Hallam Cooley

A missing persons case leads a clerk and amateur detective to an asylum where a mad doctor is secretly conducting experiments to resurrect the dead.

Frisco Jenny Sandoval (Ruth Chatterton) was pregnant by the young man she loved when he died in the 1906 earthquake--before their wedding. Alone, Frisco Jenny gives her baby up for adoption then fends for herself the only way she can--by selling her body, rising to the top of the world's oldest profession. But the son she gave up is now the San Francisco district attorney and leads a crusade to end prostitution in the city. When an underworld associate learns of the relationship and threatens to blackmail the district attorney, Frisco Jenny kills him before he can reveal his secret. And she goes to the gallows, convicted for the murder by her own son, rather than reveal the secret that would destroy him.

After a whirlwind courtship, a free-thinking young man gets engaged to a wealthy socialite whose family's conservative values clash with his own.