Lure of Ambition

Released in January 1920, this silent romantic love triangle crime melodrama, about a man who sells fake stock and fakes his suicide. His wife remarries, but her new husband suffers a crippling accident, and wants to die, so she gives him a gun. The day he succeeds, her first husband returns, having made a fortune, and they are united.

A short film featuring the debut of actress Miriam Hopkins.

Crump's Colossal Combined Carnival Show barely survives financially by hiring thieves and pickpockets to rob customers. One day, clubman Jack Hamilton buys the circus when his car breaks down on his way to meet a deadline to avoid bankruptcy and he needs the circus tractor to haul his auto out of a ditch. Hamilton leads the circus to financial success and falls in love with Gypsy, the ticket-taker. To convince Jack to marry Gypsy, her supposed mother, fortune-teller Carlotta, says that she was kidnapped as a baby and shows Jack a photo in which he recognizes Gypsy's mother as the wife of Andrew Pomeroy, the financier who ruined him.

Little Elsie, scarcely two years of age, awakens one morning and crawls out of the house, dragging her doll. The little tot creeps to the nearby railroad station and resumes her nap in one of the flower beds. Mrs. Hastings, a wealthy widow, is taking an early morning train, after having spent several weeks at an eastern summer resort. She reaches the station before train time and while strolling about, she discovers little Elsie. While she is fondling the little one, the train arrives and Mrs. Hastings, who has no child of her own, cannot master the temptation to take this baby with her. Upon arriving in the west, Mrs. Hastings learns from a newspaper of the strange disappearance of Elsie Mason.

Young kids face off in a dance competition.

Lea Montrose marries Dorian Vandeveer, but soon finds that he is a drunk. Dorian tries without success to reform and Lea abandons any hopes for her marriage. Instead she joins a cult headed by Dr. Studholm Charters. One of Lea's former boyfriends, Jack Harley, returns to town, having become wealthy, and he and Lea rekindle their relationship.

After a prologue where we are shown the backgrounds of Wilhelm II and Woodrow Wilson, we see the story of Conrad Le Brett from Alsace-Lorraine. Forced to fight for Germany Conrad, sees soldiers taking girls into a church to rape them and kills one who murders a baby. Shot in the encounter he is taken to a Brussels hospital run by nurse Edith Cavell where he falls in love with American nurse, Amy Gordon. After Edith Cavell assassination and the murder of Conrad’s sister Vilma by the evil Lieutenant Ober Conrad honors her dying request that he go to America and defend Alsace-Lorraine's reputation. Once there he convinces President Wilson that Alsatians should be allowed to enlist. Fighting with the "doughboys," Conrad kills Ober, and after the armistice, returns to Amy.

A short melodrama about the friendship between a rich boy (in a wheelchair) and a poor street girl. When he falls seriously ill, she is not allowed to visit him. After his death, she also dies, on the street. In her hand she holds a flower, which was the last gift that the boy gave to her.

Young Janet Osborn finds herself stuck in a loveless marriage, her only source of pleasure being her daughter. Janet has always dreamed of a career on the stage, but never had the chance. One day she meets Geoffrey Allen, a theatrical agent, and decides to try her luck at becoming an actress. However, when her husband Mark finds out, he orders her out of the house and keeps their daughter, Marcia. Moreover, her acting career sputters to a halt, and Geoffrey Allen takes advantage of her situation to make her his mistress. Years later she finds out that Marcia has become an actress--and that she, too, has become involved with Geoffrey.

Romantic melodrama of musical comedy star Juliette La Monde's thoughtless pursuit of love and pleasure with various men until her ultimate redemption through sacrifice.

At the time of the Russian Revolution, Princess Natalya falls in love with Julian Ross, an American of Russian descent who has been imprisoned for writing revolutionary tracts. She arranges his release, telling him that she is a governess in the home of Prince Andrei Rostoff, who is actually her uncle.

Robert Worthing marries his sweetheart, Madeline Francis, but the wedding is ruined by his mother, who announces that because she and her parents are insane, he possesses tainted genes. Fearing that he will pass the disease on to his children, the bridegroom avoids his new wife and locks the door between their rooms. Deeply in love with Madeline, whom he is forced to love only as a sister, Robert considers suicide, but all ends well when the young man learns that he was adopted.

When retired merchant J. T. Manly is murdered, his son James, with whom he had quarreled, is arrested and finally convicted through the testimony of Manly's valet Aguinaldo. Shortly before James's execution, Sidney Holmes reveals to retired criminologist Martin Cross that on the night of the murder, he saw Aguinaldo commit the crime

Pauline Cheraud risks her reputation to expose the man who killed her father.

Marcia Calhoun, a talented but penniless singer, leaves her Southern home hoping to study opera in New York. Her instructor, Professor Didot, promises her a contract on the condition that she receive formal training in Italy for one year. Didot introduces Marcia to millionaire Philip Bradley, who offers to pay for her studies if she will accompany him to Italy as his mistress. Desperate for money, she agrees, but several months later, Philip abandons her.

Bank official Hanlin Davis is ruined in the stock market. Desperate, he fails to rob the bank but kills someone in the attempt. His wife Thora goes to D.A. Hastings to plead for a light sentence which the corrupt Hastings agrees to only if Thora gives herself to him. Upon his release the worthless Davis learning of her sacrifice divorces and turns her into the street. An outcast she becomes "the scarlet woman.” When wealthy crusader Robert Blake institutes an investigation exposing D.A. Hastings he is disbarred and decides to revenge himself upon Thora, considering her the cause of his downfall. Blackmailing unscrupulous society woman, Paula Gordon, he forces her to introduce Thora to Blake as a naïve woman while deceiving Thora that he knows about her past. After they marry Hastings denounces Thora, she flees, returning to her old life, but Blake, seeing her worth seeks her and they reunite.