Love Is an Awful Thing

Dr. Josef Rittenhaus, a popular young society physician of Vienna, at the behest of his friend Waldstein, goes to consider a proposal by Countess von Nessa to donate a site and funds for the erection of a new sanitarium. His wife, Laura, piqued by his apparent indifference, is left in the hands of Carl Tanzer, supposedly the doctor's best friend, whose advances she rejects. Laura contrives to make her husband jealous with a bogus letter, but to no avail; later, escaping from a masher, she meets her husband's friend Fritz Schwerman, from whom she escapes after accepting a luncheon offer. While Laura tries to vamp her husband's other friends at a card game, the countess tries to make love to the doctor. Rittenhaus returns home in disgust and is happily reconciled with his wife.

Chester Waddington secretly marries society girl Patricia Flynn, a fact that is revealed at a party celebrating her engagement to another suitor. A brawl ensues.

Tom Clark, the part owner of a luckless gas station in New York, returns to his place of birth for Old Home Week, posing as the millionaire president of the Amalgamated Oil Co. He is chosen as the orator for the homecoming banquet and given complete financial control over an oil well drilled in the town by Coleman and Barton, a pair of oily swindlers. Tom discovers that the well is a fake and has it connected secretly with the local reservoir. A wire from Tom's partner is intercepted, and Tom is exposed as a fraud. Coleman and Barton are about to leave town when Tom fakes a gusher and quickly sells the well back to the swindlers at a profit. The swindlers realize that they have been outsmarted, and their anger convinces the townspeople that Tom has acted in the best interests of the community. Tom is again the toast of the town, feted by its inhabitants and rewarded with the kisses of his sweetheart.

When eccentric Colonel Wynn threatens to kill Joe Benson if he marries his daughter Dorothy, the couple wed secretly. Their honeymoon at a resort is interrupted by Barbara Dow, a friend who threatens to expose the marriage unless Joe announces that Barbara is his wife.

A playboy tries to redeem himself after his careless behavior causes a great man's death.

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Melville Carruthers finally decides to propose to his girlfriend Grace and sets out for her house, but gets a sudden attack of shyness and stops in at a café to calm himself. A fight erupts and Melville is knocked out. He wakes up in his room the following day with a young "cabaret girl" taking care of him. Just at that time Grace and her father stop by, and Melville is unable to explain who the girl is and why she's there. Complications ensue.

Joe and Eve are engaged, but Joe cannot help contrasting the drabness of her attire with the dressy clothes of their friends. Eve overhears him talking of this and breaks with him. Then, with the help of her friend, Mazie, she metamorphoses into a ravishing beauty. Joe is remorseful, but the situation is made more complex when he suspects Eve of questionable relations with her boss.

A European royal couple come to New York to sell some of the royal family's crown jewels. A gang of international jewel thieves is planning to steal the gems, so a private detective is assigned to guard them. Unfortunately the private eye turns out to be a bumbling, inept fool--or so everyone thinks.

In the gold fields of the Canadian Northwest, a man is falsely accused of a crime and determines that a lookalike is responsible.

Upon being released from prison, Lawrence Hilliard takes the name of John Smith and looks for work, and falls in love with Irene Mason, a social secretary, but is reluctant to tell her about his past.

The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.

Reckless playboy Bob Merrick crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator while a local hero, Dr. Phillips, dies waiting for the life-saving device. Merrick then tries to right his wrongs with the doctor’s widow, Helen, falling in love with her in the process.

A working-class woman is willing to do whatever it takes to give her daughter a socially promising future.

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.