When Knighthood Was in Flower

Harry Peltzer, who is passionate about his job as a firefighter, and his superior, fire chief Paul Körner, are the best of friends. This changes the day they both meet Nelly, a young, blonde cashier at a vending machine buffet, on whom both men immediately set their eyes. As Harry has a much better chance with Nelly, Paul's friendship with him soon turns into bitter antagonism, if not outright enmity.

A jealous barber's assistant becomes enraged by the attentions the manicurist he's obsessed with and a repeat customer pay to one another.

A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.

A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.

An American heiress who goes to Ireland meets a bankrupt lord. She switches places with her maid to avoid fortune hunters.

Calumny is one of the most despicable crimes against our neighbor, and while the wife in this story acted conventionally, she nevertheless maligned the other woman simply because of her profession, an actress. While out on a shopping tour, the wife and her husband enter a store, leaving their little child in the auto in the care of the chauffeur. This gentleman pays but scant attention to the child, so the little one wanders off and strolls into the stage door of a theater during the matinee. The parents upon their return to the auto discover the child's absence and trace him to the theater stage, where they find him in the arms of one of the show girls. The mother matches the child from the girl's arms, scornfully exclaiming, "How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?" For this remark, together with the derisive laughter it occasions, the girl vows to be avenged.

As the husband leaves for the lumber regions, his wife gives him a memory message to be opened after his arrival. Attracted by a maid, cherished by the love of two old brothers, he forgets it until sometime later. The message serves its purpose, however, for through it, after a thrilling experience, the maid learns the true value of the man's love, while he in his turn, goes back to his waiting wife and finds there, along with his shame and regeneration, his heart's desire.

Knocked down by an automobile, the intoxicated tramp is taken to the doctor's house, received and treated to a square meal. The husband of a patient has just died, calls on the doctor, intending to kill him. The grief-crazed man is foiled several times by the return of the tramp, whom the maid at last pushes out of the house. She hears the doctor struggling with his assailant and faints. The tramp hears the doctor's cry for help and enters by a rear window, despite the objections of a policeman, in time to save his benefactor.

Everything he did seemed to be misconstrued, except by the little lady he loved. The town roisters made fun of her and his love. That made trouble and the chief vigilante believed him the cause of it all. So he was "in wrong" all around. The girl's father also sided with the opinion of the world, and sent both the boy and girl away. Mother was on a visit at the time, and therein the need of such a one at home was proved, for once back she sent the father out to bring them home again. The boy in the gold hills had been misunderstood again. Marauding merchants had left their victim on the mountain pass and the boy, coming on the scene, was again accused, but the lie in the end destroyed itself.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.