The sixth in The Shadow series of shorts from Universal. In this one the circus trapeze artist falls to her death when someone flips the light switch just as she starts her famed triple somersault. It only takes the circus manager about fifteen minutes to figure out the obvious suspect was the guilty one.
Dangerous Nan McGrew is the sharp-shooting expert of a traveling medicine show that is stranded in the Canadian northwest at the snowbound hunting lodge of wealthy Mrs. Benson. Nan is invited to put on a show for the benefit of Mrs. Benson's Christmas-Eve guests. While performing her boop-a-doop songs, Eustace Macy, the saxophone-tooting nephew of Mrs. Benson falls in love with Nan. And, then, the villain, the bank-robbing Doc Foster, makes his entrance. Can Dawes of the Royal Mounted be seen slushing in pursuit behind the gangster? Could Be.
Captain Maurice de Florimont, a French Army intelligence officer, is captured by Arab nationalists while on an espionage mission. His sweetheart Diane Duval is also taken prisoner. Both are tortured by Kassim Ben Ali, leader of the Arab nationalists, but they refuse to divulge any information. They are finally rescued by French troops who storm the fortress and kill Kassim.
Nora, a department store clerk, is determined to succeed on the basis of her brain power despite her attractive ankles. She gets a job as model at the shop of McGuire and Goldberg, and they announce that Nora may be given a trip abroad if she persuades their financer to lend the partners additional funds. The financer, Hornsbee, becomes presumptuous, leading to an encounter between him and Barney, Nora's young suitor; and she is ultimately glad to accept Barney's modest attentions.
When her cotton crop is burned, Barbara Pelham, a beautiful southern girl, comes to New York to find work as a fashion designer, staying with Mrs. Kemp, a woman she meets on the northbound train. In Mrs. Kemp's house, Barbara encounters Peter Heffner, a wealthy stockbroker, and discovers from him that she has taken up residence in a whorehouse. There is a police raid, but Barbara escapes arrest and returns home. Heffner's son, Neil, goes south to inspect some family property and there meets Barbara, with whom he falls in love. They decide to be married, and she accompanies him to New York, where she meets the elder Heffner for a second time. He denounces her as a whore, but Barbara goes to Mrs. Kemp, who explains the misunderstanding to everyone's satisfaction.
An American soldier falls in love with a French maiden but their romance is thwarted when the Yanks return home. Years later she comes to America to put on a fashion show and find her long lost lover.
Alone and unprotected in an isolated wilderness cabin, Ruth Jordan is discovered by three drunken brutes who begin to barter for her. In desperation, she appeals to Stephen Ghent, the least degraded of the desperadoes, promising herself to him if he saves her from the others. Ghent buys off Shorty with a chain of gold nuggets and knocks Dutch senseless. Ghent then sends Dutch off with Shorty and takes Ruth to the next town, where he forces her to marry him. During the 3-day ride across the desert to Ghent's gold mine, the idealistic Ruth learns that he is a man of rough passions.
Young Irish physician Peter Blood is exiled as a slave to Barbados, where he and his friend Jeremy are purchased by Colonel Bishop at the behest of his niece Arabella. With other slaves he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the terror of the Caribbean privateers until offered a commission in the English Navy. He defeats the French at Port Royal, and as a reward he is named governor of Jamaica and marries Arabella.
In the year 1550, Sir George Vernon agrees to have his young daughter Dorothy betrothed to John Manners, the son of the Earl of Rutland. Sir George signs a contract, promising that the marriage will take place on Dorothy's 18th birthday, or else he will have to pay a large penalty to Rutland. But when the two children have grown older, rumors of John's wild behavior in France provoke Sir George to call off the engagement, and to pledge his daughter instead to her cousin Malcolm. Rutland now claims the forfeit from Sir George, and meanwhile, John has befriended Mary Stuart, the sworn enemy of Elizabeth, who is now Queen of England.
A young crown prince, wishing to be just an ordinary boy, runs away with his friend. The king dies, and when the prince does not appear, the people begin to rise in revolution. When the crown prince finally hears the death knell for the late king he immediately attempts to return to the palace, however is abducted by revolutionaries and held captive. Will he be rescued in time to restore order?
Tillie Getz, the eldest daughter of Jacob Getz, a brutal, driving father, lives in a Pennsylvania Mennonite village. Her Mennonite aunt leaves a will by the terms of which Tillie will inherit a small fortune if she has joined the Mennonite church by age eighteen. A plot is hatched by the lawyer who drew up the will and an attempt is made to force Tillie into a marriage with Absalom Puntz, an undesirable young man, sharing her fortune being its end.
When spiritualist Madame Mysteria is killed in a train wreck, her three associates decide to replace her instead of declaring her dead. One of them, the Fox, calls on Jean Oliver, who he knew from prison. Jean was serving time after being framed by her former employer, Mrs. Ramsey, for a theft just to keep her and her son, Donald Ramsey, from marrying. Jean agrees to the crooks' scheme providing that they help her kidnap the baby that belongs to Donald and the woman that his mother had him marry.
Kate, whose father, a university graduate, died when she was very young, is adopted by her tenement neighbor, Mrs. McMahon, after her mother, a woman of refinement, dies. At ten, the ill-nourished girl, who has grown up watching her drunken foster father fight with her overworked foster mother, goes to work in a factory after Mr. McMahon loses his job. During the next eight years, Kate's stepbrother, Big Bill McMahon, becomes her friend, sweetheart and protector.