Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.

A small-town newspaper publisher finds himself in opposition to the local banker on the return to town of a lad jailed possibly wrongly for a theft from the bank.

Steve Carnan, secret owner of a notorious café, while attempting to seduce budding musician Ruth Revere, is shot and killed in a struggle with Ruth's sweetheart, Chief Deputy Hugh Waring. An unexpected confession from Ruth's father, whom Carnan had double-crossed, saves Waring.

'Tuck' Martin, a crooked rancher, plots to acquire possession of the neighboring ranch belonging to 'Pop' Melody, whose daughter, Molly, is in love with 'Big Boy.' Bill Lang, the Melody ranchman, is in league with Martin and succeeds in rendering Melody helpless, although he had originally intended to have him killed. An attack on the cottage discloses the double dealing of the foreman, who is finally brought to justice, with nothing but happiness left for 'Big Boy' and Molly.

In managing the shipyard inherited from her father, Derith Keogh has considerable labor problems and accedes to the unreasonable demands of John Trevelyan, an anarchist labor agitator. Derith's brother John is off in pursuit of an adventuress, and Angus Campbell, her superintendent, resigns in exasperation. Angus returns, however, to help Derith persuade Trevelyan to settle a strike, which Trevelyan accomplishes in spite of being shot by one of his own men.

When drunken Canadian trapper Raoul La Fane attacks his young wife Marie, she takes a shot at him. La Fane falls, and Marie, thinking she killed him, flees into the white wilderness. Years later her secret comes back to haunt her.

Cowhand Tom Rawlins inherits a ranch but there are some double-crossing lawyers who are out to take it from him. It is up to him to prove his identity but the lawyers and their henchmen have his identification papers and he is in jail. Maybe pretty Sue Conway, the sheriff's daughter, will help him.

To help secret serviceman Bill Parsons in pursuit of the thieving Benson gang wealthy criminologist Henry Avery sends his assistant Blinky to cover the waterfront while he attends a reception at the home of Mrs. Cornelius Westervelt. At the soiree he meets gang member Alice Carter while also discover the gang’s cache hidden there. Captured Parsons is saved by Blinky, and the pair foil the gang’s attempt to rob Mrs. Westervelt and her guests.

Engineer Joe Dayton faces sabotage while constructing a railroad through the Canadian Northwest. Local bandit leader Jacques Durand attempts to stop the project, fearing it will bring law and order. Complicating matters, Dayton and Durand are look-alike doppelgangers.

Jim Owens (Robert Frazer), a reformed thief and successful inventor, meets quiet, meek and refined Mary Adams (Elaine Hammerstein) at a jazz party. They fall in love and all goes well until she finds out about his sordid past. It's Only after he rescues her from a blazing forest fire that she forgives him and confirms her love.