A southern town is rocked by scandal when teenager Mary Clay is murdered on Confederate Decoration Day. Andrew Griffin, a small-time lawyer with political ambitions, sees the crime as his ticket to the Senate if he can find the right victim to finger for the crime. He sets out to convict Robert Hale, a transplanted northerner who was Mary's teacher at the business school where she was killed. Despite the fact that all the evidence against Hale is circumstantial, Griffin works with a ruthless reporter to create a media frenzy of prejudice and hate against the teacher.

In the slums, teenager Frankie Warren hangs out with a rowdy gang who one day knock him out in a fight. In court, the boys refuse to reveal who struck the knockout blow, and all are subsequently sentenced to a reformatory, cruelly run by two corrupt guards. New deputy commissioner Mark Braden arrives determined to change things, but despite the help of Frankie's sister, Mark's reform plans -- and Frankie's future -- may be sabotaged from within.

A woman is forced to keep her marriage and past indiscretions a secret from those she loves.

A young man just released from a reformatory moves to a new neighborhood with his sister, intending to start a new life. However, he gets mixed up with the local mob boss and corrupt politicians and soon finds himself being framed for an arson and murder he didn't commit.

Stalwart Appalachian woman finds romance as she struggles to better herself and her people amid prejudice and familial abuse.

A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.

In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains. After the death of Edward he becomes Richard III, King of England, and need only defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain power.

A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.

This short chronicles Abraham Lincoln's presidency from his inauguration through delivery of the Gettysburg Address.

A courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote community from a deadly epidemic. He has come North to visit and ends up stealing a wife from her husband. When the epidemic hits, he and the wife begin their arduous journey.

Postal inspectors track down money stolen from a railroad car.

When lovely and virtuous governess Henriette Deluzy comes to educate the children of the debonair Duc de Praslin, a royal subject to King Louis-Philippe and the husband of the volatile and obsessive Duchesse de Praslin, she instantly incurs the wrath of her mistress, who is insanely jealous of anyone who comes near her estranged husband. Though she saves the duchess's little son from a near-death illness and warms herself to all the children, she is nevertheless dismissed by the vengeful duchess. Meanwhile, the attraction between the duke and Henriette continues to grow, eventually leading to tragedy.

In 1828, the bankrupt Pyncheon family fight over Seven Gables, the ancestral mansion. To obtain the house, Jaffrey Pyncheon obtains his brother Clifford's false conviction for murder. Hepzibah, Clifford's sweet fiancée, patiently waits twenty years for his release, whereupon Clifford and his former cellmate, abolitionist Matthew, have a certain scheme in mind.

A self-made success is determined to give his son the lavish upbringing he himself was denied. Not surprisingly, the son grows up to be spoiled rotten, causing grief and pain to everyone who loves him.

A reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.

After a socially conscience reporter adopts a slum orphan after she causes his brother's gang to go to prison.

A shy office worker becomes a hero when a fortune teller calls him another Napoleon.