A fast-talking boxing manager and the somewhat hapless fighter he manages happen to run into a young man who was a good prizefighter in his day but is now out of the sport and has a drinking problem.
A family of out-of-work vaudeville performers are finding hard times in the east, so after hearing about the success of a fellow player in Hollywood, they decide to relocate to the movie capitol.
Greed, ambition and hunger-for-power drive John Hart, a New-York-City stock-market broker, into crooked dealings and deception, but he doesn't realize that those he ruined will seek vengeance.
An independently wealthy collector of objets d'art tries to influence an artist's model away from marrying a notorious scoundrel and to help an Asian importer raise money for a son's surgery by buying a sacred statuette of Buddha, the sale of which the importer believes will curse him; therefore, the importer secretly plans to poison the collector after receiving the cash and keep the statuette in his possession.