The Family Skeleton (1918)
Wealthy young Billy Bates's greatest fear is that he has inherited his family curse: drink. But when he falls for a beautiful showgirl from the Ziegfeld Follies, she shows him he has nothing to fear.
Wealthy young Billy Bates's greatest fear is that he has inherited his family curse: drink. But when he falls for a beautiful showgirl from the Ziegfeld Follies, she shows him he has nothing to fear.
Charles RayBilly Bates
Sylvia BreamerPoppy Drayton
Andrew ArbuckleDr. Griggs
William Elmer'Spider' Doyle
Otto HoffmanBilly's ValetU.S. Secret Service agent Truxton Darnley attires himself as a sailor and boards a schooner owned by arms smuggler Gus Olsen, who is in the employ of German spy Von Linterman to smuggle arms to German raiders in the South Seas. Truxton learns Gus’s plan to blow up the National Munitions Plant in San Francisco, just before his identity is discovery and he is thrown overboard. Washed ashore on the island of Moana, Truxton meets native girl Lurline. Promising to return to her, Truxton boards a steamer bound for San Francisco to foil the plot and soon afterwards Lurline’s father sells her into marriage with Gus. Escaping to Truxton's steamer, Lurline sails to San Francisco where Gus abducts her forcing her to dance in his Barbary Coast saloon. Truxton raids the bar, kills Gus is killed and the lovers are reunited.
Bob Spaulding, a manly fellow, meets Dr. Rankin and his wife on the street while they are engaged in a violent tiff. The doctor is about to strike his wife when Bob interferes, incurring the resentment of the doctor. During the flurry Mrs. Rankin drops her card case. From a card inside he learns the address and goes there to return it. They meet, and it is a case of love at first sight; but she is a wife, and beyond his reach.

When his aunt disapproves of his marriage to Mabel Deering and threatens to disinherit him, Percy elicits the aid of his buddy Billy Haskell, who is engaged to Eileen Stanley. It is arranged that Billy and Mabel be found together in compromising circumstances by Percy and his aunt, but matters are complicated by the arrival of Billy's uncle in the city, and Aunt Emma becomes very fond of him. All is subsequently explained and thoughts of "divorce" are smoothed away as Uncle Todd couples up with Aunt Emma, and Billy and Eileen, and Percy and Mabel, reinstitute their carefree engagements.
Queen of the demi-monde, Cynthia is madly infatuated with Rogers, an unprincipled scoundrel, who, secure in his dominance over her, openly makes love to other women in her presence. In a moment of desperation, her womanhood coming to the fore, she calls on Father Sullivan, the good priest at the monastery, who soothes her hysteria and tries to show her the path of rectitude. Jackson pursues his prey into the very walls of the monastery, and triumphantly brings Cynthia back with him. Disheartened, the priest is inclined to let her go her way, but a vision of the Savior rise before him, holding out a saving hand to Mary Magdalene, kneeling at his feet. Filled with holy awe, the priest enters the gilded den of vice and calls on Cynthia.

Dr. Stannard Wayne -- like all "good" men of the times -- is a God-fearing soul. He marries the former mistress of his friend, Dr. Arthur Richards, without knowing her past. Richards, an abortionist, resumes his affair with the woman and runs off with her. But before he leaves, he frames Wayne for one of the illegal operations he has done, and the innocent man is sent to prison for five years. When he gets out, Wayne has become angry and cynical.
Gordon Palmer is a lazy and cowardly rich man's son. When he and his fiancée, Aileen Merton, are held up by two crooks, Slug Williams and Beef O'Connell, he passively allows them to take whatever they want. At least he comes to life when they try to steal Aileen's engagement ring -- he scares them into giving that back. Aileen, however, is pretty fed up with him.
Nurse Lucy Weston, seeks revenge and marries a young millionaire she believes is responsible for her father's death.
Mrs. Brown, who is a widow, finds it a rather difficult matter to clothe and feed her large family of children, so when she becomes acquainted on the beach with Captain Jenks she is not slow in inviting him to her house. That evening the Captain calls with an engagement ring. He asks the widow to become his wife, but just as he is accepted Mrs. Brown's numerous offspring come running into the room. Upon being told that they are her children the Captain nearly faints and does not know how to break the engagement.
A man is shipwrecked on a South Seas island, and although he has a fiancee back home, he falls in love with a Polynesian girl. When his fiancee finally finds him and arrives on the island to take him home, she finds out that he refuses to leave the local girl, who is now the mother of his child.
The plot concerns a war hero who returns home determined to give up his old ways as a crook. Bud Doyle (Milton Sills) is still being hounded by the cops, and both his wife (Marcia Nanon) and a former associate, a dishonest politician, want to do him in.

The Isle of Lost Men is one of those lawless tropical island colonies so beloved of adventure-story writers.
For the sake of a woman, Robert Morton serves a prison sentence and is disowned by his father, Henry. He is freed after several years and arrives in San Francisco, California, where he meets Camille Balishaw in a Barbary Coast saloon. She offers Robert shelter and aids in his rehabilitation, but his prison record prevents him from holding a job. After Camille and Robert are married, he finds another job and gradually regains his self-respect. Henry has a change of heart and seeks out Robert, asking him to return home, but without Camille. Robert remains loyal to his wife, forcing Henry to relent as he realizes the depth of their love.
Bonnie and Cliff meet cute when she gives him a lift after his car has broken down. Turns out she’s getting ready to open a beauty parlor and bleaches her hair platinum blonde to drum up business much to the chagrin of a local woman’s group. However, when Cliff’s wealthy mother invites Bonnie to be guest of honor at her yacht party things turn around both business and personally for the pair.
The Jewish Nate Cohen and the Irish-Catholic Patrick Kelly are business partners who are constantly fighting. When they find out that Nate's daughter Sadye and Patrick's son Pat Jr. are getting married in Paris, the two and their wives take an ocean liner to France to stop the marriage. When they get there, they find that the situation has radically changed, and not for the better.
Jacqueline Laurentine Boggs, the daughter of an American hog farmer, is schooled in France and comes to stay with an English family. There she brings a dose of reality to her snobby hosts.
Seduced and abandoned by the caddish Louis La Farge shepherdess Marie Beaupre is cast out of the village and forced to survive in the mountains alone. Driven mad she becomes known as “the witch woman” until hypnotist Dr. Cochefort and his friend Delaunay encounter her while on a hunting trip, take her to Paris, and effectuate a cure at which time she becomes heir to Delaunay's fortune. All seems clear sailing until Marie is introduced to Louis's twin brother Maurice and mistaking him for Louis sets forth on a plan for revenge.
Mark Reid, a young prospector, discovers gold in the Sierra foothills. He meets an old man known as "The Good Samaritan," who counsels him and welcomes him into his home. While he is away registering his claim, another prospector, Mike O'Hara, comes along, and, seeing no one around, takes possession of the gold mine. When Reid returns, the two engage in a struggle. As Reid is about to be overcome, an Indian slips a dagger into his hand. Reid is about to stab O'Hara when The Good Samaritan appears and stops the fight. Reid and the O'Hara set aside their differences and decide to become partners.
Minister John Hodder becomes rector of a prestigious church in the Midwestern city of Bremerton but finds dissension and malfeasance among his congregation. When he calls it out both tragedy and a way forward are revealed.
In a jealous rage dancer Anna Janssen shoots her common-law husband Alastair De Vries in a cafe when she discovers him with a chorus girl. Fleeing to Tahiti she is tracked by detective Thomas McCarthy who arrests her. On their return journey they are marooned on a deserted island. After 2 years together, they realize their love and take marriage vows, but when a ship is sighted, she insists, against his wishes, that she return to face trial.
Maud March, the rebellious daughter of a millionaire, goes to New York to see her sweetheart Geoffrey who left town years ago. Her aunt Carolyn wants Maud to marry her son Reggie and sends the Maud's brother Percy after her to act as chaperone. Maud, trying to escape, enters a taxi where she meets handsome composer George Bevan. The man falls in love with the young lady who, when she sees how Geoffrey has changed, soon agrees to marry George.