Robert Harron

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Two young girls are sent away to live with their uncle, which sets off a chain of events resulting in an Indian attack on the town.

It was Christmas Eve in the south, but the spirit of peace and love did not pervade the northern girl's heart. The gallantry of the young southern swains, however, was more than manifest, when a drunken band of Unionists entered the house, among them her sweetheart. From him was protection needed most. His rival, a Confederate soldier, showed her that character is far above political principle, and true love came into its own.

A teenage orphan (who believes herself to be "hoodooed") is taken in by a childless couple and quickly falls for the boy next door; Her luck seems to have changed. But the idyll is broken up after a trip to the movies-- It seems the 'hoodoo' has returned after she tries to replicate what she'd seen on the screen.

During the American Revolution, a young soldier carrying a crucial message to General Washington is spotted and pursued by a group of enemy soldiers. He takes refuge with a civilian family, but is soon detected. The family and their neighbors must then make plans to see that the important message gets through after all.

Susie secretly loves her neighbor, William Jenkins, but neither, it seems, can confess their feelings for each other.

After being jilted for another, a woman sends her lover's old letters to the new fiancée and looks forward to the reaction. But when she spots her old lover's glove left behind, she has a change of heart and repents.

Tom and Ethel separately decide to go bathing in a river. Pranksters switch their clothes and they each have to dress up as the opposite sex.

A Western action film about two men who escape from prison to take revenge on the person who betrayed them. Harry’s actions ensure that William and his friend get sent to prison. They escape, and want to take revenge on Harry. Harry's wife warns the sheriff, and as William and his friend are chasing Harry on horseback, they are shot by the sheriff.

A man recognizes the thief who had previously robbed him as one of the men involved in an unrelated mob shootout.

John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.

Thwarted by his despotic uncle from continuing his love affair, a young man's thoughts turn dark as he dwells on ways to deal with his uncle. Becoming convinced that murder is merely a natural part of life, he kills his uncle and hides the body. However, the man's conscience awakens; paranoia sets in and nightmarish visions begin to haunt him.

A young woman is quite taken with a man she met; in fact, he is her “ideal”. However, after her new suitor refuses to get mixed up in a street brawl, the young woman views him as a coward. Nearby, a violent convict has escaped from prison. While the couple takes a ride in the woman’s automobile, the criminal ambushes a guard, taking the officer’s clothing and gun. The young woman still argues her suitor is a coward, drops him off, and drives off alone. She is then carjacked by the on-the-lam criminal. The young man witnesses the ambush and sets out to rescue his lover.

Everything he did seemed to be misconstrued, except by the little lady he loved. The town roisters made fun of her and his love. That made trouble and the chief vigilante believed him the cause of it all. So he was "in wrong" all around. The girl's father also sided with the opinion of the world, and sent both the boy and girl away. Mother was on a visit at the time, and therein the need of such a one at home was proved, for once back she sent the father out to bring them home again. The boy in the gold hills had been misunderstood again. Marauding merchants had left their victim on the mountain pass and the boy, coming on the scene, was again accused, but the lie in the end destroyed itself.

Griffith adapts the story of the Apocryphal Book of Judith to the screen. During the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes, a widow named Judith forms a plan to stop the war as her people suffer in starvation, nearly ready to surrender.

Agnes, a singer in a country church, is practicing one day when a vaudeville manager hears her and offers her a job. Over the objections of the curate who loves her, she accepts the offer and goes to the city. Later the curate goes to hear Agnes perform and, fearing that her soul is being corrupted by show business, he asks her to return to the small town with him. When she refuses, he is prepared to kill her in order to protect the purity of her soul. This brings about her change of heart, and together they return to the little church.

Two business partners pursue the same woman. She accepts the marriage proposal of the irresponsible partner, much to her later regret. He squanders money on gambling, as his interest in her gradually wanes. One day after losing the company money in a card game, he decides to commit suicide. He telephones his wife from the office, as he puts a revolver near his head. The wife tries to keep him talking while the reliable business partner races to the office in an attempt to save his old friend. Will he make it in time?

To fulfill a dying mother's bequest for her daughter, the town pastor purchases the daughter a stylish hat, and gossip spreads through the town.

Two lovers elope and expect to be pursued by her father. But the clever father has tricked them into running off, and celebrates their wedding when they return home.

Frank Andrews is a successful businessman. He has always found pride and joy in the company of his wife, son and daughter. He suddenly finds himself enthralled by the advances of a gay young woman siren, who lives in the same apartment house as he does. So marked an influence does she have over him as time progresses that at last he quite forgets his home ties, neglects his family, and goes the way of many other men who have forgotten the meaning of paternity and blood ties. The story is advanced through many scenes enacted with the accompanying notes of New York's night life, and the denouement comes when the faithful wife discovers her husband's infidelity. At this time the mother's mind nearly loses balance, while Jane, the beautiful daughter, crazed by the grief of her mother, determines to take part in the tragedy. With revolver in hand she steals up to the apartment of the woman, but her frail nature is overcome by the temperamental anger of the woman and her mission fails.

A group of youngsters grow up and love in a peaceful French village. But war intrudes and peace is shattered. The German army invades and occupies village, bringing both destruction and torture. The young people of the village resist, some successfully, others tragically, until French troops retake the town.

In the apartment hotel lived the aspiring maid, whose solicitude maintained order in the bachelor's apartment. He was her ideal, and the all-adoring bell-boy was firmly but gently given to understand that maids who read "Heliotrope Glendening's Advice to Young Ladies" look higher than ice-water toters. A compromising complication, however, with an unexpected visit from a beautiful lady, quite convinces the aspiring one that wealthy young bachelors may be the grandest men ever, but their aspirations, when it comes to the crucial test, are not for chambermaids. Science influences his actions so much that he gets into trouble with the police.

The young lover leaving home at the opening of the war to join the Confederate Army, tells his brother to take care of his fatherless sweetheart during the perilous times which are to follow. But the brother weakens and fails to be true to his trust. He permits her to believe that her lover is dead. Caught in the neighborhood, however, between the lines of the enemy, the brother appears before them at the crucial moment. In retaliation the false brother turns informer. Both forces are aroused to arms and during the attack upon the girl defending her wounded lover and family alone in the negro's cabin retribution comes in the form of a stray bullet.