Newspaper publisher Ed Tilford dies on the Western Front during World War I. Without a father, his sons Eddie and Russell grow up at odds with each other. Eddie is a street tough who has fallen under the spell of Mary, a femme fatale. Meanwhile, Russell has joined high society and wants to change the family newspaper into a scandal tabloid. Unbeknownst to them, their father is still alive, having faked his death twenty years earlier.
Star Charley Grapewin was a vaudeville performer who began his career in film at the turn of the century, starring in the F.S. Armitage short Above the Limit (1900). However, he is best remembered for playing fatherly roles later in his career. He portrayed both Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). He then had a recurring role as Ralph Bellamy's father in the popular Ellery Queen series of the 1940s. William Bakewell, who plays Russell, had a long career in Hollywood, appearing in films ranging from Oscar winners like All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Gone With the Wind (1939) to B-movie fare such as Radar Men from the Moon (1952). Mary Kornman, her traditionally blonde hair dyed black, breaks type as a seductress in The Quitter. The former child actress had been the female star of Pathe's Our Gang series from 1923 to 1926.