Bill Gaynor follows Ethel, the girl he loves, to a sanitarium she is staying to recuperate from a nervous break down. Ethel had previously refused his proposal in favor of a socialite, Charles Riddles. Bill hatches up a plan to save Ethel and the other hypochondriacs from the sanitarium, taking them on his yacht through the ruse of a smallpox scare. The yacht crashes onto an island, where Bill makes the invalids work for their own food and where they all overcome their illnesses. Two months later, Charles discovers that Palm Beach is actually in the valley below them, and he escapes the camp. Charles meets up with a friend to complain about his ordeal and with his friend's encouragement, they return to the camp and try to "kidnap" Ethel. Bill catches them in the act and neutralises them. Bill admits to Ethel that they are not on an actual desert island, but she tells him that she has known that for a month. As the two float away in a row boat, the other patients comment that they should return to their siestas because the story is over.[2][3]
In his biography of Fairbanks, Jeffrey Vance writes that "some minor charm redolent of (Fairbanks's) earlier comedies" can be found "particularly (in) Down to Earth (...) with its celebration of the natural life."[5]
