When attacked by two dogs, Joe Gilmore leaves them on the desert to die. Later one of the dogs saves John Blake from drowning. Men arrive claiming the dog is killing their chickens. They want to kill the dog but John convinces them the dog's fate should be determined by a trial.
Tim Kelly is an orphan who runs away after his orphanage burns down. Presumed to be killed in the fire, he is able to roam the streets of New York freely. He meets Max Ginsberg, an old Jewish junk dealer with rheumatism, and the two strike a partnership and a close friendship.
All the qualified men line up to be chosen, as an heiress advertises that she will marry the man with the most interesting mustache, that marriage which comes with a mansion. John Syrup Soother wins the marriage to who he believes is the heiress, Olive Palmer, a tank of a woman who has lost her beauty with age. But he learns that he his betrothed is not the heiress, Diana Palmer, but her mother. Howson Lotts, a shyster and one of Diana's other suitors, sells John a beach-front house for his new life, that house which is not all that it seems on the surface. In the meantime, others still will do anything to be Diana's betrothed, that choice in which John now has a different but still vested interest.
Cinco años atrás, Jeremiah Judkins, el viejo guardián del faro de una pequeña villa costera, en plena tormenta recibe un regalo del mar en forma de bebé recién nacido. Judkins supone que la niña es un regalo que Dios le ofrece para paliar su soledad y la alimenta y cuida de ella, llamándola "Capitán January" (enero). Ahora "Capitán", con cinco años, llama "papá" a Judkins, le ayuda a pescar langostas que sirven para su manutención y ambos sueñan con viajar algún día por los siete mares. Pero de pronto su existencia se complica. (Eddie Constanti)
En su primer largometraje en el cine, el genial Buster Keaton hace una parodia de "Intolerancia", de D.W. Griffith, al tiempo que muestra sus dotes dramáticas y cómicas (siempre serio) mientras compite con Wallace Beery por conseguir el amor de Margaret Leahy en tres épocas diferentes: la prehistoria, la antigua Roma y la (entonces) edad moderna: los años veinte.
