Kay-Bee Pictures

Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.

Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rage, he kidnaps the woman most responsible and makes her his slave in a desert hideaway.

Pierre Vignol, an artist wintering in Arizona, is bitten by a snake. He is taken by his friend, Tom Hornby, to Padre Francisco, who prescribes for the bite. Pierre, at the request of Tom, returns to his cabin and Tom takes care of him. Later Tom discovers a tube in Lost River. This proves to be a painting and Pierre takes it to Padre Francisco. The Padre reads him an interesting history of Fr. Bartolomeo. founder of the Mission, and of how the painting came to be discovered in Lost River, for it had been thrown there by a monk when the Mission was attacked by the Indians, owing to the abduction of the Chief's daughter by a villainous Spaniard. Tom takes the painting to New York where he sells it and gives the money to the wife of Tom, who has been too poor to bring her and the baby to Arizona.

James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.

When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.

Movie mogul Thomas H. Ince may well have been the director of The Despoiler as indicated by the credits; but since Ince was known far and wide as a glory-hogger, it's also possible that one of his talented lieutenants wielded the megaphone. A Civil War drama, The Despoiler refuses to take sides, demonstrating that there are heroes and villains in both camps. Capturing a small town, Colonel Charles K. French orders his men to reclaim the funds raised for the enemy by the townsfolk. French's drunken, lacivious second-in-command Frank Keenan intends to extort money from the citizens by threatening the virtue of the town's female population.

Prince Tonio of Bothalia, a mythical kingdom in the Balkan Mountains, escapes an arranged marriage to Princess Athalia, the elderly daughter of a neighboring king. Filled with wanderlust, he becomes a sailor and goes to San Francisco where he meets a young singer...

Jack Harding, a wealthy ne'er-do-well, becomes involved with a Broadway vamp. When she is murdered, Jack is falsely accused of the crime and must turn for help to his lawyer--his wife.