The intrepid reporter and amateur sleuth Joseph Rouletabille becomes involved in the investigation of a hideous crime committed in a room painted yellow, whose door was locked from the inside…

An inventor makes contact with Mars via television. The film is notable for using the 3-D process called Teleview, similar to today's alternating frame 3-D systems. Shown in 3-D only at the Selwyn Theater in New York City, it was previewed as Mars Calling at a trade and press screening on 13 October 1922, premiered as M.A.R.S. on 27 December 1922, and ran through 20 January 1923. A 2-D version was distributed as Radio-Mania in 1923–1924.

John Burkett Ryder, "the richest man in the world," determines to discredit a judicial decision which works against the interest of his millions by discrediting its author, Judge Rossmore, and causes impeachment charges to be laid against him in Congress. The judge's daughter Shirley Rossmore, learns of his trouble and returns home from Paris, where she has won success as a writer. She is loved by Jefferson Ryder, son of the magnate who is slowly killing her father.

Mary Bruce is wooed by Lord Haverford but loves Roger Benton, her father's secretary. To finalize his marriage proposal, Lord Haverford offers her father a large sum of money and, being low on funds, Mr. Bruce accepts it, then places it in a safe. Horrified by her father's actions, Mary steals the cash from the safe that night, but on her way out is overcome by another thief whose wrist she bites in the ensuing tussle.

When a wealthy young lady leaves the US to visit her aunt in France, her husband falls in love with a "flapper". When the wife returns home, she finds out about her husband's affair. In order to make him jealous, she leads him to believe she has fallen for a jazz musician. However, instead of making him jealous it drives him into depression and he takes refuge in booze and even more affairs.

Bored by her country life and misunderstood by her parents, Emma Rolfe marries Dr. Charles Bovar, an older man whose dedication to his medical practice results in wifely neglect. To alleviate her growing loneliness, Emma enjoys the company of many of the young men from the village and eventually begins an affair with Rudolph Bulwer.

Returning to the village of Bayport after twenty-two years, retired sea captain Cyrus Whittaker finds the community under the power of political boss Herman Atkins. Cy opposes Atkin's choice for the position of teacher and helps to elect Miss Daws instead, thus earning the enmity of the politician. One day, a young girl named Emily Thomas arrives with a note from Sarah Oliver, a relative of Cy, explaining that the girl is the daughter of his old sweetheart and that her father is in jail and her mother dead.