Director: Charles Klein

The Auctioneer

Simon, a young Jewish man emigrating to the US, adopts the daughter of a dying woman on the ship. After he settles in the US, he eventually builds up a successful business as a pawnbroker and auctioneer. His adopted daughter Ruth falls in love with a young Wall Street broker, and her father invests his fortune in the young man's firm. However, a crooked broker at the firm causes Simon to lose all his money, and he must start all over again. He sets out to track down the crooked broker and get his money back.

The Telltale Heart

An insane man first loves then grows to hate his neighbor, an old man whose penetrating gaze unnerves the insane man. He plans a perfect crime and executes it one night. The next day, two officers knock on the insane man's door, investigating a shriek heard in the night. The insane man invites them in, answers their questions, and submits to an examination of his eyes by one of the officers, who proclaims him innocent. The insane man invites them to stay and relax awhile, then regales them with his theories of crime. His heart begins to beat louder. Angles on the set are skewed to suggest the man's internal disarray.

Die Frau ohne Vergangenheit

Plot unavailable

The Third Degree

Alicia, a circus artist, deserts her husband and child to elope with Underwood, her handsome lover. Fifteen years later, Annie Martin, Alicia's deserted daughter, is a trapeze performer in a sideshow at Coney Island, operated by Mr. and Mrs. Chubb, and has married Howard Jeffries in spite of opposition by his wealthy parents. Jeffries, Sr., hires a man (Underwood) to separate the young couple. Underwood convinces the newlyweds that each is being unfaithful to the other, and consequently, he is threatened by Howard. Driven to fury by Underwood's uncontrollable demands, Alicia shoots him in a quarrel and makes her escape just as Howard enters; despite his innocence, Howard confesses to the crime when subjected to the third degree. Annie, realizing her mother's guilt, claims to be guilty, but Alicia then confesses. Annie is saved from suicide by Howard, and they are united by love.

Potash and Perlmutter

The film is based on an ethnic Jewish comedy with characters created by Montague Glass and Charles Klein.

The Third Degree

An expose of the methods used by a police-department to extract a confession from a suspect, regardless of innocence or guilt, and the effect and consequences on a family when an innocent member breaks under the interrogation methods and confesses to a crime he did not commit.