Ruth Handforth

À travers l'image d'une femme berçant un enfant, quatre épisodes de l'intolérance sont racontés dans une fresque monumentale. Un épisode moderne sur un gréviste condamné à la pendaison. Un épisode biblique lors d'une noce à Cana. Un épisode des guerres de religion au temps de Charles IX. Un épisode chaldéen. Dans tous l'intolérance l'emporte sur l'amour.

Londres, durant la Première Guerre mondiale. Un soldat en permission tombe amoureux d'une jeune femme qui se prostitue pour survivre. Face à cet homme si gentil venant d'une famille bourgeoise, elle n'ose rien lui avouer. Bientôt, le secret devient déchirant et ses espoirs amoureux s'envolent...

Although the prominent Hollywood family prides itself on its illustrious family tree, young Winifred Hollywood exhibits a fondness for wild adventures that greatly disturbs her parents. When Winifred becomes engaged to bank official Harold Burton, his equally snobbish parents visit the Hollywood home and are shocked by the young woman's spirited outbursts and mischievous tricks, and the engagement is broken after she decides to perform bareback feats with a traveling circus.

An Englishman who has made his fortune in America decides to return to England.

A man and his wife both have criminal pasts, but have quit crime and are now respectable citizens. One day a member of their old gang shows up and threatens to expose them if they don't help him pull a heist.

A young crown prince, wishing to be just an ordinary boy, runs away with his friend. The king dies, and when the prince does not appear, the people begin to rise in revolution. When the crown prince finally hears the death knell for the late king he immediately attempts to return to the palace, however is abducted by revolutionaries and held captive. Will he be rescued in time to restore order?

Jennie is a slavey in a theatrical boarding house. To her the actors are all wonderful, but Montague Booth is the chief. In an accident Booth is disfigured for life and is saved from suicide by Jennie. They join a medicine show in which Booth is lecturer, but Jennie cannot stand the road. Booth leaves the show and takes up a homestead claim. The manager of the show sends one of Booth's old loves to get him back, for his services are valuable, but Belle fails after very nearly wrecking everyone's happiness.

A young man uses tips from an absurd book to woo a woman he fancies.