Based on a play by Gerhardt Hauptmann, the film details a bittersweet May-December romance between ageing Mathias Clausen (Albers) and young, beautiful Inken Peters (Annemarie Dueringer).
The film follows the life story of Johann Augustus Suter, the owner of Sutter's Mill, famous as the birthplace of the great California Gold Rush of 1848.
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
A domineering matriarch is less than happy when her son brings home his new bride. She immediately sets to work at sabotaging their marriage as well as the engagement of her younger and weaker son.
A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany to meet the man's family.
Ahab pursues a whale that chewed off a leg when his brother, vying with him for the hand of a minister's daughter, pushed him overboard. When he has caught the monstrous whale he will then deal with his brother.
Having raised four children alone, widow Mary Williams still manages to love her eldest son, vicious and sadistic Danny Williams, who has led a life of crime and now returns to inflict his insane behavior on the family household.
French aristocrat falls for Russian nightclub singer, gets involved in underground Russian revolutionary movement. Parts 1 and 2 were re-edited in the only surviving copy named Daughter of the Night.
Bank director Hardner, a cunning businessman who hides his unscrupulousness behind a mask of friendliness, tries to destroy a family. This film is considered lost.
