Naive country girl Jigs Blodgett makes friends with Gene Giles, the nephew of a wealthy judge. Shady John Harland is courting the judge's daughter Blanche because of her father's money and position. To amuse herself, Blanche invites Jigs to a party with her "sophiscated" friends, intending to humiliate and embarrass Jigs. Things don't quite go the way Blanche planned.
Stan Laurel is picked up at the train depot and brought back by the husband to the family home where the wife is having a suffragette meeting. None too pleased they cause mayhem and then the neighbours are brought into it as Stan cleans up the backyard by throwing all the rubbish into their award winning garden.
서로 다른 시기에 발생한 이야기를 동시에 진행한, 구성이 매우 복잡한 흑백 작품으로, 20세기 초 미국 젊은이들의 고민, 16세기 유럽 종교개혁 시기의 위그노 학살, 예수의 생애에 대한 에피소드, 고대의 바빌로니아 이야기가 동시에 등장한다. 선구자적인 이런 시도는 다음 세대 영화인에게 영감의 원천이 되었다. 시간적으로는 서양 고대에서 20세기 현대를, 공간적으로는 오리엔트에서 출발해 지중해를 지나 서유럽을 거쳐 미국 역사를 동시에 다루었다. 흥행에는 실패하였지만 데이비드 와크 그리피스는 이 작품으로 영화 예술의 아버지라 불렸다.
A poor Russian girl's beauty leads her unscrupulous uncle to bring her to the United States. There he is going to sell her into a marriage with a rich old man she has never met. But her lover, an returning immigrant visiting Russia from the U.S., sails on the same ship. When they arrive he learns, to his surprise, that the American police, unlike those of his native country, are not oppressors of the poor, but friends that will aid in securing the release of his beloved Marfa.
Philip de Mornay, a courtier in the French royal court of the 18th century, falls in love with Daphne La Tour, the daughter of a nobleman. Knowing that her family would never approve of their marriage, he takes her and hides her in a brothel, but is soon captured by pirates. Soldiers looking for women to bring with them to a settlement across the ocean in Louisiana raid the brothel and take the girls, including Daphne. Later on the trip to the new world their ship is attacked by pirates--and she discovers that her lover Philip is on board the pirate ship.
