dr. Ballard.
While working his way through college, Paul Potter acquires a flock of wealthy friends who encourage him to give up his hometown fiancée, Sylvia Castle, for Muriel Evers, a flirtatious married woman. After Sylvia releases Paul, and Muriel's husband divorces her for infidelity, Paul and Muriel marry. Meanwhile, when Sylvia's father dies after being ruined in the stock market, she goes from one job to another in the city until she tries acting in a stock company. There she befriends Henry Leamington, an alcoholic leading man, who, as he tutors her, falls in love and stops drinking because of her. When Paul discovers Muriel's unfaithfulness, he renews his acquaintance with Sylvia, who still loves him.
Lieutenant Commander Colton, U.S.N., is in love with Caroline Austen, daughter of a prominent political power in Washington. Colton has a rival in James Archer, a journalist of prominence, unscrupulous and secretly in league with the Ruanian Ambassador, who is endeavoring to obtain for his country inside information as to the United States naval resources.
To help his dying father, assistant bank cashier Arthur Mansfield enters a fake sum in the bank's account book, but before carrying out the pilferage, he confesses to cashier Slayton, his superior. Slayton, who needs money to pay for his unsuccessful speculations, goes at night to take the money that Mansfield planned to embezzle, so that Mansfield will take the blame.
Irresponsible Billy Thorpe is sent to South America by his financée Claire's father, George Vincent, the rubber king, in order to reform.
Stranded in the small town of Buckeye Junction young actress Madge Joy crawls upon a load of hay and falls asleep. Knocked unconscious when young farmer Robert Deep hitches up the wagon not realizing she’s inside she awakes in the Deep living room. "Ma" Deep takes to her at once, but old “Pa” Deep looks at her sternly. Claiming to be a runaway orphan rather than an actress she becomes a member of the family. Falling for Madge Robert confesses he dreams of being a playwright, that night his sister Susan, who has run away to be an actress, reappears. Pa Deep is furious when he finds out his daughter has been on the stage, but Madge reveals that she is herself an actress threatening to go away with Robert unless he makes up with his daughter. Eventually Madge finds fame in New York with Robert following with a play he knows is right.
Pinky Cochrane is one of a trio of starving artists: the other two are Sam Wellbridge and Mac MacTavish. When one of their favorite models dies, the three heroes take charge of the woman's infant son Victor. Once the boy has grown to manhood, his three foster fathers decide to choose a likely wife for their "shared" son.
A widowed woman marries her husband's brother, who soon proves to be a tyrant stepfather to his adopted son.
Billy Davis discovers that his father's bakery business is in serious financial trouble and leaves college in order to help his family.
The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas of Cathay in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo's caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions' attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power.
Margot is the pawn in a game set up by her father, "Old Bill" Prewitt, and her husband, Tom Sloan. They use her to fleece gamblers until a gun fight results in serious injuries for both Tom and Bill. Bill thinks Tom is dead and takes Margot across country. He finally collapses from exhaustion and they are found by a trapper.
At a party thrown by millionaire Max Goldberg, Charles Howard, an aristocratic young artist, succumbs to the charms of chorus girl Lita O'Farrell, Goldberg's erstwhile girl friend. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and then their incompatibilities begin to surface.
Jan Saxe and Peter Harlingen, two young men from Holland, arrive in America with little orphan Bertha Kruger whom they have befriended during the trip and whom they both love. Bertha has come to live with her blind Aunt Sophie, and when Jan secretly raises $500 for an operation to restore her aunt's sight, Bertha marries Peter, believing that he was the donor of the "secret gift."
Robert Brent and Dick Morgan, the former wealthy, the latter poor, are chums at one of the big colleges until they both fall in love with Viola Scott, a college girl.
Andrew Gibson inherits problems when his father dies and leaves shares of his piano manufacturing business to his workmen. To add to his troubles, Andrew's girl, Nora Gorodna, is being pursued by José Ferra, one of the workmen; and Lila Normand, a society girl, tricks Andrew into proposing.
Living in adjoining homes at Oakdale, Hal Oilman and Alice Blanchard are childhood friends and playmates. Some years later. Hal goes to college, and while there makes a bitter enemy of Bert Peyson by exposing him as a card cheat and a thief.
Amy Lindel, a church choir singer, goes to the city to pursue a singing career, but finds herself only able to get cabaret gigs. She then becomes entangled in a situation involving stolen diamonds, and is saved by the "good guy" whom she later marries.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
A daughter seeks to restore the reputation of her disgraced father, a wronged college professor. With help of a professional student, she must overcome an ambitious sorority bitch and corrupt college dean.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Ex-fighter Raymundo forms an unlikely bond with a disgruntled man whose life and relationship with his daughter are unraveling. The men join forces to win a fight that could very well save Raymundo, his wife and their child.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.