Jewel Carmen

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

Steve O'Dare, a young New Yorker who has gone off to Wyoming to be a cowboy, returns to New York to sell some cattle. He bores his friends with tales of the exciting Western life, so they plot to trick him with a mock abduction. But although Steve falls for the gag, he ends up turning the tables on his friends.

The theft of a sacred diamond band from a Hindoo shrine starts the action.

When financier John Rossmore is found murdered in his library, suspicion points to his butler Hedges, who was instrumental in obtaining his divorce. At the trial, when the jury retires, Tom Smith, a young businessman who has sworn he does not know Rossmore, holds out for acquittal and tells his story to the jurors.

On a boat to San Francisco, Nellie Proctor is nearly caught stealing a man's wallet, but because she slips it into James Blair's pocket, he is arrested for the crime and sentenced to two years on the chain gang. Nellie, ashamed at having sent an innocent man to prison, convinces her friend Milligan to help James escape, after which all three go to an Alaskan mining town to begin new lives. While James prospects for gold, Nellie and Milligan find work in a local saloon, and Nellie takes charge of four orphaned children. Warren McKenzie, the saloon owner, is also the sheriff, and when he discovers James' identity, he threatens to turn the young man over to the law unless Nellie visits him in his cabin. To save James, with whom she has fallen in love, from a second prison term, Nellie consents, but James and the children come to her rescue.

In an attempt to brand himself as a serious actor, the smiling swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks starred in THE HALF-BREED (1916), a Western melodrama written by Anita Loos and directed with flair by Allan Dwan. Fairbanks stars as Lo Dorman, who has been ostracized from society because of this mixed ethnicity - his Native American mother was abandoned by his white father. When Lo catches the eye of the rich white debutante Nellie (Jewel Carmen), he becomes a target for the racist Sheriff Dunn (Sam De Grasse), who wants to break them up and take Nelli for his own. This love triangle becomes a quadrangle with the arrival of Teresa (Alma Rubens), who is on the run from the law. Through fire and fury Lo must decide who and what he truly loves.

The life of Sam Houston, soldier, statesman, patriot and one of the founders of the Republic of Texas, is depicted.

After her parents separate, young Violet Dale's father takes her to Alaska.

A young man fights to overcome a piratical arms smuggler and to win the heart of a rich man's daughter.

Harold is in love with Ethel Parks, but finds scant favor with her father, Parks always manages to get his daughter away from her admirer, but one day Harold makes bold to call at the house.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

At a reception for Mr. and Mrs. Vance Leighton, three men are discussing the effects of heredity in shaping the careers of children. To prove his contention that the theory of heredity is often demonstrated to be false, John Strong, a secret service agent, tells a true story: Two orphan sisters are adopted, one by society leaders, the other by a couple of crooks. The latter, known as "The Angel," becomes an expert pickpocket, while the other, Evelyn, becomes a reigning belle.

A masked criminal who dresses like a giant bat terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery writer.

Cobbler Meyer puts Limburger cheese in the shoes of grocer Schnitz to sabotage his attendance with Mabel at a house party.

An amusing burlesque of gang fighters. The police go after them, one by one, and each guardian of the peace is caught and despoiled of his clothing and compelled to return to the station.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.

Philip de Mornay, a courtier in the French royal court of the 18th century, falls in love with Daphne La Tour, the daughter of a nobleman. Knowing that her family would never approve of their marriage, he takes her and hides her in a brothel, but is soon captured by pirates. Soldiers looking for women to bring with them to a settlement across the ocean in Louisiana raid the brothel and take the girls, including Daphne. Later on the trip to the new world their ship is attacked by pirates--and she discovers that her lover Philip is on board the pirate ship.

A woman is stuck with an unfaithful husband until he is killed robbing a bank.

Vaudeville artist LaBelle Geraldine and her dancing partner, Freddie Montgomery, are stranded in Arizona when their troupe breaks up. In order to raise money, Geraldine orders Freddie to impersonate masked bandit Black Jim so that she may turn him in and collect the $2,000 reward. When the real Black Jim holds up her coach, Geraldine, believing that he is Freddie, boldly pulls out her gun, whereupon the bandit shoots her in the wrist and takes her to his cabin. Later Freddie, too, is captured, but when members of the gang insult Geraldine, he refuses to protect her. Gradually Black Jim falls in love with her, and she comes to admire him so deeply that instead of seizing a chance to escape one night, she returns to warn him of the gang's plot to kill him.

Story based on a Saturday Evening Post story entitled "The Painted Lady," which was written by Larry Evans. First mate Luther Smith returns to his home port to discover that his sister has died after being raped. Not long after, his mother dies from grief. Smith swears revenge and ships out on a boat manned by Sutton, "the worst captain this side o' hell". Smith doesn't realize yet that Sutton is the one who ravished his sister, but at sea, his brutalities become obvious.

In the midst of an emotional depression, a man hires a murderer to kill him. But the despair soon passes, and the man must now escape the killer he's hired to end his life.

William Armstrong, an American whose family is from France, inherits an iron mine in France. With his sister Betty, he travels to France to take over the business. In the village near the mine lives Claire, the daughter of a wealthy family, who is engaged to the scheming Duc de Bligny. When Claire's family loses all their money, the Duc dumps her for the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer. Armstrong and his sister find themselves caught up in this intrigue, which becomes more complicated when Armstrong falls for Claire.