Cardsharp Jack Cardigan decides to go straight when he meets Doris Bradfield, but is forced to use his talents on behalf of her dad, whose land-grant title has fallen into the hands of Jed Harden through the gambling weakness of Bradfield's son Tom.

Captain Bob Hayworth, his brother Lieutenant Gilroy Hayworth and Captain Derek Marbury are in a World-War 1 trench on the front-lines in France. Bob Hayworth resents Marbury greatly as the latter had married the girl, Lucy Neville, Marbury was courting in pre-war London. Ordered to go on a night patrol, the cowardly Gilroy committed suicide rather than face his fear. Bob and Derek arrange it to appear that Bob had been killed by a shell-burst, and Derek, with his face camouflaged, takes the patrol posing as Gilroy. While on patrol, Derek is hit by a shell-burst and found by the German Red Cross, who turn him over to a family of French peasants.

In the early eighteenth century, pirate captain Jean Lafitte fights a rival pirate and wins a treasure and a beautiful female captive. Although the girl offers herself to Lafitte to save her English lover, Lafitte makes him walk the plank. The girl then places a curse on Lafitte and his descendants, preventing them from ever knowing the true love of woman. Two hundred years later, in the West Antilles, painter Paul Winthrop poses Joe, a pearl diver, as a pirate. Upon seeing the completed painting, each envisions the earlier situation. Later, Joe finds the buried treasure and sails to New York, where he learns that the portrait has also attracted wealthy Lily Demorest and her suitor, Robert Spurr, a "financial pirate."

Young Jim Hawkins is caught up with the pirate Long John Silver in search of the buried treasure of the buccaneer Captain Flint, in this adaptation of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Lieut. Governor Oliver Barnitz accedes to the governorship when his predecessor, failing to call out the militia during a riot at the Wilmot plant, is shot and killed by terrorist Oliver Poole. Faced with the dilemma of whether or not to commute the assassin's death sentence, Barnitz falls into a troubled sleep and dreams of being forced to cast judgment on his father in a similar position.

Spurred on by her young actor friend Pascal, Cricket, a young girl, accepts the starring role in a juvenile play. Her smashing success is overshadowed, however, by the death of her mother.

Real-life outlaw Joaquin Murietta, who (according to this film, anyway) is a latter-day Robin Hood, dedicated to driving land-grabbers and corrupt politicians out of Spanish California.

Rosarita, a young relative of the powerful Doña Perfecta in the small Spanish village of Orbajosa, has been betrothed since infancy to her cousin, Pepe Rey Don Jose, although the two have never met. When Pepe comes to visit Rosarita, she immediately falls in love with him, but his offhand remark about the lack of enterprise in the small town alienates Doña Perfecta, and the old woman becomes determined to prevent the marriage.

After Fred, an orphan raised by his wealthy Uncle Oliver marries Clara over his uncle's objections, the two men become estranged. When Fred and Clara's child Paul is six years old, Fred insists that his uncle pay them a visit over Christmas. Uncle Oliver, a very lonely old man, begrudgingly accepts but refuses to behave amicably towards Clara or Paul.

A near-forgotten film, Virtuous Sinners tells the story of Dawn Emerson (Wanda Hawley), an abused wife cast out into the street by her uncaring husband. Rescued by a gang of down-and-out patrons of the “End of the Trail” mission, Dawn soon falls for a dapper mission benefactor, Hamilton Jones (Norman Kerry), who is also a high-end burglar. When a member of the mission gang, McGregor, is run over by a car while saving a child, Hamilton robs a home to pay his medical bills. Ratted out by a informant, Hamilton goes on trial, but Dawn and the rest of the gang – including a young Rudolph Valentino in a bit part – stand by his side.

Upon seeing millionaire Lee Brooks's picture in the paper, Julie Le Fabrier, a romantic young model in Madame Swan's dress shop, immediately falls in love with him. Soon afterwards, Julie is sent to the Grand Tides Hotel to deliver a dress to Madame Ricardo, an attractive young woman whose bills are paid by Lee's lovestruck father, Mason Brooks. Having seen her husband, whom she believed to be in South America, on the grounds, Madame Ricardo deserts the hotel, so Julie dons the gown and masquerades as Mason's mistress.

Little orphaned Kate lives happily in a New England lighthouse with its old keepers, Philemon, Peter and Captain Bartholomew. When Kate falls sick, the prudish Philemon hires Miss Summerville, a live-in nurse, to care for her, but is concerned about possible gossip. To alleviate the situation, each keeper and Dr. Carlyle propose to Miss Summerville, but she rejects them all. After hearing that Captain Peyton, a lighthouse inspector, is scheduled to arrive, Miss Summerville makes sudden plans to depart without explanation. At the urging of Carlyle, she agrees to stay, but tries to avoid Peyton by turning off the lighthouse beacon.

In the act of robbing a set of rare jewels from a museum, a robber is wounded in the hand. Prentice Tiller, while dressing a wound in his hand, overhears the woman in the next hotel room, Gertrude Temple, telephoning Aaron Molitor, to whom she is to deliver some jewels. Posing as Molitor, Prentice calls on Gertrude but disappears when Molitor, who also has been wounded in the hand, suddenly arrives. Molitor's men capture Prentice, who narrowly escapes death in the ruins of an old church and then continues to track Molitor.

At a mountain resort, Kenneth Scott falls in love with Marie Beauchamp, an older woman who merely amuses herself with him. When she deserts him to open a roadhouse, he sadly leaves the mountains and, in the company of an old wandering poet named "Doc" Podden, travels to a little village in the woods.

Struggling young painter Ruth Elliott has written her Eastern friend Mildred Colburn that she has gained fame in the West as an artist. When Mildred stops to visit on her way to Honolulu, Ruth hires Peter Neyland to pose as her chauffeur for five hours. Peter is actually a wealthy young man who accepts the offer as a lark.