A drama of barracks life. An officer is asleep when a mischievous girl slips a card in his unbuttoned coat collar. Later, the officer plays cards with his fellows. The card works out at his wrist and he is denounced as a cheater. The officer is court-martialed and dismissed out of hand. Later, he appeals to the major, commanding for reinstatement.
The fascinating game of bridge has completely ensnared Mrs. Willis, the pretty young wife of a Wall Street clerk, and money that should have been spent to pay household bills is squandered on cards.
Cardinal Mercier protects the altar of his church from desecration when German forces invade the Belgian city of Louvain during World War I. Although the soldiers commit widespread atrocities, the cardinal does his best to protect the townspeople.
A young woman, "The Bride of the Sea," is forced into a marriage she doesn't want and then faces a tragic fate at sea, potentially becoming a mermaid.
A rich artist has never completed a master painting because he could not find a model for the face, sees the wife of a man in hard luck begging on the street so she can buy milk for her baby, and the artist secures just what he desired.
A young Russian woman escapes persecution in her country and makes her way to the United States. Shortly after her arrival she meets an American millionaire, John Colton.
A plantation owner's wife goes on trial for shooting a man she says attacked her, but a handwritten letter reveals otherwise.
A young man takes a succession of odd jobs in order to save enough money to buy himself and his mother a house. He lands a position in a newspaper office and falls in love with the beautiful society editor, who is secretly having an affair with the married managing editor. She returns the young man's affections in order to make her lover jealous, but finds herself falling for him.
The Thanhouser Co. has reissued a number of its surviving films on video. FIRES OF YOUTH existed at around 52 minutes in its original release. A shortened version running just over 31 minutes has survived at the George Eastman House and has now been released by Thanhouser. Jeanne Eagels does well as the neglected young daughter in a factory town. She appears in 22 scenes and delivers a sensitive performance.
In "The World and the Woman", Jeanne Eagels plays Mary, a prostitute (which is implied by her walking the streets and being hassled by policemen) who reluctantly takes a better position at a country lodge as a maid. In this woodland community, she attends church and the path to Salvation becomes clear to her. Through Mary's faith, the injured folk of the countryside are healed. However, her old employer, whose lustful advances she'd previously spurned, still has designs on her.
On the advice of his friend Pendleton, Ashton Kirk, a scholar and amateur detective, pays a visit to a house whose occupants, Charles Cramp and his sister Grace, complain of strange happenings involving Mexicans. Discussions with Ashton's agent in Mexico reveal that Cramp's father was once an engraver, who, in desperate need of cash, had agreed to supply Alva, a notorious thief, with forged currency plates. After a change of heart, Cramp refused to deliver the plates to Alva, and now Cramp's aunt, Miss Hohenlo, has come to her brother's home to find them herself. The clever Ashton realizes that the Mexicans are cohorts of Alva's and eventually uncovers an elaborate signalling and tunnel system used by Miss Hohenlo and Alva to locate the missing plates. Deciphering a message announcing the time and place of the arrival of the Mexicans, Ashton and his aides hide themselves in the house cellar, capture the thieves and destroy the plates.
Yvonne, proprietor of a Paris gown shop, marries Pierre, a poor artist, concealing from him an affair she had with Rigaud, an elderly boulevardier who bought the shop for her.