Combs, a settler in the Dakotas, receives word that he is the heir to a large fortune. He eagerly prepares to go and claim it, but his Native American wife White Fawn is dismayed. Fearing that she will lose her husband if he goes east, she stabs herself with a knife. When Combs finds her, he is overcome with grief. He bends over her and pulls out the knife, only to have their daughter see him in this position. She draws an erroneous conclusion from the situation, and runs for help, leading to some tumultuous developments.

At the turn of the century, Lodz, Poland was a quick-paced manufacturing center for textiles, replete with cutthroat industrialists and unsafe working conditions. Three young friends, a Pole, a Jew and a German, pool their money together to build a factory. The movie follows their ruthless pursuit of fortune.

The true story of the beautiful and charismatic Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Their only child is a failure in his father's eyes, and as he matures and becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother, the seeds for tragedy are sown.

A down-and-out writer sells his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune.