 During World War I, criminal Dakin Barrolles, fleeing a bank robbery gone awry, has a chance meeting with a rich, drunken banker and his wife. Fascinated by the kind of people he would ordinarily never get to meet, he steals a locket with the banker s picture. Later, in an attempt to elude the police, he joins the army and is sent to the front. Wounded in battle, his face is severely disfigured and a plastic surgeon, finding the locket with the banker s picture, assumes that is what Barrolles looks like and reshapes his face to that of the banker s (who, coincidentally, also joined the army and is now missing in action). After the war Barrolles, now with the banker s face, decides to pretend to be the banker in order to gain enough knowledge to rob the bank--and, as an additional perk, get the banker s beautiful wife.