Produced at the Reliance studio in Yonkers, New York, HIS PICTURE IN THE PAPERS solidly established Fairbanks as the American ideal of pop, vim, and vigor. Furthermore, the film brought him together with the two collaborators who were to play a profound role in the evolution of his screen persona: writer Anita Loos and her future husband, director John Emerson. The theme was, according to Emerson and Loos, "the great American love of publicity."

On the eve of her wedding to a man she does not love, young Felicite (Marguerite Clark) stumbles upon a diary written by one of her ancestors.

Poverty forces Helen Shirley, a country lass, into New York in search of a living. Shy and unsophisticated, Helen falls an easy victim of the notorious band which preys upon young girls and she is easily induced to go to a boarding house which is in reality the headquarters of the gang.

While visiting Monte Carlo with her aunt, Rosalie Dean meets a young man, Maxfield Gray who is ready to kill himself because of his losses at the roulette wheel. She stops him from doing so, and lends him some money to win back what he's lost. He does, but they're only happy for a short while before Max is arrested for the murder of his ex-wife in the States.

Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, gains a job in the Chicago stockyards. Once working at the stockyards he meets and marries Ona. But due to cut backs at the stockyards, loses his job, and they fall into financial hardship. Ona, in order to get money to feed their child, engages in sexual activity with her husband's foreman, Connor. Connor, rapes her. When Rudkus finds out about the affair, he throws Connor into a cattle pen where he is killed. While in prison Ona dies. When Rudkus gets out of prison he becomes an advocate for women via the Socialist Party. Considered a lost film.

During World War I, John Stevens invents an anti-submarine device, but the plans are stolen by two German spies, the Baron von Wiederholtz and Madame Elsa, who flee to a New York hotel. Stevens' daughter Alice pursues the spies hoping to retrieve the plans.

The "girl" of the title was played by Hazel Dawn, a popular stage actress who briefly enjoyed a flourishing film career. Dawn plays Miss Shipley, an American girl vacationing in France. Our heroine finds herself the romantic bone of contention between two "men of the world" (William Roselle and Hal Clarendon), who end up fighting a duel over her affections.