The Boy, involved in a maritime disaster as a child, suffers from hydrophobia. He invents a life preserver that automatically inflates when it hits the water, using it to save the life of Rose Ryan, the daughter of a steamship magnate.
Alcoholic playboy Wallace MacDonald (as Bruce Armstrong) would like to sober up and become more responsible, after a drinking accident causes him to cripple little brother Pat Moore (as Jimmy Armstrong). Still, the lure of liquor makes him to sneak drinks at home, and go out partying with carefree showgirl Clara Bow (as Marilyn Merrill). He's promised Ms. Bow he'll quit drinking and gambling. Further complicating Mr. MacDonald's life are the bad checks he's been accumulating. Nasty Stuart Holmes (as Tom Canfield) and Tom Santschi (as "Big Joe" Snead) force MacDonald to join their diamond smuggling racket, in lieu of payment.
A young woman doesn't want to get married, but simply live together with the man she loves. This leads to problems when the man dies and she's left with a child.
Young Kenneth Jamieson's millionaire father, fed up with his son's wild escapades, sends him to stay on a chicken farm in the small village of Dedham. On the day he arrives there pretty Diane Lee, the niece of local Rev. David Lee, arrives from Paris. A few days later Kenneth, reverting back to his wild ways, gets drunk and makes a spectacle of himself, but rather than reproving him, Rev. Lee gives him a heart-to-heart talk and gets Kenneth to turn his life around. Meanwhile, the reverend--barely able to get by on the pittance the local vestrymen pay him--asks for a raise but is denied it, being told that he must send Diane away before they'll even consider giving him any extra money. Soon afterward Kenneth falls gravely ill. His father, hearing of Kenneth's condition and of his infatuation with Diane, arrives at the village to see his son and isn't ready for what he finds.
Set in a hotel straddling the border between California and Nevada, this early John Ford comedy follows a female hotel owner's efforts to turn a profit and get some work out of her husband.
Sweethearts Jimmie Carter and Bessie Barnes work for Adolph Brock at the Acme Corporation. One day while he is out for a drive in his jalopy of a car, Jimmie spies a pretty young woman on horseback. He comes to her rescue after she falls off her horse and gets injured, he leading her to refuge in an abandoned cabin when it starts to rain heavily. Although she flirts with him, he, in turn attracted to her, wants to remain faithful to Bessie and resists his urges. When this woman mysteriously disappear on him, he can't stop thinking about her and follows her innuendo to meet with her at her apartment. All the while, he is unaware that she is Peggy Joyce, Brock's gold-digging fiancée. He is also unaware that Peggy has ulterior motives for coming on to him, which, in combination with her dangerous past, could lead to complications for all involved.
The Hey Fellas gang builds a firehouse out of junkyard parts.
"Bilge" Smith (Richard Barthelmess), a tough sailor, meets Connie Martin (Dorothy Mackaill), a seamstress in a small harbor who has never had a boyfriend. Connie is instantly smitten. She invites Smith to dinner, where he dances with her and gives her a kiss. Connie has a hard time letting him go, and makes him promise that he will come back.
Fred Prouty and his wife, Nettie, are living happily until the day that his aged father shows up on their doorstep. He immediately begins creating havoc, upsetting the once-orderly household and trying to force his opinions on everyone. Nettie does her best to be patient with the old man, but the day comes when he brings a group of his pals over while she is holding a meeting of a fashionable club.
John Douglas, a down-on-his-luck engineer, takes his sweetheart, Sara Deeping, to a play starring Carla King, and he falls in love with the actress.
When Bob Smith brings in the outlaw Bob Moore he learns his real name is also Bob Smith. With his sister whom he has not seen since childhood arriving, Moore gets Smith to pose as him. The masquerade works fine for a while but then Moore's gang members plan to kill him and Smith must save the brother of the woman he now loves.
George Walters is a youth who is dominated by Bleary, a heartless bully, who forces him to pose as the son of millionaire George Warring, kidnapped as a baby. The missing son had a twin brother who had recently died, but a painting of the shadow of the late son is on one wall. Walters' shadow matches this painting perfectly, establishing him as the missing son to the Warring family. Walters falls in love with Warring's daughter Lucia and finds that the family attorney Glaxton is slowly poisoning the old man.
A couple of boy gangs in Budapest constantly fight over the neighborhood turf.
Robert Marshall’s dying utterance seems to point to Colman Colby (Robert Frazer) as his killer. Colby is arrested and at trial all testimony points to his guilt. But as the jury deliberates, the unfairly named “other woman” (Helen Lee Worthing) sets out to prove his innocence.
Laurel plays Winchell McSweeney, whose fisherman parents forced him to leave home and make it on his own when they can no longer afford to keep supporting him. He takes a boat out of the village, but accidentally sets the ship on fire when he attempts to take a photograph of the passengers. The women end up on the island with McSweeney, and is constantly pursued by them, including one Amazon-size girl.
Steve Tuttle, the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.
After her father's death, socialite Elaine Fleetwood promises to marry a man she does not love. However, she leaves him at the altar during a wedding ceremony, cuts her hair and decides to disguise herself as a boy and go prospecting in northwest Tasmania. She meets a handsome miner who figures out she is a woman, saves her from a villain and marries her.
While romancing the millinery store owner, Custer finds himself falsely accused of murdering his boss and is soon fleeing from a vicious lynch mob.
Nell Bailey, taking a lesson from the married lives of her sister, Luella Logan, and her mother, agrees to marry Danny Kester provided that he will split his paycheck 50-50 with her. When, after marriage, he refuses to honor the agreement, she goes on strike, getting her sister and mother to join in. The three deserted husbands have a difficult time but hate to give in. A vamp complicates matters, but everything is straightened out in the end with each side meeting the other halfway. —Pamela Short
