In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.

Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.

A former prisoner of war, Frank Enley is hailed as a hero in his California town. However, Frank has a shameful secret that comes back to haunt him when fellow survivor Joe Parkson emerges, intent on making Frank pay for his past deeds.

After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.

Gunslinger Annie Oakley romances fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler as they travel with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

High-school principal Dr. Alfred Carroll relates to an audience of parents that marijuana can have devastating effects on teens: a drug supplier entices several restless teens, Mary and Jimmy Lane, sister and brother, and Bill, Mary's boyfriend, into frequenting a reefer house. Gradually, Bill and Jimmy are drawn into smoking dope, which affects their family lives.

A World War II veteran wants to return to advertising on his own terms, but finds it difficult to be successful and maintain his integrity.

"Wicked" Lily Bishop joins a wagon train to California, led by Michael Fabian and Johnny Trumbo, but news of the Gold Rush scatters the train. When Johnny and Michael finally arrive, Lily is rich from her saloon and storekeeper (former slaver) Pharaoh Coffin is bleeding the miners dry. But worse troubles are ahead: California is inching toward statehood, and certain people want to make it their private empire.

Steven Kenet, suffering from a recurring brain injury, appears to have strangled his wife. Having confessed, he's committed to an understaffed county asylum full of pathetic inmates. There, Dr. Ann Lorrison is initially skeptical about Kenet's story and reluctance to undergo treatment. But against her better judgement, she begins to doubt his guilt.

Jerry Mason, a young Texan, and Jake Benson, an old rancher, become partners and strike it rich with a gold mine. They then find their lives complicated by bad guys and a woman.

Life and activity at a hotel. Slapstick-style.

After being fired from his job at the Marriage License Bureau, a clerk turns to matchmaking.

Sassy manicurist Eve Fallon is recruited as an even more brassy reporter and she helps police detective boyfriend Danny Barr break a jewel theft ring and solve the murder of a baby.

A judge flees the pressures of professional and family life for a job as a short-order cook.

Two reel comedy starring Al St. John

When a confused eyewitness identifies New York City cabbie Brick Tennant as a killer, he is sentenced to death for a murder that he wasn't involved in. Though no one is willing to listen to the innocent prisoner's pleas for freedom, Brick's faithful fiancée, Mary, knows that her lover is innocent because she was with him when the crime was committed. As the scheduled execution draws ever nearer, Mary begins to investigate the murder herself.

After his plane is downed in the South Pacific, a Navy flier recounts his life to a co-pilot while awaiting rescue.

Jim Cole, heir to a mining operation, takes over the mine, which is suffering from unexplained low production, and is facing a strike by the miners. Jim will soon loose the mine if production doesn't increase and the sabotage continues. Mary Norsen, office-secretary, accidentally learns of a plot by Fred Johnson to wreck the mine and force Cole to sell his coal-mine. She and her brother, Joe, join Cole in his fight to stop Johnson.

A young mountaineer loves Dorothy, daughter of a backwoodsman. An artist comes into the district to paint and falls in love with Lucille, Dorothy's sister. Dorothy is interested in the artist on account of her sister's love for him, and she poses.

Lem Schofield, a lawyer in a one-time small-town turned industrialized big city, runs his firm on examples set by Abraham Lincoln and is a friend to the poor. Clay Clinton, his late partner's son joins the firm but is anxious for fast success and considers Schofield's old-fashioned principles antiquated. Being in love with Schofield's daughter and impatient for success he moves to offices supplied by the city's most powerful industrialist, J.T. Tapley, who has plans to use Clay's good family lineage as a stepping stone to political power. The unscrupulous Tapley precipitates a strike in his factory mill which causes a rupture between the former partners. Schofield sets out to bring Tapley and his political henchmen to justice.