Deep Archive Finds Movies That Echo the Spirit of Her Reckoning: Cult Guide

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Andrew Gibson inherits problems when his father dies and leaves shares of his piano manufacturing business to his workmen. To add to his troubles, Andrew's girl, Nora Gorodna, is being pursued by José Ferra, one of the workmen; and Lila Normand, a society girl, tricks Andrew into proposing. José finds out about the proposal and informs Nora. Andrew tries to solve the factory difficulties by turning the plant over to the workmen. No longer having a job, Andrew is rejected by Lila, and Nora has accepted José. Andrew goes to the Maine woods for a rest, while José hires thugs and begins to destroy the factory. Andrew returns in time to head off José's plans and to convince Nora he loves her. She willingly forsakes José.

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Joseph Wilton is a thrifty German and an expert piano maker, who through his industry has built up a small factory and acquired considerable money. His whole life and further ambitions are centered on his son, Bob, whom he has entered in a big university. His only daughter, Molly, has taken the place of her mother in the home, since Mrs. Wilton's death. Bob is carried away by college life, and begins to feel embarrassed over his father's humble life and surroundings. He falls under the influence of Herbert Graham, a suave society leech and college mate, who inveigles him into drinking, gambling and a life of profligacy. Bob is induced to draw on his father for large amounts, on the excuse that he needs the money for expenses at college. The blindness of the father's love for his son is emphasized when he insists on attending a football game, where his son is the hero of the hour. Bob practically denies his father in the presence of his friends on the campus. Soon afterward Bob's continued escapades cause him to be expelled from college. Graham induces Bob to take him home with him, hoping to get an opportunity to swindle his father. They arrive and explain that they have been granted several extra weeks for the Christmas holidays. Graham induces the elder Wilton to finance a small bank for himself and Bob. They are popular and succeed from the start. But Graham indulges in many wild-cat speculations, and the bank is ruined. In a run on the bank both narrowly escape bodily injury, Graham commits suicide. Bob decides to face the disaster, but after hearing Aubrey Maynard, the father of Grace Maynard to whom he is engaged, denounce him in the presence of his own father, he decides to leave, as he has borrowed money from Grace when the bank was first in trouble, and her father threatens him with imprisonment as a swindler. He leaves her a note, saying he will return when he has made a man of himself, and can make good his obligations. Molly, his sister, is in love with George Lennan, and their advice to the elder Wilton to halt Bob in his early profligacy has resulted in the aged piano manufacturer ordering Molly from home. After Bob's departure, Wilton, who has lost his entire fortune in his son's failure, in an effort to make good with his son's creditors, takes up his abode in the slums, eking out an existence by tuning pianos. In a distant city, Bob starts life over and steadily rises to a position of trust and importance. He is promoted to be general manager of the New York office of the big concern in which he has made his success. Upon his return to New York, his sister Molly, who has married Lennan, has started to search for her father. She succeeds in locating him the very day that Bob returns. There is a happy reunion, including Bob's fiancée and a little four-year-old grandson, the child of Molly, whom the older Wilton sees for the first time.

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Kathleen Pearson is born to wealth and privilege, while her childhood friend, Mary Boyd, is at the mercy of a brutal father following the death of her mother. Years later, Kathleen secretly marries Donald Walling, then discovers that the wedding was officiated by a fraudulent clergyman. Kathleen and Mary return from a trip to Europe with an apparently illegitimate child, and Mary protects her friend by claiming to be the mother. After Donald dies in an automobile accident, Kathleen's marriage is proved to be legal. Mary's reputation is restored and she weds the man she loves.

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When Tom Drogan drunken, wild ways, cause his mother's death, his sister Nell swears to protect and reform him. On the pretext of paying back a gambling debt, Tom brings "Kid" Hogan to the house, but ends up shooting him in the forearm. Dan Hogan, Kid's brother who is a policeman, rushes to the scene and catches Tom running away. To avoid arrest, Tom tells Dan that he fired at Kid for molesting Nell, and in the face of scandal, Dan and Kid back down. As revenge, Kid enlists Mamie, his girlfriend, to force Nell into a compromising situation with a man on a street corner. Conveniently placed, Dan arrests Nell for solicitation, but Frank Roberts, her boyfriend, arrives and extricates her. When Tom hears of the plot, he confronts Kid in a dance hall and soon a raging gun battle breaks out in which Kid is killed. Badly wounded, Tom seeks refuge with Nell, who prepares to protect him with his gun. As the police break down her door, Tom dies.

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Daryl Sutherland, in the guise of a society belle, makes the acquaintance of young artist John Lockwood at an exclusive mountain resort. Their friendship drifts into mutual attraction until Mrs. Ramsey, a devotee of the artist, determines to win his attentions and exposes Daryl as a cloak model. Daryl manages to protect Mrs. Ramsey from her irate husband by claiming that Lockwood is her husband. Later, Daryl suspects that he is the seducer of her dying sister; but following a series of dramatic incidents, Lockwood is exonerated and a happy reunion results.

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John Weston leaves his wife and kids to marry adventuress Doris Clark and loses his mind when he realizes his mistake.

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On Jim Gordon falls the political mantle of his father, "Big Jim" Gordon. The father has been the leader of a corrupt ring, but the son determines to be true to the teaching of his dead mother, and use his position for good purposes. However, he is not given credit for altruism. It is taken for granted both by the general public and by the politicians whose leadership he has inherited that he is a grafter, as his father has been. He succeeds in getting the Utilities Bill passed. The New American, a newspaper under reform management, warns the public against what it calls his hypocrisy. When he gets the Water Rate Bill passed they still accuse him of having some nefarious scheme "up his sleeve" to defraud the public. Gordon's only mistake is in making Sidney Benson Director of Public Safety. Benson is a fraud, who is posing as a reformer to further his own ends. He is engaged to Joan Madison, who is interested in the passing of the Sanitary Bill to provide for better conditions among the tenement dwellers. She goes to Benson for aid in the matter, but he gives an evasive answer. She then goes to Benjamin Waters, the editor of the New American, and he asks her to write a series of articles exposing local conditions. She consents, but goes to a mountain resort for quiet in order to write. Through an accident she meets Gordon, who has also gone to the same county for a rest, and they fall in love. On her return to the city she decides to plead with Gordon himself to have the Sanitary Bill passed, and is surprised to meet her friend of the mountains. He tells her that her own father is the owner of the houses in the debated district and that the destruction of these buildings will mean penury for her. Principle triumphs over selfishness and she tells him to go ahead and have the bill passed. He does so, and her father is left without means. Gordon tells him that all his money difficulties will be solved if he will influence Joan to become his wife. Joan's instinctive fondness for Gordon is clouded by what she thinks is his contemptible bargaining, but she consents. They are married, but she still believes that her husband is a grafter. A new traction company comes into the field to fight the methods of the old one. The original company accuses Gordon of no longer looking after its interests. His answer, which is an offer to buy the concern, is gladly accepted. Joan learns of the transaction and tells Benson, thinking her husband intends to defraud the public. An accusation of Gordon is made on the front page of the New American on the morning the franchise bill is to come up before the city council. A great crowd congregates, determined to fight Jim Gordon and any measure he may advocate. He demands a hearing. Briefly outlining the benefits he has conferred on the city, he tells them he has bought the company in order to make a present of it to the city in honor of his dead mother and to atone for the wrongs his father has done the community. Gordon and Joan are left penniless, but they begin a new life together.

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The miners at Paradise Gulch are bored. In a session at the "Three Cheers" saloon, owned by Seth Moore, they decide that the trouble with their existence is the fact that there are no women in the place. The verdict is that one of them must marry, and they choose "Happy Jack" Lewis, because he is not present. They go to "Happy Jack" Lewis, make him write out an advertisement for a wife, and sent it to neighboring towns. They stipulate that she must be blonde and pretty. At Gold City, Glad Mason, who answers every requirement, is working in the office of Willet and Condon, mining promoters. Since her father's death she has been obliged to shift for herself. Willet's attentions have become so obnoxious that she is at her wits' end to know what to do, when Lewis' advertisement is pointed out to her. In desperation she answers it, enclosing a photograph. Lewis lines the boys up against the bar and holds them up. Since they have got him into the trouble of getting married, he makes them furnish his shack. He gives a whoop of joy when he sees Glad's photograph among all the ugly ones he receives in answer to his advertisement, but Ben, the bartender, discourages him by saying that probably some old hag sent the picture. "Happy Jack" leaves in haste, first making over his house and his mine to her in recompense for her disappointment. He goes to the junction as Glad is changing trains for Paradise Gulch, and sees for himself what a beauty she is. But one of the boys with whom he has been fighting sees her, too, and without a word the miner gives "Happy Jack" a knock-out blow, and then puts him on the train, bound in the opposite direction. Each of the boys tries to win Glad. They tell her that Lewis is a quitter. Jumping off at a small station, Lewis is arrested as a suspicious character and thrown into jail. His wire to the boys for identification results in the answer that he is a cardsharp and crook. He escapes, and meets Willet, who offers to buy his mine. He accepts, taking the money, forgetting that he has made over the property to Glad, but robbers soon relieve him of his cash and he reaches Paradise Gulch penniless. Willet goes to take charge of the property, which he is anxious to claim because "Sid," the assayer, has told him it is of immense value. He finds Glad in possession and has "Happy Jack" arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses. Glad turns over her claim to Willet and Condon on the condition that they will free Lewis, although he implores her not to do so. But "Sid," the assayer, has made a discovery. He whispers something to Glad, and the last cloud is dispelled. He has made a mistake. The sample ore he has thought Lewis' belonged to Glad's father, who had brought it in to be assayed the day before he died. Glad and "Happy Jack" have lost control of the worthless mine, but they begin life together as owners of the magnificent Mason property.

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Four wealthy young men--Larry Van Cortlandt, Castleton, "Fatty" Harriman, and Payne--become intoxicated in a cabaret where munitions maker Stanhope Shelton is giving a party for his daughter Natalie. Larry is attracted to Natalie, but he is ejected with his friends before he can secure an introduction. Plainclothes detective Hogan vows to capture Larry, who seeks asylum on his yacht with his friends. After the crew quits, Larry and his friends handle the boat. The next morning Castleton and Payne place a "for hire" sign on the boat and the Sheltons engage it. Larry teaches Natalie to steer and runs into several boats in the process. Four people in the Shelton party turn out to be burglars and rob the other guests. Meanwhile, two other crooks rob the Shelton mansion. Larry manages to capture all the crooks at the Shelton home, and he wins over both Natalie and her father.

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While working as a flower girl in Devlin Maddox's nightclub, Nellie Vaughan meets wealthy young Pelton Van Teel and falls in love. Maddox, desirous of using Nellie to blackmail Van Teel, spreads a rumor that she is his mistress. This makes Nellie uncomfortable, and she demands that Van Teel marry her immediately, to which he agrees. Meanwhile, Van Teel has been losing money gambling to Maddox, who threatens to break up the marriage by producing a worthless check that the young husband has written. Venturing to Maddox's apartment for a showdown, Nellie pulls a gun and demands the check, accidentally shooting Maddox when he throws a lamp at her. Maddox plans to charge Nellie with assault, but when the police arrive, his butler, actually a detective employed by the elder Van Teel, exposes Maddox, who is then arrested, clearing the path for the couple's happiness.