Hobbled Hearts

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.

Julian Ramos is a fisherman in the Canary Islands. As the guardian of his hotheaded younger brother Charles, Julian regards it as his duty to protect the boy from women -- and vice versa. When Charles begins pitching woo at aristocratic Amy, Julian runs interference by pretending to be in love with the girl himself. As time passes, of course, he stops pretending.

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.

A clerk falls in love with a beautiful dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies. Not being able to support the girl in the manner to which she is accustomed, he commits forgery in order to get the money to buy her an engagement ring. Complications ensue.

When her traveling theatrical group goes broke, Poppy, an actress in the troupe, finds herself stranded in Singapore. She's reduced to working in a bar in the seedy part of town as a "hostess", where she meets a down-on-his-luck Englishman. While drunk he gets into a fight, and is forced to kill his opponent in self-defense. The girl helps him escape and goes to Sam, a shady plantation owner, to try to get them out of Singapore. However, Sam has his own plans for Poppy, and they don't include potential rivals for her affections.

A British nobleman, heavily in debut to a moneylender, agrees to marry the man's daughter in exchange for his debt being cleared. However, since the girl is Jewish, her new "husband" lets her know that the marriage is strictly a business matter and that he could never have romantic feelings for one of "her kind".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seduced and abandoned, with child, by a charming cad, a former New York fashion model learns to detest the male race in general until befriended by a warm-hearted artist-type who shows her that life -- and men -- ain't so bad in this early talkie drama.

Lee is a fresh young kid from the South when he gets a job with The Press. His first assignment on gangsters gets his name in the paper, the police on a raid and Lee in the hospital.