Does It Pay?(1923)

Conchita Cordova sings in the cathedral choir in her village of San Miguelito near the Rio Grande. Millionaire oil man John Rannie, whose oil fields have displaced the peasants, desires Conchita, and when he learns that her fiance, Juan Mendoza, has been employed by Adolf Wylie, a German spy, Rannie threatens to expose Juan unless Conchita gives herself to him.

Orphaned Gertrude "Gertie" Flint is rescued by lamplighter, Trueman Flint, who raises her with faith and virtue until she grows into a moral woman and finds love with a childhood friend, overcoming hardships like her blind mother's separation from her and near-fatal fire incidents, ultimately leading to happy reunions and an engagement.

Joyous Johnson is expelled from college and finds work as a publicity agent for the Coronado Hotel. At the hotel, he falls for Marjorie Milbank, a businesswoman visiting to discuss the sale of her Texas cattle ranch with Joyous's father. Unknown to Joyous, his father desperately needs Marjorie's ranch to save his failing packing house, but she refuses to sell. Joyous must navigate his new job and his father's business crisis while trying to win Marjorie's heart.

Former Viennese orchestra leader Anton von Barwig has been searching for his daughter, taken by his ex-wife, for many years. The search has reduced him to penury since a crooked detective swindled him. One day he meets a young society girl, Helene Stanton, seeking music lessons for her fiancé, Beverly Cruger, and recognizes her as his child. Barwig finally confronts her foster father, who had run away with his wife in Vienna, who pleads with him to stay silent for his daughter’s future. He acquiesces but Helene discovers the relationship and brushes social considerations aside to be reunited with him.

Two sisters, Julia Crossland and Evelyn Jefferson, happy lives are thrown into turmoil when a man from their past, Thomas Chadwick reappears unexpectedly. Both had at one time been smitten with Thomas writing indiscreet letters to him. When Chadwick is killed, they fear their secret will be revealed.

Warren Schuyler, a wealthy widower in a small Eastern town, is highly-respected until the citizens are financially ruined by devaluation of the oil stock he sold them. His daughter Ellen's New York socialite fiance' Roy Phelps deserts her after her father dies, but fellow townsman John Barrett comes to her aid, and she marries him out of gratitude. After three years of irritation from her mother-in-law, she again meets Roy and is persuaded to leave her husband and child, but on perceiving Roy's fraudulence, and following a serious illness, she reunites with John.

Defying her obdurate Colonel father Betty Lewis elopes with Bob Hale. When Bob is killed in an automobile accident, the colonel discovers Betty is pregnant and after the birth cruelly tells Betty that the baby died while placing the child in an orphanage. When Betty later marries Ken Tyler she stays silent about her previous marriage, at the colonel's request. One day while visiting an orphanage with her sister, Barbara, who hopes to adopt, she finds her own daughter. Taking her home she admits to Ken the child's true parentage. Angered at first, he is persuaded by his own mother and accepts the child.

A group of Canadian Royal Mounted Police officers arrive home after serving overseas with the Allied Army. After enjoying a birthday banquet for the aged Major Manners amid much singing and revelry, Inspector Turner reveals suspicions about a new recruit, John Smith, whom he knows to be using a pseudonym and whose war record contains something potentially damaging.

After being disinherited by their wealthy father for their wild and irresponsible ways, two brothers embark on vastly different paths. One turns to crime and the other follows the straight and narrow falling in love along the way. When their paths cross again both find their lives in danger and only one will emerge safely.

Ellinor, who was unofficially adopted as an orphan by 'Old Peter,' who maintained a lighthouse on a virtually deserted beach, has grown up wild and nearly silent. As she blossoms into full womanhood, she longs to know more about the world. One day a mutinous sailor swims to shore and declares that they are married, after tossing a pair of rings into the sea. He soon flees, but promises to return for her. Wealthy widower George Hudson, the richest man in the nearby port village, also falls for the fascinating, attractive young woman. He convinces her to go to a finishing school for a year and then marry him. They both find that the sea still holds a powerful pull on the soul. Which is stronger: love or the sea's magic spell?

When Bob Stratton returns from war in France, he soon discovers his ranch in the hands of a pretty girl, Mary Thorne, who explains that upon her father's death she became the sole owner. Thorne had been the executor of Stratton's will, and thinking that Bob had been killed, he had appropriated the place for himself.

Faced with the tragic responsibility of choosing between the happiness of her 16-year-old daughter Pamela or saving the life of an innocent man, Marie Baudin's first impulse is to sacrifice all for her own. But she has second thoughts that bring complications to all.