Cecil B. DeMille Collection

Disgusted by the unattractive, slovenly appearance of his wife, Sophy, Charles Murdock goes on a long hunting trip. He meets Juliet Raeburn, becomes infatuated with her, and while confessing his love, he reveals that he is a married man. Upon his return, his wife slides into a fit of jealousy. In order to clear his head, Charles goes out with his business partner Tom Berkeley and meets Viola Hastings, Tom's girlfriend. Viola shoots Berkeley when she finds him in another woman's bedroom... and Juliet Raeburn's name is connected to the controversy.

Sir Henry, a British earl, is jealous of the platonic affection between his wife Diana and Captain James Wynngate, a British officer and his cousin. Sir Henry, a compulsive gambler, embezzles funds from the regiment's widow and orphan's fund to pay for his losses at the racetrack. For Lady Diana's sake, the chivalrous Wynngate accepts the blame, and, after avoiding arrest, departs for America. After a tumultuous journey, he eventually makes his way to New York, where he intervenes and stops a robbery. Big Bill, Jim's new friend, encourages him to go west and begin a new life. After he establishes himself as a rancher, Wynngate's life is saved twice by Nat-U-Rich, a native Ute princess.

Richard Hardy, a hardworking stockbroker, labors overtime to keep up with the ruinous bills incurred by his beautiful but irresponsible wife Edith, a venal, spoiled socialite who is impervious to his pleas for fiscal restraint. Acting on what she believes to be insider information, she impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the Red Cross charity that she chairs. When she discovers that the money has been lost, Edith desperately turns to a Japanese ivory trader with whom she has been thoughtlessly flirting, and persuades him to replace the money in exchange for an assignation.

John Tremble, a cashier in a contracting concern, succumbs to temptation and steals $1000 from his employer. He runs away to an isolated island where he becomes a bit of human driftwood as he begins to fear detection. While fishing, he finds the body of a dead man, and, listening to the voice of evil, he exchanges clothes with and then mutilates the head of the corpse. The discovery of the body is reported to his family, and John's able to begin life anew. The police continue to search for the murderer, and Tremble is finally brought to trial. Meanwhile, Jane Tremble, John's former wife, has become the wife of the governor and does not recognize John Tremble when she sees him in court. After a dramatic trial, John Tremble is found guilty of his own murder and nobly decides to meet death in the electric chair over risking the newfound happiness of his former wife.

Lydia Thorne, a wealthy girl who loves speed and thrills, is unsympathetic when Evans, her maid, is jailed for stealing her jewels. District Attorney Daniel O'Bannon visits Lydia to make her see the error of her own ways, but instead witnesses scene of Lydia and her friends that evokes a Roman orgy. O'Bannon feels it is his duty to send Lydia to jail, for her own good, when her driving causes the death of a motorcycle policeman. Lydia is resentful, and her rebuff of O'Bannon, who has come to love her, causes him such remorse that he turns to drink and dissipation. Meanwhile, Lydia reforms, realizes she loves O'Bannon, and resolves to do charitable work. She and Evans open a soup kitchen after their release, and a chance meeting with O'Bannon starts him on the road to recovery.

Malena's apparent frigidity toward her husband Kenneth is a result of injustice done in an earlier incarnation, when he was a knight and she was a gypsy headed for an impending execution at the stake. Their unconscious minds travel back from a train wreck in the American plains to Elizabethan England, making their generationally transcendent relationship increasingly evident.

In Tsarist Russia, the Volga boatmen trudge along the water's edge as they pull heavy cargoes up and down the river. One day, as Prince Dimitri and his fiancée, Princess Vera, stop to have their fortunes told at a Tartar camp along the river, they encounter a group of boatmen who are taking a short respite from their arduous work. One of the boatmen, the spirited Feodor, instigates a hostile confrontation with the two aristocrats. Later, when the Revolution breaks out, Feodor assumes a leadership position in the Red Army, and he again encounters Dimitri and Vera... with much higher stakes this time.

During the California Gold Rush, a grieving Jenny Lawrence travels to the West in order to live with her uncle and lift her spirits. Uncle John, encircled by a native tribe, is killed in battle, unbeknownst to Jenny. When Jenny arrives at her uncle's cabin in the gold fields, she finds that it's been left untouched for days. Suddenly, an unrecognizable man enters the cabin, posing as Uncle John. Unable to trick Jenny, outlaw Black Brown reveals that he's assumed her uncle's identity after having found his body.

Music teacher Molly Ward struggles financially and feels unfulfilled in Vermont. When she receives an offer to move West to Bear Creek and become a school mistress, Molly jumps at the opportunity. Meanwhile, Cowboy 'The Virginian' meets in Bear Creek to have a night out with his best friend, Steve. When Steve falls into bad habits and thieves cattle, the noble Virginian must choose between protecting his friend or bringing him to justice, all while falling for the new arrival in town, Molly.