John R. Cumpson
Mr. Bumptious insists on wallpapering the parlor himself, in order to save money.
Mary Pickford's debut! Henry and Marion have a lover's quarrel and part in anger. They do not reconcile, and ten years pass without contact. Marion becomes a society girl and spends her time at parties with her friends. Henry has become very ill and wishes to see Marion one more time. He writes asking her to visit. When she recieves the note, she laughs and tosses it on the floor, but, later, on a whim, decides to take all her drunken friends with her to visit him. When they arrive, Marion finds Henry dead, clutching her portrait in his hand. She sends her friends away and falls to her knees in remorse.
This is a very short and rare attempt at comedy by D. W. Griffith.
Nellie flees her old life and goes east to become a nurse, where she marries a doctor. One of her old colleagues finds her and tries to blackmail her. When the blackmail plot is exposed, Nellie's husband expresses his complete faith in her.
A new bride has made a batch of biscuits. Her husband pretends to like them, so she delivers the rest to his office. But one bite of these biscuits makes you violently ill, and soon all his visitors (he runs a theatrical booking agency), plus the workmen at home, are ill; when she shows up at the office, they all go after her.
"Fine feathers make fine birds." and handsome gowns make handsome women, and a handsome woman is the most fascinating thing extant. Hence it is when Isabelle appears on the scene clad in a gown that is a masterpiece of the dressmaker's art she easily fascinates the male contingent, among whom is Enrico, the sweetheart of Veronica, a street singer. Enrico is so enraptured at the sight of Isabelle in her resplendent attire that he becomes her abject slave, casting aside the poor, peasant-clad little Italian street singer, who has loved him devotedly. Crushed almost beyond endurance the poor girl stands sobbing at the entrance of the park where the inconsistent lever left her. Her tears attract the attention of a wealthy young couple who happen to pass. In answer to their queries she tells them how contemptibly her sweetheart acted, and all because of the fascinating influence of a gown.
After three years at sea, Edward returns home to find his sweetheart forced into an engagement with a much older man.
At the Italian boarding house the male boarders were all smitten with the charms of Minnie, the landlady's pretty daughter, but she was of a poetic turn of mind and her soul soared above plebeianism and her aspirations were romantic. Most persistent among her suitors was Grigo, a coarse Sicilian, whose advances were odiously repulsive. The arrival at the boarding house from the old country of Giuseppe Cassella, the violinist, filled the void in her yearning heart. Romantic, poetic and a talented musician, Giuseppe was indeed a desirable husband for Minnie.
Antonine, a worthless, good-for-nothing scoundrel, demands money of his cousin Galora, an energetic, provident husband and father. His demands are met with a positive rebuff, and when he becomes insistent be is forcibly ejected by Galora. As he leaves the tenement he vows to get even, and lies in wait until Galora has gone out on business. Climbing to the fifth floor, on which the Galoras live, he watches his chance, which comes when Mrs. Galora goes for an instant to visit a neighbor on the same floor. Darting into the apartment and raising the window he perceives the awful result of a drop to the ground, five stories below, and so evolves a plan that is dastardly in the extreme. Taking the infant child from the cradle, and placing it in a basket he lets it out with a short rope, the end of which he secures by letting the sash down on it, so that to raise the window would precipitate the baby to destruction.
Mrs. Jones leaves her baby with the maid and goes shopping for a new hat. Meanwhile, the maid invites a band of gypsies into the house for a palm reading. After the gypsies leave, no one can find the baby, and everyone assumes it's been kidnapped, until the baby is found under a hatbox.
A man arrives home late and drunk as usual. His wife reminds him that he's supposed to take their daughter out to a play. While watching the play, he's faced with his own drinking evils and how his life would be without them.
Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.
A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.
All the young men in the mining camp flirt with Lucy. Bud, the youngest of them, doesn't stand a chance. At a dance, Bud dresses as a woman and all the men flirt with him and abandon Lucy. When his disguise is revealed, the other men are too embarrassed to approach Lucy, and Bud dances the rest of the night with her.
It would have taken more than the wonderful powers of deduction of a Sherlock Holmes to have dispelled the mystery that shrouded the disappearance of a case of jewels at the home of Robert Jenkins, a wealthy stockbroker, and although they were eventually brought to light, it was through a most remarkable accident.
