Ramona, residing on her wealthy Spanish adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the greed and injustice of the white landowners.
The Tramp, a film Johnnie (someone who loiters near theaters or studios to meet stars or get a job), attempts to meet his favorite movie actress at the Keystone Studio, but does not win friends there.
A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.
A painter turned tramp (Chaplin), devastated by losing the woman he was courting as a wealthy man, finds himself drunk and getting drunker by the minute with some sailors at a bar until he's literally falling down. He keeps futilely trying to draw the woman's picture on the floor with a piece of chalk until he finally passes out cold (or perhaps dies, as in the poem) at the end of the film.
Charlie plays an actor who bungles several scenes and is kicked out. He returns convincingly dressed as a lady and charms the director, but Charlie never makes it into the film.
Charlie is in charge of stage props and has trouble with actors' luggage and conflicts over who gets the star's dressing room. Once all that is resolved the next issue is getting everyone on stage with the correct backdrop.
