The Key to Yesterday

In French Indochina, a magistrate is assigned to investigate the murder of his boss. Unknown to him, the boss had a policy of requiring the wives of his subordinates to sleep with him if they wanted their husbands to get promoted. What he also didn't know was that his wife was in the boss' office when he was killed. Complications ensue.

Adventuress Leonie Sobatsky falls in love with a young man named Nevil Trask, and he with her. Trask doesn't know that Leonie is actually the head of an international smuggling ring--and Leonie doesn't know that Trask is an undercover Secret Service agent assigned to break up the ring and capture its head.

Bobby Austin is sent to Madrid on a diplomatic mission. He is followed by Lady Sylvia Hutton, a society adventuress who is infatuated with him. She takes him on a yachting trip to Monte Carlo where he meets Kathleen Lawrence, a notorious "kept" woman, who tries to save him from the ruin that Lady Sylvia bears in her wake.

Elderly Jeremy Ellsworth decides to settle his fortune on John and Beatrice, the children of his disinherited son. He sends a message for them to come live with him. Beatrice arrives safely, but James Gault, Ellsworth's secretary, intercepts the letter to John and engages Phil Carter to pose as the heir. Lumber camp foreman John hears of the plot and heads to the Ellsworth home to squash it but is overpowered by thugs who also kidnap Beatrice. Escaping his captors, John rescues his sister from a speedboat with the aid of a hydroplane and finds love with Beatrice's governess.

Bela, reared by Indians, learns that she is a white orphan and runs away from the Indian village to avoid marrying a brave from the tribe. She determines to marry land prospector Sam Gladding, who resists her advances but later falls in love with Bela when an Indian sage gives him some advice.

Page Emlyn travels with his friend Jim Calvert to the Calvert family home. It doesn't turn out well: Calvert's fiancée breaks up with him and he later falls off a cliff to his death. His friend Emlyn was with him but was so drunk he doesn't remember anything that happened that night, and before long Emlyn is accused of pushing his friend off the cliff and tried for the murder.

The relatives of dying Edward Woodruff, Nina Leffingwell, her brother Frederic, and her cousin Basil, whom she wants to marry, scheme to inherit Woodruff's wealth. Since Woodruff continually calls for an imagined granddaughter, the child of his daughter who died before they could patch up a quarrel which estranged them, Nina gets Doll, a Follies girl, to impersonate the granddaughter, try to endear herself to Woodruff, and thus inherit the money. Doll would then be paid off and the relatives would get the inheritance. When Doll's administrations cause Woodruff to recover, Nina sends for Woodruff's grandson Ned, whom he disowned for marrying beneath him, hoping that Ned will send Doll away. When Ned seems to fall in love with Doll, Nina tells Woodruff that Ned and Doll are secretly meeting in the estate lodge. Woodruff investigates and finds that Doll and Ned are married and have a baby boy. Delighted, Woodruff forgives Ned.

Tim Goodwin and his wife Corrie are living in poverty when Tim's oil well strikes it rich. He soon works his way to the top of the social scale, but Corrie doesn't change at all--she stays a dour, drab woman with no social skills whatsoever. Tim gets so embarrassed by her that he hires a "social secretary" for her to teach her how to function in the social strata in which they find themselves.

A young mother, Mildred, doesn't know that her husband Walter is cheating on her. One night she attends a party with a friend of her husband's, and the man gets drunk and begins groping her when they get home. Her husband sees this and uses it as an excuse to sue his wife for divorce. In the ensuing trial he wins, due to fraudulent evidence, and gets custody of the child. Complications ensue.

Donald Keith, a young lawyer who takes up residence in the small town of Owasco, Michigan, finds himself opposed by lumber king Quartus Hembly, feared by all the townspeople. Keith takes up the case of Daniel Kersten against Hembly, who has cheated him out of his property, and during his investigation he discovers that the father of Thora Erickson, whom he loves, conspired with Hembly against Kersten, and at length he obtains a deathbed confession from Erickson.

In a plan to trap potential enemy spies in Washington, an American secret agent sets up a gambling house. He soon finds himself in a rivalry with his old friend the British ambassador over a beautiful Hungarian woman, and it leads to espionage, blackmail and murder.

Young stenographer Chickie Bryce dreams of marrying a millionaire. Until then, though, she is content to carry on with Barry, a lawyer from a nearby office. The relationship soon becomes serious, but one day Chickie meets an actual millionaire, Jake, who sweeps her off her feet. Barry tries to win her back, but his efforts are stymied by Ila, a girl who is in love with Barry and doesn't want him to get back with Chickie.

As they are leaving the church following their wedding, Count Adrian Beltrami and Countess Anna-Marie are told that the Austrians are marching on the town to quell an Italian uprising. The bride and relatives induce the count to flee to his castle, but Tangy, a silhouette cutter, brings word from the revolutionary committee asking him to return; the count goes, asking Tangy to pose as the count and protect Anna-Marie.

Former bootlegger Dutch Barnes pressures neighborhood druggist Jimmy Morrell into making cut-rate knockoff toiletry, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products.

A high-spirited and short-tempered Texan woman storms her way through life until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the error of her ways.