A female agent tacks down the cause of mysterious explosions.

Seventeen is a 1916 silent comedy-drama film based on the novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington. The film follows the story of a teenager named Willie Baxter who contemplates suicide due to being overshadowed by his older brother. Willie experiences various comedic and dramatic situations as he navigates through teenage life.

Bob's daughter is sick, so Helen volunteers to take his place on the night run, unaware that the Blackhall gang intends to rob the train which carries a valuable gold shipment. Learning of Helen's peril, Bob and Tracy pursue the train by automobile, arriving just as the hijackers are about to explode a charge of dynamite under the rails.

Kate Tarleton grows up on a Southern plantation and becomes engaged to her guardian, Dr. Robert Manning, a famous surgeon. When Robert, Kate, and her younger sister Mary Lou visit New York, where the doctor wishes to conduct medical experiments, the superstitious Kate goes to the home of a fortune-teller named Stella Hill. Stella, whose principal business is white slave trafficking, drugs Kate and forces her to work in a "den of vice," run by Stella and her accomplice Jimmy Bristol, where she contracts syphilis and goes insane. Robert, Detective Ellis, and a lawyer named Billy Meredith rescue Kate, who recovers her sanity but remembers nothing of her bondage.

In the seventeenth century, in Massachusetts, a young woman is forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her dress for bearing a child out of wedlock.

Yolanda, a young woman, disguises herself as a man to escape the wrath of King Louis XI. During her adventures, she falls in love and faces numerous challenges in her quest for freedom and love.

Compelled to keep house for her father and her younger sister and brother, Martha is deprived of all the pleasures of youth. Ned, who loves her, begs her to elope with him. Martha yields, but while on the way to the minister, decides that her duty lies back home with her father. Heart-broken, Ned leaves for the city.

Jack Fisher secures a position as reporter on a metropolitan daily and incurs the enmity of Martin, the star reporter, because of friendly relations which he establishes with Myrtle, a young lady in the office. Martin secretly changes the copy which Jack has prepared for an important story and places the young man in such a position that he is discharged. Some time later Jack learns of an opening in Central America. He bids goodbye to Myrtle, who has never lost faith in him, and leaves for his new field. Shortly after his departure war is declared in a Central American republic and Martin is sent to the scene as war correspondent.

Driven to desperation by the enmity of Jane, her step-daughter, Sarah, Dean's second wife, turns to Ware, a friend of the family and a former suitor, for advice. Jane learns that her stepmother has gone to call upon Ware. Realizing the unhappiness her conduct has caused, the girl is stricken with remorse. Knowing that her father would misconstrue Sarah's visit to Ware, the girl hastens to the man's home to meet her stepmother. Sarah is fallen aback when Jane finds her with Ware, but is filled with happiness when the girl announces her desire for a reconciliation.

Clara Kimball Young stars as Mary Saurin, a British gentlewoman who journeys to South Africa to visit her district-commissioner brother Dick (Henry Woodward). Upon arriving, she is introduced to Major Anthony "Kim" Kinsella (Milton Sills), the most important and influential Army officer in the region. Falling in love with Kinsella, Mary agrees to marry him, but he is apparently killed in a native uprising.

Don Jose encourages the King in his infatuation for Maritana, a dancing girl, believing that when the Queen discovers the clandestine love affair, she, in revenge, will listen to his suit. It would aid his plans if Maritana is made a noble. Don Caesar de Bazan, a swashbuckling adventurer is under sentence of death for having violated the edict against dueling.

"The Devil's Dansant" is the nickname given to a dansant of which Dominique, a Frenchman, is the proprietor. District Attorney Farrar, while searching for evidence on which to raid the place, is astounded to find that his wife Valerie, is a frequent visitor at Dominique's. The willful woman disobeys her husband's orders and continues to visit Dominique's.

Disillusioned by the transience of wealth when her father's bank balance can no longer support his family's posh lifestyle, and when her fiancé Clay Wimborn admits that he has gone into debt to shower her with presents, Daphne Kip determines to become financially independent.

An upright young man marries a siren, a drunken, unfaithful woman, who mothers his child, and then ruins him financially and morally.

Medical intern Robert Morley is distraught after his wife dies in childbirth. He's resentful of his new son and wants nothing to do with him. He leaves the child with his aunt and uncle and heads off to Europe to pursue his medical studies. Morley returns to his hometown six years later, now a successful doctor and engaged to be married to a beautiful socialite. He also feels differently about the boy and attempts to gain custody from his aunt and uncle.

In a jealous rage dancer Anna Janssen shoots her common-law husband Alastair De Vries in a cafe when she discovers him with a chorus girl. Fleeing to Tahiti she is tracked by detective Thomas McCarthy who arrests her. On their return journey they are marooned on a deserted island. After 2 years together, they realize their love and take marriage vows, but when a ship is sighted, she insists, against his wishes, that she return to face trial.

Herbert Pomeroy's wife Juanita spends his money extravagantly and irresponsibly, finally driving him to bankruptcy. Desperate, he sends his son Frankie to live with his friend Henderson, a South Seas trader, then commits suicide. Although Juanita spends years searching for her son, she finally gives up and takes a world cruise on the yacht of wealthy Jules Lennox. One day the yacht docks on Henderson's island and Juanita, meeting Henderson, persuades him to let her be Frankie's governess. Complications ensue, involving a poor physician, a jealous island woman and a witch doctor.

Although it means the mortgaging of their home, Roger Dayton's parents send him to law school. Selfish and ungrateful, the boy forgets all about the old folks after his graduation.

The old miser, living in a tenement, keeps his savings in an earthen idol. The janitor of the building suspects that the old man has concealed wealth, but is unable to locate if. Finally the miser dies and the janitor disposes of the idol to a dealer in antiques. Carter, a bank clerk, is given to speculation, and in response to his wife's earnest appeal, be promises to give up the precarious practices, which are jeopardizing his position and happiness. However, the young man is weak and breaks his promise.

Gloria Trask, who has risen from a squalid East Side environment to stardom in Costigan's nightclub, is admired by Tom Westcott, detective, and Sam Roberts, a gangster with whom her brother is involved. Andy, threatened by the gang, is forced to pay off, and in a showdown in Gloria's dressing room, Andy shoots Roberts in self-defense. Gloria helps her brother to leave on a South American liner, while Tom forces Roberts' girlfriend Blanche to admit to witnessing the crime. Blanche insists that it was murder, but Tom forces her to admit that Roberts had a gun by accusing her of the killing.