Movies by William Desmond Taylor
The Furnace
Folly Vallance marries millionaire Anthony Bond for his money, but he insists on a marriage in name only. Entering the social scene she befriends Bond's close friend Keene Mordaunt. When Count Svensen tries to extort Folly into running away with him, Keene pursues them to a country house where they meet Anthony, who accuses his friend of treachery. Folly finally recognizes her love for her husband and explains the cause of her actions; Bond forgives her leading to their reconciliation.
The Soul of Youth
Ed Simpson has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused much trouble. He can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets, he finds a friend in newsboy Mike. Mike teaches him how to survive, but inevitably Ed gets hauled into court. The judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician.
The World Apart
Bob Fulton is the superintendent of a mine in the West. He wins the enmity of dancehall owner Jack King when he saves one of the girls, Rose De Braisy, from his unwanted advances. Fulton also wins Rose's love, which he does not return. The mine's owner sends his troublesome son, Roland Holt, out West to work at the mine. Before Holt leaves the East he secretly marries Beth Hoover. Upon Holt's arrival, Fulton tries to befriend him, but Holt prefers the company of bad-guy King.
The Witching Hour
Clay Whipple is convicted of murdering the governor following an incident involving a cat's eye pin. Whipple is sentenced to death, but a mentalist named Psychic Jack believes he is innocent since Whipple had been hypnotized at the time of the murder. The psychic persuades the judge to grant the condemned man a retrial, and he sets out to uncover the identity of the real killer, during which time he manages to prevent a second murder from occurring.
Johanna Enlists
A young girl, stifling on her father's backwoods farm, is reinvigorated by the arrival of an army regiment, come to train in the area.
The Last Chapter
Gordon, a young war correspondent, after being wounded in the jungles of Africa, is picked up and taken back to England by James Egerton, a wealthy rubber magnate, who has been investigating conditions on his plantation, where there has been a great shortage in the year's yield. On the voyage homeward the correspondent and Egerton's daughter Alice fall in love.
The Green Temptation
Genelle and Gaspard operate an itinerant Parisian theatre in which the greatest profits are realized by picking the pockets of the audience and robbing their homes while they are watching the show. When the First World War breaks out, Genelle volunteers as a Red Cross nurse and renounces her criminal ways. She travels to America, but re-encounters Gaspard, who is determined to use her new contacts in the upper class to continue their larcenous partnership.
Big Timber
Stella Benton, a young society girl who has lost her beautiful voice through the death of her father, goes to live with her brother Charles, in the lumber camp. Charles Benton is having a struggle to make both ends meet, and when his cook quits, he makes his sister do the work for the hundred men in the lumber camp. Jack Fyfe, a neighboring lumber man, meets Stella and gradually falls in love with her, but love is not reciprocated. Seeing that she is being overworked, Fyfe offers to marry her, in spite of the fact that she does not love him....