Drunk and disorderly cowpoke Robert Sands (William S. Hart) is banished from an Arizona frontier town and hops on a freight train heading for New York. Arriving in Manhattan, the rough-and-tumble cowboy obtains a position as "physical guardian" to a spoiled member of the social register (Arthur Shirley). Charged with recovering a series of compromising letters from the young wastrel to a female restaurant owner (Seena Owen), the Westerner falls in love with the girl himself. Realizing that he is a duck out of water among the city swells, Sands magnanimously resolves to put his employer's happiness ahead of his own and bring the two youngsters together. Branding Broadway was a refreshing departure for the usually so forbidding western star and critic Louis Reeves Harrison, of Moving Picture World, found it "a pleasure to see Hart in a completely new role." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi