Double Speed (1920)

The Fall of Eve

Tom Ford, Jr., keeps secret his romance with his father's secretary, Eve Grant. Ford, Sr., enlists Eve to entertain out-of-town buyer Mr. Mack. When Mack's wife insists on joining the nightclub party, Eve is introduced as Mrs. Ford. While listening to a radio broadcast from the nightclub, Mrs. Ford is alarmed by the announcement that a certain dance tune has been requested by "Mr. and Mrs. Tom Ford." Ford enlists his son to help extricate him from his difficulties with the boorish couple. Tom agrees to help if Ford, Sr., will consent to his marriage. After the party moves to the Ford home, the intoxicated Mr. Mack and his corpulent wife decide to stay the night. As they are about to retire, Mrs. Ford returns and calls the police, having seen an unfamiliar figure raiding her icebox. Tom explains the situation to everyone's satisfaction and introduces Eve as his bride.

The Exalted Flapper

Princess Cecelie of Capra, a small Alpine nation, visits the U.S. with her mother, Queen Charlotte, and becomes enamored with Jazz Age culture. The princess refuses an arranged marriage with Prince Boris of Dacia, unaware that they have already fallen in love during a chance meeting.

The Net

Allayne Norman's husband Bruce is a gambler and drunkard who kills her artist cousin in an argument. Bruce flees the studio with Allayne and their son, and places his identifying documents in the pockets of an amnesiac man. To avoid the consequences of his actions, Allayne identifies the man as her husband. When Bruce returns, he tries to kill the man but is shot instead. The man regains his memory and is cleared of wrongdoing.

The Face on the Barroom Floor

As a derelict paints the face of a girl on a barroom floor, the plot is developed in a series of flashbacks: Robert Stevens, an artist engaged to marry Marion, a society girl, becomes charmed with a fisherman's daughter who poses for him. The society girl's brother brings dishonor upon the fisherman's daughter, and when she commits suicide the artist shields the brother. Stevens is blamed by his fiancée, who terminates their engagement. The artist becomes a derelict and is wrongfully imprisoned. Eventually Stevens is exonerated and reunited with Marion.

The Charmer

A wild dancer in a cheap Seville cafe, Mariposa is taken to New York by Señor Sprott, a prominent theatrical producer. Billed as "The Charmer," Mariposa becomes the toast of two continents. Among her most ardent admirers are Ralph Bayne, a millionaire playboy, and his chauffeur, Dan Murray, both of whom first met her in Spain. Madly in love with Bayne, Mrs. Sedgwick invites Mariposa and her mother to a weekend party in a deliberate attempt to humiliate the beautiful dancer. Bayne quickly realizes that Mariposa is out of place in high society, and, determining to make her his mistress, takes her home with him. Mrs. Sedgwick unexpectedly arrives at Bayne's swank suite ( followed by her suspicious husband), and Mariposa protects the society woman's reputation at the cost of her own.

The Ne'er-Do-Well

Disgusted with his spendthrift son, Kirk Anthony's father has Kirk shanghaied and taken to Panama, where he attracts the attention of Mrs. Edith Cortlandt. He subsequently falls in love with Chiquita, the daughter of a Panamanian general, gets a railroad job through Stephen Cortlandt and decides to make something of himself when he meets Allen Allan, a black mercenary. Stephen Cortlandt's death is blamed on Kirk until Edith produces a suicide note. He succeeds in his railroad position and returns to the United States with Chiquita to ask his father's forgiveness. A lost film.

His Private Life

Story of a Frenchman who seduces women all over Paris, but he meets his match in a proper American tourist. He does everything he can to seduce her, but he will only find romance when he does so on her terms!

Bits of Life

This film combines four short films under the title Bits Of Life. The Bad Samaritan is taken from a story in Popular Magazine in which the son of a Chinese father and a white mother is sold into slavery by his father. The boy becomes a criminal and a cunning but cruel thief. The one time he stops to help a lady in distress he is thrown in jail. Wesley Barry is the young boy and Lon Chaney the grown-up criminal.

Java Head

Gerrit Ammidon, despairing of any chance to marry his love, Nettie Vollar, because of a bitter feud between his father and her grandfather, sails to China to "get away from it all". While in Shanghai he rescues a beautiful young woman being attacked by a gang of street toughs. She turns out to be Taou Yuen, a Manchu princess. Gerrit discovers that, unless she finds a husband, she will be put to death, and he agrees to marry her. They return to Java Head, the Ammidon family home in Salem, Massachusetts, but Gerrit's "homecoming" has some unexpected consequences.

The Love Mart

Victor, an adventurous young swashbuckler in 19th-century New Orleans, takes possession of a barber shop as the result of winning a duel, and decides to settle down to a life as a barber. He meets a beautiful young woman and pursues her, but she dismisses his attentions because she thinks he is just a barber. Also pursuing the woman is the evil Capt. Remy, whom she also brushes off. He, however, doesn't take rejection so lightly, and forges papers "proving" that the girl is a "quadroon"--part black, which means that she can be sold as a slave. She is sold to Capt. Remy, and when Victor hears of it, he determines to rescue her.

A Woman There Was

Theda Bara plays Princess Zara, who lives on a South Sea Island. A handsome young missionary (William B. Davidson) arrives and there is a romance, which is hindered by various complications including a typhoon.

An Innocent Magdalene

When Dorothy's Southern, aristocratic father Colonel Raleigh refuses to let her marry Forbes Stewart, a Northern gambler, the couple elopes. When Dorothy soon thereafter becomes pregnant, Forbes vows to reform, but authorities arrest him on a gambling charge, and he serves a year in prison. During that time, and just before the birth of the baby, a woman comes to Dorothy and claims to be Forbes' wife. Stunned, Dorothy returns to her father, but the colonel throws her out, and so, on her own, she has her baby, whom the community believes to be illegitimate. Convinced that she has sinned, Dorothy is about to kill herself when Forbes, just out of jail, finds her and explains that the other woman simply had been an ex-sweetheart trying to win him back.

Slightly Used

Cynthia Martin’s father insists she marry before her two younger sisters Helen and Grace. So, she invents a husband for herself called Major Smith. Trouble begins when the fictitious husband Major John Smith materializes, bringing with him chaos and confusion.

The Melting Pot

The wide-ranging storyline of The Melting Pot takes its characters from the Jewish ghettoes of Russia to the Lower East Side of New York.

Red Hot Rhythm

Walter, a songwriter who is in love with Mary, a nightclub singer, prefers to make a living by fleecing crackpot songwriters and promoting their creations. When Walter writes "At Last I'm in Love" for Mary, she promises to plug the song at the Frivolity Club, but he leaves in a huff when she flirts with Sam, a legitimate song publisher. On the street, he gives refuge to Claire, a girl accused of a theft, and hires her as his secretary. Mrs. Fioretta gives Walter a large sum to publish her song, "The Night Elmer Died," but Sam induces Mary to get Walter to stop the deal. When Walter discovers that Claire is having an affair with Sam, he returns to Mary at the club. A lost film.