The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.
Chet Kasedon is after the Indians hidden gold mine but Chief Moya will not reveal it's location. He has also hired mining engineers Gale and Mortimer to locate the mine. When Gale sees Kasedon's cruelty to Moya, he switches sides.
An American boy turns out to be the heir of a wealthy British earl. He is sent to live with the irritable and unsentimental aristocrat, his grandfather.
Wildcat riggers risk their lives in the pursuit of oil. Their jobs get even more dangerous when ruthless oil baron J.C. Anderson sets his sights on their territory. When longtime driller Dan O'Reilly falls to his death from a well tower sabotaged by Anderson's strong-arm thugs, his teenage son 'Fishtail' inherits the property and the troubles that come with it. With the help of his geologist pal, Hank Langford, the boy fights to bring in a gusher before the deed to the well-site expires.
Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.
A disparate group of people meet as passengers on a superspeed train crossing the U.S. Aboard are a seductive blackmailer and the stage director he intends to frame, a woman chasing her husband who is running away with the blackmail victim, and the stage director's feisty leading lady.
In early 19th century England, ambitious and ruthless orphan Rebecca Sharp advances from the position of governess to the heights of British society. The first feature length film to use three-strip Technicolor.
Right after the Civil War, an ex-Union soldier sets out to become a schoolmaster in his small town, even though many locals still harbor a resentment against "Yankees". He goes up against the town bully, who both want the same girl, and his troubles multiply when a vicious band of nightriders set out to drive him out of town.
The son of Sheriff Clay Hartley, of the frontier town Elder, has gotten into bad company and hangs out with an outlaw gang in which, Collins, owner of the Golden Rule Saloon, is the secret head. Sheriff Hartley suspects him, but has been unable to gather the needed evidence. Collins instructs his gang, including young Hartley, to hold up the stagecoach on its return trip from Missionary Flats and take the cargo of gold dust it is carrying. Sheriff Hartley is notified of the planned holdup by one of his deputies who has been spying on Collins, and organizes a posse. A deputy-sheriff is killed in the ensuing gunfight between the lawmen and the outlaws, but Deputy Joe Larkin, pursues and captures Clay Hartley Jr. The latter is quickly tried and convicted of the killing of the deputy, and sentenced to be hung. Sheriff Hartley has only a few hours to prove his son was not the killer. He enlists the aid of Collins' step-daughter, Joan, who is in love with Hartley's son.
Grant hides stolen money in the luggage of Bonnie Shea who is moving west. Later when he and his men arrive to retrieve the money, they also kidnap Bonnie. This sends Reasonin' Bates and his cowhands on their horses after the gangsters in their cars.
Just before Adolph Greig's solo violin performance at the Cosmopolitan Orchestra, his right hand is injured and his dream, shattered. His flighty children turn their backs on him and he collapses in the street. However, an opportunity arises for him to tutor a young violin prodigy.
On the French coast, unlucky Marie Galante is abducted and forced to board an American cargo ship bound for the Panama Canal. When an escape attempt leaves Marie high and dry in the Yucatan, she takes work as a nightclub singer to earn her safe passage to the Canal region. But Marie faces bigger problems when she gets mixed up in a destructive plot against the U.S. Naval fleet, and so she accepts the kindly assistance of secret agent Dr. Crawbett.
After Fred von Bergen, a German immigrant in America, is forced from his job by anti-German hysteria before the first world war, he and his friend Bob Wilson leave America and join the German air force. There, both men fall in love with ambulance driver Alida Hoffman. When America enters the war, Bob is caught between loyalty to his home country and the threat of execution for desertion and treason to Germany. It remains for his friend Fred to extricate him from the dilemma - but at what cost?
John and Mary Sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.