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In the mid-1990s, Karl Childers is an intellectually disabled Arkansas man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12; at that age, he murdered his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world. Prior to his release, he is interviewed by a local college newspaper reporter, and he recounts committing the murders with a kaiser blade, saying, "Some folks call it a sling blade. I call it a kaiser blade." Karl explains that he attended school with his father's boss' teenage son Jesse Dixon, who was a mean-spirited bully and pervert; he thought that Jesse was raping his mother, and decapitated him. When he discovered that his mother was a willing participant in the affair, he killed her also. Thanks to the doctor in charge of his institutionalization, Karl - who is highly skilled at repairing small engines - lands a job at a repair shop in the small town where he was born and raised. He befriends 12-year-old Frank Wheatley, and shares some of the details of his past, including the killings. Frank reveals that his father was killed when he was hit by a train, leaving him and his mother on their own. He later admits that he lied, and that his father committed suicide. Frank introduces Karl to his mother, Linda, and her gay friend, Vaughan Cunningham. Vaughan is the manager of the dollar store where Linda works. Despite Vaughan's concerns about Karl's history in the mental hospital, Linda allows him to move into her garage - which angers Linda's abusive alcoholic boyfriend, Doyle Hargraves. Karl bonds with Linda, Vaughan, and their friends. Vaughan invites Karl to lunch where he explains that a gay man and a mentally challenged man face similar obstacles of intolerance and ridicule in small-town America. He also warns Karl about Doyle's violent demeanor as well as his fears that Doyle might hurt or kill Linda and Frank. Karl quickly becomes a father figure to Frank, who misses his real father and despises Doyle. For Karl, Frank becomes like a younger brother. As they grow closer, Karl reveals to Frank that he is haunted by an incident that happened when he was six or eight years old. His parents performed an abortion of his unwanted baby brother. The baby was wrapped in a bloody towel and given to Karl with instructions to "get rid of it"; however, Karl realized that the infant survived the abortion. When Frank asks why Karl did not keep the baby, Karl replies that he had no way to care for it. He placed the baby, still in the bloody towel, inside a shoebox and buried it alive. He went on to say it was better to "return him to the good Lord right off the bat," sparing him the abuse and neglect Karl himself had received at the hands of his own father. Karl later visits his father, who has become a sickly hermit living in the dilapidated home where Karl grew up. The father claims he doesn't recognize Karl and doesn't have a son. Karl tells his father that killing his baby brother was wrong, and that he had wanted to kill his father for making him do it, but eventually decided that he was not worth the effort. Karl thereafter decides to be baptized. Doyle continues his abusive behavior. While practicing with his friends, with whom he is in a band, he erupts in an alcoholic outburst, ejects them from the house, and attempts to do the same with Karl and Vaughan. Linda tries ejecting Doyle from the house, despite his threats to kill her if she ever left him, which results in a physical confrontation. Frank is enraged and hurls household objects at Doyle until he finally leaves. Linda and Doyle reconcile and Doyle announces his plan to move into the house permanently. He claims he will soon propose marriage to Linda, that Karl is no longer welcome to live in the house, and demands that Frank begin obeying his orders. Frank does not acquiesce and Doyle attempts to attack him, but Karl stops him and warns him never to touch Frank again. Karl begins to realize that, eventually, either Frank will kill Doyle and end up just like him, or that Doyle's abuse will end up killing Frank and Linda. In order to prevent this, Karl makes Frank promise to spend the night at Vaughan's house. Karl then goes to Vaughan's house and asks Vaughan to pick up Linda and have her stay over also. Karl later returns to Linda's house with a lawnmower blade he had sharpened and fashioned into a weapon. He finds a drunken Doyle sitting on the couch inside and asks him how to reach the police by phone. Doyle, in turn, asks what Karl is doing with the lawnmower blade; Karl replies, "I aim to kill you with it”. Not taking Karl seriously, Doyle sarcastically recommends that Karl dial 911 and request "an ambulance or a hearse". Karl then kills Doyle with two blows of the blade to the head, phones the police to turn himself in, and requests a hearse be sent for Doyle. He eats biscuits and mustard while waiting for the police. Returned to the state hospital, he is less passive than he was during his previous institutionalization, having learned the value of sacrificing one’s self to save others. He silences a sexual predator who had previously forced him to listen to stories about his crimes, before standing to look out of a window towards an open field. 

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In 1952, 10-year-old Larry Flynt is selling moonshine in Kentucky. Twenty years later, Flynt and his younger brother, Jimmy, run the Hustler Go-Go club in Cincinnati. With profits down, Flynt decides to publish a newsletter for the club, the first Hustler magazine, with nude pictures of women working at the club. The newsletter soon becomes a full-fledged magazine, but sales are weak. After Hustler publishes nude pictures of former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis, sales take off. Flynt becomes smitten with Althea Leasure, a stripper who works at one of his clubs. With Althea and Jimmy's help, Flynt makes a fortune from sales of Hustler. With his success comes enemies – as he finds himself a hated figure of anti-pornography activists. He argues with the activists, saying that "murder is illegal, but if you take a picture of it, you may get your name in a magazine or maybe win a Pulitzer Prize. However, sex is legal, but if you take a picture of that act, you can go to jail." He becomes involved in several prominent court cases, and befriends a young lawyer, Alan Isaacman. In 1975, Flynt loses a smut-peddling court decision in Cincinnati, but the decision is overturned on appeal; he is released from jail soon afterwards. Ruth Carter Stapleton, a Christian activist and sister of President Jimmy Carter, seeks out Flynt and urges him to give his life to Jesus. Flynt seems moved and starts letting his newfound religion influence everything in his life, including Hustler content. In 1978, during another trial in Georgia, Flynt and Isaacman are both shot by a man with a rifle while they walk outside a courthouse. Isaacman recovers, but Flynt is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Wishing he was dead, Flynt renounces God. Because of the emotional and physical pain, he moves to Beverly Hills and spirals down into depression and drug use. During this time, Althea also becomes addicted to painkillers and morphine. In 1983, Flynt undergoes surgery to deaden several nerves in his back damaged by the bullet wounds, and as a result, feels rejuvenated. He returns to an active role with the publication, which, in his absence, had been run by Althea and Jimmy. Flynt is soon in court again for leaking videos relating to the John DeLorean entrapment case, and during his courtroom antics, he fires Isaacman, then throws an orange at the judge. He later wears an American flag as an adult diaper along with an Army helmet, and wears T-shirts with provocative messages such as "I Wish I Was Black" and "Fuck This Court." After spitting water at the judge Flynt is sent to a psychiatric ward, where he sinks into depression again. Flynt publishes a satirical parody ad in which Jerry Falwell tells of a sexual encounter with his mother. Falwell sues for libel and emotional distress. Flynt countersues for copyright infringement, because Falwell copied his ad and used it to raise funds for his legal bills. The case goes to trial in December 1984, but the decision is mixed, as Flynt is found guilty of inflicting emotional distress but not libel. By that time, Althea has contracted HIV, which proceeds to AIDS. Some time later in 1987, Flynt finds her dead in the bathtub, having drowned. Flynt presses Isaacman to appeal the Falwell decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. Isaacman refuses, saying Flynt's courtroom antics humiliated him. Flynt pleads with him, saying that he "wants to be remembered for something meaningful". Isaacman agrees and argues the "emotional distress" decision in front of the Supreme Court, in the case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell in 1988. With Flynt sitting silently in the courtroom, the court overturns the original verdict in a unanimous decision. After the trial, Flynt is alone in his bedroom watching old videotapes of a healthy Althea. 

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Ulee Jackson (Peter Fonda) is a widowed beekeeper in Wewahitchka, Florida whose son Jimmy (Tom Wood) is in prison following a botched robbery. Jimmy's wife Helen (Christine Dunford) has abandoned their two daughters and is living in Orlando. Ulee's stubborn independence prevents him from asking for help, and as the movie begins he has his hands full running his business and acting as surrogate parent to his granddaughters Casey and Penny. Casey (Jessica Biel) is a rebellious teenager and Penny (Vanessa Zima) is a timid 10-year-old who seems confused by her parents' absence and the tension at home. When Ulee visits Jimmy in prison, Jimmy tells him that Helen has turned up at the Orlando home of petty criminals Eddie Flowers and Ferris Dooley. They were Jimmy's accomplices in the bank robbery, but were never caught. Now they say Helen is sick, and Jimmy asks Ulee to bring her home. Ulee goes to Orlando to pick up Helen, but it turns out what Eddie and Ferris really want is the bank money that Jimmy allegedly hid after the robbery. Ulee agrees to ask Jimmy about it, and then takes Helen home. Helen's "illness" is actually drug addiction, and while she is almost comatose on the way home, she becomes violent and belligerent as she wakes up near the house. Ulee's tenant and neighbor, a divorced nurse named Connie Hope (Patricia Richardson), is brought into the home by a frightened Penny, and over the next few days she helps Helen through her drug withdrawal. Meanwhile, Ulee learns that Jimmy hid the bank money in one of his beeyards. He tells Eddie and Ferris he'll bring the money to Orlando in a few days, but they decide they can't wait and take Helen, Casey, and Penny hostage in Ulee's home. Helen, Casey, and Penny are then tied up and left at the home as Eddie and Ferris force Ulee at gunpoint to take them to the beeyard, where he shows them the hiding place. As they are recovering the money, Ulee kicks the gun into the swamp. The angry men ride with Ulee back into town, then Eddie stabs him in the parking lot when they arrive. As Ulee stumbles bleeding, Eddie and Ferris drive off but are pulled over almost immediately by the sheriff, Bill Floyd (J. Kenneth Campbell). The film ends with a newly hopeful Jackson household. Helen has stepped back into her role as a mother, and Jimmy expects to be paroled soon. Ulee is happy to return to his bees, but has mixed feelings about giving up some of his responsibilities. As he recovers from his knife wound he begins work on expanding his business to accommodate Jimmy's eventual return, and seems to finally be taking a romantic interest in Connie. 

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In the 1950s, James Whale, the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, has retired. Whale lives with his long-time housemaid, Hanna, who loyally cares for him but disapproves of his homosexuality. He has suffered a series of strokes that have left him fragile and tormented by memories: growing up as a poor outcast, his tragic World War I service, and the filming of Bride of Frankenstein. Whale slips into his past and indulges in his fantasies, reminiscing about gay pool parties and sexually teasing an embarrassed, starstruck fan. He battles depression, at times contemplating suicide, as he realizes his life, his attractiveness, and his health are slipping away. Whale befriends his young, handsome gardener, Clayton Boone, and the two begin a sometimes uneasy friendship as Boone poses for Whale's sketches. The two men bond while discussing their lives and dealing with Whale's spells of disorientation and weakness from the strokes. Boone, impressed with Whale's fame, watches Bride of Frankenstein on television as his friends mock the movie, his friendship with Whale, and Whale's intentions. Boone assures Whale that he is straight and receives Whale's assurance that there is no sexual interest, but Boone storms out when Whale graphically discusses his sexual history. Boone later returns with the agreement that no such "locker room" discussions occur again. Boone is invited to escort Whale to a party hosted by George Cukor for Princess Margaret. There, a photo op has been arranged for Whale with "his Monsters": Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester from "ancient" movie fame. This event exacerbates Whale's depression. A sudden rainstorm becomes an excuse to leave. Back at Whale's home, Boone needs a dry change of clothes. Whale can only find a sweater, so Boone wears a towel wrapped around his waist. Whale decides to try to sketch Boone one more time. After some minutes, he shows his sketches to Boone, disclosing that he has lost his ability to draw. After Boone drops his towel to pose nude, Whale makes him wear a World War I gas mask and then uses the opportunity to make a sexual advance on Boone, kissing his shoulder. An enraged Boone attacks Whale, who confesses that this had been his plan and begs Boone to kill him to relieve him of his suffering. Boone refuses, puts Whale to bed, then sleeps downstairs. The next morning, Hanna is alarmed when she cannot find Whale, prompting a search by Boone and Hanna. Boone finds Whale floating dead in the pool as a distraught Hanna runs out, clutching a suicide note. Boone and Hanna agree that Boone should disappear from the scene to avoid a scandal. A decade later, Boone and his young son, Michael, watch Bride of Frankenstein on television. The son is skeptical of his father's claim that he knew Whale, but Clayton produces a sketch of the Frankenstein monster drawn by Whale, and signed, "To Clayton. Friend?" "Friend?" being a plea from the original misfit, Frankenstein's monster, and disclosing Whale's true intentions. 

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The film begins with a voice-over narration by Rolfe Whitehouse, announcing the story of his brother Wade's "strange criminal behavior" and subsequent disappearance. Wade Whitehouse is a small- town policeman in New Hampshire. On Halloween night, Wade meets his daughter Jill, but he is late and the evening is overshadowed by disharmony. Jill eventually calls her mother, Wade's ex-wife, to come and pick her up. When his ex-wife finally arrives, Wade shoves her lover against their car and watches them drive away with Jill. Wade vows to get a lawyer to help gain custody of his daughter. The next day, Wade rushes to the scene of a crime. Jack Hewitt, a local hunting guide, claims that Evan Twombley, with whom he was hunting, accidentally shot and killed himself. The police believe Jack, but Wade grows suspicious, believing that the man's death was no accident. When he is informed that the victim was scheduled to testify in a lawsuit, his suspicion slowly turns into conviction. A while later, Wade and his girlfriend Margie Fogg arrive at the house of Wade's father, Glen Whitehouse, whose abusive treatment of Wade and Rolfe as children is seen in flashbacks throughout the film. Wade finds his mother lying dead in her bed from hypothermia. Glen reacts to her death with little surprise, and later gets drunk at her wake and gets into a fight with Wade. Rolfe, who has come home for the funeral, suggests at first that Wade's murder theory could be correct, but later renounces himself of this presumption. Nonetheless, Wade becomes obsessed with his conviction. When Wade learns that town Selectman Gordon Lariviere is buying up property all over town with the help from a wealthy land developer, he makes the solving of these incidents his personal mission. Suffering from a painful toothache and becoming increasingly socially detached, he behaves more and more unpredictably. He follows Jack, convinced that Jack is running away from something and is involved in a conspiracy. After a car chase, a nervous Jack finally pulls over, threatens Wade with a rifle, shoots out his tires, and drives off. Finally, Wade is fired for harassing Jack and trashing Lariviere's office. He collects Jill from her mother's house, where his ex- wife furiously castigates his plans to sue for full custody. At a local restaurant, he attacks the bartender in front of his daughter. Then Wade takes Jill home to find Margie leaving him. Wade grabs Margie and begs her to stay, but Jill rushes up and tries to push Wade away. In response, Wade pushes Jill, giving her a bloody nose. She and Margie drive off. Wade is then approached by Glen, who congratulates him for finally acting as a "real man". The latent aggression between the men culminates in a fight in which Wade accidentally kills his father. He burns the corpse in the barn, sits down at the kitchen table and starts drinking. Rolfe's narration reveals that Wade eventually murdered Jack and left town (possibly to Canada, where Jack's truck was found three days later), never to return. Rolfe relates that the town later became part of a huge ski resort partly organized by Gordon Lariviere, but having nothing to do with either Jack or Twombley. Rolfe concludes that someday a vagrant resembling Wade might be found frozen to death, and that will be the end of the story. 

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High school student Danny Vinyard antagonizes his Jewish history teacher Murray by choosing to write a civil rights essay on Mein Kampf. African-American principal and outreach worker Dr. Bob Sweeney tells Danny that he will study history through current events or be expelled, calling their class American History X. Danny's first assignment is a paper on his older brother Derek, a past student of Sweeney's and former neo-Nazi leader released from prison that day. In the school bathroom, Danny finds three African-American students bullying a white student; he disrespects the leader by blowing cigarette smoke in his face. Meanwhile, Dr. Sweeney meets with police officers being briefed on Derek's release. Years earlier, Danny and Derek's father, a firefighter, was shot and killed by African-American drug dealers while putting out a fire at their home. In the immediate aftermath of his death, Derek erupts in a racist tirade in a televised interview. High-profile racist Cameron Alexander becomes Derek's mentor and they form their own violent white supremacist gang called the Disciples of Christ (D.O.C.) in Venice Beach. A skilled basketball player, Derek is dragged into a game against several Crips, winning control of the local courts. Derek organizes an attack on a supermarket employing illegal Mexican immigrants. Derek's mother Doris invites Murray, her boyfriend, for dinner where an argument about Rodney King and the 1992 Los Angeles riots occurs. Derek assaults his sister Davina, and Doris tells Derek to leave home. That night, the same group of Crips that Derek had beaten in the basketball game earlier attempt to steal his truck. Derek shoots and kills one of them and curb stomps another. He is sentenced to three years in the California Institution for Men for voluntary manslaughter. In prison, Derek joins the Aryan Brotherhood. He befriends another inmate called Lamont. Derek becomes disillusioned by prison gang politics; he believes in the ideology, but disapproves of his gang's dealings with non-white gangs. Turning his back on them, he is beaten and raped in the shower by the Aryan Brotherhood. Derek is visited in the hospital wing by Sweeney, with whom he pleads for help to get out of prison. Sweeney warns that Danny has become involved with the D.O.C. Derek ignores the Aryan Brotherhood, and Lamont warns that he may be targeted by African-American gangs. An attack never comes, and Derek spends the remainder of his sentence alone. Returning home, Derek finds Danny emulating him, sporting a D.O.C. tattoo and a skinhead. Derek tries to persuade him to leave the gang, but Danny feels betrayed. Derek's best friend Seth, also a D.O.C. member, frequently disrespects Derek's mother and sister, while grooming Danny for the gang; Seth and Danny are closely controlled by Cameron. At a neo-Nazi party, Derek confronts Cameron for his manipulative behavior. Cameron, Derek's former girlfriend Stacey, and the others turn on Derek, who assaults Cameron for insisting Danny will remain under his influence. Seth holds Derek at gunpoint, but Derek disarms him and flees. Afterwards, Derek tells Danny about his experience in prison, which seems to prompt a change in Danny. The pair return home and remove hateful posters from their shared bedroom. The next morning, Danny completes his paper, reflecting on his reasons for adopting white supremacist values, and their flaws. He says that although Derek's racist views may seem to have arisen from anger over his father's death, Danny believes that his brother's views came much earlier; he remembers one instance when his father went on a rant against affirmative action and referred to Dr. Sweeney's teachings as "nigger bullshit", and his death misdirected Derek's anger into racism. Derek walks Danny to school, stopping at a diner for breakfast. Sweeney and a police officer inform Derek that Seth and Cameron are in an intensive care unit. Derek denies having any knowledge or involvement and reluctantly agrees to inspect the people he denounced. At school, Danny is shot dead by an African-American student from the previous day's incident. Derek runs to the school and cradles Danny's body, blaming himself for influencing Danny's views. In a voiceover, Danny reads the final lines of his paper for Dr. Sweeney, quoting the final stanza of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. 

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The film tells the story of middleweight boxer Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, who was convicted of committing a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. His sentence was set aside after he had spent nearly 20 years in prison. The film concentrates on Rubin Carter's life between 1966 and 1985. It describes his fight against the conviction for triple murder and how he copes with nearly 20 years in prison. A parallel plot follows Lesra Martin, an underprivileged Afro-American youth from Brooklyn, now living in Toronto. In the 1980s, the child becomes interested in Carter's life and circumstances after reading Carter's autobiography. He convinces his Canadian foster family to commit themselves to Carter's case. The story culminates with Carter's legal team's successful pleas to Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. In 1966, Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter was a top-ranked middleweight boxer, expected by many fans to become the world's greatest boxing champion. When three victims, specifically the club's bartender and a male and a female customer, were shot to death in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey, Carter and his friend John Artis, driving home from another club in Paterson, were stopped and interrogated by the police. Although the police asserted that Carter and Artis were innocent and thus, "were never suspects," a man named Alfred Bello, a suspect himself in the killings, claimed that Carter and Artis were present at the time of the murders. On the basis of Bello's testimony, Carter and Artis were convicted of the triple homicide in the club, Carter was given three consecutive life sentences. Throughout the trial, Carter proclaimed his innocence, claiming that his race, his boxing career and status and his work as a civil rights activist were the real reasons for his conviction. Eight years later, Bello and a co-suspect, Arthur Bradley, who also claimed that Carter was present at the scene of the crimes, renounced and recanted their testimony. However, Carter and Artis were convicted once again. Afterwards, the plot goes back to Lesra Martin, who works with a trio of Canadian activists to push the State of New Jersey to reexamine Carter's case. In 1985, a Federal District Court ruled that the prosecution in Carter's second trial committed "grave constitutional violations" and that his conviction was based on racism rather than facts. As a result, Carter was finally freed, and he summed up his story by saying, "Hate got me into this place, love got me out." 

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Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) is a jazz guitarist who achieved some acclaim in the 1930s with a handful of recordings for RCA Victor, but who faded from public view under mysterious circumstances. Though a talented musician, Ray's personal life is a shambles. He is a spendthrift, womanizer and pimp who believes that falling in love will ruin his musical career. Due to his heavy drinking, he's often late or even absent for performances with his quintet. After music, his favorite hobby is shooting rats at garbage dumps. Ray idolizes famed guitarist Django Reinhardt, and is said to have fainted in his presence and to have fled a nightclub performance with severe stage fright upon hearing a false rumor that Reinhardt was in the audience. On a double date with his drummer, Ray meets Hattie (Samantha Morton), a shy, mute laundress. After overcoming some initial frustration due to the difficulties of communication, Ray and Hattie form an affectionate and close relationship. She accompanies him on a cross-country trip to Hollywood, where he plays in a short film; Hattie is spotted by a director and enjoys a brief screen career. However Ray is convinced that a musician of his stature should never settle down with one woman. On a whim, Ray marries socialite Blanche Williams (Uma Thurman). However, Blanche sees Ray mainly as a colorful example of lower-class life and a source of inspiration for her literary writings. She reports that Ray is tormented by nightmares and shouts out Hattie's name in his sleep. When Blanche cheats with mobster Al Torrio (Anthony LaPaglia), Ray leaves her and locates Hattie. He assumes that she will take him back, but discovers that she is happily married and raising a family. Afterwards, on a date with a new woman, a despondent Ray plays a melody that Hattie adored and then smashes his guitar and forlornly repeats the phrase "I made a mistake!" as his date leaves him. Woody Allen and the rest of the documentary experts remarked that Ray's final compositions were legendary, finally reaching the quality of Reinhardt's. 

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The film opens in medias res to abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, autographing a copy of Life magazine for a woman at his 1950 art exhibit. Nine years earlier, Pollock exhibits paintings in occasional group art shows. He lives with his brother, Sande, and sister-in-law, Arloie, in a tiny New York apartment. Arloie says she and Sande are expecting a baby, hinting that Pollock should move out. Soon afterward, Pollock meets and takes an interest in artist Lee Krasner. He learns later that his brother has taken a job in Connecticut building military gliders to avoid the draft. Pollock goes on a drinking binge and is found in a disheveled state by Sande and Lee. Sande tells Lee that Pollock has been diagnosed as "clinically neurotic". Lee takes him home and becomes his manager. One day, Pollock's old friend, Reuben Kadish, visits, bringing along Howard Putzel, who works for wealthy art collector, Peggy Guggenheim. After Guggenheim views his work, he is given a contract to exhibit his paintings, plus a commission to paint a 8 ft by 20 ft mural in her New York townhouse entry way. Pollock's first exhibit fails to attract any buyers. After a New Year's Eve party, Pollock almost sleeps with Peggy, but is too drunk. He falls into another drunken stupor upon hearing that Putzel has died. Pollock and Lee are wed after Lee says they either marry or "split up". After they move to Long Island, Pollock is dismayed that Lee does not want children. At a get-together at Peggy's, Pollock dismisses art critic Clement Greenberg's comments, and refuses to change his painting style to be more marketable. Pollock's paintings are not selling, but Clement assures him it will change after a Life article about him is published and his upcoming exhibit. Lee and Pollock's marriage is strained after he openly flirts with another woman. Meanwhile, to earn income, Pollock tries various occupations but fails due to his alcoholism. He lies to Sande about his financial status, though this improves after the Life story about him is published. Later, Hans Namuth films Pollock as he paints, though Namuth's presence interrupts the spontaneous nature of Pollock's work. Pollock, who tried abstaining from alcohol, begins drinking again and ruins Thanksgiving dinner. Five years after the 1950 exhibit, Clement tells Pollock that the Partisan Review is favoring artist Clyfford Still, and says his original technique could be the next direction of modern art. A drunk Pollock reacts badly, and becomes even angrier when Lee berates him for his drinking and womanizing. Pollock blames Lee because she will not have a child. Lee knows about his affair with Ruth Kligman, but refuses to divorce Jackson. In 1956, Lee call Pollack while she is in Venice. After, he tells Ruth, "I owe the woman something". On a subsequent visit, Ruth brings along her friend, Edith. The three go for a drive, but Pollock is drunk and crashes the car, killing himself and Edith, and throwing Ruth from the car, seriously injuring her. 

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Quills begins in Paris during the Reign of Terror, with the incarcerated Marquis de Sade penning a story about the libidinous Mademoiselle Renard, a ravishing young aristocrat who meets the imprisoned preeminent sadist. Several years later, the Marquis is confined to the asylum for the insane at Charenton, overseen by the enlightened Abbé du Coulmier. The Marquis has been publishing his work through laundress Madeleine "Maddy" LeClerc, who smuggles manuscripts through an anonymous horseman (Tom Ward) to a publisher. The Marquis' latest work, Justine, is published on the black market to great success. Emperor Napoléon I Bonaparte orders all copies of the book to be torched and the author shot, but his advisor, Delbené, tempers this contentious idea with one of his own: send alienist Dr. Royer-Collard to assess Charenton and silence the Marquis. Meanwhile, the Abbé teaches Madeleine to read and write, while she resists his growing attraction to her. Madeleine reads the Marquis de Sade's stories to her fellow workers. Whilst Madeleine is fascinated with the Marquis de Sade she remains reluctant to give in to his advances. The Abbé and Marquis converse on the Marquis' inappropriate advances on young women. Dr. Royer- Collard arrives, informing the Abbé that the Marquis' "therapeutic writings" have been distributed for public consumption. He presents the Abbé with the ultimatum of silencing the Marquis or Charenton will be shut down by order of the Emperor. The Abbé rejects Royer-Collard's offers of several aggressive archaic "treatments" and asks to speak with the Marquis himself, who promptly swears obedience (winking at Madeleine through a peephole). Royer-Collard takes his leave for the time being and travels to the Panthemont Convent in Paris to retrieve his promised bride, the underage orphan Simone. They are given a run-down chateau by the Emperor, with a handsome young architect, Prouix, on hand for its renovation. The hasty marriage incites much gossip at the asylum, prompting the Marquis to write a farce to be performed at a public exhibition, which Dr Royer-Collard and his young wife attend. The audacious play, a shockingly straightforward parallel of the good doctor's own misogynist domination of his virginal bride, is titled "The Crimes of Love". The performance is interrupted when the inmate Bouchon molests Madeleine off- stage, prompting her to hit him in the face with an iron. The Abbé is seen publicly comforting Madeleine. Royer-Collard shuts down the public theater and demands that the Abbé do more to control the Marquis, or he will inform the ministry that the inmates are running the asylum. Infuriated, the Abbé confiscates the Marquis' quills and ink. The Marquis's wife visits him and he takes out his frustration at not being able to write on her; she retaliates by asking a surprised Dr Royer-Collard that the Marquis be entombed forever. They discuss that the ill-gotten gains from the Marquis's books could be used to effect his salvation, in other words, provide forms of restraint. The lack of writing implements results in more subversive behaviour from the Marquis, including a story written in wine on bedsheets and in blood on clothing. This results in further deprivation, eventually leaving the Marquis naked in an empty cell. Charlotte, one of the maids, reveals that Madeleine has been helping the Marquis. Madeleine is whipped on the order of Dr. Royer-Collard until the Abbé stops him by offering himself instead. The Abbé decides that Madeleine must be sent away. That night she visits his chamber to beg him to reconsider sending her away and confesses her love for him in the process, prompting him to kiss her passionately. They abruptly break away at the realization of what they are doing. Madeleine runs off and Charlotte catches the Abbé calling after her. Meanwhile, Royer-Collard violently raped Simone on their wedding night, and continues to keep her as a virtual prisoner. She purchases a copy of Justine, seduces Prioux, and the young lovers run off to England together. She leaves behind a letter explaining her actions and her copy of Justine. Upon finding this, Royer-Collard refocuses attention upon the Marquis as the source of his troubles and embarks upon a quest for revenge by having him tortured. About to be sent away from Charenton for her role in assisting the Marquis, Madeleine begs a last story from him, which is to be relayed to her through the asylum patients. Bouchon, the inmate at the end of the relay, is excited by the story, breaks out of his cell, and attacks Madeleine. Royer-Collard hears Madeleine's screams but chooses to ignore them and she is killed by Bouchon. The asylum is set afire by the pyromaniac Dauphin and the inmates break out of their cells. Madeleine's body is found by her blind mother and the Abbé in the laundry vat. The Abbé is devastated by Madeleine's death and Bouchon is captured and imprisoned inside an iron maiden. The Abbé blames the Marquis for Madeleine's death and prods him into a fury. The Marquis claims he had been with Madeleine in every way imaginable, only to be told she had died a virgin. The Abbé has the Marquis' tongue cut out as punishment for his involvement, but is riddled with remorse and physically punishes himself. The Abbé then has a dream in which Madeleine comes alive and they have sex, but ultimately it ends with him holding her corpse. The Marquis' health declines severely, but he remains perverse as ever, decorating his dungeon with a story, using feces as ink. As the Marquis lies dying, the Abbé reads him the last rites and offers him a crucifix to kiss. The Marquis defiantly swallows the crucifix and chokes to death on it. A year later, the new Abbé arrives at Charenton and is given the grand tour by Royer-Collard. During the tour they meet the maid Charlotte and through the exchange between herself and Royer-Collard it is apparent that there is a connection. The asylum has been converted into a print shop, with the inmates as its staff. The books being printed are the works of the Marquis de Sade. At the end of the tour, the new Abbé meets his predecessor, who resides in the Marquis' old cell. Yearning to write, he begs paper and a quill from the new Abbé, and tries to strangle Royer-Collard when he ventures to close the peephole. The Abbé is herded off by Royer-Collard before he can hear any more from his predecessor. However, the peephole opens, and Madeleine's mother thrusts paper, quill, and ink through. The Abbé begins to scribble furiously, with the Marquis providing the narration. 

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Los Angeles Police Department's Officer Jake Hoyt is assigned for an evaluation headed by Detective Sergeant Alonzo Harris, a decorated narcotics officer. Alonzo is known to be a corrupt cop to several other narcotics officers who are also in on the take. Alonzo and Jake begin the day by catching some college kids buying cannabis. Confiscating the drugs from the kids, Alonzo tells Jake to smoke it. Jake refuses initially, but complies when Alonzo threatens him at gunpoint. Alonzo states that refusing like this while on the streets would easily get him killed. He tells Jake shortly thereafter that the marijuana was laced and he has actually consumed PCP. After paying a visit to Roger, an ex-cop turned drug dealer, Jake notices a pair of addicts attempting to rape a teenage girl in an alley. Jake intervenes while Alonzo watches. After Alonzo scares them off, Jake finds the girl's wallet on the ground and retrieves it. Later in the day, Alonzo and Jake apprehend a dealer named Blue who uses a wheelchair. They find crack rocks and a loaded handgun on him. Rather than go to jail, Blue informs on his associate Kevin "Sandman" Miller, who is in prison. Using a fake search warrant, Alonzo steals $40,000 from Sandman's home. Sandman's wife realizes the theft and calls out to nearby gang members, who open fire on Alonzo and Jake as they flee. At lunch, the two visit Alonzo's mistress Sara and their young son. Afterwards, Alonzo meets with a trio of corrupt high-ranking police officials he refers to as the "Three Wise Men". Aware that the Russian mafia are looking for Alonzo, they suggest that he skip town. Alonzo insists he has control of the situation, and trades Sandman's drug money for an official arrest warrant. Using the warrant, Alonzo, Jake, and four other corrupt narcotics officers return to Roger's house and seize $4 million from the premises. Alonzo shoots and kills Roger when Jake refuses to do so. Jake refuses to be a part of it, and when Alonzo threatens Jake for a second time, Jake seizes Alonzo's shotgun, prompting a Mexican standoff with the other officers. Alonzo tells Jake that the LAPD will run a blood test on him which will identify the PCP-laced cannabis he smoked earlier, and mimics what the local news will say about Jake should he die in the standoff. Alonzo promises he can falsify this in exchange for his cooperation, then stages a scenario to get everyone off the hook while Jake reluctantly agrees. Later that evening, Alonzo drives Jake to the home of Smiley, a member of the Hillside Trece street gang, to run an errand. Jake reluctantly plays poker with Smiley and his fellow gang members as he waits for Alonzo and Smiley relates Alonzo's situation. By midnight, Alonzo must pay $1 million to the Russians for killing one of their men in Las Vegas, or be killed himself. Realizing that Alonzo abandoned him and has paid Smiley to kill him, Jake attempts to flee but is beaten and dragged to a bathtub to be executed. A gang member searches Jake for money before he is killed, and finds the wallet of the teenage girl, who happens to be Smiley's cousin. After confirming Jake's story of how he had saved her from being raped earlier that day, Smiley allows Jake to leave and returns his gun. Jake returns to Sara's apartment to arrest Alonzo, but a gunfight and chase ensue. Alonzo beats Jake and as he leaves to pay the Russians, Jake jumps on top of Alonzo's car, causing an accident. Alonzo is subdued, while the entire neighborhood congregates to watch. In an attempt to get the crowd on his side, Alonzo offers money to whoever kills Jake, but nobody interferes, not even when he then threatens them with sending them to prison on trumped-up charges. As Alonzo reaches for a gun, Jake shoots him in the rear and takes the money, along with Alonzo's badge, saying he doesn't deserve it. The neighborhood gang allows Jake to walk away with the money as an infuriated Alonzo watches, and Jake plans to submit it as evidence against Alonzo. Alonzo flees for his life to LAX, but he is ambushed and executed by the Russians. Jake returns home as the press reports on Alonzo's death, which mirrors how Alonzo pictured the news would portray Jake. 

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The film begins with Cassius Clay Jr. before his championship debut against then-heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. Clay taunts Liston, then dominates the early rounds of the match. Halfway through, he complains of a burning feeling in his eyes (implying that Liston has tried to cheat) and says he is unable to continue. However, his trainer/manager Angelo Dundee gets him to keep fighting. Once Clay is able to see again, he dominates the fight and Liston quits before round seven, making Clay the second-youngest heavyweight champion at the time after Floyd Patterson. Clay spends time with Malcolm X, then is invited to the home of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, where he is granted the name Muhammad Ali. His father, Cassius Clay Sr. disapproves of this. Ali marries Sonji Roi, an ex-Playboy Bunny, although she is not Muslim and does not abide sex segregation. Ali goes to Africa and meets up with Malcolm X, but later refuses to speak to him, honoring the wishes of Elijah Muhammad. He is extremely distraught when X is later assassinated. Upon returning to America, Ali goes against Sonny Liston a second time and knocks him out in the first round. He and Sonji divorce after she objects to various obligations Muslim women have. Ali refuses conscription for the Vietnam War and is stripped of his boxing license, passport and title, and sentenced to five years in prison. Ali marries 17-year-old Belinda Boyd. After a three-year hiatus, his conviction is overturned and in his comeback fight, he goes against Jerry Quarry and wins by technical knockout in three rounds. Ali attempts to regain the heavyweight championship against Joe Frazier. In the "Fight of the Century", Frazier generally has the upper hand against Ali and wins by decision, the first loss of Ali's career. Frazier later loses the championship to George Foreman. Foreman and Ali go to Kinshasa, Zaire, for the Rumble in the Jungle fight. There Ali meets Veronica Porché and has an affair with her. After reading rumors of his infidelity through newspapers, his wife Belinda travels to Zaire to confront him about this. Ali says he is unsure as to whether he really loves Veronica or not, and just wants to focus on his upcoming title shot. For a good portion of the fight against Foreman, Ali leans back against the ropes, allowing Foreman to tire himself out. Then he knocks out the tired Foreman, regaining the Heavyweight Championship. 

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Sam Dawson (Sean Penn), a man with an intellectual disability, is the single father of Lucy (Dakota Fanning) who is an 8-year-old second grader following their abandonment by her mother, a homeless woman. Sam is well-adjusted and has a supportive group of friends with disabilities, as well as a kind, agoraphobic neighbor, Annie (Dianne Wiest), who takes care of Lucy when Sam cannot. Though Sam provides a loving place for precocious Lucy, she soon surpasses his mental ability. Other children bully her for having an intellectually disabled father, and she becomes too embarrassed to accept that she is more advanced than he is. In danger of losing custody, Sam gets advice from his friends and also hires a lawyer, Rita Harrison (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose absorption in her work and neglect of her son reveal her to be at least as handicapped as Sam is, although in a socially acceptable way. In an attempt to prove that she is not cold, Rita agrees to take on Sam's case pro bono. As they work to secure Sam's rights, Sam helps Rita see her own life anew. This includes encouraging her to leave her philandering husband and repair her fractious relationship with her son. At the trial, Sam cries. Afterwards, Lucy resides in a foster home with Randy Carpenter (Laura Dern) but tries to convince Sam to help her run away. She continually escapes in the middle of the night to go to his apartment, though he immediately returns her. However, the foster parents decide not to adopt her as they had planned and return her to Sam. Randy assures him that she will tell the judge (Ken Jenkins) Sam is the better parent for Lucy. In turn, Sam asks Randy if she will help him raise Lucy, because he feels she needs a mother figure. The final scene depicts a soccer game, in which Sam referees and Lucy participates as a player. In attendance are Lucy's former foster family, Sam's friendship group, and a newly single Rita with her son. 

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Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in Brooklyn, where he hopes to devote some months to his writing. While he is working on his novel, he is drawn into the lives of the lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, fellow boarders at the house, who are involved in an intense and difficult relationship. Sophie is beautiful, Polish, and Catholic, and a survivor of the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps; Nathan is a Jewish-American, and, purportedly, a genius. Although Nathan claims to be a Harvard graduate and a cellular biologist with a pharmaceutical company, it is later revealed that this is a fabrication. Almost no one—including Sophie and Stingo—knows that Nathan has borderline personality disorder. He sometimes behaves quite normally and generously, but there are times when he becomes frighteningly jealous, violent, abusive and delusional. As the story progresses, Sophie tells Stingo of her past. She describes her violently anti-Semitic father, a law professor in Kraków; her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas; her arrest by the Nazis; and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the home of Rudolf Höss, the commander of Auschwitz, where she was interned. She specifically relates her attempts to seduce Höss in an effort to persuade him that her blond, blue-eyed, German-speaking son should be allowed to leave the camp and enter the Lebensborn program, in which he would be raised as a German child. She failed in this attempt and, ultimately, never learned of her son's fate. Only at the end of the book does the reader also learn what became of Sophie's daughter, named Eva. Later, Nathan's delusions have led him to believe that Stingo is having an affair with Sophie, and he threatens to kill them both. As Sophie and Stingo attempt to flee New York, Sophie reveals her deepest, darkest secret: on the night that she arrived at Auschwitz, a camp doctor made her choose which of her two children would die immediately by gassing and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her eight-year-old daughter, Eva, in a decision that has left her in mourning and filled with a guilt that she cannot overcome. By now alcoholic and deeply depressed, she is clearly willing to self-destruct with Nathan, who has already tried to persuade her to commit suicide with him. Despite the fact that Stingo proposes marriage to her, and despite a shared night that relieves Stingo of his virginity and fulfills many of his sexual fantasies, Sophie disappears, leaving only a note in which she says that she must return to Nathan. Upon arriving back in Brooklyn, Stingo is devastated to discover that Sophie and Nathan have committed suicide by ingesting sodium cyanide. 

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Sophie’s Choice is partly based on the author's time in Brooklyn, where he met a refugee from Poland. He visited Auschwitz while researching the novel. A central element of the novel's plot, the personally catastrophic choice referred to in the title, is said to have been inspired by a story of a Romani woman who was ordered by the Nazis to select which of her children was to be put to death, which Styron attributes to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. However, Ira Nadel claims that the story is found in Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. In that book, Arendt argues that those who ran the camps perpetrated an "attack on the moral person": > Totalitarian terror achieved its most terrible triumph when it succeeded in > cutting the moral person off from the individualist escape and in making the > decisions of conscience absolutely questionable and equivocal. (...) Who > could solve the moral dilemma of the Greek mother, who was allowed by the > Nazis to choose which of her three children should be killed? Arendt herself cites Albert Camus' Twice a Year (1947) for the story (without providing a pinpoint reference).Sale notice for rare example of this publication: Twice A Year: A Book of Literature, The Arts and Civil Liberties https://www.amazon.com/Twice-Year-Literature-Liberties-Stieglitz/dp/B00ATXC1LY Twice a Year was a literary book which contained in its 1946/1947 publication the text of Camus' essay, The Human Crisis, wherein four moral contradictions and dilemma are exampled, the Greek mother's exposure being one. Camus read this, his essay complete, at Columbia University March 28, 1946.Text, Lecture, "The Human Crisis," Columbia, March 1946. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3gLbkZ_xEyLT2JhRzl0YmY0S00/view 

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A spirited young woman (Gaynor) tries to prostitute herself and, failing in that, to steal money, to pay for her seriously ill mother's medicine. She is caught in the act and convicted but escapes from her guards, only to find her mother dead. Fleeing the pursuing police, she joins a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter (Farrell). Though they fall in love, her past will not leave her alone. 

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A smoking, drinking, jazz listening, young prostitute named Sadie Thompson (Gloria Swanson) arrives at Pago Pago (American Samoa), on her way to a job with a shipping line on another island. At the same time, 'moralists' arrive, including Mr. and Mrs. Davidson (Lionel Barrymore and Blanche Friderici). They all end up staying in the same hotel, where the Davidsons plot to teach the natives about sin and Sadie entertains a bunch of Marines. Sadie begins to fall in love with Sergeant Timothy O'Hara (Raoul Walsh), who is not fazed by her past. He tells her that he has a best friend who married a former prostitute, and the couple now lives happily in Australia. Davidson sets about trying to redeem Sadie, much to her disgust. He tricks her into telling him about her past in San Francisco and, once she refuses to repent, he declares that he will go to the Governor and have her deported. Sadie is terrified of the threat, but O'Hara assures her that it will not happen. He tells her he wishes she would go to Australia and wait for his term of service to finish, after which they can get married. She agrees. Davidson gets his way, however, and Sadie is livid. She and O'Hara go to the Governor, begging him to let her go to Australia instead of back to San Francisco. Davidson has also managed to get O'Hara punished for being immoral, but Sadie will be able to go to Australia instead if Davidson approves. Sadie pleads with him, but to no avail. She eventually confesses that, if she goes back to San Francisco, there is "a man there who won't let her go straight", which is what she wants to do. Davidson figures out this mean that there is a warrant for her arrest back in San Francisco. Sadie claims that she was framed and is innocent, but will go to prison if she is sent back. Davidson still refuses, saying she must atone for her past. Sadie pleads and pleads and eventually offers to repent. Davidson, however, says that the only way to fully repent is for her to go to prison. Sadie runs to her room, crying out for Davidson. Davidson returns and Sadie confesses she is afraid. Davidson then tells her that, if she repents, there will be nothing to fear and he begins to pray with her. Sadie converts to Christianity. Sadie prays for three whole days. She has put away her old things and has become a modest woman. O'Hara returns and finds Davidson is gone, apparently "trying to stop the locals from dancing on the beach". O'Hara tells Sadie that he has a fishing boat waiting to take her and her things to a ship that will then take her to Australia, where they can marry and be free. Sadie is extremely afraid and refuses to go, saying that the "old Sadie is dead" and she must go to San Francisco and prison, to repent. O'Hara does everything he can, including forcibly taking her from the room, but Davidson is waiting outside. O'Hara tries to attack him, but Sadie asks him not to. O'Hara, extremely upset, leaves and Sadie pleads with Davidson not to get him in trouble, for "it was all her fault". Later that night, Sadie is asleep and everyone else is heading to bed. Davidson can not sleep and goes out for a walk in the rain. (It has rained almost continuously.) His wife says he cannot sleep for "the unpleasant dreams he's been having about Miss Thompson". A fellow boarder suspects they are not "all that unpleasant". Outside, Davidson struggles with himself and realizes that he is sexually attracted to Sadie and unable to handle it. He looks into her window and eventually returns to his room. Sadie, frightened because she heard noises, is waiting in Davidson's room. Davidson is shocked and sends her back to her room. The last reel is missing, but fishermen find Davidson's body. He has committed suicide. Sadie and O'Hara reconcile and head for Australia. 

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Norma Besant, daughter of a Southern doctor, is an incorrigible flirt and has many suitors. Her father Dr. Besant (John St. Polis) favors Stanley (Matt Moore), who is taken with Norma. However Norma has met a simple man named Michael Jeffrey (Johnny Mack Brown) who she has fallen madly in love with. Dr. Besant disapproves of Michael and orders Norma to never see him again. Norma gives him their word, then promptly plans to marry Michael in 6 months, when he's made 'good in the hills' so he can buy her a home in the valley. A few months pass and Michael sneaks down from the hills to see Norma at a Country Club dance. Wanting more time alone they sneak off to Michael's mother's cabin. According to Norma they made coffee and talked all night about the future. She returns home the next day at 4am. However someone has spotted the couple and begun to spread rumors around town destroying Norma's reputation. Michael is furious and vows he will ask her father for her hand in marriage immediately. Dr. Besant is furious and a heated verbal exchange takes place with Michael leaving, vowing to run away with Norma as soon as possible. Dr. Besant orders Norma to her room and leaves, pistol in hand. As Norma's brother tries to distract her Stanley arrives, telling Norma that Michael was fatally wounded by her father. Norma runs to Michael's cabin where he dies in her arms. Dr. Besant's lawyer friend arrives begging Norma to lie to the police to save her father's life. Norma refuses, but later as the trial wears on she changes her mind. She takes the stand and lies about Michael, trying to save her father. Norma breaks down under cross examination and her father comes to comfort her on the witness stand. As he tells her she does not have to lie anymore, he spots the gun on the evidence table. After comforting Norma, Dr. Besant approaches the bench and confesses his guilt, saying he has done wrong and is willing to pay the price. He then takes the gun and kills himself in front of the court. Later we see Stanley waiting for Norma, who has been in the judge's chambers. He offers to walk her home, but Norma refuses, saying she would like to walk home alone. 

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In this story of New Zealand and Te Kooti's War during the year beginning November 10, 1868, the narrative coalesces around the development of its protagonist, George Fairweather, who in Shadbolt's historical epilogue is described as “A composite character ... yet still far from fictional.” Fairweather is a competent but cynical former British officer in his early forties, who leaves the service under a cloud, turns landscape painter and cultivates an air of worldly detachment. Yet he finds himself drawn by love and humanity back into the world of colonial New Zealand and the maelstrom of the New Zealand Wars, not altogether disagreeable, as he finds to his surprise. Pursuing Te Kooti as an officer and commander in the colonial militia, while perfecting his ability to destroy Te Kooti's rebellious “Jews” Fairweather paradoxically finds his feelings of humanity expanding to include Englishmen, colonials and Māoris, coupled with a growing resentment of racism and injustice. In the end, he almost throws his future away by struggling to save a Māori boy, Hamiora, who, like Melville's Billy Budd, was unjustly charged with treason. With the hanging of Hamiora, November 10, 1869, and the conclusion of Fairweather's desperate attempts first to prevent and then to mitigate it, the book ends. The problem of Te Kooti is not resolved, except in the brief epilogue, further revealing the depths of Fairweather's (and Shadbolt's) ambivalence about the historical figure of Te Kooti, Fairweather's hated and admired nemesis and one-time friend. 

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The film tells the story of a woman (Dorothy Mackaill) who comes between a man (Milton Sills) and his estranged son (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Sills is a carnival barker who is in love with a dancing girl and is ambitious to have his son, Fairbanks, become a lawyer. Fairbanks has other ideas and during his vacation he hops a freight, joins the carnival, and weds a dancing girl (Mackaill). Eventually, Fairbanks fulfills the ambition his father had for him. 

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On a moonlit, tropical night, the native workers are asleep in their outdoor barracks. A shot is heard; the door of a house opens and a man stumbles out of it, followed by a woman who calmly shoots him several more times, the last few while standing over his body. The woman is Leslie Crosbie, the wife of a British rubber plantation manager in Malaya; the man whom she shot is recognized by her manservant as Geoff Hammond, a well-regarded member of the European community. Leslie tells the servant to send for her husband Robert, who is working at one of the plantations. Her husband returns, having summoned his attorney and a British police inspector. Leslie tells them that Geoff Hammond "tried to make love to me" and that she killed him to save her honor. Bette Davis as Leslie Crosbie Leslie is placed under arrest and put in jail in Singapore to await trial for murder; that she killed a man makes such a trial inevitable, but her eventual acquittal seems a foregone conclusion, as the white community accepts her story and believes she acted heroically. Only her attorney, Howard Joyce, is rather suspicious. Howard's suspicions seem justified when his clerk, Ong Chi Seng, shows him a copy of a letter Leslie wrote to Hammond the day she killed him, telling him that her husband would be away that evening, and pleading with him to come—implicitly threatening him if he did not come. Ong Chi Seng tells Howard that the original letter is in the possession of Hammond's widow, a Eurasian woman who lives in the Chinese quarter of town. The letter is for sale, and Ong himself, whom Howard had believed to be impeccable, stands to receive a substantial cut of the price. Howard then confronts Leslie with the damning evidence and she breaks down and confesses to having written it, though she stands by her claim of having killed Hammond in self-defence. Yet Leslie cleverly manipulates the attorney into agreeing to buy back the letter, even though in doing so he will risk his own freedom and career. Because the couple's bank account is in Robert's name, Howard obtains Robert's consent to buy the letter, but he does so deceitfully, lying about and trivializing its content, leaving out the true circumstances, and giving the man no idea that the price is equivalent to almost all the money he has in the bank. Robert, depicted as a decent man thoroughly in love with Leslie and somewhat gullible, is readily persuaded. Hammond's widow demands that Leslie come personally to hand over the $10,000 for the letter (she has been released into her attorney's custody) and requires Leslie to abase herself by picking up the letter at the widow's feet. With the letter suppressed, Leslie is easily acquitted. During a celebration after the trial Robert announces that he plans to draw his savings out of his account in order to buy a rubber plantation in Sumatra. Howard and Leslie are forced to tell him that his savings are gone, that the impact of the letter would have hanged Leslie and its price was accordingly high. After demanding to see the letter, Robert is devastated to learn from Leslie that Hammond was her lover for years and that she killed him out of jealousy. At a party celebrating Leslie's acquittal, Robert tells friends of his plans to buy the plantation. Leslie, overhearing him, leaves the party, and Robert breaks down. Leslie goes to her room, tries to take up her lacemaking but cannot. She sobs. Stepping onto the balcony, she sees a knife laid on the matting. She withdraws, shocked. Robert comes into the room and offers to forgive her if she can swear that she loves him. Leslie at first agrees and tells him she loves him, and that she will do all in her power to make him happy. When he kisses her, she cries "No!" and then breaks down and confesses, "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!" Robert rushes from the room. Leslie looks out at the patio mat, and the knife is gone. She knows that Hammond's widow had planted it there, and then has taken it away. She knows the woman waits for her—to kill her, and she realizes this is her fate. She walks out through the gardens and, finally, encounters the woman who glares at her fiercely. The man who accompanies her grabs Leslie and stuffs a cloth in her mouth to silence her, and then the woman pulls the knife from her garments and stabs Leslie, who falls to the ground. As the two murderers attempt to slip away silently, they are confronted by a policeman. The clouds blot out the moonlight and darken the area where Leslie was killed; then the clouds open and the moon's rays shine where her body lies, but no one is there to see it. 

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Bored and lonely living on her husband's rubber plantation, Leslie Crosbie takes a lover, Geoffrey Hammond, but he eventually tires of her and takes a Chinese mistress, Li-Ti. When Leslie finds out, she insists on seeing him while her husband is away and tries to rekindle his love. However, Geoffrey isn't moved and tells her that he prefers Li-Ti. Leslie becomes enraged and shoots him repeatedly. At the murder trial, Leslie perjures herself on the stand, claiming she had little to do with Hammond and that she shot him when he tried to rape her. Meanwhile, Li-Ti's emissary provides Joyce, Leslie's attorney, with a copy of the letter in which Leslie begged Hammond to come see her. Li-Ti is ready to sell it for $10,000, provided Leslie herself makes the exchange. On Joyce's advice, Leslie agrees. Li-Ti humiliates her, but eventually accepts the money. Leslie is found not guilty. Joyce presents his bill to Leslie's husband, Robert. Robert demands an explanation as to why the expenses total $10,000. Joyce relates the story of Li-Ti's blackmail and gives Robert the damning letter. Robert confronts Leslie and forces her to admit everything. Leslie proclaims that she still loves the man she killed. As punishment, Robert decides to keep her on the plantation, even though he no longer has any money. 

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In the late eighteenth century, Lady Hamilton has had a somewhat turbulent relationship with the British people, especially the aristocracy. Born Emma Hart from a very humble background (she being the daughter of a cook), she was seen as being vulgar by the rich, but equally captivating for her beauty. In a move to protect his inheritance, Honorable Charles Greville, Emma's then lover and her mother's employer, sent Emma to Naples under false pretenses to live with his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, where she would study to become a lady. Surprisingly to Greville whose deception Emma would eventually discover, Emma ended up becoming Hamilton's wife in a marriage of convenience. But it is Emma's eventual relationship with Horatio Nelson of the British navy that would cause the largest issue. A move by Lady Hamilton helped Nelson's armada defeat Napoleon's fleet in naval battles, which Nelson would have ultimately lost without Lady Hamilton's help. Beyond the dangers of war, Lady Hamilton and Nelson's relationship is ultimately threatened by the court of public opinion as both are married to other people. 

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Cybill takes place in Los Angeles and focuses on the character of a somewhat faded actress, Cybill Sheridan (played by Cybill Shepherd), who, because of her age, had been relegated to playing character roles, bit parts, and TV commercials. Also featured are her daughters: headstrong Zoey (Witt) and uptight Rachel (Pfeiffer), two ex-husbands: Ira (Rosenberg) and Jeff (Wopat), and her hard- drinking best friend Maryann (Baranski). Due to the show's premise, many episodes featured a show-within-a-show format, showing Cybill Sheridan playing a variety of other characters in her various film and TV acting roles. In her autobiography, Cybill Disobedience, Shepherd stated that the Cybill character was based on herself—or at least what her life as an actress could have been without the successes of The Last Picture Show and Moonlighting. Many of the show's details and situations were mined from her own family, marriages, and experiences.Cybill Disobedience 

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Capricorn One—the first crewed mission to Mars—is on the launch pad. Just before liftoff, the crew of Brubaker, Willis, and Walker are suddenly removed from the spacecraft. Bewildered, they are flown to an abandoned military base in the desert. The launch proceeds on schedule, with the public unaware the spacecraft is empty. At the base, NASA official Kelloway, informs the astronauts that a faulty life-support system would have killed them in-flight. He says they must help counterfeit the televised footage during the flight to and from Mars. Another failed space mission would result in NASA's funding being cut and private contractors losing millions in profits. Kelloway threatens their families to force their cooperation. The astronauts remain captive during the flight and appear to be filmed after landing on Mars, though they are inside a makeshift TV studio at the base. At the command center, only a few officials know about the conspiracy until an alert technician, Elliot Whitter, notices that ground control receives the crew's televised transmissions before the spacecraft telemetry arrives. Whitter reports this to his supervisors, including Kelloway, but is told it is due to a faulty workstation. Whitter partially shares his concerns with a TV journalist friend, Robert Caulfield. Whitter suddenly vanishes, and when Caulfield goes to his apartment the next day, he discovers someone else living there and that all evidence of Whitter's recent life has been erased. As Caulfield investigates, several attempts are made on his life. Upon returning to Earth, the empty spacecraft burns up during atmospheric reentry due to a faulty heat shield. The captive astronauts were supposed to be placed in the returned capsule before being recovered by the Navy. After it is destroyed, they realize officials will never release them. They escape in a small jet which quickly runs out of fuel, forcing a crash- landing in the desert. They split up on foot to increase their chances of finding help and exposing the plot. Kelloway sends helicopters after them; Willis and Walker are found, while Brubaker evades capture. Caulfield interviews Brubaker's "widow" after reviewing a televised conversation between the astronauts and their wives. Mrs. Brubaker had seemed confused when her husband mentioned their last family vacation. She explains that the family had actually gone to a different location where a western movie was being filmed. Brubaker was intrigued by how special effects and technology made it seem real. Caulfield believes Brubaker would never make such a mistake and may have been sending his wife a message. Caulfield goes to the deserted movie set and is shot at. As he investigates further, federal agents break into his home, arresting him for possessing cocaine that they planted there. His exasperated boss bails Caulfield out, then fires him. A reporter friend tells Caulfield about an abandoned military base located 300 miles from Houston. The base is deserted, but Caulfield finds Brubaker's necklace and medallion and concludes the astronauts were there. Caulfield hires a crop-dusting pilot named Albain to search the desert. They spot and follow two helicopters to a closed isolated gas station where Brubaker is hiding. They rescue him as he attempts to escape his pursuers. The helicopters chase their plane through a canyon but crash when Albain blinds them with crop spray. Ultimately, Caulfield and Brubaker arrive at the astronauts' memorial service, exposing the truth. 

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Upon the passing of winter, in 1941, a flock of storks deliver babies to circus animals within the "Winter Quarters" in Florida. All the mothers receive their parcels before departure except the elephant Mrs. Jumbo. During travel, a lost stork brings her an elephant who, to the other elephants' surprise, is adorned with extraordinarily large ears. He is made an object of ridicule and given the nickname "Dumbo". Mrs. Jumbo attempts to remain dignified and treats her child with all her maternal love, but when a group of rascals takes to mocking Dumbo, Mrs. Jumbo catches one of them with her trunk and spanks him. The circus ringmaster deems Mrs. Jumbo mad and has her locked in a cage. The lone Dumbo is made a pariah amongst the rest of the circus troupe. A small mouse named Timothy consoles Dumbo and vows to make him a star. After being secretly encouraged by Timothy, the ringmaster makes Dumbo the top of an elephant pyramid stunt. The performance goes awry when Dumbo trips over his ears and misses his target, causing the other elephants to suffer various injuries, and bring down the big top. Dumbo is made into a clown as a result, to the shame of the other elephants, and plays the main role in an act that involves him falling into a vat of pie filling. Despite his newfound popularity and fame, Dumbo hates this job, and is now more miserable than ever. To cheer Dumbo up, Timothy takes him to visit his imprisoned mother. The two are unable to see each other face to face, and can only entwine trunks. On the way back, Dumbo cries and then gets the hiccups, so Timothy takes him for a drink of water from a bucket that, unknown to them, has accidentally had a bottle of champagne spilled into it by the clowns. As a result, Dumbo and Timothy both get drunk and have surreal hallucinations of pink elephants. The next morning, Dumbo and Timothy are awakened by a group of crows who are surprised to find an elephant sitting on the highest branches of a tree. As the initial astonishment passes, Timothy surmises that Dumbo had managed to achieve flight using his large ears as wings. Timothy persuades an insecure Dumbo to use this gift with the support of the crows' leader, who gives Dumbo one of his feathers and convinces him that it carries magic properties that will allow him to fly. Back at the circus, Timothy proposes to Dumbo to transform his clown act into a flying performance. As Dumbo unfolds his ears during the plummet, he loses the feather and panics. Timothy quickly confesses that the feather was never magical, and that he is still able to fly. Dumbo is able to pull out of the dive and flies around the circus, finally striking back at his tormentors as a stunned audience looks on in amazement. After this performance, Dumbo becomes a media sensation, Timothy becomes his manager and the new owner of the circus, Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo are given a private car on the circus train, and while the sentient train Casey Jr. travels to the next destination, Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo and the crows greet each other in the distance, with the little elephant's new friends wishing him good luck. 

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An armed gunman causes a hostage crisis at a Los Angeles supermarket. When negotiations between him and law enforcement fail, the LAPD summons Lieutenant Marion Cobretti (Stallone), a member of its elite division known as the "Zombie Squad". Cobretti, known by the codename "Cobra", infiltrates the store, locates, and negotiates with the gunman, who threatens him by speaking of a vague and unknown organization known as "The New World", a supremacist group of social darwinist radicals that despise modern society and believe in killing the weak, leaving only the strongest and smartest to rule the world. Cobretti then kills the gunman by throwing a knife at his abdomen and firing shots at him. As the hostages and bodies are removed from the store, Cobretti is admonished by Detective Monte (Robinson) for his seeming disregard for police procedures and protocols. Harassed by reporters, Cobretti admonishes them for failing to prioritize the safety of potential victims. Little does everyone realize at the time that the supermarket hostage crisis is only one of a string of recent and seemingly unconnected acts of violence and murder that have broken loose in Los Angeles, perpetrated by the same supremacist group the supermarket gunman mentioned. Model and businesswoman Ingrid Knudsen (Nielsen) later becomes the New World's priority target after witnessing their members and their leader, only identified as "The Night Slasher" (Thompson), going on a killing spree. She is placed under the protective custody of Cobretti and his partner, Sergeant Tony Gonzales (Santoni) after a failed attempt on her. When several more failed attempts are made on their lives by various people connected to the New World, Cobretti theorizes that there is an entire army of killers operating with the same modus operandi rather than a lone serial killer with some associates, but his suggestion is rebuffed by his superiors. However, the LAPD agrees with Cobretti that it will be safest if he and Knudsen relocate from the city. Cobretti becomes romantically involved with Ingrid shortly after venturing out into the countryside, but Nancy Stalk (Garlington), the New World's second-in- command and right-hand man going undercover as a police officer escorting the Cobretti party, compromises their whereabouts. Despite Cobretti's suspicions and mistrust of Nancy, he does nothing and the party spends the night in a motel. The organization moves in at dawn and besieges the small town. With barely enough time to react, the attackers storm Cobretti and Ingrid's motel, wounding Gonzales in the process. Killing several members but with more swarming into the town, Cobretti and Ingrid escape in a pickup truck. When the truck is severely damaged from the chase, the duo cut through a grapefruit plantation to escape into a nearby factory. Cobretti has defeated most of the New World by this point, with the few remaining members following them into the building. Cobretti eliminates every member and the Night Slasher accidentally shoots Nancy, leaving just himself. Cobretti and the Night Slasher engage in a vicious melee combat inside the steel mill, ending with the Night Slasher being impaled in the back by a large roaming hook, which transports him into a furnace that burns him alive. In the aftermath, Cobretti's department arrives and begins clean-up of the town, rendering medical aid to Gonzales. Detective Monte appears apologetic but confronts Cobretti again about his lack of regard to police protocols, offering to discuss the issue over a long dinner. Cobretti punches Monte instead, before he and Ingrid ride away on one of the motorcycles left by the New World. 

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In 1982 Brooklyn, a boy named Charlie Carbone is about to become the stepson of a crime boss named Salvatore Maggio. The mobster's juvenile delinquent apprentice Frankie Lombardo tries to drown Charlie, but a boy named Louis Booker saves him and they become best friends. Twenty years later, in 2002, Charlie now runs his own beauty salon and Louis still remains his best friend, but Sal's henchmen take a majority of the salon's profits, leaving Charlie very little for improvements. After they botch the job of hiding some stolen television sets, resulting in the discovery of Sal's warehouse and the arrest of at least one of his men, Sal gives Charlie and Louis one more chance. Under instructions from Frankie, they are to deliver a package to a man named "Mr. Smith" in Coober Pedy, Australia. Frankie also warns them against opening the package "under any circumstances" and to call Mr. Smith at the phone number he gives them should they run into any trouble. Unknown to Charlie and Louis, however, Sal tells his Capo that he is "canceling their return trip." On the plane, Louis opens the package, against Frankie's warnings, to find $50,000 in cash. Upon landing in Australia, they rent a Land Cruiser and head to Mr. Smith. Along their way, they accidentally run over a red kangaroo. Thinking it is dead, Louis puts his "lucky jacket" on the kangaroo and with Charlie's sunglasses to pose for photographs as a joke, as he thinks the kangaroo looks like "Jackie Legs", one of Sal's henchmen from Canarsie. The kangaroo then suddenly regains consciousness and hops away with one problem; the $50,000 was in the jacket. Charlie and Louis get into their car and try to reclaim the money from the jacket on the kangaroo, but the ensuing chase ends with the duo crashing through a field of termite mounds and then into a pile of rocks, wrecking the car. At a pub in Alice Springs, Louis manages to call Mr. Smith and tries to explain their situation. Mr. Smith, however, thinks they stole his package and threatens to kill Louis and Charlie, telling him that they had better have the money ready when he meets them, or he'll "chop them into snags and feed them to the crocodiles"; he then plans to find them himself. Back in New York City, Sal gets the call from Mr. Smith saying that Charlie and Louis haven't arrived; Sal then sends Frankie and some men to Australia to investigate. Meanwhile, Charlie and Louis attempt to reclaim the money from the kangaroo by shooting it with a tranquilizer dart from a biplane. The attempt fails when Louis accidentally shoots Blue the pilot and strands the duo in the desert. They spend many hours wandering in the desert, during which Charlie hallucinates about a jeep, and they soon meet a woman from the Outback Wildlife Foundation called Jessie, who Louis previously met in Alice Springs. Thinking she is only a mirage, Charlie grabs her breasts and she knocks him out with her canteen. While unconscious, Charlie dreams about meeting a speaking, rapping version of the kangaroo, while Sal and Louis mock him in kangaroo forms. The following day, the trio then track the kangaroo at the nearby Todd River and try again to catch it with bolas, but Louis accidentally botches their attempt when a swarm of ants crawls up his pants. While waiting for the next opportunity to catch the kangaroo, Charlie begins developing feelings for Jessie, which she claims not to return at first, but he senses that she is lying. The next day, Mr. Smith and his henchmen arrive and capture the trio. Charlie and Louis turn the tables and outsmart them, only to find Frankie has tracked them and is prepared to kill them. Just as he is about to however, the kangaroo suddenly returns causing a fist fight between Mr. Smith's henchmen and Frankie's crew, who outmatch them. The distraction allows Charlie, Louis, and Jessie to escape on their camels. A final three-way chase ensues, with Charlie, Louis and Jessie chasing after the kangaroo while being pursued by Frankie and his goons. Louis finally manages to retrieve the money from the kangaroo but ends up nearly falling down a cliff and is narrowly saved by Charlie and Jessie. After getting the money back, Charlie tries to hand it over to Frankie once and for all, but the latter angrily declines and reveals that Sal really sent them to Australia to pay for their own execution at the hands of Mr. Smith much to the shock of Charlie and Louis. Out of nowhere, the police force led by an undercover cop Mr./Sgt. Jimmy Inkamale arrive and arrest Frankie, Mr. Smith, and their respective henchmen. Charlie and Louis call each other true friends, and Charlie reclaims Louis' lucky jacket from the kangaroo, who turns out to have a family. One year later, Charlie and Jessie are married and have used Sal's $50,000 to start a line of new hair care products bearing a kangaroo logo, and Louis has become Charlie's advertising partner. Frankie, Mr. Smith, and their men have been imprisoned for life as has Sal who has failed at using his high-level connections to avoid arrest as mentioned in Charlie's narration where the newspaper states that he is currently on trial. The kangaroo, now called "Kangaroo Jack", is still happily living in the outback. Now able to speak again, Jack breaks the fourth wall, explaining why the film should end with him and closes it with his version of Porky Pig's famous catchphrase "That's all, blokes!" 

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In November 1918, a private (Lee Marvin), using his trench knife, kills a surrendering German soldier. When he returns to his company's headquarters, the private is told that the "war's been over for four hours." In November 1942, the soldier, now a sergeant in the "Big Red One," leads his squad of infantrymen through North Africa; they are initially fired on by a Vichy French general, who is then overpowered by his French troops who are loyal to Free France. Over the next two years, the squad serves in campaigns in Sicily, where they are given intelligence by Matteo (Matteo Zoffoli), who provides the location of a Tiger I tank, and are fed by grateful Sicilian women; Omaha Beach, at the start of the Normandy Campaign; the liberation of France, where they battle Germans inside a mental asylum; and the invasion of western Germany. The sergeant's German counterpart, Schroeder (Siegfried Rauch), participates in many of the same battles and displays a ruthless loyalty to Hitler and Germany. At different times, he and the sergeant express the same sentiment that soldiers are killers, but not murderers. During the advance across northern France, the squad crosses the same field where the sergeant killed the surrendering German, where a memorial now stands. Schroeder has sprinkled his own men among the German dead from a recent battle, however, the sergeant smells a trap and checks out the bodies in the burned out tank. Noticing that the piping on the German uniforms is not consistent he silences the living Germans in the tank. Feigning orders from his commander on the radio, the sergeant begins leading his mean away, while quietly telling them that there are living Germans about. One of the German troops shoots prematurely and is killed by Schroeder. The Germans are wiped out by the squad with only minor injuries, and Schroeder makes good his escape. While patching up their wounded, a French couple arrives on a motorcycle and sidecar. The husband dies of his previous wounds, but not before begging the sergeant to help his pregnant wife. The squad clears the tank and puts the woman in labor in the tank. After a somewhat comical series of attempts to help the mother give birth, a child is born. The squad's final action in the war is the liberation of Falkenau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Shortly after this, the sergeant is in a forest at night, having just buried a young boy he had befriended earlier after liberating the camp. Schroeder approaches, attempting to surrender, but the sergeant stabs him. His squad then arrives, and informs him that the "war's been over for four hours." This time, as the squad walks away, Private Griff (Mark Hamill) notices that Schroeder is still alive; the sergeant and his men work frantically to save his life as they return to their encampment. 

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Set in suburban Columbus, Ohio, during the Reagan administration, Steven and Elyse Keaton (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter) are baby boomers, liberals and former hippies, raising their three children: ambitious, would-be millionaire entrepreneur Alex (Michael J. Fox); fashion- conscious, gossipy Mallory (Justine Bateman); and tomboy Jennifer (Tina Yothers). Married in 1964, Elyse is an independent architect and Steven, a native of Buffalo, New York, is the station manager of WKS, a local public television station. Much of the humor of the series focuses on the cultural divide during the 1980s when younger generations rejected the counterculture of the 1960s and embraced the materialism and conservative politics which came to define the 1980s. Alex, the oldest, is a "Young Republican" who embraces Reaganomics and exhibits conservative attitudes. Mallory is apolitical and a materialistic young woman in contrast to her feminist mother. Mallory is also presented as a vacuous airhead, who is fodder for jokes and teasing from her brother. Jennifer, an athletic tomboy and the second youngest child, shares more of the values of her parents and just wants to be a normal kid. Steven and Elyse have a fourth child, Andrew (or "Andy", for short), who is born in early 1985. Alex dotes on his young brother and molds Andy in his conservative image. Regarding the concept, show creator Goldberg observed, "It really was just an observation of what was going on in my own life with my own friends. We were these old kind of radical people and all of a sudden you're in the mainstream...but now you've got these kids and you've empowered them, and they're super intelligent, and they're definitely to the right of where you are. They don't understand what's wrong with having money and moving forward."Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV" by Ben Shapiro, Broadside Books, 2001, p. 125 A recurring theme involved Alex hatching a scheme involving some amount of greedy money-making, which led to a humorous misadventure and ended with Alex being forced to apologize for his choices. According to Goldberg, "We actually had this structure that we'd inherited from Jim Brooks and Allan [Burns], which was six scenes and a tag...And then the last scene became Alex apologizes, in every show, we just left it up. Alex apologizes. Some version of it."Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV" by Ben Shapiro, Broadside Books, 2001, p. 127 Nevertheless, Fox's portrayal of a likeable Alex proved to be an important part of the show's success. Goldberg again stated, "With Alex, I did not think I was creating a sympathetic character. Those were not traits that I aspired to and didn't want my kids to aspire to, actually...But at the end of Family Ties, when we went off the air, then The New York Times had done a piece and they said, 'Greed with the face of an angel.' And I think that's true...[Michael J. Fox] would make things work, and the audience would simply not access the darker side of what he's actually saying." 

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The characters of FLCL's first season. The first season of FLCL is a coming-of-age story and revolves around Naota Nandaba, a 12-year-old, working-class boy living with his widowed father and grandfather. His life in the city of Mabase is interrupted by the arrival of a Vespa-riding maniac named Haruko Haruhara. She runs over Naota then revives him with CPR before hitting him on the head with her left-handed, electric bass guitar (a blue, vintage Rickenbacker 4001) and proceeds to stalk him.FLCL Ultimate edition liner notes Finding Haruko weaseling her way into his life as a live-in maid, Naota discovers that the head injury she caused created an "N.O." portal, which giant robots produced by a company known as Medical Mechanica emerge from periodically. The first of these robots is hit on the head by Haruko and becomes a friendly service robot later named Canti. Canti ingests Naota to assume the reddened form he first had when fighting the robots sent after him. Haruko claims she is an alien investigator from the Galactic Space Police Brotherhood, and her presence places Naota and those around him in danger. The Interstellar Immigration Bureau's Commander Amarao, who Haruko has a history with, instead reveals she is an apathetic seductress seeking a space-manipulating being called Atomsk who was partially contained within Canti. Every time Naota is absorbed by Canti, Atomsk is gradually brought to Earth. As Atomsk is held in Medical Mechanica's custody and Haruko ultimately places Earth under threat, the company eventually turns their factory stationed on the planet into a doomsday terraforming device, attempting to have Naota and Canti absorbed by the doomsday device's Terminal Core. Haruko's plan fails as Naota ends up becoming Atomsk's host and then releases him into the universe after a brief battle that ends Medical Mechanica's attack on Earth. Haruko follows after Atomsk, and Mabase returns to some normalcy. In the second season, FLCL Progressive, Haruko returns to Mabase years later after a failed attempt to contain Atomsk, although she did manage to absorb him. Placing herself as a middle school homeroom teacher, Haruko targets a 14-year-old girl named Hidomi Hibajiri through her classmate and eventual love interest Ko Ide. Haruko finds opposition in both the headphones Hidomi wears and Julia Jinyu, a more stoic offshoot of Haruko that splintered from her during her initial attempt to control Atomsk's power. Haruko eventually eats Julia to restore herself, and uses Ide to get to Hidomi. Like before, this causes conflict between Medical Mechanica and the Interstellar Immigration Bureau, as the latter was reverse-engineering Canti's technology to utilize the N.O. Channel's energies for their own use. Atomsk appears on Earth as planned, but Haruko ends up failing again with a freed Julia taking her leave. Haruko regains her composure and resumes her hunt for Atomsk as Hidomi and Ide begin their relationship while Mabase rebuilds after much of it was destroyed by Medical Mechanica. In the final season, FLCL Alternative, Haruko enters the life of high school student Kana Koumoto and her friends as she became a mentor of sorts to Kana in helping the teen's transition into adulthood as Medical Mechanica begins its assault on Earth. 

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The story focuses on three high school students, Makoto Mizuhara, Katsuhiko Jinnai and Nanami Jinnai, and the History teacher Masamichi Fujisawa, who are mysteriously transported to the fantastical world of El-Hazard. El-Hazard is threatened by a possible war between the human nations and the insectoid Bugrom tribe. 

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The mystical sword of the legends, the "Soul Edge", ended up in the hands of the dreaded pirate Cervantes de Leon of Spain. For the next 25 years, he stayed dormant on the remnants of a Spanish port town, taking the souls of those who reached him during their search of the sword. His reign of terror was soon to start, but through the joined efforts of Greek divine warrior Sophitia Alexandra and Japanese ninja Taki, he was stopped and killed, with one of the twin Soul Edge blades being shattered in the process. As it was about to tear itself apart, young German knight Siegfried Schtauffen approached the port town and battled Cervantes, whose corpse had been momentarily reanimated through Soul Edge's will. After emerging victorious, Siegfried's attention turned unto the sword. The moment he took the hilt of the cursed blade, Soul Edge released a bright column of light into the sky. This was known as the "Evil Seed", bound to bring calamity and death in its wake. Three years after those events, Soul Edge uses Siegfried as its host, and now Siegfried is Nightmare, a knight wearing azure armor and sporting a hideously deformed right arm. Europe plunges into a vortex of slaughters as he and his followers claim souls to strengthen the blade in its weakened state. Unknown to them, a group of warriors met on their journey to stop Soul Edge, and with them, three sacred weapons join once again. 

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Soul Edges events take place in the year 1583. The game tells the tale of warriors searching for the ultimate sword, "Soul Edge". It has been given many names throughout the history, such as "The Sword of Salvation", "The Sword of Heroes", and "The Ultimate Sword", among others. Many strong warriors searched for years, but very few actually found it. The sword, currently in the form of a twin pair of long swords, appeared mysteriously in an auction. It was taken by the dreaded pirate Cervantes de Leon and nothing is known of his fate thereafter. Presently, nine warriors from around the world (Hwang, Li Long, Mitsurugi, Rock, Seong Mi-na, Siegfried, Sophitia, Taki, and Voldo) search for the sword for different reasons. Some desire its power, others want revenge. Some, believing that it is a benevolent sword, crave its support. Others, knowing of its evil nature, seek its destruction. Nothing is known for certain about the sword, except for one thing: it brings misfortune to those seeking it. What many do not know is that the sword's power is evil, feeding upon the souls of not only its victims but its wielder as well. 

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When an IRA terrorist car bomb explodes, the wife and children of molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill are indiscriminately killed on May 20, 1996. Driven halfway insane by loss, his mind fragments into several personalities that carry out his plan for him. He plans a gendercidal revenge and creates a plague that kills only women, but for which men are the carriers. O'Neill then releases it in Ireland (for supporting the terrorists), England (for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya (for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release. After releasing the plague, he goes to Ireland to hide, planning to offer his services as a molecular biologist in the hopes of sabotaging whatever work is done there on finding a cure. When he arrives in Ireland, he is suspected of being O'Neill (whom the investigatory agencies of the world have deduced is responsible). To travel to the lab at Killaloe, he is forced to walk with a priest, a boy who has taken a vow of silence due to the death of his mother, and Joseph Herity, the IRA bomber who detonated the explosive that killed O'Neill's wife and children; their purpose is to confirm his identity, either through Herity's indirect questioning, or the possibility that he will confess to the priest when confronted with the pain his revenge has caused for the boy. Meanwhile, law and order have broken down in England and Ireland, and the old Irish ways are coming back. Local IRA thugs appoint themselves "kings of old", and others recreate ancient Celtic pagan religions centered on the rowan tree. The IRA has effective control of Ireland, but as the governments of the world grow certain that O'Neill is there and essentially in custody, they consider wiping out the three targeted countries to end the lingering threat. 

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As Francis (Friedrich Fehér) sits on a bench with an older man who complains that spirits have driven him away from his family and home, a dazed woman named Jane (Lil Dagover) passes them. Francis explains she is his "fiancée" and that they have suffered a great ordeal. Most of the rest of the film is a flashback of Francis's story, which takes place in Holstenwall, a shadowy village of twisted buildings and spiraling streets. Francis and his friend Alan (Hans Heinz v. Twardowski), who are good-naturedly competing for Jane's affections, plan to visit the town fair. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) seeks a permit from the rude town clerk to present a spectacle at the fair, which features a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). The clerk mocks and berates Caligari, but ultimately approves the permit. That night, the clerk is found stabbed to death in his bed. The next morning, Francis and Alan visit Caligari's spectacle, where he opens a coffin-like box to reveal the sleeping Cesare. On Caligari's order, Cesare awakens and answers questions from the audience. Despite Francis's protests, Alan asks, "How long shall I live?" To Alan's horror, Cesare answers, "The time is short. You die at dawn!" Later that night, a figure breaks into Alan's home and stabs him to death in his bed. A grief-stricken Francis investigates Alan's murder with help from Jane and her father, Dr. Olsen (Rudolf Lettinger), who obtains police authorization to investigate the somnambulist. That night, the police apprehend a criminal in possession of a knife (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) who is caught attempting to murder an elderly woman. When questioned by Francis and Dr. Olson, the criminal confesses he tried to kill the elderly woman, but denies any part in the two previous deaths; he was merely taking advantage of the situation to divert blame onto the real murderer. At night, Francis spies on Caligari and observes what appears to be Cesare sleeping in his box. However, the real Cesare sneaks into Jane's home as she sleeps. He raises a knife to stab her, but instead abducts her after a struggle, dragging her through the window onto the street. Chased by an angry mob, Cesare eventually drops Jane and flees; he soon collapses and dies. Francis also confirms that the caught criminal has been locked away and could not have been the attacker. Francis and the police investigate Caligari's sideshow and realize that the "Cesare" sleeping in the box is only a dummy. Caligari escapes in the confusion. Francis follows and sees Caligari go through the entrance of an insane asylum. Upon further investigation, Francis is shocked to learn that Caligari is the asylum's director. With help from the asylum staff, Francis studies the director's records and diary while the director is sleeping. The writings reveal his obsession with the story of an 11th-century monk named Caligari, who used a somnambulist named Cesare to commit murders in northern Italian towns. The director, attempting to understand the earlier Caligari, experiments on a somnambulist admitted to the asylum, who becomes his Cesare. The director screams, "I must become Caligari!" Francis and the doctors call the police to Caligari's office, where they show him Cesare's corpse. Caligari then attacks one of the staff. He is subdued, restrained in a straitjacket, and becomes an inmate in his own asylum. The narrative returns to the present, where Francis concludes his story. In a twist ending, Francis is depicted as an asylum inmate. Jane and Cesare are patients as well; Jane believes she is a queen, while Cesare is not a somnambulist but awake, quiet, and not visibly dangerous. The man Francis refers to as "Dr. Caligari" is the asylum director. Francis attacks him and is restrained in a straitjacket, then placed in the same cell where Caligari was confined in Francis's story. The director announces that, now that he understands Francis's delusion, he is confident he can cure him. 

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The stories were based around the central character of Noggin, the rather simple but good-natured son of Knut, King of the Nogs, and his queen Grunhilda. When King Knut dies, Noggin must find a queen to rule beside him or else forfeit the crown to his uncle, Nogbad the Bad. Noggin meets and marries Nooka of the Nooks (an Inuit princess), and becomes the new king. Noggin and Nooka have a son, Knut, who comes to the fore in later storylines. Other regular characters include: *Thor Nogson – Noggin's closest friend and Captain of the Royal Guard. Nogson portrays himself as "fierce", but is actually anything but fierce. Nevertheless, he is unfailingly loyal, and never hesitates to defend the honour of his king. *Olaf the Lofty – An eccentric and occasionally arrogant, but well-meaning, inventor. Olaf's inventions rarely work out exactly as he intends them to, although his most notable success is the Flying Machine. *Graculus – A big green bird who arrives as Nooka's messenger in the first episode. Later by chance they return to the place of his birth and meet his family, who unlike him are incapable of human speech. *Grolliffe – A friendly ice dragon whom Noggin befriends, and who helps Noggin and his friends in a later episode. Although the individual stories vary, any trouble encountered by the heroes is usually caused by Nogbad the Bad, who never gives up trying to claim Noggin's throne for himself. Nogbad always loses in the end, though not always through the intervention of Noggin himself. 

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A psychologist, Gilbert Dasein, is hired by corporate interests to investigate Santaroga, a southern California town in a valley where marketing seems totally ineffective: outside businesses are allowed in, but wither quickly for lack of business. Santarogans aren't hostile toward the enterprises, they just won't shop there. Nor are they xenophobic; they instead appear maddeningly self-satisfied with their quaint, local lifestyle. Adding an element of danger, the last few psychologists sent in have all died in accidents that are (seemingly) perfectly plausible. Complicating matters further still, the psychologist's college girlfriend, Jenny, has returned to Santaroga, her hometown. With this in mind, Dasein cautiously enters the town and quickly learns of 'Jaspers', an additive in the food and drink commonly ingested in Santaroga that seems to imbue the consumer with greater health and an expanded mind. Within the Santarogan community, Jaspers was described as "Consciousness Fuel" which opened a person's eyes and ears, and turned on their minds. Those who consume it don't become psychic; instead, they're simply far more lucid than the average citizen of the U.S, although there are numerous hints at a group mind operating at a subconscious level. Their newspapers are vaguely subversive with their folksy, enlightened commentary on world affairs; their dinner conversations knowledgeably reference great theories of psychology, politics, and cognitive science. Soon, Dasein is having narrow misses with perfectly plausibleHerbert, Brian (2003) Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert Tor, New York, pages 216-217, accidents: a clerk adjusting valves in the kitchen floods Dasein's hotel room with gas; Dasein trips on some loose carpeting, stumbles, falls through a stairwell railing and would have plunged three floors but was caught and saved by a Santarogan (although the incident with the carpeting and fall through the stairwell railing appeared to be a fluke accident, Dasein later realizes it could have been part of a carefully laid trap); a boy playing with a bow and arrow releases it, grazing Dasein's neck; the lift under his car in a garage collapses; a waitress in a diner accidentally uses insecticide rather than sugar for his coffee. Knowing that Jaspers creates exceptionally perceptive, penetrating individual minds, Dasein realizes that he has offended a communal id that feels threatened by him. As Jenny tries to convince him to settle down with her there, he wonders whether he'll live long enough to decide. 

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Page from 1565 edition of Orlando Furioso by Francesco Franceschi. The action of Orlando Furioso takes place against the background of the war between the Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen king of Africa, Agramante, who has invaded Europe to avenge the death of his father Troiano. Agramante and his allies – who include Marsilio, the King of Spain, and the boastful warrior Rodomonte – besiege Charlemagne in Paris. Meanwhile, Orlando, Charlemagne's most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty to protect the emperor because of his love for the pagan princess Angelica. At the beginning of the poem, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, and Orlando sets off in pursuit. The two meet with various adventures until Angelica saves a wounded Saracen knight, Medoro, falls in love, and elopes with him to Cathay. When Orlando learns the truth, he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa destroying everything in his path. The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on the hippogriff to find a cure for Orlando's madness. He flies up in Elijah's flaming chariot to the Moon, where everything lost on Earth is to be found, including Orlando's wits. He brings them back in a bottle and makes Orlando sniff them, thus restoring him to sanity. (At the same time Orlando falls out of love with Angelica, as the author explains that love is itself a form of insanity.) Orlando joins with Brandimarte and Oliver to fight Agramante, Sobrino and Gradasso on the island of Lampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante. Norandino and Lucina Discovered by the Ogre, from Canto XVII, by Giovanni Lanfranco, 1624 Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero. They too have to endure many vicissitudes. Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina and has to be freed from her magic island. He then rescues Angelica from the orc. He also has to avoid the enchantments of his foster father, the wizard Atlante, who does not want him to fight or see the world outside of his iron castle, because looking into the stars it is revealed that if Ruggiero converts himself to Christianity, he will die. He doesn't know this, so when he finally gets the chance to marry Bradamante, as they had been looking for each other through the entire poem although something always separated them, he converts to Christianity and marries Bradamante. Rodomonte appears at the wedding feast, nine days after the wedding, and accuses him of being a traitor to the Saracen cause, and the poem ends with a duel between Rodomonte and Ruggiero. Ruggiero kills Rodomonte (Canto XLVI, stanza 140) and the final lines of the poem describe Rodomonte's spirit leaving the world. Ruggiero and Bradamante are the ancestors of the House of Este, Ariosto's patrons, whose genealogy he gives at length in canto 3 of the poem. The epic contains many other characters, including Orlando's cousin, the paladin Rinaldo, who is also in love with Angelica; the thief Brunello; the Saracen Ferraù; Sacripante, King of Circassia and a leading Saracen knight; and the tragic heroine Isabella. 

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The ancient trade city of Phlan has fallen into impoverished ruin. Now only a small portion of the city remains inhabited by humans, who are surrounded by evil creatures. To rebuild the city and clean up the Barren River, the city council of New Phlan has decided to recruit adventurers to drive the monsters from the neighboring ruins. Using bards and publications, they spread tales of the riches waiting to be recovered in Phlan, which draws the player's party to these shores by ship. At the start of the game, the adventurers' ship lands in New Phlan, and they receive a brief but informative tour of the civilized area. They learn that the city is plagued with a history of invasions and wars and has been overtaken by a huge band of humanoids and other creatures. Characters hear rumors that a single controlling element is in charge of these forces. The characters begin a block-by-block quest to rid the ruins of monsters and evil spirits. Beyond the ruins of old Phlan, the party enters the slum area—one of two quests immediately available to new parties. This quest requires the clearing of the slum block and allows a new party to quickly gain experience. The second quest is to clear out Sokol Keep, located on Thorn Island. This fortified area is inhabited by the undead, which can only be defeated with silver weapons and magic. The characters' adventure is later expanded to encompass the outlying areas of the Moonsea region. Eventually, the player learns that an evil spirit named Tyranthraxus, who has possessed an ancient dragon, is at the root of Phlan's problems. The characters fight Tyranthraxus the Flamed One in a climactic final battle. 

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The series revolves around a single bachelor who begins with a pool of romantic interests from whom he is expected to select a wife. During the course of the season, the bachelor eliminates candidates (see The elimination process) each week eventually culminating in a marriage proposal to his final selection. The participants travel to romantic and exotic locations for their dates, and the conflicts in the series, both internal and external, stem from the elimination-style format of the show. The above description is simply a general guideline. In practice, the show does not always follow its designed structure, and those variations are often a source of drama and conflict. They may include, among other events: *A candidate who was eliminated returns to the show to plead her case to the bachelor. *A bachelor distributes more or fewer roses than planned. *A bachelor eliminates a woman outside of the normal elimination process. For example, the bachelor may eliminate both women on a two-on-one date. *The bachelor chooses to pursue a relationship with his final selection rather than propose marriage. Season six was the only season to feature a twist in casting. Since producers could not decide between Byron Velvick and Jay Overbye for the next Bachelor, the 25 women at the time participating had to decide which bachelor would make the best husband. At the end of the first episode, Velvick was chosen. Notable cases where the bachelor violated the premise of the show are Brad Womack, who selected neither of his final two women on his first season, and Jason Mesnick, who broke off his engagement in the After the Final Rose episode and several months later proposed (offscreen) to the first runner-up (Molly Malaney)—who he later married. Like Mesnick, Arie Luyendyk Jr. also broke off his engagement and during the After the Final Rose episode, he proposed to the first runner-up (Lauren Burnham)—to whom he is now married. 

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All of the rules are adapted from the rules of The Bachelor—its parent show. As the name implies, the series revolves around a single bachelorette, usually a former contestant from the previous Bachelor season, and a pool of romantic interests (typically 25; 30 in season 5) which could include a potential husband for the bachelorette; it is essentially a gender-reversed version of the parent show. The show starts with the bachelorette standing in front of the mansion and greeting each male contestant individually, as they make an entrance to the bachelorette. After each rose ceremony, at least one contestant does not receive a rose and goes home; therefore, the pool of contenders gets smaller, and eventually leaves the bachelorette to decide between two contestants in the final rose ceremony. For the final selection, one of two male suitors proposes to the bachelorette. Unlike its parent show, all fifteen seasons of The Bachelorette have ended with a proposal which the bachelorette either accepted or declined. Trista Rehn's marriage to Ryan Sutter, Ashley Hebert's marriage to JP Rosenbaum, Desiree Hartsock's marriage to Chris Siegfried, and Rachel Lindsay’s marriage to Bryan Abasolo have been the only marriages to result. The weddings of the first two were broadcast on ABC. 

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A golddigger marries a young man for his money, but finds that she really loves him and wants to keep him despite his family's disapproval. 

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Sarah Storm, an Austrian immigrant, has taken up with Jim Grey, with the goal of both of them becoming vaudeville entertainers. Months after their stage debut, they now have a baby boy and no steady income, and Jim expresses little interest in finding work or supporting the family. After a fight with Sarah, Jim tries to get a loan from John Ashmore, a wealthy businessman, who denies his request, but mentions his envy at Jim's fatherhood, since his wife cannot bear children. On a whim, Jim enlists with the Marines for four years, and goes drinking. After returning home and quarreling again with Sarah, he disappears with their young son Bobby, intending to sell him to the Ashmores. The heartbroken Sarah is given a job singing with an itinerant musician, Cyril Belloc. Two years later, Cyril and Sarah perform for WWI veterans in a hospital. As she goes among the beds of the wounded soldiers, she finds Jim there, near death. He begs forgiveness for his actions, and tells her about giving her son to the Ashmores. When she pleads with John Ashmore to let her see if their son is hers, Ashmore refuses, threatening to have her committed; their attorney, Howard Vanning, who is also Ashmore's brother-in-law, takes pity on her and says he will try to help, but also believes her delusional. Sarah leaves America for Germany to pursue her singing career. Years later, Sarah has become an internationally famous opera singer, and returns to New York to perform. She reconnects with Vanning, declares she is no longer afraid of any threats the Ashmores can levy against her, and again demands to meet the boy, saying a birthmark will prove her is her son. Meanwhile, Bobby is now 13, and unhappy with the too-protective Ashmores, confiding to his uncle Howard that he fears being incapable of being a self-sufficient man. Still refusing to agree to a meeting, Mrs. Ashmore presents in his stead the deaf mute son of one of their servants, hoping this will convince Sarah he is not her son. Bobby, unbeknownst to his adoptive parents, runs away to the summer house of his uncle Howard. Howard, who is now fully in love with Sarah, brings her to the house unaware of Bobby's presence, and finally engineers an encounter between them. 

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Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around. ; Characters * Johnny the Priest * Two longshoremen * A postman * Larry — bartender * Chris C. Christopherson — captain of the barge Simeon Winthrop * Marthy Owen * Anna Christopherson — Chris's daughter * Mat Burke — a stoker * Johnson — deckhand on barge 

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Man has to fight for his existence in the Aran Islands. Three men, among them "A Man of Aran", land a flimsy currach in the midst of high winds and huge waves with help from "His Wife" and "Their Son". The Man and his Wife work to make a field on the barren rocks using seaweed and soil scraped out of rock crevices. The Man fixes a hole in his boat with a mixture of cloth and tar. His Son sits on the edge of a cliff and uses a crab he caught earlier as bait to catch a fish in the water below. The Man, working with four other fishermen in a slightly larger boat than before, harpoons a giant basking shark. They lose that one after a fight and later spend two days wearing another one down before they can bring it back to shore. The whole village comes down to the beach to either watch or to help drag the carcass out of the water. The Wife renders the shark's liver to get oil for the lamps on the island. More sharks are still passing by on their migration, so the local fishermen head back out to sea, even though the weather looks like it might turn. No one will take the Son with them. There is a storm, and the Wife and Son can only watch from shore while the Man and his two shipmates struggle to get their boat to land safely against the elements. Everyone is reunited, but the Man's boat is crushed by the waves and rocks. The family turns and makes their way back to their cottage. 

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Militants from Azerbaijan destroy an oil production refinery in Nizhnevartovsk, threatening to cripple the Soviet Union's economy due to oil shortages. After much deliberation, the Soviet Politburo decides to seize the Persian Gulf by military force in order to recoup the country's oil losses. Knowing that the United States had pledged to defend the oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf, the Soviets decide that neutralizing NATO is a necessary first step before its military operation can take place. To divert attention from the impending operation, the Politburo embarks upon an elaborate maskirovka to disguise both their predicament and their intentions. The Soviets publicly declare their arms reduction proposal to scrap their obsolete submarines. The KGB then carries out a false flag operation involving a bomb being detonated in a Kremlin building, framing a KGB sleeper agent as a West German BND spy involved in the incident. The Politburo publicly denounces the West German government and calls for retaliation. With Germany neutralized and occupied, the Soviets believe that the United States would not move to rescue the Arab states since it could meet its oil needs from the Western Hemisphere alone. Even though a planned attack on a NATO communications facility in Lammersdorf was compromised when a Spetsnaz officer was arrested, the Soviets push through with their advance operations in Germany. However, they suffer reverses on the first night of the war, when NATO stealth and fighter-bomber aircraft achieve air superiority over Eastern Europe by eliminating Soviet AWACS and fighter aircraft, as well as bombing many key bridges that much of the Soviet Army has yet to cross. Nevertheless, the Soviet Navy achieves an advantage by occupying Iceland, taking control of the NATO airbase in Keflavík and ensuring command of the strategically important GIUK gap. U.S. Air Force lieutenant Mike Edwards escapes the attack and hides behind enemy lines, serving as a scout for NATO forces. The Soviet Navy also attack several resupply convoys from North America as well as a NATO carrier battle group in the North Atlantic, causing severe losses to the other side. Meanwhile, the Soviet Air Force engage in a fierce air battle over Norway and later secure a rocket launch site there, bringing key NATO radar and air stations in nearby Scotland within range of sustained air attack. After much difficulty in occupying West Germany, the Soviet Army, led by General-Colonel Pavel Alekseyev, score a breakthrough in a tank battle over Alfeld, threatening to proceed west of Weser River without heavy resistance from NATO forces. Meanwhile, a naval attack on Soviet bomber bases with cruise missiles launched by NATO submarines paves the way for an amphibious assault on Iceland, retaking the island and effectively closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. While Edwards is first reinforced by a squad of Royal Marines and then rescued by the United States Marines, a Soviet prisoner on the island reveals the true cause of the war, narrowing down bombing priorities to the Soviet Army's forward fuel depots and immobilizing the Soviet formations. In Moscow, the desperate Politburo considers deploying nuclear weapons to stave off defeat. This infuriates Alekseyev, who had been mobilizing for a final counterattack on Germany but faces execution by the Soviet government for its slow timetable. He later takes part in a coup d'etat orchestrated by the KGB in the Kremlin, arresting the government ministers and establishing a troika to temporarily preside over the country. The new Soviet government then negotiates for a ceasefire with NATO and a return to status quo ante bellum, effectively ending the conflict. 

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Newcastle-born gangster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) has lived in London for years in the employ of organised crime bosses Gerald and Sid Fletcher (Terence Rigby and John Bindon). Jack is sleeping with Gerald's girlfriend Anna (Britt Ekland) and plans to escape with her to South America, but he must first return to Newcastle and Gateshead to attend the funeral of his brother, Frank, who died in a purported drunk-driving accident. Unsatisfied with the official explanation, Jack investigates for himself. At the funeral Jack meets his teenage niece Doreen (Petra Markham) and Frank's evasive mistress Margaret (Dorothy White); it is later implied that Doreen is Jack's daughter. Jack goes to Newcastle Racecourse seeking old acquaintance Albert Swift (Glynn Edwards) for information about his brother's death, but Swift spots Jack and evades him. Jack encounters another old associate, Eric Paice (Ian Hendry), who refuses to tell Jack who is employing him as a chauffeur. Tailing Eric leads him to the country house of crime boss Cyril Kinnear (John Osborne). Jack bursts in on Kinnear, who is playing poker, but learns little from him; he also meets a glamorous drunken woman, Glenda (Geraldine Moffat). As Jack leaves, Eric warns him against damaging relations between Kinnear and the Fletchers. Back in town, Jack is threatened by henchmen who want him to leave town, but he fights them off, capturing and interrogating one to find out who wants him gone. He is given the name "Brumby". Jack knows Cliff Brumby (Bryan Mosley) as a businessman with controlling interests in local seaside amusement arcades. Visiting Brumby's house Jack discovers the man knows nothing about him and, believing he has been set up, he leaves. The next morning two of Jack's London colleagues – Con McCarthy and Peter the Dutchman (George Sewell and Tony Beckley) – arrive, sent by the Fletchers to take him back, but he escapes. Jack meets Margaret to talk about Frank, but the Fletchers' men are waiting and pursue him. He is rescued by Glenda who takes him in her sports car to meet Brumby at his new restaurant development at the top of a multi-storey car park. Brumby identifies Kinnear as being behind Frank's death, also explaining that Kinnear is trying to take over his business. He offers Jack £5,000 to kill the crime boss, which he flatly refuses. Jack has sex with Glenda at her flat, where he finds and watches a pornographic film where Doreen is forced to have sex with Albert Swift. The other participants in the film are Glenda and Margaret. Overcome with emotion, Jack becomes enraged and pushes Glenda's head under water as she is taking a bath. She tells him the film was Kinnear's, and that she thinks Doreen was pulled into the production by Eric. Forcing Glenda into the boot of her car, Jack drives off to find Albert. Jack tracks Albert down at a betting shop. Albert confesses he told Brumby that Doreen was, indeed, Frank's daughter. Brumby showed Frank the film to incite him to call the police on Kinnear. Eric and two of his men arranged Frank's death. Information extracted, Jack fatally stabs Albert. Jack is attacked by the London gangsters and Eric, who has informed Fletcher of Jack and Anna's affair. In the ensuing shootout, Jack shoots Peter dead. As Eric and Con escape, they push the sports car into the river unaware that Glenda is in the boot. Returning to the car park Jack finds Brumby, beats him senseless and throws him over the side to his death. He then posts the pornographic film to the vice squad at Scotland Yard in London. Jack abducts Margaret at gunpoint. He telephones Kinnear in the middle of a wild party, telling him he has the film and makes a deal for Kinnear to give him Eric in exchange for his silence. Kinnear agrees, sending Eric to an agreed location; however, he subsequently phones a hitman to dispose of Jack. Jack drives Margaret to the grounds of Kinnear's estate, kills her with a fatal injection and leaves her body there. He then calls the police to raid Kinnear's party. Jack chases Eric along a beach. He forces Eric to drink a full bottle of whisky as Eric had done to Frank, then beats him to death with his shotgun. Having avenged his dead brother and the sexually abused Doreen, Jack walks along the shoreline. As he goes to throw his shotgun into the sea, he is shot in the head from a distance. The sniper rifle is wielded by Kinnear's hitman, only identified as "J", who then proceeds to carefully deal with his equipment before calmly walking away with it in his bag. Jack lies dead on the shore with the waves beginning to lap up against him. 

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The setting of a fantasy work is often of great importance to the plot and characters of the story. The setting itself can be imperiled by the evil of the story, suffer a calamity, and be restored by the transformation the story brings about.John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Land", p. 558 Stories that use the setting as merely a backdrop for the story have been criticized for their failure to use it fully.John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Fantasyland", p. 341 Even when the land itself is not in danger, it is often used symbolically, for thematic purposes, and to underscore moods.Michael Moorcock, Wizardry & Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy pp. 72–3 

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Many episodes revolve around sometimes violent disagreements between the two men, Harold's attempts to bed women and momentary interest over things found on his round. Much of the humour derives from the pathos of the protagonists' situation, especially Harold's continually thwarted (usually by the elder Steptoe) attempts to better himself, and the unresolveable love/hate relationship that exists between the pair. Albert almost always comes out on top, and routinely proves himself superior to his son whenever they compete, such as when they played snooker into the night and pouring rain in 1970, and Scrabble and badminton in the 1972 series. Harold takes these games extremely seriously and sees them as symbols of his desire to improve himself, but his efforts come to nothing each time. His father's success is partly down to greater skills but is aided by cynical gamesmanship and undermining of his son's confidence. In addition, Albert habitually has better judgement than his son, who blunders into multiple con tricks and blind alleys as a result of his unrealistic, desperate straw-clutching approach. Occasionally the tables are turned, but overall the old man is the winner. Harold is infuriated by these persistent frustrations and defeats, even going to the extent in "Divided We Stand" (1972) of attempting to partition the house so that he does not have to share with his selfish, uncultured and negative father. His plan ends in failure and ultimately he can see no way out. However, for all the bitterness there is an essential bond between the pair. In bad situations, Harold sticks by his father. This protective bond is shown in "The Seven Steptoerai" (1974) when they are menaced by a local gangster running a protection racket. The 1974 Christmas special ended the run and it first appears Harold is once again at the bad end of poor planning, when he books a Christmas holiday abroad, but then finds his passport is out of date. His father must go alone, and Harold, tearfully it seems, waves him off to enjoy a potential good time without him. Harold trudges away, only to jump in a car with a woman to drive off on his own holiday, revealing that he had engineered the whole situation from the beginning. 

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The narrator and central character is playwright Duncan Patullo, son of Lachlan Patullo, a noted Scottish artist specializing in landscapes but occasionally painting portraits. He is educated in Edinburgh, at a school clearly intended to recall Fettes, and then at the unnamed College in Oxford (of which Surrey is one of the quadrangles) as the John Ruskin Scholar. In the first novel of the sequence, The Gaudy, Patullo returns to his Oxford College, after a long absence (and a successful career as a playwright, including extended residence abroad), and encounters a number of old friends, including Albert Talbert, his former tutor in English Literature; Lord Marchpayne, formerly Tony Mumford (an undergraduate contemporary who lived in the set of rooms opposite his); fellow Scot and schoolmate Ranald McKechnie, now Regius Professor of Greek at the college (McKechnie's wife, Janet, is Duncan's first love); Cyril Bedworth (now the college's Senior Tutor but formerly an undergraduate friend who lived at the top of Patullo's staircase); and Robert Damien (College doctor, but also a contemporary of Patullo's who embarrassed him by replacing the sketch for a famous painting that he owned with a bawdy picture of Mumford's at exactly the point when the great and the good had assembled to view it). The second novel, Young Patullo, tells the story of their former relationships and Patullo's undergraduate career. In A Memorial Service Patullo is instrumental in resolving the crisis caused by the academic insufficiency and aggressively anti-institutional behaviour of Ivo Mumford, his friend Tony's son, and begins a tentative involvement with his cousin Fiona Petrie, a don at one of the women's Colleges, as well as rekindling a friendship with Janet McKechnie. The title refers obliquely to the character of Paul Lusby, who committed suicide in the first novel as a result of a foolish wager proposed by Ivo Mumford, and whose brother Peter is seeking admission to the College, partly in memory of his brother. In The Madonna of the Astrolabe Patullo has to cope with his ex-wife and her sexual designs on current undergraduates, the undergraduates' production of Tamburlaine, and the problems of raising enough money for the urgently needed restoration of the crumbling Great Tower (modelled on Tom Tower). The discovery of a lost masterpiece by Piero della Francesca proves crucial to the college's future fortunes, and Patullo is able to help when it is stolen. Full Term takes up Patullo's emotional conflicts but focuses on the scandalous, and apparently treasonous, behaviour of the College's Physics tutor, William Watershute, which are dramatically resolved at the end. 

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Charlotte at Werther's grave Most of The Sorrows of Young Werther, a story about unrequited love, is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of a sensitive and passionate temperament, to his friend Wilhelm. These give an intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim (based on Garbenheim, near Wetzlar), whose peasants have enchanted him with their simple ways. There he meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who takes care of her siblings after the death of their mother. Werther falls in love with Charlotte despite knowing beforehand that she is engaged to a man named Albert, eleven years her senior. Despite the pain it causes him, Werther spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with them both. His sorrow eventually becomes so unsupportable that he is forced to leave Wahlheim for Weimar, where he makes the acquaintance of Fräulein von B. He suffers great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend and unexpectedly has to face there the weekly gathering of the entire aristocratic set. He is not tolerated and asked to leave since he is not a nobleman. He then returns to Wahlheim, where he suffers still more than before, partly because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day becomes a torturing reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love. She, out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after he recites to her a passage of his own translation of Ossian. Even before that incident, Werther had hinted at the idea that one member of the love triangle – Charlotte, Albert or Werther himself – had to die to resolve the situation. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter to be found after his death, he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, on the pretext that he is going "on a journey". Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not die until twelve hours later. He is buried between two lime trees that he had mentioned frequently in his letters. The funeral is not attended by any clergy, or by Albert or Charlotte. The book ends with an intimation that Charlotte may die of a broken heart: "I shall say nothing of...Charlotte's grief. ... Charlotte's life was despaired of." 

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Joe Banks is a downtrodden everyman from Staten Island, working a clerical job in a dreary factory for an unpleasant, demanding boss, Frank Waturi. Joyless, listless and chronically sick, Banks regularly visits doctors who can find nothing wrong with him. Finally, a Dr. Ellison diagnoses an incurable disease called a "brain cloud", which has no symptoms, but will kill him within five or six months. Ellison says that the symptoms he has been experiencing are actually psychosomatic, caused by trauma in his previous job as a firefighter. Ellison advises him, "You have some life left ... live it well." Joe tells his boss off, quits his job, and asks former coworker DeDe out on a date. Their date is a success, but when Joe tells DeDe that he is dying, she tells him she cannot deal with the revelation and leaves. The next day, a wealthy industrialist named Samuel Graynamore makes Joe an unexpected proposition. Graynamore needs "bubaru", a mineral essential for manufacturing superconductors. There are deposits of it on the tiny Pacific island of Waponi Woo, but the resident Waponis will only let him mine it if he solves a problem for them. They believe that the fire god of the volcano on their island must be appeased by a voluntary human sacrifice once every century, but none of them are willing to volunteer this time around. Graynamore offers to pay for whatever Joe wants to enjoy his final days, as long as he jumps into the volcano within 20 days. With nothing to lose, Joe accepts. Joe spends a day and a night out on the town in New York City, where he solicits advice on everything from style to living life to the fullest from his chauffeur Marshall. He also purchases four top-of-the-line, waterproof steamer trunks from a fanatically dedicated luggage salesman. Joe then flies to Los Angeles, where he is met by one of Graynamore's daughters, Angelica, a flighty socialite who labels herself a "flibbertigibbet". The next morning, Angelica takes Joe to her father's yacht, the Tweedledee. The captain is her half- sister Patricia. Patricia reluctantly agreed to take Joe to Waponi Woo after Graynamore promised to give her the yacht in return. After an awkward beginning, Joe and Patricia begin to bond. Then they run into a typhoon. Patricia is knocked unconscious and flung overboard. After Joe jumps in to rescue her, lightning strikes, sinking the yacht. Joe is able to construct a raft by lashing together his steamer trunks. Patricia does not regain consciousness for several days. Joe doles out the small supply of fresh water to her, while he gradually becomes delirious from thirst. He experiences a revelation during his delirium and thanks God for his life. When Patricia finally awakens, she is deeply touched by Joe's self-sacrifice. They then find that they have luckily drifted to their destination. The Waponis treat them to a grand feast. Their leader, Chief Tobi, asks one last time if anyone else will volunteer, but there are no takers and Joe heads to the volcano. Patricia tries to stop him, declaring her love for him. He admits he loves her as well, "but the timing stinks." Patricia persuades Joe to have the chief marry them. Afterwards, Patricia refuses to be separated from her new husband. When Joe is unable to dissuade her, they jump in together, but the volcano erupts at that moment, blowing them out into the ocean. The island sinks, but Joe and Patricia land near their trusty steamer trunks. At first ecstatic about their miraculous salvation, Joe tells Patricia about his fatal brain cloud. She recognizes the name of Joe's doctor as that of her father's crony and realizes that Joe has been set up. He is not dying and they can live happily ever after. 

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Disillusioned knight Antonius Block and his cynical squire Jöns return from the Crusades to find the country ravaged by the plague. The knight encounters Death, whom he challenges to a chess match, believing he can survive as long as the game continues. The game they start continues throughout the story. Death and Antonius Block choose sides for the chess game The knight and his squire pass a caravan of actors: Jof and his wife Mia, with their infant son Mikael and actor-manager Jonas Skat. Waking early, Jof has a vision of Mary leading the infant Jesus, which he relates to a smilingly-disbelieving Mia. Block and Jöns visit a church where a fresco of the Danse Macabre is being painted, and the squire chides the artist for colluding in the ideological fervor that led to the crusade. In the confessional, Block tells the priest he wants to perform "one meaningful deed" after what he now sees as a pointless life. Upon revealing to him the chess strategy that will save his life, the knight discovers that it is actually Death with whom he has been speaking. Leaving the church, Block speaks to a young woman condemned to be burned at the stake for consorting with the devil. He believes she will tell him about life beyond death, only to find that she is insane. In a deserted village, Jöns saves a mute servant girl from being raped by Raval, a theologian who ten years earlier convinced the knight to join the Crusades and is now a thief. Jöns vows to destroy his face if they meet again. The servant girl accompanies Jöns into town, where the actors are performing. There, Skat is enticed away for a tryst by Lisa, wife of the blacksmith Plog. The stage show is interrupted by a procession of flagellants led by a preacher who harangues the townspeople. At the town's inn, Raval manipulates Plog and other customers into intimidating Jof. The bullying is broken up by Jöns who slashes Raval's face. The knight and squire are joined by Jof's family and a repentant Plog. Block enjoys a picnic of milk and strawberries that Mia has gathered and declares, "I'll carry this memory between my hands as if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk... And it will be an adequate sign — it will be enough for me." Block now invites Plog and the actors to shelter from the plague in his castle. When they encounter Skat and Lisa in the forest, she returns to Plog, while Skat fakes a remorseful suicide. As the group moves on, Skat climbs a tree to spend the night, but Death appears beneath and cuts down the tree. Meeting the condemned woman being drawn to execution, Block asks her to summon Satan so he can question him about God. The girl claims she has done so, but the knight only sees her terror and gives her herbs to take away her pain as she is placed on the pyre. The final scene depicting the Danse Macabre They encounter Raval, stricken by the plague. Jöns stops the servant girl from uselessly bringing him water, and Raval dies alone. Jof tells his wife that he can see the knight playing chess with Death and decides to flee with his family, while Block knowingly keeps Death occupied. As Death states "No one escapes me", Block knocks the chess pieces over but Death restores them to their place. On the next move, Death wins the game and announces that when they meet again, it will be the last time for all. Death then asks Block if he achieved the "meaningful deed" he wished to accomplish and the knight replies that he has. Block is reunited with his wife and the party shares a final supper, interrupted by Death's arrival. The rest of the party then introduce themselves, and the mute servant girl greets him with "It is finished." Jof and his family have sheltered in their caravan from a violent storm, which he interprets as the Angel of Death passing by. In the morning, Jof's second sight allows him to see the knight and his companions being led away over the hillside in a wild Dance of Death. 

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The Titans are a pantheon of gods who ruled prior to the Olympians, and are now destined to fall. They include Saturn (king of the gods), Ops (his wife), Thea (his sister), Enceladus (god of war), (in Greek mythology, a Giant rather than a Titan), Oceanus (god of the sea), Hyperion (the god of the sun) and Clymene (a young goddess). The poem opens with Saturn bemoaning the loss of his power, which is being overtaken by Jupiter. Thea leads him to a place where the other Titans sit, similarly miserable, and they discuss whether they should fight back against their conquest by the new gods (the Olympians). Oceanus declares that he is willing to surrender his power to Neptune (the new god of the sea) because Neptune is more beautiful (this is worth bearing in mind in relation to the Romantic idea that beauty is paramount). Clymene describes first hearing the music of Apollo, which she found beautiful to the point of pain (another Romantic idea). Finally, Enceladus makes a speech encouraging the Titans to fight. Meanwhile, Hyperion's palace is described, and we first see Hyperion himself, the only Titan who is still powerful. He is addressed by Uranus (old god of the sky, father of Saturn), who encourages him to go to where Saturn and the other Titans are. We leave the Titans with the arrival of Hyperion, and the scene changes to Apollo (the new sun god, also god of music, civilisation and culture) weeping on the beach. Here Mnemosyne (goddess of memory) encounters him and he explains to her the cause of his tears: he is aware of his divine potential, but as yet unable to fulfill it. By looking into Mnemosyne's eyes he receives knowledge which transforms him fully into a god. The poem as usually printed breaks off at this point, in mid-line, with the word "celestial". Keats's friend Richard Woodhouse, transcribing this poem, completed this line as "Celestial Glory dawn'd: he was a god!"https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/keats/john/hyperion/book3.html 

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In the opening scene the protagonist begins to reminisce about his youth and remembers the day he was saved from execution in a raid performed by the anarchist cell he would later join. After reaching a safe house the group begins to teach him the tricks of their trade. He later takes part in several missions, though he continues to have difficulty throughout the film with the violence of his new job. Eventually a string of tragic events strike the team. One of their members is fatally betrayed during a mission, leading to their covers being blown during the next. Now wanted by the Japanese and Chinese authorities, their funders turn away from them and instead choose to support socialist electoral politics to further their cause. This angers the group, and they leave the larger organization, attempting to survive on their own by earning money through gambling and bank robbery. Over time the group becomes agitated with simply scraping by and several voice a desire to return to their old ways of clandestine warfare. They collectively decide to strike at the Japanese government in a high-profile attack, leading up to a dramatic finale. 

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The film's plot follows the story of Paikea Apirana ("Pai"). The village leader should be the first-born son, a direct patrilineal descendant of Paikea, the Whale Rider, he who rode on top of a whale (Tohora) from Hawaiki. Pai is originally born a twin, but her twin brother and her mother died during childbirth. Pai is female and so technically cannot inherit the leadership. While her grandfather, Koro, later forms an affectionate bond with his granddaughter, carrying her to school every day on his bicycle, he also condemns her and blames her for conflicts happening within the tribe. After the death of his wife and despite overwhelming pressure from Koro, Pai's father refuses to assume traditional leadership or finish the waka (canoe) that he had started building for the baby son; instead, he moves to Germany to pursue a career as an artist. At one point, Paikea decides to live with her father because her grandfather says he does not want her. However, as they are driving away, she finds that she cannot bear to leave the sea as the whale seems to be calling her back. Pai tells her father to return her home. Koro leads a cultural school for the village's first-born boys, hoping to find a new leader. He teaches the boys to use a taiaha (fighting stick), which is traditionally reserved for males. Pai is interested in the lessons, but is discouraged and scolded by Koro for doing so. Pai feels that she can become the leader (although no woman has ever done so) and is determined to succeed. Her grandmother, Nanny, tells Pai that her second son, Pai's uncle, had won a taiaha tournament in his youth while he was still slim and so Pai secretly learns from him. She also secretly follows Koro's lessons. One of the students, Hemi, is also sympathetic towards her. Koro is enraged when he finds out, particularly when she wins a taiaha fight against Hemi. Koro is devastated when none of the boys succeeds at the traditional task of recovering the rei puta (whale tooth) that he threw into the ocean, the mission that would prove one of them worthy of becoming leader. With the loss of the rei puta, Koro in despair calls out the ancient ones, the whales. In an attempt to help, Pai also calls out to them and they hear her call. One day Pai, her uncle, her uncle's girl friend Shilo, and others take the boat to where Koro flung the rei puta into the sea. Pai confidently declares she'll find it and dives into the water. She finds the rei puta, which means that she is the rightful leader. Nanny does not think Koro is ready to accept this and does not tell him. Pai, in an attempt to bridge the rift that has formed, invites Koro to be her guest of honour at a concert of Māori chants that her school is putting on. Unknown to all, she had won an interschool speech contest with a touching dedication to Koro and the traditions of the village. However, Koro was late, and as he was walking to the school, he notices that numerous southern right whales are beached near Pai's home. The entire village attempts to coax and drag them back into the water, but all efforts prove unsuccessful, and even a tractor does not help. Koro sees that as a sign of his failure and despairs further. He admonishes Pai against touching the largest whale because she has "done enough" damage with her presumption. Also, the largest whale traditionally belongs to the legendary Paikea. When Koro walks away, Pai climbs onto the back of the largest whale at the location and coaxes it to re-enter the ocean. The whale leads the entire pod back into the sea; Pai submerges completely underwater, and the spectators wonder if she has drowned but are relieved when she comes back above sea level. Nanny shows Koro the whale tooth which Pai had previously recovered. When Pai is found and brought to the hospital, Koro declares her the leader and asks for her forgiveness. The film ends with Pai's father, grandparents, and uncle coming together to celebrate her status as the new leader, as the finished waka is hauled into the sea for its maiden voyage. In voiceover, Pai declares, "My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider. I'm not a prophet, but I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength." 

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Left to right: Duckman, Bernice, Ajax, Gecko, Charles and Mambo, "Grand-Ma-Ma", and Cornfed. The series centers on Eric Tiberius Duckman (voiced by Jason Alexander), a widowed, lewd, self-hating, egocentric anthropomorphic duck who lives with his family in Los Angeles (as mentioned in the episode "Bev Takes a Holiday") and works as a private detective. The tagline of the show, seen in the opening credits, is "Private Dick/Family Man". Main characters include Cornfed (voiced by Gregg Berger), a pig who is Duckman's Joe Friday–esque business partner and best friend, Ajax (voiced by Dweezil Zappa), Duckman's eldest, mentally-slow teenage son; Charles (voiced by Dana Hill and later Pat Musick) and Mambo (voiced by E. G. Daily), Duckman's genius conjoined twins whose heads share a body; Bernice (voiced by Nancy Travis), the identical twin of Duckman's presumed-dead wife Beatrice, a fanatical fitness buff who hates Duckman with a passion; and Grandma-ma (voiced by Travis), Duckman's comatose, immensely flatulent mother-in-law. Recurring characters include Agnes Delrooney (voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray), Grandma-ma's doppelgänger who kidnaps her and poses as her for several episodes; Fluffy and Uranus (voiced by Musick), Duckman's two Care Bear–esque teddy-bear office assistants; George Herbert Walker "King" Chicken (voiced by Tim Curry), a supervillain who schemes to ruin Duckman's life; Beverly (voiced by Travis), Beatrice and Bernice's long-lost sister; and Gecko, Duckman's pet dog. In the final episode, four couples (Dr. Stein/Dana Reynard, Duckman/Honey, King Chicken/Bernice, Cornfed/Beverly) get married – the last three in a joint ceremony. The kids, Fluffy and Uranus, and a number of characters from previous episodes are in attendance. As the ceremonies draw to a close, Beatrice (Duckman's supposedly deceased wife) appears and shocks the entire crowd. When Duckman asks how she can still be alive, Beatrice indicates Cornfed always knew. Cornfed says, "I can explain." The show then ends with "To be continued...?" superimposed on the screen. In regards to this cliffhanger, Duckman writer Michael Markowitz offered the following shortly after the series came to an end: "We never formally planned Part II... and I'll never tell what I personally had in mind. I'm hoping to leave it to my heirs, for the inevitable day when Duckman is revived by future generations." On August 13, 2015, Markowitz posted on his Twitter page in response to a question from a fan about the cliffhanger, "Was then (& now) an #XFiles fan (bride in ep was Dana Reynard, a Mulder-Scully hint) so involved gov't coverup of aliens". 

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The novel's events occupy eighteen books. The book opens with the narrator stating that the purpose of the novel will be to explore "human nature". The kindly and wealthy Squire Allworthy and his sister Bridget are introduced in their wealthy estate in Somerset. Allworthy returns from London after an extended business trip and finds an abandoned baby sleeping in his bed. He summons his housekeeper, Mrs Deborah Wilkins, to take care of the child. After searching the nearby village Mrs Wilkins is told about a young woman called Jenny Jones, a servant of a schoolmaster and his wife, as the most likely person to have committed the deed. Jenny is brought before the Allworthys and admits being the baby's mother, but she refuses to reveal the father's identity. Mr Allworthy mercifully removes Jenny to a place where her reputation will be unknown and tells his sister to raise the boy, whom he names Thomas, in his household. Two brothers, Dr Blifil and Captain Blifil, regularly visit the Allworthy estate. The doctor introduces the captain to Bridget in the hope of marrying into Allworthy's wealth. The couple soon marries. After the marriage, Captain Blifil begins to show a coldness to his brother, who eventually feels obliged to leave the house for London. He does, and, soon after, he dies "of a broken heart". Captain Blifil and his wife start to grow cool towards one another, and the former is found dead from apoplexy one evening after taking his customary evening stroll before dinner. By then, he has fathered a boy who grows up with the bastard Tom. Captain Blifil's son, known as Master Blifil, is a miserable and jealous boy who conspires against Tom. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty yet honest and kind-hearted youth. He tends to be closer friends with the servants and gamekeepers than with members of the gentry. He is close friends with Black George, who is the gamekeeper. His first love is Molly, Black George's second daughter and a local beauty. She throws herself at Tom, who gets her pregnant and then feels obliged to offer her his protection. After some time, however, Tom finds out that Molly is somewhat promiscuous. He then falls in love with a neighbouring squire's lovely daughter, Sophia Western. Tom and Sophia confess their love for each other after Tom breaks his arm rescuing Sophia. Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to disapprove their love. This class friction gives Fielding an opportunity for biting social commentary. The inclusion of prostitution and sexual promiscuity in the plot was also novel for its time, and it was the foundation for criticism of the book's "lowness".. Squire Allworthy falls ill and is convinced that he is dying. His family and servants gather around his bed as he disposes his wealth. He gives a favourable amount of his wealth to Tom Jones, which displeases Master Blifil. Tom doesn't care about what he has been given, since his only concern is Allworthy's health. Allworthy's health improves, and we learn that he will live. Tom Jones is so excited that he begins to get drunk and gets into a fight with Master Blifil. Sophia wants to conceal her love for Tom, so she gives a majority of her attention to Blifil when the three of them are together. This leads to Sophia's aunt, Mrs Western, believing that Sophia and Blifil are in love. Squire Western wants Sophia to marry Blifil in order to gain property from the Allworthy estate. Blifil learns of Sophia's true affection for Tom Jones and is angry. Blifil tells Allworthy that, on the day he almost died, Tom was out drinking and singing and celebrating his coming death. This leads Tom to be banished. Tom is expelled from Allworthy's estate and begins his adventures across Britain, eventually ending up in London. On the way, he meets a barber, Partridge, who was banished from town because he was thought to be Tom's father. He becomes Tom's faithful companion in the hope of restoring his reputation. During their journey, they end up at an inn. While they are there, a lady and her maid arrive. An angry man arrives, and the chambermaid points him in the direction she thinks he needs to go. He bursts in on Tom and Mrs Waters, a woman whom Tom rescued, in bed together. The man, however, was looking for Mrs Fitzpatrick and leaves. Sophia and her maid arrive at the same inn, and Partridge unknowingly reveals the relationship between Tom and Mrs Waters. Sophia leaves with Mrs Fitzpatrick, who is her cousin, and heads for London. They arrive at the home of Lady Bellaston, followed by Tom and Partridge. Eventually, Tom tells Sophia that his true love is for her and no one else. Tom ends up getting into a duel with Mr Fitzpatrick, which leads to his imprisonment. Eventually, the secret of Tom's birth is revealed after a brief scare involving Mrs Waters. Mrs Waters is really Jenny Jones, Tom's supposed mother, and Tom fears that he has committed incest. This, however, is not the case, as Tom's mother is in fact Bridget Allworthy, who conceived him after an affair with a schoolmaster. Tom is thus Squire Allworthy's nephew. After finding out about the intrigues of Blifil, who is Tom's half-brother, Allworthy decides to bestow most of his inheritance on Tom. After Tom's true parentage is revealed, he and Sophia marry, as Squire Western no longer harbours any misgivings about Tom marrying his daughter. Sophia bears Tom a son and a daughter, and the couple live on happily with the blessings of Squire Western and Squire Allworthy. 

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The story's narrator, Francis Wayland Thurston, recounts his discovery of various notes left behind by his great uncle, George Gammell Angell, a prominent professor of Semitic languages at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who died during the winter of 1926 after being jostled by a sailor. The first chapter, "The Horror in Clay", concerns a small bas-relief sculpture found among the notes, which the narrator describes: "My somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature. ... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.” The sculpture is the work of Henry Anthony Wilcox, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, who based his creation on a delirious dream of "great Cyclopean cities of titanic blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror.” References to both Cthulhu and R'lyeh are included in letters written by Wilcox.Lovecraft has stated Wilcox's residence in his story is actually the Fleur-de-Lys Studios in Providence. Angell also discovers reports of "outre mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania" around the world (in New York City, "hysterical Levantines" mob police; in California, a Theosophist colony dress in white robes while awaiting a "glorious fulfillment"). The second chapter, "The Tale of Inspector Legrasse", discusses the first time the Professor had heard the word "Cthulhu" and seen a similar image. At the 1908 meeting of the American Archaeological Society in St. Louis, Missouri, a New Orleans police official named John Raymond Legrasse asked the assembled antiquarians to identify an idol carved from a mysterious greenish-black stone. Legrasse had discovered the relic months before in the swamps south of New Orleans, during his raid on a supposed voodoo cult. The idol resembles Wilcox's sculpture, and represented a "thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters.” On November 1, 1907, Legrasse led a party of fellow policemen in search of several women and children who disappeared from a squatter community. The police found the victims' "oddly marred" bodies being used in a ritual where 100 men—all of a "mentally aberrant type"—were "braying, bellowing, and writhing" and repeatedly chanting the phrase: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn". After killing five of the participants and arresting 47 others, Legrasse interrogated the men before learning "the central idea of their loathsome faith": > "They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before > there were any men ... and ... formed a cult which had never died ... hidden > in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the > great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under > the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day > he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always > be waiting to liberate him."Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", p. 139. The prisoners identify the confiscated idol as Cthulhu himself, and translate their mysterious phrase as "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." One particularly talkative cultist, known as Old Castro, named the center of their cult as Irem, the City of Pillars in Arabia, and referred to a phrase in the Necronomicon: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.” One of the academics present at the meeting, William Channing Webb, a professor of anthropology at Princeton, states that during an 1860 expedition to the western coast of Greenland, he encountered "a singular tribe of degenerate Eskimos whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and repulsiveness". Webb claims the Greenland cult possessed both the same chant and a similar "hideous" fetish. Thurston, the narrator, reflects that "My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I wish it still were.” In the third chapter, "The Madness from the Sea", Thurston reads an article dated April 18, 1925, from the Sydney Bulletin, an Australian newspaper. The article reports the discovery of a derelict ship in the Pacific Ocean with only one survivor—a Norwegian sailor named Gustaf Johansen, second mate on board the Emma, a schooner which originally sailed from Auckland, New Zealand. On March 22, the Emma encountered a heavily armed yacht, the Alert, crewed by "a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes" from Dunedin. After being attacked by the Alert without provocation, the crew of the Emma killed everyone aboard, but lost their own ship in the battle. Commandeering their opponent's vessel, the surviving crewmembers travel on and arrive at an uncharted island in the vicinity of . With the exception of Johansen and a fellow sailor (who then died as they made their way back to Auckland, New Zealand due to madness from seeing whatever was on that uncharted island), the remaining crewmembers perish on the island. Johansen never reveals the cause of their death. Thurston travels to New Zealand and then Australia, where at the Australian Museum he views a statue retrieved from the Alert with a "cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings, and hieroglyphed pedestal". While in Oslo, Thurston learns that Johansen died suddenly during an encounter with two Lascars near the Gothenburg docks. Johansen's widow provides Thurston with a manuscript written by her late husband, which reveals the fate of everyone aboard the Emma. The uncharted island is described as "a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh". The crew struggle in comprehending the non-Euclidean geometry of their surroundings. When one of the sailors accidentally opens a "monstrously carven portal", he releases Cthulhu: > "It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous > green immensity through the black doorway. ... The stars were right again, > and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent > sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years, Great Cthulhu > was loose again and ravening for delight." Before fleeing with his crewmembers, almost all of whom are killed, Johansen describes Cthulhu as "a mountain [that] walked or stumbled". Johansen and a sailor named Briden climb aboard the yacht before sailing away. However, Cthulhu dives into the ocean and pursues their fleeing vessel. Fortunately, Johansen turns his yacht around and rams it into the creature's head, which bursts with "a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish"- only to immediately begin regenerating. The Alert escapes from R'lyeh, with Briden having gone insane and dying soon afterwards. After finishing the manuscript, Thurston realizes he's now a possible target, thinking: "I know too much, and the cult still lives." 

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Plotinus offers a version of the argument that Kant calls "The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology". Plotinus first argues that the soul is simple, then notes that a simple being cannot decompose. Many subsequent philosophers have argued both that the soul is simple and that it must be immortal. The tradition arguably culminates with Moses Mendelssohn's Phaedon.Henry, D. (2008) "The Neoplatonic Achilles" in "The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology". Springer. Volume 7 of the series Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind pp. 59–74. 

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Following a serious sports accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets other handicapped people (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. Between impotence, despair and resignation, in the daily struggle to learn to move a finger or to hold a fork, some slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties. 

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The Golden Hour tells the story of Rowan and Nina's adventures the summer after their mother's death. Thirteen-year-old Rowan's life is at an all-time low: his father has turned to drinking, the family business is becoming a financial disaster, they have had to move from their house to a small apartment, and his musically talented ten-year-old sister Nina has become withdrawn. When his two great aunts invite Rowan and Nina to spend the summer with them in Owatannauk, Maine, a small (fictional) town on the tip of the state, Rowan anticipates a very boring summer with the two elderly women. But when he arrives he finds strange things starting to happen: the aunts run a curio shop stocking some items so curious they even compel Nina to start speaking again. Rowan and Nina meet two twins, Xanthe and Xavier Alexander, who tell them about an old abandoned resort that appears to be haunted. Instead, the resort turns out to be an elaborate time machine. Nina seems interested in using the machine to escape her troubled life, especially when Rowan tells her about the Enlightenment, a period of European history when superstition and church dogma began giving way to logic and reason, art and science made tremendous strides, and truth and beauty were celebrated. When Nina disappears the next morning, the older kids rush to the resort: as they suspect, she has used the time machine. But Rowan discovers that he has told his sister the wrong dates for the Enlightenment, and instead of directing her to Enlightenment France he has sent her into the middle of the violent French Revolution. Rowan, Xanthe and Xavier time-travel to the French Revolution to save Nina, meeting various historical characters along the way, and Nina ends up in New York at their bakery visiting their mom. 

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A 2009 production of the play at The Doon School in India The play opens with Inspector Francesco Bertozzo interrogating a clever, quick-witted and mischievous fraudster, simply known as the Maniac, in Bertozzo's office on the third floor of the police headquarters in Milan. The Maniac constantly outsmarts the dim-witted Bertozzo and, when Bertozzo leaves the room, intercepts a phone call from Inspector Pissani. Pissani reveals to the Maniac that a judge is due at the police station to investigate the interrogation and "accidental" death of the anarchist, whilst the Maniac pretends to be a colleague of Bertozzo's and telling Pissani that Bertozzo is "blowing a raspberry" at him. The Maniac decides to impersonate the judge, Marco Malipiero, an opportunity he has been waiting a while for, and to humiliate the policemen responsible for the "accidental" death. After Bertozzo reenters his office, the Maniac is forced out of the office, taking Bertozzo's coat and hat to use in his disguise. Bertozzo chases him, running into Pissani, who punches him in retaliation for "blowing a raspberry" at him. The Maniac, now impersonating Malipiero, finds Pissani and his lackey, the Constable, in the room where the anarchist was during his interrogation. Telling them that he is Malipiero, the Maniac asks for the Superintendent, who was involved with the interrogation with Pissani and the Constable. The Maniac orders the three policemen to re-enact the events of the interrogation; in turn fabricating many of the events, such as changing beating the anarchist to making jokes with him, incorporating new lines into the transcript and even breaking out in song. When the investigation reaches the matter of the fall, the Constable reveals he grabbed the anarchist's shoe, in an attempt to stop him from falling. However, the Maniac notes that witnesses reported that the anarchist had both shoes on. When Pissani surmises that the anarchist was wearing a galosh, the Superintendent breaks into a rage, making Pissani accidentally reveal that the Superintendent pushed the anarchist out of the window. The two policemen then realise that the Maniac was listening. The phone in the office suddenly rings, which Pissani answers. He tells them that it is a journalist called Maria Feletti, whom the Superintendent agreed to meet to clear rumors about the interrogation, wanting to come up to the office. As the presence of Judge Malipiero would endanger them, the policemen tell the Maniac to leave for the time being. Instead, the Maniac intends to disguise himself as a forensic expert from Rome, Captain Piccini. The Maniac leaves the office. Feletti nearly exposes the three policemen, until the Maniac reenters, as an extravagantly-dressed amputee. The Maniac manages to concoct a story on how the anarchist died: one of the impatient policemen hit the anarchist in the neck, an ambulance being called; the anarchist then being led to the window for fresh air, and pushed accidentally out of the window due to uncoordinated balance between the two policemen leading him to the window. Feletti is unconvinced, noting how the death of the anarchist was reported by the police to be a suicide, opposed to their original comment that it was "accidental". Bertozzo suddenly enters, delivering a replica of a bomb from another anarchist attack. Bertozzo partially recognises the Maniac, as he knows Captain Piccini, but is dissuaded by Pissani and the Superintendent. Feletti begins to pick out the inconsistencies in the policemen's stories, and showing that anarchists in Milan are mainly fascists, not actual revolutionaries. Bertozzo realises that "Piccini" is the Maniac, after seeing his coat and hat on a stand. Bertozzo, holding the policemen at gunpoint, orders Feletti to cuff the three policemen; getting the Maniac to show them his medical records, exposing him as a fraud. The Maniac reveals a tape recorder, which he used to record Pissani and the Superintendent's tirade, exposing their crime. The Maniac strips off his disguise, making him recognizable to Feletti, who identifies him as Paulo Davidovitch Gandolpho, the "Prose Pimpernel of the Permanent Revolution" and "notorious sports editor of Lotta Continua". Revealing that the bomb replica can in fact work, setting it off on a timer, the Maniac has Bertozzo join his fellow policemen. Feletti attempts to stop the Maniac, citing the Maniac as an "extremist" and "fanatic". The Maniac, instead of killing her, offers her an ultimatum: save the four corrupt policemen, acquitting them and the Maniac will be put behind bars; or leave them to die for their crime and unwittingly join the extremist movement as an accomplice. The Maniac then leaves to spread the recording. The Maniac then addresses the audience, showing what the scenario entails. When Feletti leaves them, the four policemen die in the resulting explosion. However, the Maniac then offers the second result: sticking to the rule of law, Feletti releases them, but is chained to the window by the policemen when they realize that Feletti knows what they did. The Maniac then leaves the audience to decide which ending they prefer. 

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On New Year's Eve, Harry (Elliott Nugent) tells his grandfather (Gavin Gordon), a bishop, that he intends to marry an actress, even though that is frowned upon by his social class. However, his grandfather recounts via flashback a cautionary tale of a great love affair with a "fallen women" during his own youth. When he was 28 years old, Tom Armstrong, the son of an aristocratic family and the rector of St. Giles, meets the famous Italian opera star Rita Cavallini (Greta Garbo) at an evening party given by Cornelius Van Tuyl (Lewis Stone). Tom falls in love with Rita even though there are rumors that she is Van Tuyl's mistress. Tom's family disapproves of Rita but he continues to pursue her until he discovers that she had been lying to him about the true nature of her relationship with Van Tuyl. Though he forgives and loves her, their different lives and different social class make an engagement untenable. Ultimately, the old bishop later married Harry's grandmother and counsels Harry to marry the woman he loves regardless of the consequences. 

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A humble woman (Swanson) marries a wealthy man (Ames). Their marriage is annulled by the man's father (Holden), who considers her a fortune-hunter, and she is left alone to raise her child. She later becomes a "kept woman" for an older, married man. When the man dies, leaving Swanson a $500,000 inheritance, the press is quick to cast doubts upon the paternity of Swanson's child. Her ex-husband has remarried, and now comes back into Swanson's life. For the sake of her child, she sends the boy to live with her ex and his wife. The wife dies, and the film ends with Swanson reunited with her ex-husband. 

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Min Divot (Marie Dressler) runs a dockside inn. She has been raising Nancy Smith (Dorothy Jordan) as her own since her prostitute mother, Bella (Marjorie Rambeau), left her at the inn as an infant. Min frequently argues with fisherman Bill (Wallace Beery). Despite Bill's near-constant drinking, Min and he care for each other. Bill and she are the only ones who know the identity of Nancy's real, still living, mother. Min does her best to raise Nancy and keep her from learning about the real activities of the people who live and work on the docks. Despite not having much extra money or a home outside her inn, Min does her best to raise Nancy into a young lady. She does everything she can to make sure Nancy is never around when Bella arrives for a visit. Nancy loves Min as her own mother and frequently skips school to be with her. After repeatedly dealing with the truant officer, Min uses the money she had hidden in her room to send Nancy to a fancy boarding school. She hopes the school will teach Nancy better manners than those she had been picking up from Bill and the others on the docks. The schooling works, and Nancy returns to Min with good manners, an education, and the news that she is now engaged to a very wealthy man named Dick Cameron. She wants Min to attend the wedding. Min is thrilled, until she finds out that Bella has returned. Seeing how happy Nancy is to be getting married (and the wedding will be taking place in a few days), Min deliberately argues with Nancy and says terrible things she does not mean for Nancy to immediately leave. She is mad at herself for hurting Nancy, but is relieved that she is gone by the time Bella arrives. Min stalls Bella, hoping the wedding will take place and the couple can leave for their honeymoon before Bella can interfere. Bella arrives as the ceremony takes place. She confronts Min in an upstairs room in her inn. She has discovered her daughter's identity, and that of her very wealthy new husband. She taunts Min with the information and pledges to torment Nancy and her new husband until they give her money and take her into their new home. Min thinks about the wedding and Nancy's happiness, and tries to prevent Bella from leaving. When Bella attacks Min with a hot curling iron and attempts to leave, Min takes a hidden gun and shoots her dead. Min drops the gun and flees the room. Bill, knowing what was going on, tries to help Min by pleading with her to drive down to Mexico on his boat. Once Min and Bill leave the inn for the boat, an eavesdropping sailor enters Min's room and discovers Bella's corpse. Just as Min and Bill are about to board Bill's boat, however, Min sees Nancy and Dick Cameron about to board a boat to their honeymoon, and is drawn silently to the happy couple. She wants to see Nancy one last time.. Min watches, but decides not to let Nancy know she is there, and stays hidden in the crowd. Two police officers quietly confront Min about the shooting at the inn. Min does not say much. She takes one final look at a smiling Nancy as she leaves with her husband. Min turns back and smiles as she quietly walks away with the officers. She is sad that it may be the last time she ever sees Nancy, but at the same time, she is happy that Nancy managed to escape a dead- end life by the docks. Bill watches helplessly. 

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When neglected wife Alice (Karen Morley) decides to leave her doctor husband Lawrence (Robert Young), his friend Dr. Dulac (Jean Hersholt) stops her and tells her the life story of another woman, Madelon Claudet (Helen Hayes), who was persuaded by her American boyfriend, artist Larry Maynard (Neil Hamilton), to run away with him. Eventually, he has to return to the U.S. because his father is sick. Once there however, he betrays her and marries a woman approved of by his parents. Unbeknownst to him, Madelon gives birth to a son. When her lover does not come back, her father (Russ Powell) gets her to agree to marry Hubert (Alan Hale), a farmer. However, when she refuses to give up her illegitimate son, Hubert and her father abandon her. She becomes the mistress of an older acquaintance, Count Carlo Boretti (Lewis Stone), while her friends Rosalie (Marie Prevost) and Victor Lebeau (Cliff Edwards) care for the boy. After a while, Carlo proposes marriage and Madelon accepts. However, when they go out to celebrate, he is arrested as a jewel thief. He manages to commit suicide, but Madelon is sentenced to ten years in prison as his accomplice, even though she is innocent. When she finally is released in 1919, she goes to see her teenage son Lawrence, now living at a state boarding school. A conversation with the school's doctor proves crucial. Dr. Dulac reveals that because his father was a criminal, he cannot get better work elsewhere. Determined not to become a similar burden to her own child, she tells her son that she is an old friend of his mother, and that his mother is dead. Madelon is determined to finance Lawrence's medical education, but with the end of World War I, millions of Frenchmen are released from the army and jobs are scarce. When a man mistakes her for a prostitute, she takes up the profession. As she ages and loses her looks, she is forced to steal as well, but finally, her goal is realized, and Lawrence receives his degree. Aged and destitute, she decides to give up her freedom and commit herself to state charity, but visits her son one last time, pretending to be a patient. When she leaves, she encounters Dr. Dulac, who recognizes her and persuades his friend Dr. Claudet, still unaware of her true identity, to provide for her. After hearing of the woman's self-sacrifice, Alice Claudet suggests to Lawrence he invite Madelon to live with them. 

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Eva Lovelace (Katharine Hepburn) is a performer from a small town who has dreamed since childhood of making it big on Broadway. She has evidently gone to many auditions, but no one has given her a break. At the management office of the Easton Theatre, where she hopes to land a role, another actress, current star Rita Vernon (Mary Duncan), breezes in to see the handsome middle-aged theater owner and producer, Louis Easton (Adolphe Menjou), a consummate businessman who is well aware of his prestige in the theater world. Blonde diva Rita is high-handed and self-absorbed, with an alcohol problem as well, but she's under verbal contract to Easton. She shamelessly flirts as she negotiates a deal; she'll accept a small role (which she doesn't want) in the upcoming play, for one big concession: her pick of roles in the next production. The principals are taking a risk that she'll contain her artistic temperament and lay off the bottle. Even so, her name and fame will help launch the play, a new comedy by Joseph Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) Meanwhile, as she waits to see if she'll get a chance to talk to Easton, Eva meets and impresses Robert Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith), an experienced character actor also under contract to Easton. Delighted with her childlike ebullience, Hedges agrees to help her. He takes Eva into the office and introduces her as his protegee. Sheridan, there to cast his upcoming comedy production, is also immediately struck by Eva's vivacious and eccentric personality, A non-stop talker, Eva bubbles over with intensity about her small town bourgeois background and her belief in non- conformity and self-realization. She declares that after a long and successful career, she'll kill herself onstage as a dramatic farewell to her fans. Joseph is entranced, but the aristocratic Easton sees her as too young and inexperienced, even somewhat crazy. Months pass. Hedges has lost touch with Eva. She frequently moves due to poor finances and hasn't been cast in meaningful roles. Hedges finds her struggling and hungry. Eva expresses regret that Easton gave her a small role in one of his lesser plays, one which flopped. She bravely declares she won't take any more offers, unless the role truly suits her abilities. Realizing she's broke and basically starving, Hodges escorts her to a celebrity party at Easton's apartment. Eva quickly downs two glasses of champagne, although she's not a drinker. Inebriated, Eva sits on the arm of Easton's chair, stroking his face and vowing to prove her dramatic talents to him. She makes a spectacle of herself before the bemused party guests. Then unexpectedly she gives two Shakespearean orations, Hamlet's well-known monologue ("to be or not to be") followed by Juliet's balcony scene. The difference in the roles demonstrates her art; she gets a polite ovation from the guests and further impresses Sheridan. Eva lays her head on Easton's lap and promptly falls asleep. His butler put her to bed in his own bedroom. The next morning, Easton asks Sheridan for help. Easton gave in to temptation and explains the encounter through innuendo. He's remorseful at taking advantage of a girl's innocence and can't face her. Joseph is devastated to learn that the overnight guest was Eva. Easton apologizes and leaves. A radiant Eva comes downstairs and sees Joseph, whom she regards as "just a friend." Happily she tells him everything. To her, the night with Easton is the beginning of a long commitment. Joseph can't bring himself to break her heart. He lets her go without explaining. More months pass. Eva has tried numerous times to see Easton. Unwilling to face her, Easton has simply ignored her. Joseph keeps his own love a secret. Easton's theater company is ready to showcase Joseph's dramatic masterpiece. The play will star Rita Vernon. Joseph approves of her performance in rehearsals. Backstage on opening night, Rita calls Easton into her dressing room. Heretofore she and Easton have had only verbal agreements. Aware of the power she holds at this late hour, Rita now has outrageous demands. She wants a written contract with a huge salary increase and half the profits from the entire run of the play. Otherwise, she won't go onstage. Easton thinks he has no choice but to comply. Joseph draws him aside. He urges Easton to let Rita go. Instead, they can bring in a special understudy, one he's kept secret until this very moment. She is now revealed as Eva Lovelace. Easton reluctantly agrees and Rita storms off the set. Eva and Joseph end up together in the star's dressing room. Faced with this sudden opportunity, Eva seems overcome with doubt and fear. She can't perform with Easton in the audience; they haven't spoken since their night together. She feels unsure of her talents and feels doomed to failure. Joseph reassures her that she can handle whatever is thrown at her. She's strong and beautiful, a born actress who can now prove it. Eva rallies, gathers her self-confidence, and resolves to conquer the role. As Joseph predicted, Eva is a complete success. Backstage, Easton reconciles with Eva, offering her his professional friendship and aid. When he goes, Joseph gathers the courage to declare his love for Eva. Unsure of everything, Eva hushes him and makes him leave. Now she's there with only her dresser, an elegant elderly lady who was herself once a brief star or "morning glory." The dresser comforts Eva, assuring her that she has the talent to succeed in show business and life; but really only one thing matters, true love. She knows that because she once spurned the love she was offered, choosing fame instead, at the beginning of her all too brief career. Renewed, Eva readies herself to forge down the rocky road to stardom ahead of her. The film ends with some uncertainty, but on an upbeat note. Once again self-confident, dramatic to the heart, Eva declares to her dresser, "I'm not afraid...to be a morning glory. I am not afraid!" 

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Don Bellows (Franchot Tone), a prominent architect, is engaged to the beautiful and wealthy Gail Armitage (Margaret Lindsay) when he meets down- and-out Joyce Heath (Bette Davis), who was once the most promising young actress on Broadway. Don feels deeply indebted to Joyce because her performance as Juliet inspired him to become an architect. While rehabilitating her, Don falls in love with the tempestuous actress. Joyce, convinced she destroys anything and anyone she touches, warns him she is a jinx. Compelled to save her, Don breaks his engagement to Gail and risks his fortune to back the actress in a Broadway show. Before opening night, he insists they marry, but Joyce resists his proposal, hiding the fact she is married to Gordon Heath (John Eldredge), an ineffectual but devoted man who was financially ruined by their marriage. Joyce goes to Gordon and begs him for a divorce. When he refuses, she causes an automobile accident that cripples him for life. Her own injuries keep her from opening in the show, which fails. Don is ruined, and when he learns that Joyce has deceived him, he accuses her of being a completely selfish woman, her only true jinx. Joyce briefly considers suicide, but eventually sees the truth in Don's accusation. She re-opens the show and, although she truly loves Don, sends him away to marry Gail. The show is a success, and Joyce, now dedicated to a responsible life, goes to visit Gordon and salvage her marriage. 

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The film tells of problems in the lives of doctors and patients. A female doctor (Colbert) probes the twisted minds of her patients in a mental institution. The very caring psychiatrist and her colleague face discrimination by a conservative new supervisor. 

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Becky Sharp (Miriam Hopkins), a socially ambitious English young lady, manages to survive during the background years of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Becky climbs the British social ladder, overcoming poverty and class distinctions, through her best friend Amelia Sedley (Frances Dee), praising any rich man who would listen. In her efforts to advance herself, she manages to connect with a number of gentlemen: the Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke), Joseph Sedley (Nigel Bruce), Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), and George Osborne (G. P. Huntley Jr), the husband of Amelia. She rises to the top of British society but becomes the scourge of the social circle, offending influential ladies such as Lady Bareacres (Billie Burke). Sharp falls into the humiliation of singing for her meals in a beer hall, but she never stays down for long. At the end, she cons her last man and finally lands Amelia's brother, Joseph. 

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Kitty Vane, Alan Trent, and Gerald Shannon have been inseparable friends since childhood. Both Alan and Gerald are in love with Kitty, who in turn has been infatuated with Alan her entire life. Gerald and Alan are drafted into World War I. They return home for ten days, during which time Alan proposes to Kitty and she joyously accepts. Despite his own love for Kitty, Gerald gives the couple his blessing. However, the newly engaged couple's happiness is cut short when Gerald and Alan are ordered back into service the very next day. Kitty and Alan search for somebody to marry them, but nobody is available. They decide they do not need to officially marry, and agree to spend the night together before Alan must return to the war. Alan and Kitty book a room in an inn. Kitty's cousin Lawrence sees Alan taking champagne and flowers up the room and works out that Alan has a woman in his room, unaware that it is Kitty. The next day, Lawrence teases Alan about the previous night. Gerald misunderstands and believes Alan has cheated on Kitty. When Gerald confronts him, Alan does not reveal he in fact spent the evening with Kitty, so as to protect her reputation. Gerald, furious for Kitty's sake, refuses to grant Alan leave so he can return home and marry Kitty properly. Instead, Gerald inadvertently pressures Alan to join a dangerous mission. Alan nobley volunteers. Months later and Gerald returns home to Kitty. They both mourn the death of Alan, believed to be killed in an explosion. Together they realise Gerald's misunderstanding and conclude that they are both, in a way, to be blamed for Alan's death. Both consumed with grief, they end up growing closer and developing feelings for one another. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Alan did not die. He lost his eyesight and was cared for in a German hospital, adopting the name of Roger Crane so that his family could not locate him. A doctor, George Barton, finds a photograph of Alan, Kitty and Gerald and realises that Alan has changed his name to escape his past. George allows "Roger" to leave. Alan plans to return to Kitty, but has a change of mind at the last minute when he believes people will pity Kitty and that she will only care for him out of duty. He leaves town and stays in an inn. He becomes friendly with the innkeeper's children, Betty, Joe and Ginger. Inspired by his friendship with them, he begins to write a series of successful children's books, and is able to move into his own home with a private secretary. George Barton visits Alan, still living as "Roger", and sees in the paper a photograph of Kitty and Gerald with the announcement that they are to be married. Recognising them as the couple from Alan's photograph and realising that Alan is still in love with Kitty, George contacts them. Gerald at first does not recognise the name Roger Crane, but works out who he really is. Gerald and Kitty go to visit Alan, who attempts to conceal his blindness from them. At first, they do not realise he cannot see, causing Kitty to believe Alan has distanced himself from her and no longer loves her. She wishes to part as friends and holds her hand out to him, but he cannot see and she believes he has rejected her. Gerald, however, realises the truth and encourages Kitty to go back into the house. Alan, hearing footsteps, believes his secretary is in the room and begins talking to her, causing Kitty to realise Alan is blind. She does not care and hurries over to Alan, where they finally profess their love for each other. Gerald leaves them to reunite. 

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16-year-old Sarah Williams recites from a book titled "The Labyrinth" in the park with her dog Merlin but becomes distracted by a line she is unable to remember while being watched by a barn owl. Realizing she is late to babysit her baby half-brother Toby, she rushes home and is confronted by her stepmother Irene, who then leaves for dinner with Sarah's father Robert. Sarah finds Toby in possession of her treasured childhood teddy bear, Lancelot. Frustrated by this and his constant crying, Sarah rashly wishes Toby be taken away by the goblins. She is shocked when Toby disappears and Jareth, the Goblin King, arrives. He offers Sarah her dreams in exchange for the baby, but she refuses, having instantly regretted her wish. Jareth reluctantly gives Sarah 13 hours to solve his labyrinth and find Toby before he is turned into a goblin forever. Sarah meets a dwarfish man named Hoggle, who aids her in entering the labyrinth. She has trouble finding her way at first, but meets a talking worm who inadvertently sends her in the wrong direction. Sarah ends up in an oubliette, where she reunites with Hoggle. After they are confronted by Jareth and escape one of his traps, the two encounter a large beast named Ludo. Hoggle flees in a cowardly fashion, while Sarah befriends Ludo after freeing him from a trap. After another riddle, she loses him in a forest. Hoggle encounters Jareth, who gives him a drugged peach and instructs him to give it to Sarah, calling his loyalty into question, as he was supposed to lead her back to the beginning of the maze. Sarah is harassed by a group of creatures called the Fireys, but Hoggle comes to her aid. Thankful, she kisses him, and Jareth magically sends them to the Bog of Eternal Stench as punishment, where they reunite with Ludo. The trio meet the guard of the swamp named Sir Didymus, an anthropomorphic fox, and his Old English Sheepdog "steed" named Ambrosius. After Ludo howls and summons a trail of rocks to save Sarah from falling into the bog, Didymus joins the group. When the group gets hungry, Hoggle gives Sarah the peach and runs away as she falls into a trance and begins to forget her quest. She has a dream where Jareth comes to her at a masquerade ball, proclaiming his love for her, but she rebuffs him and escapes, falling into a junkyard. After an old Junk Lady fails to brainwash her, she is rescued by Ludo and Didymus, outside the Goblin City near Jareth's castle. They are confronted by the gate guard, but Hoggle bravely comes to their rescue. Despite his feeling unworthy of forgiveness for his betrayal, Sarah and the others welcome him back, and they enter the city together. Jareth is alerted to their presence and sends his goblin army to stop them, but Ludo howls and summons a multitude of rocks to chase the guards away, and they enter the castle. Sarah insists she must face Jareth alone and promises to call the others if needed. In a room modeled after M. C. Escher's Relativity, she confronts Jareth while trying to retrieve Toby. She recites the lines from her book that mirror her adventure to that point, but she still cannot remember the last line. As Jareth offers Sarah her dreams, she remembers the line. Defeated at the last second, Jareth returns Sarah and Toby home safely and turns into a barn owl, flying away. Realizing how important Toby is to her, Sarah gives him Lancelot and returns to her room. As her father and stepmother return home, she sees her friends in the mirror and realizes even though she is growing up, she still needs them in her life every now and again. In an instant, a number of the major characters from the Labyrinth appear in her room for a raucous celebration, and she reunites with Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, and Ambrosius. As they celebrate, Jareth, in his owl form, watches from outside and then flies away into the night. 

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