Robert Harron

The careers of D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin are chronicled culminating in the formation of United Artists and 1919.

In a country town, Susie, innocent and big-hearted, quietly gives money to William Jenkins, a man she secretly yearns for, so he can attend college. After he graduates, he returns and becomes the town's minister. However, he never realizes how Susie feels about him and ignores her in favor of Bettina Hopkins, a wild and unfaithful girl who steals his heart. Susie must then find a way to show William that she's loved him all along.

Young Nellie Jarvis, daughter of a wandering couple, witnesses the murder of a woman by a man and his wife. Years later, "Little Miss Yes'm", as Nellie is known, returns to the area as an orphan. Locals Mr. and Mrs. Hilton, though poverty stricken, take her into their family. Fully integrated with the loving Hiltons, she wishes to relieve them of their financial strain. Nellie travels to a nearby farmhouse to gain employment from depraved Martin Cain and his paranoid wife.

A re-edited version of the fourth episode of Intolerance (1916); two youth are made homeless by a strike, and struggle valiantly to survive their desolate situation, which worsens as reform-minded citizens remove the couple's child from their care and the young father is falsely accused and convicted of murder.

Ralph Grey visits France with his shipbuilder father, and falls in love with Blossom, granddaughter of his father's friend, a Civil war veteran not reconciled with the Union. Blossom, however, is engaged to a French nobleman. When war breaks out, Ralph enlists, while his brother Jim, a heartbreaker, is drafted.

John Logan leaves bucolic Happy Valley to make his fortune in the city. His parents and his sweetheart become miserable and beleaguered in his absence, but after several years he returns wealthy. However, his embittered father, not recognizing him for who he is, plans to murder the newly-arrived 'stranger' for his money.

A group of youth come of age in a peaceful French village. But war intrudes and peace is shattered. The German army invades and occupies, bringing both destruction and torture. The youngsters resist, some successfully, others tragically, until French troops retake the town.

An idealistic young American during World War I, itching to fight the Germans and not wanting to wait until the U.S. joins the war, journeys to Canada, where he enlists in the British army. He is sent to train in England, and then to the front in France, where he's wounded. Returned to England to recuperate from his wounds, he falls in love with the daughter of an Australian minister.

Leo Peret has a small quiet tobacco shop in Greenwich Village. Edward Livingston, a wealthy young clubman and man-about-town, occupies frequently ostensibly to buy cigarettes but in reality to talk to the daughter Jeannette, and he's soon in love with the shop girl.

Small town youth Jimmie Bates is a well-intentioned, but troubled youth. Jimmie is a rowdy boy who is always getting into trouble and playing pranks on his friends and neighbors. Although deeply in love with young Mary, he eventually spurns Mary's affection for the more outgoing and worldly young Ruth.