With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.
Desperate for money, a rancher decides to trap and sell wild horses, using barbed wire. The local Navajo tribe tries to persuade him not to do it.
A beautiful con artist marries Hayes Hallan, the owner of a pearl-rich island. No sooner has the couple said "I do" than Beatrice's partners in crime show up, claiming to be the bride's parents.
While his wife is away, the husband attempts to clean the house which ends up being a disaster. The house is completely destroyed by an overflowing bathtub, fire in the kitchen, feathers from the pillows everywhere, and a dog decides to chase a cat around the house wiping out what the water and fire didn't damage already.
Timothy and Max are partners in the junk business. They take poor young Mary in as a boarder. Mary gets a job in Nathan's office and falls in love with him, but his mother feels she is beneath Nathan. Nathan faces disaster unless he can corner a particular stock, with which Timothy and Max's room happens to be entirely papered.
In Highland Park, it's Agnes Fisher and Harold Hope's wedding day. Mishaps almost keep them from getting hitched: he goes to the wrong church, then, one of the guests, Professor McGlumm, convinces him that the bride only wants him to collect his life insurance. Finally they marry and her family moves in with them. Harold is now convinced that he'll be poisoned at dinner. When further mishaps give him stomach problems, McGlumm rushes him toward the hospital. On the trip, all is revealed.
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.
When she hears her boy has been killed in WWI a vengeful Kentucky hills mother shelters a deserter as a protest.When the boy returns she asks him to kill the deserter who she learns is the son of a murderous revenue agent.
Story of a trader who uncovers a scheme to blame the Indians for a Buffalo massacre.
Because he deserted his ship and passengers during a collision at sea, a ship's mate loses his certification. Unable to find work at sea, he takes a job at a trading post, and eventually works his way up to managing the business. He falls in love with the owner's daughter, and shares leadership of the local village with the son of the Rajah. One day, however, a band of pirates attacks the village, and the man is astonished to see that the pirates are none other than the tyrannical captain of his former ship and his crew.
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.
Blaze Derringer is a Texas cattle baron's son. He goes to a cabaret on his birthday, helps a pretty young woman and her guardian avoid a raid, but gets tossed from college for bad behavior. His disgusted father dispatches him to seek his fortune. Blaze jumps a freight, befriends a fake British duke and a sporting African-American, and is offered a prize fight in Galveston. He wins, but may have killed his opponent, so he takes the offer of the woman from the cabaret to accompany her to Begonia, where she's a princess about to be crowned. A court minister, the dastardly Count Verensky, has plans to share the throne and her affections. Can the plucky American help the Europeans sort things out?
With little luck at keeping a job in the city a New Yorker tries work in the country and eventually finds his way leading a herd of cattle to the West Coast.
David Sheldon owns a plantation in the Solomon Islands. Many of his field hands die of blackwater fever, and then he becomes sick himself. Joan Lackland, a female soldier of fortune, arrives by schooner in the islands. With the help of her Kanaka crew, she protects David from an attack by the natives who are led by Googomy. Joan nurses David back to health and becomes his business partner, protecting his mortgaged property from two avaricious moneylenders. Seeking vengeance, the moneylenders incite the natives to revolt.
Jimmy Aubrey plays a book agent and on his rounds of selling is induced to substitute for a local fistic star. His adventures in the prize ring furnish a great deal of comedy.
A young Texan known as "Hurricane Hal," saves Bill Adams from Mexican bandits. In gratitude, Adams gives Hal a job on his ranch
After inheriting a newspaper in a small country town, Carmel Lee leaves her home in the city to take charge of it. She soon discovers that the town is terrorized by a band of bootleggers, who abduct and later kill the local sheriff. With the aid of Professor Pell, who has been recently fired as school superintendent, Carmel makes a public issue of the sheriff's murder, editorializing in her paper for justice and reform. Pell and Carmel are kidnapped by the bootleggers, but Carmel escapes and alerts the police. The bootleggers are arrested, the sheriff's murder in solved, and Abner Fownes, a politician and one of the town's leading citizens, is uncovered as the leader of the gang.
In order to protect Grant Demarest from a siren named Margot, Stuart Ames attempts to disillusion him about the girl. Margot threatens to kill herself; Grant reaches for the gun and is accidentally shot. Blaming himself for his friend's death, Stuart books passage on a liner, where he meets Rene, the daughter of a dishonest dealer in gems. They are shipwrecked, and Rene returns to the United States, becoming the guest of Margot, her childhood friend. Rene is later lured to a wilderness cabin by Dysart (an accomplice of Rene's father who is disguised as a count); he attempts to assault her, and Ames, who has followed them, knocks him over a cliff. Ames and Rene make plans to be married.
Maggie, a headlining comedienne with the Follies, takes a fall off the stage into the orchestra pit and lands on the drum of musician Al Cassidy. One thing leads to another, they fall in love and get married. Al becomes a famous songwriter and Maggie stays home and has children. One day Al is hired to write a big number for Selma Larson, one of the Follies' most beautiful stars, and falls for her.
