Hands Up

Mark Russell, captain of a ship sailing from the South Seas to San Francisco, is an innocent victim of a pearl-smuggling scheme by Harry Gibson, and when the pearls are discovered by customs inspectors, Russell takes the blame because of his love for Gibson's sister Eve and to shield her of being disgraced.

John Warriner, facing financial ruin, accepts the proposal of a bootlegger, Benedict, to underwrite the business of illegal wine-selling. His daughter, Angela, takes up with the jazz set and is caught in a raid, at a cafe owned by Benedict. Her former sweetheart, Carl Graham, comes to the rescue and saves her from notoriety, while the family struggles back to its former respectability following Warriner's prison term.

Gloria Vane (Claire Windsor), a shrewish, vain young debutante turned fashion model drags her dying lover, Victor Redding (Reed Howes), ten miles to the nearest settlement in the Canadian wilderness, saves his life and is transformed. How they got from New York City to the Canadian wilds is another story.

When Charles Hale is visiting his mistress, Sybil Russell, he is shot in the arm by Sybil's estranged and outraged husband. Hale's daughter, Marjorie, is so shocked to discover in this abrupt fashion her father's philandering that she leaves her wealthy home and goes to the slums to do settlement work. Marjorie, who is engaged to the district attorney, is there placed in a compromising position by her father's assailant, who intends to revenge himself upon the entire Hale family.

Sedgewick Blynn is determined to marry a rich woman. One night he saves a child from a fire. Bessie Morgan, an heiress charmed by his act of heroism, promises to marry him, but at the last minute her father forbids it. Soon after, Blynn receives a telegram informing him of the death of his mother, and he realizes that he has wasted his life.

Jo Morey, who lives in the St. Lawrence River Valley, inherits her father's barren farm and devotes her entire energies to cultivating it and caring for her invalid sister. Henry Langley meets Jo and proposes marriage to her. She asks him to wait until she is free, but Langley refuses and marries Mary Malden. Eight years later Jo has paid off the mortgage to Captain Longville, and one night she finds a baby in her house; it is Langley's, and a note requests that its parentage be kept secret.

Following a series of misunderstandings, wealthy young aristocrat Gerry Lansing deserts his wife Alix, whom he believes has eloped with his friend Alan Wayne. He sails for South America, leaving no trace of his whereabouts. In Peru, he becomes a plantation owner and marries local girl Margarita.

Katherine Brinkley, a rich young woman who delights in challenging conventions, elopes with a married young musician, Nicolai Brouevitch, but when he deserts her she is cast aside by society. Wandering off to Italy, she meets Franklin Shelby, a young American also married, with whom she falls in love.

A framework story serves as context for a retelling of the Exodus story and, most importantly, a recycling of footage from the silent version of The Ten Commandments.

Oswald Lane is welcomed by his hometown as a war hero and enjoys recounting his adventures to anyone who will listen. He accepts an invitation to stay in the home of his rather colorless brother, Andrew, and is soon not only making love to Martha, the Belgian maid, but is also finding Andrew's wife, Hester, receptive to his flirting. After stealing money entrusted to Andrew by his church, Oswald is on his way out of town when he passes a school fire, rescues several children, and is himself seriously burned. Andrew offers his own skin for grafting, and Oswald directs Hester to return the money.

Ottilie Van Zandt is forced to wed her cousin, despite her love for Richard Wayne, the gardener's son. Richard leaves, vowing to return a wealthy man and eligible suitor for her. He returns to find she has already married and, in turn, marries another girl on impulse. Two generations later, the grandchildren of Ottilie and Richard, who both have inherited their names as well, meet and develop a close friendship that culminates in the romance that their grandparents began but could not consummate years before.

Funloving Pearl White, working in a garment sweatshop, gets her big chance when she "opens" for a delayed Shakespeare play...with a comic vaudeville performance. Her brief stage career leads her into those "horrible" moving pictures, where she comes to love the chaotic world of silent movies, becoming queen of the serials. But the consequences of movie stardom may be more than her leading man can take

Phony spiritualists were given a good going-over in the early talkie melodrama Darkened Rooms. Evelyn Brent stars as Ellen, a fraudulent medium working in cahoots with genuine clairvoyant Emory Jago (Neil Hamilton). The plotline is secondary; the film's main purpose was to emulate the methods of such professional "de-bunkers" as Mrs. Harry Houdini by exposing the various tricks of the spiritualist's trade.

World War II drama where the action centers around a single maneuver by a squad of GIs in retaliation against the force of the German Siegfried line. Reese joins a group of weary GIs unexpectedly ordered back into the line when on their way to a rest area. While most of the men withdraw from their positions facing a German pillbox at the far side of a mine-field, half a dozen men are left to protect a wide front. By various ruses, they manage to convince the Germans that a large force is still holding the position. Then Reese leads two of the men in an unauthorized and unsuccessful attack on the pillbox, in which the other two are killed; and when the main platoon returns, he is threatened with court-martial. Rather that face the disgrace, and in an attempt to show he was right, he makes a one-man attack on the pillbox.

During WW1, the destinies of British officers Michael Andrews and John Stevenson seem intertwined on the battle front as much as on a more personal level.

Sailor Joe Hart, who is spending his shore leave at a gambling joint, sells his gun to young Laurie Roberts after losing terribly. After Hart again loses his last dime, he leaves the joint and steals a car in order to return to his ship. Later that night, a tough gambler named "The Weasel" convinces Laurie, who also lost badly, that Baldy, the joint's owner, is crooked, and they both return to the joint to break open the safe. During the holdup, The Weasel kills Baldy with Joe's gun and, after being picked up for speeding, Joe is arrested for murder.