An expose of the methods used by a police-department to extract a confession from a suspect, regardless of innocence or guilt, and the effect and consequences on a family when an innocent member breaks under the interrogation methods and confesses to a crime he did not commit.
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hopes of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover.
Mary Lynde (Theda Bara) is an innocent girl who has grown up in New York's Greenwich Village. One of the artists there, Felix Benavente (Sidney Mason), uses her as model when he paints a portrait of the Madonna for a church.
Vania is a political refugee who travels from Russia to the United States. But even in America, she is pursued by assassins known as "the Ring of Death" because she carries certain papers given to her back home by her father.
Notorious pirate Joaquin Santos lives by the saying, "Dead Men Tell No Tales". He conspires with the prominent Squire Rattray to take over and plunder the Lady Jermyn, a ship carrying a considerable amount of gold, and then destroy the ship and kill its crew.
Becky Warder constantly indulges in the telling of little white lies. In an innocent effort to ease the troubled marriage of her quarreling friends Eve and Fred Lindon, Becky meets secretly with Fred, thereby constructing a web of deceit that leads Eve to suspect Becky of trifling with her husband's affections.
Even though the Gommesens have been married for 25 years, they are still in love. They wake up happy on their silver wedding anniversary, but the peaceful atmosphere does not last.
When Jack Dougan and Snatcher Nell, partners in crime as well as love, decide to purloin the gifts at the wedding of Madge Carr to James Cluney, Nell poses as a maid to gain entrance to the household.
Struggling artist Ned Templeton and his wife Joan are leading a poverty-stricken life in Paris. Threatened by starvation and eviction, Joan is forced to become a prostitute.
A stranger (Leo Willis) turns out to be a revenue agent and Texas' brother, Tom, turns him out. But when a gang of moonshiners captures the stranger, Texas takes matters into her own hands.
Tex Benton, riding across the country, sees a turtle, catches a jack rabbit and tests out the old fable of the tortoise and the hare; when the rabbit wins, Tex vows to model his behavior on that style.