Gas, Oil and Water

Barbara Fiske, a beautiful girl of social standing, is about to be married to Lloyd Van Courtland. On the eve of their marriage, she foolishly pays a visit to a colorful steamship captain aboard his ship.

Hosiah Howe struggles to earn his living on a farm that lies in the shadow of a wealthy summer resort. Visiting the resort are Dr. Rand, his daughter Virginia, and a scoundrel named Ward Andrews. One day Andrews stops at the Howe farm and discovers that the land contains water with a highly-exploitable medicinal value. Smelling money, Andrews convinces Dr. Rand to buy an option on the farm, then runs away to the city with Hosiah's innocent sister Martha.

Bessie Wheaton returns from Europe to find her nouveau riche family has adopted and magnified the worst characteristics of the upper class. Her father spends all of his time at the club, her mother cultivates snobbishness, and her sister thinks only of marrying into royalty. To shake them out of their aristocratic poses, Bessie decides to reflect all of their faults, becoming as lazy as her father and as status conscious as her mother. She even rejects her own sweetheart, Allan Shelby, to lure Count d'Orr away from her sister. Finally, the members of the family confront Bessie, and she angrily tells them that she was only mirroring their behavior. Bessie then runs away, but Allan, with whom she quickly reconciles, brings her back, just as her family acknowledges its recent burlesque of the upper crust.

Tom loves Patsy, but she lives in the city while he is every bit the country bumpkin. When an invention of his sells, he decides to take the money and go to the city. There he will show Patsy that he can be just what he thinks she wants: a city slicker. But Patsy yearns for the simple pleasure of her country boy, Tom, and is shocked at what shows up at her door.

Kid Burns vicariously enjoys life with his wealthy playboy pal. But complications ensue when Kid falls in love with a girl who just happens to be his friend's housemaid.

Ben Trimble, a country boy visiting the city, becomes involved with a safecracker and finds himself sliding into a life of crime. But chance provides him with an opportunity to redeem himself.

The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature, roughly 48 minutes long, from Paramount Pictures made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. It was a promotional film for exhibitors and never had a regular theatrical release and includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which never came to fruition). The title comes from a biography of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, The House That Shadows Built (1928), by William Henry Irwin.

A girl tries to pay the mortgage on a Nob Hill home and gets involved in selling her father's art treasures.

After being convicted of stealing some jewels, Annette Eldrige is sent to a reformatory administered by a sadistic and corrupt female warder. However, one of the board of trustees takes an interest in the new arrival and begins to investigate the management of the institution.

David Warrington is an old-fashioned boy, not very familiar with modern girls. When the girl of his dreams lets her kiss him, he thinks that seals their betrothal. But when he finds out that she has other ideas, David tries a trickier method of winning her for his bride.

Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charming granddaughter of the local nobility as represented by Lady Beldon. Then the war comes and Vin joins the RAF.

John Steel is a poor boy with a gentle spirit, but he has a natural gift for fighting. His mother is a strict pacifist, so although he has opportunities to make a career as a boxer, he refuses--until hard times force him to enter the ring despite his mother's pleas.

A promising young prizefighter sees his career start to go down the drain after he gets married and allows his wife's father and no-good brother to move in with them.

Doc and Wishey run into some Nazi-agents, who want to smuggle bombs into the USA from a Mexican border hotel.

Small-town soda-jerk Peggy Evans quits her dead-end job and moves to New York where she invents a new identity.

The switchboard operator in an apartment building falls in love with a businessman who lives in the building, whom she has gotten to know only over the phone. When she discovers that the man's current girlfriend is actually part of a scheme to swindle him out of some mineral rights he owns, she devises a plot to save him and expose the con artists.