From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== The novel's scope takes in aspects of established Colonial American history including the call of the West, the histories of women, North Americans, and slaves, plus excursions into geomancy, Deism, a hollow Earth, and -- perhaps -- alien abduction. The novel also contains philosophical discussions and parables of automata/robots, the after-life, the eleven days lost to the Gregorian calendar, slavery, feng shui and others. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Nevil Maskelyne, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Jefferson, and John Harrison's marine chronometer all make appearances. Pynchon provides an intricate conspiracy theory involving Jesuits and their Chinese converts, which may or may not be occurring within the nested and ultimately inexact narrative structure. Rather than a mistake or flaw on Pynchon's part, this narrative structure is constructed to be inexact in a precise fashion; it demonstrates the fragility, rather than the secure foundations, of any historical record, and in truth, history itself. The Cherrycoke narrative shifts internally from one point of view to another, often relating events from the view of people Cherrycoke has never met. His story shifts its emphasis based on which members of his family are in the room -- veering toward the adventure-heroic when the young twin boys are listening, veering away from the erotic at the insistence of more prudish (and richer) relatives. Also, a parallel story read by two cousins, an erotic 'captured by Indians' narrative, works its way into the main thread of Cherrycoke's story, further blurring and finally obliterating the line between objective history and subjectivity -- what "really happened" is nothing more than a construction of several narrators, perhaps one of whom directly is the author. Pynchon employs an exaggerated version of the spelling, grammar, and syntax of an actual late 18th-century document, further emphasizing the novel's intended anachronism. John Krewson, writing for The Onions A.V. Club, observed, "Whatever meanings and complex messages may lie hidden in Pynchon's text can, for now, be left to develop subconsciously as the reader enjoys the more immediate rewards of the work of a consummate storyteller. Pynchon is one, and he never quite lets you forget that while this might be an epic story, it's an epic story told to wide-eyed children who are up past their bedtime." ===== During the events of Dune, the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV grants Duke Leto Atreides control of the lucrative spice harvesting operations of Arrakis, ousting the Atreides' longtime rivals, the Harkonnens. The Atreides rule is cut short by a murderous conspiracy crafted by the Harkonnens and the Emperor himself. Leto's son Paul Atreides (known by the Fremen as Muad'Dib) later leads a massive Fremen army to victory over the Emperor's Sardaukar soldier-fanatics, and by threatening the destruction of all spice production on Arrakis manages to depose Shaddam and ascend the throne in his place. With Emperor Paul worshipped as a god, Arrakis becomes the governmental and religious center of the Imperium. Paul Muad'Dib continues the efforts to terraform Arrakis into a green world, a plan begun by the Fremen under the guidance of Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes and his son Liet-Kynes. The core of their plan is gradual water-collection from the Arrakeen atmosphere to form large reservoirs that would, eventually, become lakes and oceans. Much of this activity takes place in the unexplored southern latitudes of Arrakis. By the time of Children of Dune, Alia Atreides (and then Leto II and Ghanima) realize that the ecological transformation of Arrakis is altering the sandworm cycle, which would eventually result in the end of all spice production. This at first seems a future to be avoided, but Leto II later uses this eventuality as part of his Golden Path to ultimately save humanity. Once he himself begins the transformation into a human/sandworm hybrid, he eradicates all desert on Arrakis except for a small area he makes his base of operations, and destroys all of the sandworms save one—himself. After his death some 3,500 years later in God Emperor of Dune, Leto's worm- body is transformed back into sandtrout. Within only a few centuries, these sandtrout return Arrakis (thence called 'Rakis') to a desert. In Heretics of Dune, all life on Arrakis is destroyed (and the entire surface of the planet slagged into oblivion) by the Honored Matres in a failed attempt to eliminate the latest Duncan Idaho ghola. The Bene Gesserit escape with a single sandworm, and drown it to revert the worm back into sandtrout. In Chapterhouse: Dune the Bene Gesserit use these sandtrout to begin a new sandworm cycle on their homeworld of Chapterhouse, which is terraformed into desert for this purpose. Finally, in Sandworms of Dune, some sandworms are revealed to be alive and well, having sensed the upper crust would be destroyed, and therefore burrowed even deeper, escaping the blast. ===== In Rome, American diplomat Robert Thorn is in a hospital where his wife Katherine gives birth to a boy. Robert is told the infant died. Moments later, the hospital chaplain, Father Spiletto, urges Robert to secretly adopt an infant whose mother died in childbirth. Robert agrees, but does not inform Katherine that the child is not their own. They name him Damien. Five years later, when Damien is a young child, Robert is appointed United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Soon after, mysterious events plague the Thorns: A large Rottweiler appears near the Thorn home; Damien's nanny hangs herself during his fifth birthday party; a mysterious new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, arrives unannounced; Damien violently resists entering a church; and Damien's presence terrifies animals. Katherine increasingly fears Damien and distances herself from him. Father Brennan, a Catholic priest, warns Robert about Damien's mysterious origins, hinting he is not human. He later tells Robert that Katherine is pregnant and Damien will prevent the child's birth. Afterward, Brennan is fatally impaled by a lightning rod thrown from a church roof during a sudden storm. Katherine subsequently tells Robert she is pregnant and wants an abortion. Learning of Father Brennan's death, photographer Keith Jennings investigates Damien. He notices shadows in photographs of the nanny and of Father Brennan that seem to presage their bizarre deaths. A photo of Keith himself shows the same shadow across his neck. Keith shows Robert the photos and tells him he also believes that Damien is a threat. While Robert is away, Damien knocks Katherine over an upstairs railing to the floor below, seriously injuring her and causing her to miscarry. Keith accompanies Robert to Rome to investigate Damien's birth parents. They learn a fire destroyed maternity records in the hospital years prior, and that the fire killed most of the staff on duty. They eventually trace Father Spiletto to a monastery in Subiaco, where they find him mute, blind in one eye, and partly paralyzed. Spiletto writes the name of an ancient Etruscan cemetery in Cerveteri, where Damien's biological mother is buried. Robert and Keith enter the cemetery at night, and find a jackal carcass in Damien's mother's grave; in the plot next to it is a child's skeleton with a shattered skull. Robert realizes that the jackal is Damien's inhuman mother, and that the child in the plot next to her is his own murdered son, killed so Damien could take his place. Keith reiterates Father Brennan's belief that Damien is the Antichrist, whose coming is supported by a conspiracy of Satanists. A pack of wild Rottweilers drive Robert and Keith out of the cemetery. Robert calls Katherine, still in the hospital, and tells her she must leave London. She agrees, but is confronted in her hospital room by Mrs. Baylock, who throws her through the window to her death. Meanwhile, Robert and Keith travel to Israel to meet Carl Bugenhagen, an archaeologist and expert on the Antichrist; he explains that if Damien is the true Antichrist he will bear a birthmark in the shape of three sixes. Carl gives Robert seven mystical daggers from Megiddo, and advises him to use them to murder Damien on hallowed ground. Robert, repulsed by the thought of killing a child, throws the daggers into a construction site. When Keith attempts to retrieve them, he is decapitated by a sheet of glass that slides from a truck bed. Robert returns to London, and, upon examining Damien, finds the birthmark on his scalp. Mrs. Baylock enacts a violent attack on Robert, but he ultimately stabs her to death. Armed with the daggers, Robert forces Damien into the car and drives to a nearby cathedral. His erratic driving draws attention of police, who trail him. Robert drags a screaming Damien into the church and lays him on the altar. Robert raises a dagger to stab Damien, pleading for forgiveness from God, but is shot to death by police who have entered the church. A short time later, the double funeral of Katherine and Robert is attended by the President of the United States. Damien, observing the funerary procession, calmly smiles. The film then concludes with Revelation 13:18 ===== Title page of the author's 1890 manuscript of Hedda Gabler Hedda, the daughter of an aristocratic and enigmatic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and reliable academic who continued his research during their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she never loved him, but married him because she thinks her years of youthful abandon are over. The reappearance of George's academic rival, Eilert Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Eilert, a writer, is also a recovered alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Eilert shows signs of rehabilitation and has just published a bestseller in the same field as George. When Hedda and Eilert talk privately together, it becomes apparent that they are former lovers. The critical success of his recently published work makes Eilert a threat to George, as Eilert is now a competitor for the university professorship George had been counting on. George and Hedda are financially overstretched, and George tells Hedda that he will not be able to finance the regular entertaining or luxurious housekeeping that she had been expecting. Upon meeting Eilert, however, the couple discovers that he has no intention of competing for the professorship, but rather has spent the last few years working on what he considers to be his masterpiece, the "sequel" to his recently published work. Apparently jealous of Thea's influence over Eilert, Hedda hopes to come between them. Despite his drinking problem, she encourages Eilert to accompany George and his associate, Judge Brack, to a party. George returns home from the party and reveals that he found the complete manuscript (the only copy) of Eilert's great work, which the latter lost while drunk. George is then called away to his aunt's house, leaving the manuscript in Hedda's possession. When Eilert next sees Hedda and Thea, he tells them that he has deliberately destroyed the manuscript. Thea is mortified, and it is revealed that it was the joint work of Eilert and herself. Hedda says nothing to contradict Eilert or to reassure Thea. After Thea has left, Hedda encourages Eilert to commit suicide, giving him a pistol that had belonged to her father. She then burns the manuscript and tells George she has destroyed it to secure their future. When the news comes that Eilert did indeed kill himself, George and Thea are determined to try to reconstruct his book from Eilert's notes, which Thea has kept. Hedda is shocked to discover from Judge Brack that Eilert's death, in a brothel, was messy and probably accidental; this "ridiculous and vile" death contrasts with the "beautiful and free" one that Hedda had imagined for him. Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Hedda that if he reveals what he knows, a scandal will likely arise around her. Hedda realizes that this places Brack in a position of power over her. Leaving the others, she goes into her smaller room and shoots herself in the head. The others in the room assume that Hedda is simply firing shots, and they follow the sound to investigate. The play ends with George, Brack, and Thea discovering her body. ===== A married 19-year-old, Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker), is sent to prison after a botched armed robbery attempt with her equally young husband, Tom, who is killed. While receiving her initial prison physical, she learns that she is two months pregnant. Marie has trouble adjusting to the monotonous and cutthroat world of the women's prison. She meets Kitty Stark (Betty Garde), a murderous shoplifter, who says once Marie gets out, Kitty will get her a job "boosting" (shoplifting). Marie does not want to get involved in crime, but Kitty explains the realities of prison life: "You get tough or you get killed. You better wise up before it's too late." Told she can be paroled in 10 months, Marie witnesses prisoner after prisoner being "flopped back"—granted parole—but then not released from jail because no job had been arranged by her parole officer. One flopped-back prisoner, June (Olive Deering), kills herself given the hopelessness of her situation. For Marie, this steadily drains her own hopes of getting out early. Despite the hardships under sadistic matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson), Marie gives birth to a healthy baby. She plans to "temporarily" grant full custody to her mother, with the intent of getting the child back after she is released, but Marie's callous step-father had already decided not to allow the baby into his house. Marie's mother uses the excuses that she is "too old" and "hasn't a penny in [her] name" as reasons why she cannot help Marie. After Marie is denied a parole, she tries half-heartedly to escape. She is not punished for that attempt, although prison authorities do force her to give up her child for adoption. The arrival of "vice queen" Elvira Powell (Lee Patrick) sets off a rivalry with Kitty. Elvira bribes Harper to put Kitty in solitary confinement, where Kitty is beaten. When a kitten is found in the jail yard, Marie attempts to make it a pet, but Harper tries to take the little animal away, an action that prompts the inmates to riot. The kitten is accidentally killed during the melee; and after order is restored by the staff, Marie is punished this time, also being sent to "solitary". Before taking Marie to an isolated cell, Harper shaves Marie's head, symbolically stripping her of her innocence. Harper has disagreements with the sympathetic reformist prison superintendent, Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead), especially after this latest incident with Marie. Because Harper is a political appointee, the police commissioner refuses to fire her and instead asks for Benton's resignation. When Benton declares that she will demand a public hearing, the resignation issue is dropped. Kitty finally rejoins her fellow inmates after serving a month in solitary confinement, but she is distraught and mentally unstable. After being harassed by Harper in the prison cafeteria, Kitty stabs Harper to death as the inmates watch and make no attempt to stop it. Marie—now hardened by her exposure to career criminals and sadistic guards—actually encourages Kitty in the fatal assault. Up for parole once again, Marie has allegedly found a "cashier's job" outside the prison. In reality, the job is simply a ruse to get released so she can join Elvira Powell's shoplifting gang. Marie leaves the institution a cynical, unscrupulous woman after living and surviving there for 15 months. Before she departs, Benton asks her why she is going into crime when she could go back to school. Marie says she got all the education she needed in prison. After she leaves, an office assistant asks Benton what to do with Marie's file. Benton replies, "Keep it active. She'll be back." ===== A shoplifter (Lee Grant) is arrested in New York City, and her booking occurs at the 21st police precinct. Outside, Det. Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas) is sharing a romantic moment with his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker), and he discusses the children he would like to have. McLeod returns to the precinct to process a young embezzler named Arthur Kindred (Craig Hill). McLeod then encounters Endicott Sims (Warner Anderson), lawyer of "Dutchman" Karl Schneider (George Macready), a New Jersey doctor who has had his license revoked and is now wanted on murder charges. Sims informs Lieutenant Monaghan (Horace McMahon) that Schneider wants to turn himself in to avoid the wrath of McLeod, who has been conducting ongoing harassment against the doctor, who is known to perform abortions. McLeod professes his hatred of Schneider, and in fact all criminals, lamenting that the law merely "coddles" them. Two burglars, Charley Gennini (Joseph Wiseman) and Lewis Abbott (Michael Strong), are brought in next. With the help of his partner Lou Brody (William Bendix), McLeod interrogates the men, and manages to turn Abbott against Gennini. Further investigation proves that Gennini essentially makes a living out of thievery. When his record comes in, it turns out that he has done far worse than stealing. When Schneider arrives with Sims, McLeod taunts him, then explains that the doctor's assistant, Miss Hatch (Gladys George), has implicated Schneider and will pick him out of a line-up. To McLeod's disgust, Schneider has bribed Hatch with a fur stole, and she fails to identify him. McLeod explodes and calls Hatch a liar before dismissing her. He admits to reporter Joe Feinson (Luis Van Rooten) that his hatred for his father and "his criminal mind" (who drove his mother to a lunatic asylum) is what fuels his crusade against evil-doers. McLeod starts to take Schneider to Bellevue Hospital where a young victim of Schneider's work is being treated. However, on the way he is told that she has died and without her identification, there is no case against Schneider. As they head back to the precinct, Schneider threatens McLeod with information he claims to have on the detective, taunting him that he has a lot of pull in high places. McLeod responds by slapping and punching Schneider, who collapses. As an ambulance is called, Schneider mentions the name "Giacoppetti" and a woman to Lt. Monaghan, which presumably has something to do with McLeod. When Sims comes by to protest his client's treatment, he inadvertently reveals—only in the presence of Monaghan—that the woman is Mary McLeod. Arthur's boss, Albert R. Pritchett (James Maloney), comes to the precinct to file charges against Arthur. A family friend, Susan (Cathy O'Donnell), arrives and gives Pritchett $120 she has scraped together, hoping no charges are filed against Arthur. McLeod tries to dissuade Susan, but she pleads with Pritchett, swearing that the funds will be repaid the next day. Arthur stole the money to pay for an expensive dinner date with Susan's beautiful sister, Joy, in a vain attempt to rekindle their earlier romance. Brody sympathizes with Arthur because the young man had served in the U.S. Navy during the war, and was about the same age as Brody's son, who died on the in 1942. Brody talks Pritchett into accepting Susan's money but McLeod, who is angered by Brody's interference, essentially bullies Pritchett into filing charges, stating that a first offender always becomes a repeat offender (using Gennini as an example), and no mercy should be shown. Mary McLeod is asked to come to the station by Lt. Monaghan, who in the privacy of his office inquires about her relationship with Giacoppetti, a racketeer, or Schneider. She denies knowing them, but when Giacoppetti walks in and greets her, she bursts into tears. Giacoppetti, pressured by Monaghan, admits that Mary had gotten pregnant while they dated earlier, and she went to Schneider for an abortion. Monaghan needs to know if McLeod knows about any of this history (as it provides a motive for his treatment of Schneider). Mary is therefore reduced to confessing to her husband about her past, and asks his forgiveness. McLeod threatens Giacoppetti with assault, then brutally responds to Mary that he'd rather die than find out his wife is "a tramp", and asks if her infertility was caused by Schneider's abortion. Stunned and severely hurt by Jim's reaction, Mary leaves in tears. Susan professes her love for Arthur. The shoplifter is taken to night court, and as she leaves she bids a cheerful goodbye to all in the squad room, to the bewilderment and amusement of the detectives. McLeod, meantime, urged by Brody and Feinson to forgive his wife, tries to curb his anger. Mary returns to the station to say goodbye to McLeod and he pleads with her to stay. Mary relents, but after a snide comment made by Sims about Mary's love life, McLeod falls back on his anger and asks how many men there were before he met her, admitting he cannot wash away the "dirty pictures" in his mind. Calling him cruel and vengeful, she leaves McLeod for good, not wanting to be "driven to a lunatic asylum". Gennini, taking advantage of the commotion started when a victim runs into the station yelling she's been robbed, grabs a gun from a policeman's holster and shoots McLeod when he deliberately advances on him. McLeod, in his dying words, asks for his wife's forgiveness and has Brody tear up the charges against Arthur Kindred. McLeod then begins an Act of Contrition, which Brody finishes after McLeod dies. A distressed Brody then releases Arthur while admonishing him "not to make a monkey out of me". Arthur and Susan leave as Monaghan calls for a priest, and Joe calls his newspaper to inform them of McLeod's death, "in the line of duty". ===== Following the death of her newborn baby, war widow LouLou Mason accepts a temporary two-week assignment as nursemaid to the infant son of corset manufacturer Frederick K. Begley, who lost his wife in childbirth. She ingratiates herself with the family and eventually becomes a permanent fixture. When she declines Frederick's proposal, he marries his secretary Alicia Torgersen, who fires LouLou following her honeymoon. LouLou finds employment with wealthy Henry and Fleur Palfrey and begins to care for baby Robbie. Older son Harrison is expelled from boarding school due to poor grades and bad behavior and returns home with his tutor, Jerry Kean. When Jerry is offered a job in Beirut, he impulsively proposes to LouLou, who accepts. While waiting for his fiancée to pack, Jerry speaks to Fleur, who warns him about marrying a woman he barely knows. Having second thoughts, he suggests he and LouLou wait a few months before marrying, and she remains with the Palfreys. Years pass, and LouLou is nursemaid to Stephanie, the twelve- year-old daughter of fading musical actress Annie Rawlins. When Annie is delayed at an audition and misses Stephanie's confirmation, the girl tells her friends LouLou is her mother. Realizing the girl has become too attached to her, Loulou decides to find work elsewhere. Just prior to the start of World War II, LouLou accepts a job with Helen and Hugh Williams. Hugh joins the military and is injured in battle, prompting his wife to join him in England. Two years pass, and the widowed Helen, who still has not returned home, stops sending money to support her son Tony. LouLou accepts responsibility for the boy and raises him as her own. Years later, when Helen notifies her she is returning with her new husband, LouLou flees to Florida with Tony, but is arrested and charged with kidnapping. Although he is sympathetic to LouLou's situation, the district attorney is compelled by law to return Tony to Helen. Now too old to be entrusted with the care of a baby, LouLou accepts a janitorial job in an elementary school in order to be close to children. When she visits an ophthalmologist, she discovers he is Robbie Palfrey, the now adult son of her former employers. Robbie invites her to his home for dinner the following week and arranges for all the children for whom she cared to be there with their spouses. As LouLou catches up with her former charges, Robbie announces he wants her to be the nanny for his own children. ===== "Doc" Delaney (Burt Lancaster) is a recovering alcoholic married to Lola (Shirley Booth). Doc had once been a promising medical student, but dropped out of college when Lola became pregnant with his child, marrying her because her father had thrown her out of the house. The child later died, and in the process rendered Lola unable to have any further children. Doc spent the next several years drinking away the pain, in the process ruining his career and wasting his inheritance from his parents on alcohol. He eventually joined Alcoholics Anonymous and was able to quit drinking, though he still keeps a bottle in the house as a reminder of what drinking did to his life. Marie (Terry Moore) is a young college student who rents a spare room from the Delaneys. One day she brings home a young man, Turk (Richard Jaeckel), a star on the track team. He's wearing his track outfit, which shows off his muscles, as she intends to use him as a figure model for a poster she's doing for a major athletic competition being held in the town. Mrs. Delaney encourages the couple in their modeling session, though Doc, who walks in to find Turk under-dressed, thinks it borders on pornography. Later, after Marie and Turk leave, it is revealed that Marie is engaged to another man, Bruce, who is away but due to return soon. As Marie's infatuation with Turk grows, Doc becomes agitated. Lola reminds him that Marie is much like she had been in her younger days, before she became "old, fat, and sloppy". Doc calms down, but still voices his disapproval of Marie seeing another boy while Bruce is away. One night, Turk and Marie return from a school dance. Marie forgot her key, so Turk enters through a window, unlocks the front door, and lets Marie in. They sneak into Marie's room. Doc sees them together and, deeply upset, goes back to the kitchen and reaches for his bottle hidden in the cupboard. Meanwhile, Marie changes her mind about Turk and asks him to leave. He calls her a "tease" and tries to force himself on her, but is unsuccessful. He leaves, unseen by Doc, through a window. The next morning Doc takes the whiskey he has not touched for a year from the cabinet and disappears for hours, missing the dinner Lola planned for Marie and Bruce. He returns in a drunken rage, lashing out at Lola and threatening her with a knife. She manages to call two of Doc's AA friends to take him to the hospital. As he follows her into the parlor, Doc stumbles and drops the knife, then passes out while trying to choke her. A neighbor hears the commotion and comes running over, just as the two men come to take a raving Doc away. The next day, a shaken Lola calls her mother to see if she can stay there for a few days, but learns that her father still will not welcome her into the family house. Her mother offers to come to Lola's, but Lola declines. Bruce returns and carries Marie away, where they get married. Her drawing is featured in the athletic poster and Turk becomes the star of the competition. Doc returns from the hospital and is welcomed by Lola. She again resumes the role of the doting wife, describing in detail the different things she has for his breakfast. He realizes that he loves her after all, and begs her never to leave him. Lola promises to stay with him forever, and he says "it's good to be home". ===== Myra Hudson (Crawford) is a successful Broadway playwright who rejects Lester Blaine (Palance) as the lead in her new play. Later, she meets Lester on a train bound for San Francisco, is swept off her feet, and, after a brief courtship, marries him. Lester learns that Myra is writing her will and plans to leave the bulk of her fortune to a foundation. He plots her murder in cahoots with Irene Neves (Gloria Grahame), an old girlfriend hiding in the wings. Myra discovers their plans and concocts a diabolical scheme to kill Lester and place the blame on Irene, but the complex timing—so she herself is provided with an alibi—starts to unravel. Lester learns of Myra's intentions and chases her through the streets of San Francisco in his car while she is on foot. Myra is able to avoid him, but Lester mistakes Irene for Myra (she has dressed to resemble her) and is about to run her down. Myra shouts to stop him, but he realizes too late. He tries to avoid Irene but crashes, killing them both. Myra overhears the two pronounced dead and breathes a sigh of relief as she walks off safely into the night. ===== Oscar-winning star Margaret "Maggie" Elliot (Bette Davis) is a bankrupt actress struggling to accept her new, non-wealthy reality. She is in denial, and confident she somehow can re-launch her career to its earlier brilliance. After suffering another big disappointment while vainly striving to get one good role, she gets drunk, gets arrested for DUI, and spends a night in jail. She is bailed out by Jim Johannsen (Sterling Hayden), a younger former actor whom she had helped in the past. Jim, now comfortably settled as the owner of a boatyard, admits that he has loved her ever since those days, and helped by Margaret's daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood), tries to help Margaret see that her days as a famous actress are already over. She reluctantly tries to work as a saleswoman in an upscale department store, but gossip from two customers wounds her pride and she runs out. Her old agent manages to get her a screen test for a role in a film she'd always wanted to play. She takes a screen test for a supporting role, believing that if she plays that character as a sexy younger woman, rather than the middle-aged frump she is seen as by the studio, she might be able to win the more coveted lead role. It does not work. At a Hollywood party thrown by her agent, she is offered a role in a new film about a fallen star who can't face the fact that it's all over. This new script is dedicated to washed-up actors and actresses who are obsessed by their former glory, by what they used to look like, what kind of an impression they’d make to stay on top, and how they behaved -- demanding, bribing, power-hungry. It would be a story about those who can't look down and can't accept that their moment of glory is over and that the world has passed them by. Hearing the pitch delivered right to her face, and that she'd be the perfect actress to play the role, seems to have finally helped Margaret realize the cold truth about her future. She realizes that her film career is over, and she flees the party to the open arms of Jim and the love and acceptance of her daughter, from whom Margaret desperately tried to shield her failing career. ===== The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an "unjoined person." Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness. The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away are disappointed and, her fantasy destroyed, a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown's future plans. ===== Jane Froman (Susan Hayward) is a humble staff singer at a Cincinnati radio station, but in no time she rises to the uppermost rungs of network radio fame. Jane gratefully marries her agent Don Ross (David Wayne), but soon both realize they're not truly in love. Jane's popularity soars, and she leaves on a European tour. When her plane crashes, she is partially crippled. Unable to walk without crutches, she nonetheless goes on to entertain U.S. troops during World War II. ===== The film opens on a woodcutter (; Kikori, played by Takashi Shimura) and a priest (; Tabi Hōshi, Minoru Chiaki) sitting beneath the Rashōmon city gate to stay dry in a downpour. A commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) joins them and they tell him that they have witnessed a disturbing story, which they then begin recounting to him. The woodcutter claims he found the body of a murdered samurai three days earlier while looking for wood in the forest. As he testifies he first found a woman's hat (which belonged to the wife), then a samurai cap (which belonged to the bandit), then cut rope (which had bound the husband), then an amulet, and finally he came upon the body. Upon discovering the body, he says, he fled in a panic to notify the authorities. The priest says that he saw the samurai with his wife travelling the same day the murder happened. Both men are then summoned to testify in court, where a fellow witness presents the captured bandit Tajōmaru (), who claims to have followed the couple after coveting the woman when he glimpsed her in the forest. ===== The story recounts the encounter between a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rashōmon, the southern gate of the then-ruined city of Kyoto, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes dumped. The current name of the gate in the story, but not the plot, comes from the Noh play Rashōmon (c. 1420). The man, a lowly servant recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to become a thief to survive in the barren times. He goes upstairs, after noticing some firelight there, and encounters a woman who is stealing hair from the dead bodies on the second floor. He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of righteousness even if it meant starvation. He is furious with the woman. But the old woman tells him that she steals hair to make wigs, so she can survive. In addition, the woman who she is currently robbing cheated people in her life by selling snake meat and claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it allowed the woman to survive — and so in turn this entitles her to steal from the dead person, because if she doesn't, she too will starve. The man responds: "You won't blame me, then, for taking your clothes. That's what I have to do to keep from starving to death". He then brutally robs the woman of her robe and disappears into the night. ===== In 1980, the aircraft carrier is departing Naval Station Pearl Harbor for naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The ship takes on a civilian observer — U.S. Defense Department efficiency expert Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) — on the orders of his reclusive employer, Mr. Tideman, whose secretive major defense contractor company designed and built the nuclear- powered warship. Once at sea, the Nimitz encounters a mysterious electrically- charged storm-like vortex. While the ship passes through it, radar and other equipment becomes unresponsive and everyone aboard falls into agony. Initially unsure of what has happened to them, and having lost radio contact with U.S. Pacific Fleet Command at Pearl Harbor, Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas), commander of the aircraft carrier, fears that there may have been a nuclear strike on Hawaii or the continental United States. He orders general quarters and launches an RF-8 Crusader reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft returns after photographing Hawaii but the images appear to date from 1941, showing an intact row of U.S. Pacific fleet battleships moored on "Battleship Row" at Pearl Harbor, a sight which has not existed for four decades. When a surface contact is spotted on the radar, Yelland launches the ready alert, with two Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jets from VF-84, to intercept. The patrol witnesses a civilian wooden yacht, Gatsby, being strafed and destroyed by two Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighters, killing three of the crew members. The F-14s are ordered to drive off the Zeros without firing, but when the Zeros inadvertently head towards the Nimitz, Yelland gives clearance to shoot them down. The Nimitz rescues survivors from the yacht: prominent U.S. Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning), his aide Laurel Scott (Katherine Ross), her dog Charlie, and one of the two downed Zero pilots (Soon-Tek Oh). Commander Owens (James Farentino), an amateur historian, recognizes Chapman as a politician who could have been Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate (and his potential successor) during his final re-election bid, had Chapman not disappeared shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. When a Grumman E-2 Hawkeye scouting craft discovers the Japanese fleet task force further north in unpatrolled waters, poised to launch its attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nimitz crew realize that they have been transported back in time to the day before the attack. Yelland has to decide whether to destroy the Japanese fleet and alter the course of history or to stand by and allow history to proceed as they know it. The American civilians and the Zero pilot are kept isolated, but while being questioned, the Japanese pilot obtains a rifle, kills two Marine guards, and takes Laurel, Owens, and Lasky hostage. He threatens to kill them unless he is given access to a radio to warn the Japanese fleet about the Nimitz. Lasky tells Commander Owens to recite and describe the secret plans for the Japanese attack, and the Japanese pilot lowers his guard and is overcome and shot by Marines. Laurel and Owens develop an attraction for each other. Chapman is outraged that Yelland knows of the impending Japanese attack but has not told anyone else, and demands to be taken to Pearl Harbor to warn the naval authorities. Yelland instead orders Owens to fly the civilians and sufficient supplies via helicopter to an isolated Hawaiian island, assuming they will eventually be rescued. When they arrive, Chapman realizes he has been tricked and tries to force the pilot to fly to Pearl Harbor, but instead causes an explosion that destroys the craft and kills everyone on board, which strand Laurel and Owens on the island. The Nimitz launches a massive strike force against the incoming Japanese forces, but the time storm returns. After a futile attempt to outrun the storm, Yelland recalls the strike force, and the ship and its aircraft safely return to 1980, leaving the past relatively unchanged. Upon the return of the Nimitz to Pearl Harbor, the Pacific Fleet admirals board the ship to investigate the Nimitzs bizarre disappearance. Meanwhile, Lasky leaves the ship with Laurel's dog, Charlie, and encounters the mysterious Mr. Tideman face-to-face. Tideman is revealed to be a much older Owens, along with his wife, Laurel. Owens says to Lasky that they have much to talk about. ===== Leslie Caron as Lili Naive country girl Lili (Leslie Caron) arrives in a provincial town in hopes of locating an old friend of her late father, only to find that he has died. A local shopkeeper offers her employment, then tries to take advantage of her. She is rescued by a handsome, smooth-talking, womanizing carnival magician, Marc, whose stage name is Marcus the Magnificent (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Lili is infatuated with him and follows him to the carnival, where on learning that she is 16, he helps her get a job as waitress. Lili is fired on her first night when she spends her time watching the magic act instead of waiting tables. When Lili consults the magician for advice, he tells her to go back to where she came from. Homeless and heartbroken, she contemplates suicide, unaware that she is being watched by the carnival's puppeteer Paul (Mel Ferrer). He strikes up a conversation with her through his puppets—a brash red-haired boy named Carrot Top, a sly fox, Reynardo, a vain ballerina, Marguerite, and a cowardly giant, Golo. Soon, a large group of carnival workers is enthralled watching Lili's interaction with the puppets, as she is seemingly unaware that there is a puppeteer behind the curtain. Afterwards, Paul and his partner Jacquot (Kurt Kasznar) offer Lili a job in the act, talking with the puppets. She accepts, and her natural manner of interacting with the puppets becomes the most valuable part of the act. Paul was once a well-known dancer, but suffered a leg injury in World War II. He regards the puppet show as far inferior to his old career, which embitters him. Lili refers to him as "the Angry Man". Although he falls in love with Lili, he can only express his feelings through the puppets. Fearing rejection due to his physical impairment, he keeps his distance by being unpleasant to her. Lili continues to dream about the handsome magician, wishing to replace his assistant Rosalie (Zsa Zsa Gabor). Soon, Marcus receives an offer to perform at the local casino and decides to leave the carnival, to the joy of Rosalie, who announces to everyone that she is his wife. Lili is heartbroken and innocently invites Marc to her trailer. His lecherous plans are interrupted by Paul, and he leaves. When Lili finds Marc's wedding ring in the seat cushions and tries to chase him, Paul stops her, calls her a fool, and slaps her. Two impresarios from Paris who have been scouting the show come to see Paul and Jacquot. They recognize Paul as the former dancer and tell him that his act with Lili and the puppets is ingenious. Paul is ecstatic about this and the offer, but Jacquot tells the agents that they will have to let them know. He then tells Paul that Lili is leaving. Lili takes the wedding ring to Marc and tells him that every little girl has to wake up from her girlish dreams. She has decided to leave the carnival. On her way out, she is stopped by the voices of Carrot Top and Reynardo, who ask her to take them with her. As they embrace her, she finds they are shaking. She remembers somebody is behind the curtain and pulls it away to see Paul. Instead of telling her how he feels, he tells her of the agents' offer. She confronts him about the difference between his real self, seemingly incapable of love, and his puppets. He tells her he is the puppets, a creature of many facets and many flaws. He concludes by telling her, "This is business." "Not any more," retorts Lili, who walks away. Walking out of town, she imagines that the puppets, now life-sized, have joined her. As she dances with each puppet in turn, they all turn into Paul. Coming back to reality, Lili runs back to the carnival and into Paul's arms. They kiss passionately as the puppets applaud. ===== Ava Gardner in Mogambo Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (Ava Gardner) arrives at a remote African outpost, looking for a rich maharajah acquaintance, only to find he has cancelled his trip owing to unrest in his realm. While waiting for the next river boat out, she spars with hardworking big game hunter Victor Marswell (Clark Gable), who initially views her as a certain disreputable type. They later develop a mutual attraction and make love. When the river boat returns, it brings Donald Nordley (Donald Sinden) and his wife Linda (Grace Kelly). Honey Bear takes the steamer out at Marswell's urging, although she would prefer to stay with him and he expresses some regret at their parting. The Nordleys wish to go on safari to record the cries of gorillas. Marswell declines to guide them there due to the difficulties involved and insists that they be guided on the agreed route by his assistant, despite the Nordley's protests. Honey Bear rejoins the group after the steamer runs aground. Clark Gable and Grace Kelly in Mogambo Marswell rescues Linda from a panther and Honey Bear sees that they are attracted to one another. After Marswell talks to Linda privately, he agrees to take the Nordleys into gorilla country, while also taking Honey Bear part of the way to join the District Commissioner, who can then take her back to civilization. However, they find the commissioner mortally wounded by recently belligerent natives. With reinforcements days away, the small party narrowly escapes, taking the commissioner with them. Meanwhile, a serious romance is developing between Marswell and Linda. Only Donald is blind to the situation. Marswell plans to tell him about how he and Linda feel, but has second thoughts after realizing how much Donald loves his wife and perhaps how she would be better off remaining with him. The situation is aggravated when Marswell reluctantly shoots a gorilla to save Donald, blowing a chance to capture a baby gorilla. Marswell goes back to camp, depressed, and begins drinking heavily in his tent. Honey Bear joins him. When Linda appears, she finds them cuddling. Marswell decides he can fix everything by making Linda hate him and makes a show of this cuddling followed by dismissive remarks about Linda's infatuation with "the White Hunter" to enrage her. Unfortunately, his ploy works too well when Linda shoots him with his own pistol, wounding him in the arm. Honey Bear lies to the others, telling them that Marswell had been making advances to Linda for some time, finally forcing Linda to shoot him in his drunken state. The next day, the party breaks camp to head back, leaving Marswell behind to try to capture young gorillas to pay for the safari. Marswell, acknowledging to himself his feelings for Honey Bear, asks her to stay and then proposes to her, but she rebuffs him. As the canoes set off, however, she suddenly jumps into the water and wades her way back to him. The two embrace. ===== A comedy of manners, the film centers on virtuous actress Patty O'Neill, who meets playboy architect Donald Gresham on the top of the Empire State Building and accepts his invitation to join him for drinks and dinner in his apartment. There she meets Donald's upstairs neighbors, his ex-fiancée Cynthia and her father, roguish David Slater. Both men are determined to seduce the young woman, but they quickly discover Patty is more interested in engaging in spirited discussions about the pressing moral and sexual issues of the day than surrendering her virginity to either one of them. After resisting their amorous advances throughout the night, Patty leaves. The next day she returns to the Empire State Building, where she finds Donald who has missed her and worried all night about her. Donald declares his love for her and proposes marriage to her. ===== Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is thus unable to save the life of Dr. Hudson, a physician renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself. Mrs. Hudson, the widow, moving to Europe after her daughter, Joyce, is married. Merrick progresses in his career, and in the story's climax, gets involved in a railway accident in which Mrs. Hudson suffers serious injury. Merrick is instrumental in her recovery, and Merrick and Mrs. Hudson subsequently marry. ===== A group of teenage girls from Atlanta go to summer camp, and, unbeknownst to the adults, two of them make a bet as to which one will lose her virginity first, with all the girls in camp betting money on the contest. The girls involved in the contest are opposites and rivals: cynical, suspicious and streetwise poor girl Angel Bright (played by Kristy McNichol) and naive, prissy and romantic rich girl Ferris Whitney (played by Tatum O’Neal). The rest of the girls divide into two "teams", each rooting for and egging on either Ferris or Angel. The two girls then choose guys they want to lose their virginity with. Angel targets Randy, a boy from the camp across the lake, and Ferris attempts to seduce Gary Callahan, the (much older) camp counselor. The girls also engage in typical teenage camp behavior, like food fights and singing around a campfire. Both girls discover that sex is not what they thought it would be. Ferris thinks of sex as love and romance and wine and flowers and poetry. She imagines herself swept off her feet by Gary. When she lies about "making love" with him, Gary gets in trouble for having sex with a fifteen-year-old. She discovers that physical sex can have ugly consequences. Her attitude is now more grounded in reality; she has become more like street-wise Angel. Meanwhile, street-wise Angel approaches the same issue from the other side and learns the opposite lesson. She views winning the contest as a purely biological act, "no big deal" and "nothing," as her mother told her. But when she tries to do "it" with Randy in a boathouse, she becomes confused by scary feelings she did not know she had. She behaves defensively, like she doesn't want it. Randy, now also confused, is put off by her recalcitrance and leaves. Angel sees that sex is more than just a mechanical function she can cynically turn on and off. It involves feelings and caring and love. Sex is important, and something she deeply wants. As Randy leaves, she tearfully protests, "But I like you!" She meets Randy a few days later with a much improved attitude—one closer to Ferris's. This time she pays attention, not to condoms and clothing, but to Randy and her feelings about him. As the novel describes it, "All her fear and resistance melted as they kissed. Soon, she didn't know who was touching whom, only that it was wonderful and right and fine." Angel has sex in the boathouse, but doesn't tell the other girls. Ferris remains a virgin and lies about an evening of romantic passion ("We had chilled Chablis; the darkness enveloped us.") In the end, Ferris discovers that sex is not just a fantasy of poetry and flowers and moonlight or something from a novel, that the biological aspect is not necessarily romantic, and Angel discovers that biological sex involves powerful emotions that touch her deeply and transform her soul. Neither girl is quite ready for the emotional aspects that sex brings; When Randy seeks her out, Angel admits that while she likes him, she is not ready for that kind of a relationship (he says they can start over, but Angel observes that it's too late and wouldn't be enough), and Ferris apologizes to Gary. Together, the girls talk with the Camp Director and confess the situation, saving Gary's job. Angel and Ferris, the two outsiders, discover they are more alike than different, and as they return home to their parents, they become best friends. ===== The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot that comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to "V." (or to the various incarnations thereof). Each of these "Stencilised" chapters is set at a different moment of historical crisis; the framing narrative involving Stencil, "V.", and the journals of Stencil's British spy/diplomat father threads the sequences together. The novel's two storylines increasingly converge in the last chapters (the intersecting lines forming a V-shape, as it were), as Stencil hires Benny to travel with him to Malta. ===== Feudal Japan in 1600 is in a precarious peace. The heir to the Taiko (Regent) is too young to rule, and the most powerful five overlords of the land hold power as a Council of Regents. Portugal, with its vast sea power, and the Catholic Church mainly through the Order of the Jesuits, have gained a foothold in Japan and seek to extend their power. But Japanese society is insular and xenophobic. Guns and Europe's modern military capabilities are still a novelty and despised as a threat to Japan's traditional Samurai warrior culture. John Blackthorne, an English pilot, serving on the Dutch warship Erasmus, is the first English pilot to reach Japan. England (and Holland) seek to disrupt Portuguese (and Catholic) relations with Japan and establish ties of their own through trade and military alliances. Erasmus is blown ashore on the Japanese coast at the village of Anjiro during a storm. Blackthorne and the few survivors of his crew are taken captive by local samurai, Kasigi Omi, until his daimyō (feudal lord) and uncle, Kasigi Yabu, arrives. Yabu puts Blackthorne and his crew on trial as pirates, using a Jesuit priest to interpret for Blackthorne. Losing the trial, Blackthorne attacks the Jesuit, rips off his crucifix, and stamps it into the dust to show the daimyō that the priest is his enemy. The Japanese, who know only the Catholic version of Christianity, are shocked by the gesture. Yabu sentences Blackthorne and his crew to death. However, Omi, who is quickly proving himself as a clever adviser, convinces Yabu to spare them to learn more about European ways. Omi throws the Erasmus crew into a pit to "tame" them, and tells them Lord Yabu has ordered that they pick one amongst them (other than Blackthorne) to die, so that the others may live. Blackthorne leads his crew in a futile resistance, but they are easily cowed by Omi. One of them is taken and is boiled alive, to satisfy Lord Yabu, who cruelly enjoys such spectacles. To save his crew, Blackthorne agrees to submit to Japanese authority. He is placed in a household, with his crew held in the pit as hostages to ensure his submission. On Omi's advice, Yabu also plans to confiscate the guns and money recovered from Erasmus, but word reaches Lord Toranaga, the powerful president of the Council of Regents. Toranaga sends his commander in chief, General Toda "Iron Fist" Hiro-matsu, to take Erasmus and the crew to gain an advantage against Toranaga's main rival on the council, Ishido. Blackthorne is given the name Anjin (Japanese for navigator or pilot) because the Japanese can't pronounce his name. Blackthorne insists on being addressed respectfully, as Omi is, and is therefore known as Anjin-san ("Honorable Pilot"). Hiro-matsu confiscates Erasmus and takes Blackthorne and Yabu back to Osaka, where the meeting of the council is taking place at Osaka castle, which is Ishido's stronghold. They travel by one of Toranaga's galleys, piloted by the Portuguese pilot Rodrigues. Blackthorne and Rodrigues find themselves in a grudging friendship, despite being required to stay at arm's length due to their national and religious enmity. Rodrigues tries to kill Blackthorne during a storm by sending him forward just as a wave breaks over the deck, but is himself swept overboard by the next wave. Blackthorne not only saves Rodrigues but safely navigates the ship to Osaka with all aboard. At Osaka, Blackthorne is interviewed by Toranaga through the translation of the Jesuit priest Martin Alvito, who is more sophisticated and higher up in the Jesuit hierarchy, and therefore realizes the dangerous threat that Blackthorne presents. Blackthorne demands that Alvito tell Toranaga that the priest is his enemy. As an English Protestant, Blackthorne tries to turn Toranaga against the (Catholic) Jesuits. He reveals to a surprised Toranaga that the Christian faith is divided and that other European countries intend to sail the Asian waters now that the Spanish Armada (against England) has been defeated. The stunned Alvito is honor-bound to translate as Blackthorne, the sworn enemy of his country and religion tells Toranaga his full story. The interview ends abruptly when Ishido enters, curious about the barbarian Blackthorne. Toranaga has Blackthorne thrown into prison as a ruse to keep him from Ishido. Blackthorne is then befriended by a Franciscan friar in the prison, who reveals further details about the Jesuit conquests and the Portuguese Black Ship, which each year takes the vast profits from the silk trade between China and Japan back to Europe. He is taught some basic Japanese and a little about their culture. Blackthorne is then taken from prison by Ishido's men, but Toranaga intervenes, capturing Blackthorne from his rival and making Ishido lose face. In their next interview, Toranaga has the Lady Toda Mariko translate. She is a convert to Christianity, torn between her new faith and her loyalty, as a samurai, to Toranaga. During this second interview with Blackthorne, Toranaga is incredulous when Blackthorne reveals that Portugal has been granted the right to claim Japan as territory by the Pope, and how the Spanish and Portuguese are exploiting the New World in both South America and Asia in the name of spreading Catholicism. During his stay with Toranaga at Osaka Castle, Blackthorne is attacked (unsuccessfully) by an assassin who is revealed to be a member of the secretive Amida Tong, a group of operatives who train all their lives to be the perfect weapon for one kill. After the assassin is dispatched, Toranaga summons Yabu the next day for questioning, since Hiro-matsu says Yabu would be one who would know how to hire them. Yabu is truthful (but evasive) in his answers, adding more fuel to Toranaga's distrust of him. It is also hinted that the Jesuits may have hired the assassin to kill Blackthorne, to prevent him from revealing any more of what he knows. The Council of Regents' negotiations goes badly and Toranaga is threatened with forced seppuku by the council. To escape the verdict, and to paralyze the council (since five regents are needed for any decisions, and a new appointment seems politically unlikely), Toranaga resigns from the council. He departs the castle in the guise of his consort in a litter, leaving with a train of travelers. Blackthorne inadvertently spots the exchange and, when Ishido shows up at the gate of the castle and nearly discovers Toranaga, Blackthorne saves Toranaga by creating a diversion. In this way, he gradually gains the trust of Toranaga and enters into his service. Toranaga's party reaches the coast but their ship is blockaded by Ishido's boats. At Blackthorne's suggestion, a nearby Portuguese ship is asked to lend cannon to blast the boats clear but, in return, the Jesuits (seeing the presence of a Protestant pilot in Toranaga's confidence as a grave threat) will only offer aid to Toranaga in exchange for physical custody of Blackthorne. Toranaga agrees and the ship clears the coast. The Portuguese pilot, Rodrigues, repays his debt to Blackthorne by having him thrown overboard to swim back to Toranaga's ship. Toranaga's ship escapes by staying alongside the Portuguese ship as both pass through the gap left between the opposing boats. Toranaga and his party return to his ship, which then goes back to Anjiro. Blackthorne slowly builds up his Japanese-language skills and gains an understanding of the Japanese people and their culture, eventually learning to respect it deeply. The Japanese, in turn, are torn over Blackthorne's presence (as he is an outsider and a leader of a disgracefully filthy and uncouth rabble), but also a formidable sailor and navigator with extensive knowledge of the world outside Japan. As such, he is both beneath their contempt and incalculably valuable. A turning point is Blackthorne's attempt at seppuku upon finding out that Yabu has threatened the peasants with death if Blackthorne does not learn Japanese within six months. In so doing, he shows his willingness to give up his life in payment for theirs, despite the Christian injunction against suicide. The Japanese prevent this attempt (as Blackthorne is worth more alive), but they also come to respect this 'barbarian' for his knowledge and attempts to assimilate to their culture. When he also rescues Toranaga in an earthquake, he is granted the status of "samurai" and hatamoto – a high-status vassal similar to a retainer, with the right of direct audience. As they spend more time together, Blackthorne comes to deeply admire both Toranaga and (specifically) Mariko, and they secretly become lovers. There are many internal conflicts between the 'Eastern' (Japanese) and 'Western' cultures – especially to do with diet, obligations, hierarchies, loyalties, and – more particularly – the essence of 'self'. Blackthorne is also torn between his growing affection for Mariko (who is married to a powerful, abusive, and dangerous samurai, Buntaro), his increasing loyalty to Toranaga, and his desire to return to the open seas aboard his ship Erasmus to capture the 'Black Ship' – the main conduit of silk (and wealth) from China to Japan. Eventually, he visits the survivors of his original crew in Yedo, and is astonished at how far he has ventured from the standard 'European' way of life (which he now sees to be filthy, vulgar, and ignorant), and he is actually disgusted by them. Blackthorne's plans to attack the 'Black Ship' are also complicated by his respect and friendship for his Portuguese colleague, Rodrigues, who is now to pilot the vessel. He returns to Osaka by sea with his crew and with many samurai (granted to him by Toranaga). In parallel with this plot, the novel also details the intense power struggle between the various war-lords, Toranaga and Ishido, and also – as a subtext – the political manoeuvring of the Protestant and Catholic powers in the Far East. There is also an internal conflict between Christian daimyōs (who are motivated in part by a desire to preserve and expand their (new) religion) and the daimyōs who oppose the Christians, as followers of foreign beliefs and representatives of the 'barbarian' cultural and fiscal influence on their society. In the novel, Ishido is holding many family members of the other daimyōs as hostages in Osaka, referring to them as "guests". As long as he has these hostages, the other daimyōs, including Toranaga, do not dare to attack him. Unforeseen by Toranaga, a replacement regent has also been chosen. Ishido hopes to lure or force Toranaga into the castle and, when all the regents are present, obtain from them an order for Toranaga to commit seppuku. To extricate Toranaga from this situation, Mariko goes to what will be her likely death at Osaka Castle – to face down Ishido and to obtain the hostages' release. At the castle, Mariko (in response to Toranaga's orders) defies Ishido and forces him to either dishonor himself (by admitting to holding the Samurai families as hostages) or to back down and let them leave. When Mariko tries to fulfill Toranaga's orders and to leave the castle, a battle ensues between Ishido's samurai and her escort, until she is forced to return. However, she states that since she cannot disobey an order from her liege lord, Toranaga, she is disgraced and will commit suicide. As she is about to do so, Ishido gives her the papers to leave the castle on the next day. But that night, a group of ninja that Ishido has hired, aided by Yabu, who had previously been Toranaga's vassal, slips into Toranaga's section of the castle to kidnap Mariko. However, she and Blackthorne (who accompanied her, but was not aware of Mariko's plot) and the other ladies of Toranaga's "court", escape into a locked room. As the ninja prepare to blow the door open with explosives, Mariko stands against the door and declares that this is her act of honourable suicide, and implicates Ishido "in this shameful act". Mariko is killed by the explosion and Blackthorne is injured (temporarily losing his hearing), but Ishido is forced to let Blackthorne and all the other hostages leave the castle, seriously reducing his influence and power over them. Blackthorne then discovers that his ship has been burned, ruining his chances of attacking the Black Ship and gaining riches and also sailing home to England. However, Mariko has left him some money and Toranaga provides him with men to start building a new ship. Toranaga orders Yabu – who he learns had helped the attack in Osaka with the aim of being on the winning side – to commit seppuku for his treachery. Yabu complies, giving his own prized katana (samurai sword), which had been previously given to him by Toranaga, to Blackthorne, saying that no one else deserves the blade. A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them at targets, giving them morsels, and bringing them back to his fist, and then re-hooding them. There are other recurring themes of Eastern values, as opposed to Western values; masculine (patriarchal) values as opposed to human values, etc. The last chapter involves Toranaga letting his prize peregrine falcon fly free, as he reveals his inner monologue: that he himself had ordered Blackthorne's ship to be burned, as a way to placate the Christian daimyōs, and to save Blackthorne's life from them, as well as to bring them to his side against Ishido. He then encourages Blackthorne to build another ship, although he will eventually have that one burned as well, as Japan – in that era – can only survive properly without Western influences. It is Blackthorne's karma (destiny) to never leave Japan; and Mariko's karma to die gloriously for her lord, and for Toranaga's own karma (and purpose) to become eventually Shogun – Supreme Military Dictator, with absolute power. In a brief epilogue after the final Battle of Sekigahara, Ishido is captured alive (disgracefully). In reference to an old prophecy that Ishido would "die an old man with his feet firmly planted in the earth, the most famous man in the land", Toranaga has him buried up to his neck by the eta villagers, with passers-by being offered the opportunity to saw at the most famous neck in the realm with a bamboo saw. The novel states that "Ishido lingered three days and died very old". ===== On January 25, 2010, four Republican conservative activists, including Stan Dai, Joseph Basel, both 24; Robert Flanagan, son of Bill Flanagan, acting U.S. Attorney in Louisiana; and conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe, were arrested by US Marshals for their role in a plot to hack the phone system of Landrieu's New Orleans office to record her and her staff's conversations. Two of the alleged co-conspirators posed as telephone repair technicians in order to gain access to the telephone system. O'Keefe admitted to secretly "recording" the interactions with the staff with his cell phone and aiding in the "planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation."Special Agent Stephen Rayes, "Affidavit", foxnews.com; accessed January 5, 2015. On March 27, 2010, the four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses, a misdemeanor charge. On May 26, 2010 all four pleaded guilty before Magistrate Daniel Knowles III in a New Orleans federal court. Three of the four received two years' probation, 75 hours of community service and $1,500 fines; while James O'Keefe received a sentence of three years' probation, 100 hours of community service and a $1,500 fine. ===== In the slum neighborhood of Five Points, Manhattan, in 1846, two gangs have engaged in a final battle (or "challenge") in Paradise Square over "who holds sway over the Five Points"; these two factions participating in this event are the Nativist Protestants led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, and a group of Irish Catholic immigrants, the "Dead Rabbits", led by "Priest" Vallon. At the end of this battle, Bill kills Vallon and declares the Dead Rabbits outlawed. Having witnessed this, Vallon's young son hides the knife that killed his father and is taken to an orphanage on Blackwell's Island. Sixteen years later, in 1862, Vallon's son, using the alias of Amsterdam, returns to the Five Points seeking revenge and retrieves the knife. An old acquaintance, Johnny Sirocco, familiarizes him with the local clans of gangs and thieves, all of whom pay tribute to Bill, who controls the neighborhood. Amsterdam is finally introduced to Bill, but keeps his past a secret, seeking to be recruited. He learns that many of his father's former loyalists are now in Bill's employ. Each year, Bill celebrates the anniversary of his victory over the Dead Rabbits; Amsterdam plans to murder him secretly during this celebration. Amsterdam becomes attracted to pickpocket and grifter Jenny Everdeane, with whom Johnny is infatuated. Amsterdam gains Bill's confidence and Bill becomes his mentor, involving him in the dealings of corrupt Tammany Hall politician William M. Tweed. Amsterdam saves Bill from an assassination attempt, and is tormented by the thought that he may have done so out of honest devotion. On the evening of the anniversary, Johnny, in a fit of jealousy over Jenny's affections for Amsterdam, reveals Amsterdam's true identity and intentions to Bill. Bill baits Amsterdam with a knife throwing act involving Jenny. As Bill toasts Priest Vallon, Amsterdam throws his knife, but Bill deflects it and wounds Amsterdam with a counter throw. Bill then beats him and burns his cheek with a hot blade. Going into hiding, Jenny nurses Amsterdam back to health and implores him to escape with her to San Francisco. Amsterdam, however, returns to the Five Points seeking vengeance, and announces his return by hanging a dead rabbit in Paradise Square. Bill sends corrupt policeman Mulraney to investigate, but Amsterdam kills him and hangs his body in the square. In retaliation, Bill has Johnny beaten and run through with a pike, leaving it to Amsterdam to end his suffering. The incident garners newspaper coverage, and Amsterdam presents Tweed with a plan to defeat Bill's influence: Tweed will back the candidacy of Monk McGinn for sheriff and Amsterdam will secure the Irish vote for Tammany. Monk wins in a landslide (the election had been rigged by the Dead Rabbits), and a humiliated Bill murders him. McGinn's death prompts an angry Amsterdam to challenge Bill to a gang battle in Paradise Square for order, which Bill accepts. Citywide draft riots break out just as the gangs are preparing to fight, and Union Army soldiers are deployed to control the rioters. As the rival gangs face off, cannon fire from naval ships is fired directly into Paradise Square, interrupting their battle shortly before it begins. Between the cannons, soldiers, and rioters, many of the gang members are killed. Bill and Amsterdam face off against one another until Bill gets wounded by a piece of shrapnel. Amsterdam then uses his father's knife to stab Bill, killing him and ending his reign at last. Afterward, Amsterdam and Jenny leave New York together to start a new life in San Francisco. Before they leave, Amsterdam buries Bill in a cemetery in Brooklyn next to his father. As Amsterdam and Jenny leave the cemetery, the final scene of the film shows the skyline changing in a time-lapse over the next hundred and forty years as modern Manhattan is built, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the World Trade Center, and the cemetery becomes overgrown and forgotten. ===== In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored St. Petersburg dandy, whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties, and nothing more. Upon the death of a wealthy uncle, he inherits a substantial fortune and a landed estate. When he moves to the country, he strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, a starry-eyed young poet named Vladimir Lensky. Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fiancée, the sociable but rather thoughtless Olga Larina. At this meeting, he also catches a glimpse of Olga's sister Tatyana. A quiet, precocious romantic, and the exact opposite of Olga, Tatyana becomes intensely drawn to Onegin. Soon after, she bares her soul to Onegin in a letter professing her love. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not write back. When they meet in person, he rejects her advances politely but dismissively and condescendingly. This famous speech is often referred to as Onegin's Sermon: he admits that the letter was touching, but says that he would quickly grow bored with marriage and can only offer Tatyana friendship; he coldly advises more emotional control in the future, lest another man take advantage of her innocence. Onegin by Dmitry Kardovsky, 1909 Later, Lensky mischievously invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration, promising a small gathering with just Tatyana, Olga, and their parents. When Onegin arrives, he finds instead a boisterous country ball, a rural parody of and contrast to the society balls of St. Petersburg of which he has grown tired. Onegin is irritated with the guests who gossip about him and Tatyana, and with Lensky for persuading him to come. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Olga is insensitive to her fiancé and apparently attracted to Onegin. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel; Onegin reluctantly accepts, feeling compelled by social convention. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse. Tatyana visits Onegin's mansion, where she looks through his books and his notes in the margins, and begins to question whether Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes, and if there is, in fact, no "real Onegin". Tatyana, still brokenhearted by the loss of Onegin, is convinced by her parents to live with her aunt in Moscow in order to find a suitor. Several years pass, and the scene shifts to St. Petersburg. Onegin has come to attend the most prominent balls and interact with the leaders of old Russian society. He sees the most beautiful woman, who captures the attention of all and is central to society's whirl, and he realizes that it is the same Tatyana whose love he had once spurned. Now she is married to an aged prince (a general). Upon seeing Tatyana again, he becomes obsessed with winning her affection, despite the fact that she is married. However, his attempts are rebuffed. He writes her several letters, but receives no reply. Eventually Onegin manages to see Tatyana and offers her the opportunity to finally elope after they have become reacquainted. She recalls the days when they might have been happy, but concludes that that time has passed. Onegin repeats his love for her. Faltering for a moment, she admits that she still loves him, but she will not allow him to ruin her and declares her determination to remain faithful to her husband. She leaves him regretting his bitter destiny. Onegin by Elena Samokysh-Sudkovskaya, 1908 ===== Steven Taylor is a Wall Street financier married to Emily, a translator for the United Nations. When his risky personal investments start unraveling, he intends to access Emily's personal fortune of $100 million to cover his losses. Meanwhile, Emily enjoys an affair with painter David Shaw, and is considering leaving Steven. Steven meets David at a gala, and asks to visit David's studio in Brooklyn. Steven arrives at David's studio the next day. He reveals that he knows about the affair, and used his influence to investigate David's criminal past as an ex- convict with who cons rich women out of their money. Steven offers David $500,000 to murder Emily. When David responds that he and Emily are in love, Steven reminds him his next arrest will mean 15 years imprisonment. Steven hides the door key from Emily's keyring outside the service entrance to their lavish Manhattan co-op apartment. He attends his regular card game, during which time Emily usually stays in. David is to use the key, kill her, and make it look like a robbery. At his card game, Steven takes a break and uses his cellphone to make a call to an automated bank system (adding to his alibi), while using a second phone to call Emily. Emily answers in the kitchen, is attacked by a masked assailant, but stabs him in the neck with a meat thermometer. Steven returns expecting Emily to be dead, but finds the assailant's body. He takes the key from the body and puts it back on Emily's keychain. Police arrive, led by Detective Karaman. They remove the assailant's mask and Karaman notices that Steven is surprisedthe body is not David's. Outside, David watches the body being removed from the building in a black bag and assumes it to be Emily. Steven takes Emily to stay at her mother's. To his surprise, David receives a call from Emily telling him she is fine, and will be back soon. Steven calls David afterwards and organizes a meet on a ferry. Emily visits her coworker, Raquel, and tells her she has decided to leave Steven. Emily wonders aloud what Steven would do if he knew about David. Raquel agrees that Steven might kill her, and that he would get her fortune, as Emily refused to sign a prenuptial agreement. Emily uses her connections to speak to a bank executive, learning of Steven's financial troubles. She then informs Karaman, who says that Steven's alibi is solid, though there is the minor concern that the dead assailant did not have keys of any kind on his body. Still losing money, Steven receives a call from David, who plays an audio tape of the two discussing the plan to kill Emily and demands the full $500,000 or he will turn Steven in. Emily returns to her apartment for the first time, but her key does not work. This spurs her to go to the apartment of the assailant, discovering that her key unlocks his door. Emily confronts Steven with this and his financial problems. Steven responds with David's sordid past and accuses him of being a blackmailer conning her and threatening him. When he saw the dead body in their kitchen, he assumed it was David and took the key from his pocket so as not to implicate Emily. Steven goes to David's loft with the cash, but finds a note directing him to a park. David's phone rings, and Steven answersit is a ticketing agent, confirming David's train to Montreal. Steven meets David in a park and swaps the money for the audio tape. Reaching the private compartment on the train, David opens the bathroom door; Steven lunges out and stabs him, taking David's gun and the money. A dying David laughs, revealing he mailed a copy of the tape to Emily via courier service. Steven rushes home and finds the mail still unopened. He hides the money, gun, and audio tape in his safe before Emily enters the room. Steven showers then dresses for dinner, but Emily suggests they stay in instead. As she heads out to pick up food, she mentions that they should have the locks changed since her key is missing. Steven checks the service entrance, finds the key he hid for David, and realizes that the attacker had put it back after unlocking the door. Emily suddenly appears, revealing that she knows everything now, having found the tape in the safe while he showered. When she turns to leave, Steven attacks her. A brief fight ensues, ending when Emily uses David's gun (from the safe) to kill Steven. Karaman and his officers arrive. Emily plays David's tape, then explains what happened after she told Steven, to which Karaman replies: "What else could you do?" ===== 2 fourth grade students George and Harold decided to create a comic book series called The Adventures Of Captain Underpants and since then everything went wrong their principal Mr. Krupp got powers and became Captain Underpants. So, they have to protect him and bring him back to normal. ===== In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. One April, 14-year-old Harrison Bergeron, an intelligent, athletic, and good- looking teenager, is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel Bergeron, by the government. They are barely aware of the tragedy, as Hazel has "average" intelligence (a euphemism for stupidity), and George has a handicap radio installed by the government to regulate his above-average intelligence. Hazel and George watch ballet on television. They comment on the dancers, who are weighed down to counteract their gracefulness and masked to hide their attractiveness. George's thoughts are continually interrupted by the different noises emitted by his handicap radio, which piques Hazel's curiosity and imagination regarding handicaps. Noticing his exhaustion, Hazel urges George to lie down and rest his "handicap bag", of weights locked around George's neck. She suggests taking a few of the weights out of the bag, but George resists, aware of the illegality of such an action. On television, a news reporter struggles to read the bulletin and hands it to the ballerina wearing the most grotesque mask and heaviest weights. She begins reading in her unacceptably natural, beautiful voice, then apologizes before switching to a more unpleasant voice. Harrison's escape from prison is announced, and a full- body photograph of Harrison is shown, indicating that he is tall and burdened by of handicaps. George recognizes his son for a moment, before having the thought eliminated by his radio. Harrison himself then storms the television studio in an attempt to overthrow the government. He calls himself the Emperor and rips off all of his handicaps, along with the handicaps of a ballerina, whom he proclaims his "Empress". He orders the musicians to play, promising them nobility if they do their best. Unhappy with their initial attempt, Harrison takes control for a short while, and the music improves. After listening and being moved by the music, Harrison and his Empress dance while flying to the ceiling, then pause in mid-air to kiss. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, enters the studio and kills Harrison and the Empress with a ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. She forces the musicians to put on their handicaps, and the television goes dark. George, unaware of the televised incident, returns from the kitchen and asks Hazel why she was crying, to which she replies that something sad happened on television that she cannot remember. He comforts her and they return to their average lives. ===== The Rowan tells the life story of a young orphan, of Prime Talent, from the moment the child's community is wiped out in a mudslide to the time when she becomes a Prime and after a life of loneliness falls in love with a previously undiscovered Prime on Deneb which was being attacked by aliens. The central section of the book is based on McCaffrey's earlier short story "Lady in the Tower" ===== In the early months of the Second World War, Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine sends out merchant raiders to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy responds with hunting groups whose mission is to stop them. The group that finds the heavily armed pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee near South America is outgunned: Admiral Graf Spee is equipped with long-range guns, while the British heavy cruiser has much lighter guns, and the light cruisers and have guns. Despite this, they go straight into the attack. The British are led by Commodore Harwood (Anthony Quayle), with Captain Woodhouse (Ian Hunter) commanding flagship Ajax, Captain Bell (John Gregson) Exeter and Captain Parry (Jack Gwillim) Achilles. The British use their superior numbers to split her fire by attacking from different directions, but Admiral Graf Spee, under Captain Hans Langsdorff (Peter Finch), inflicts much damage on her foes. Exeter is particularly hard hit and is forced to retire from the battle. Admiral Graf Spee sustains some damage, and takes refuge in the neutral port of Montevideo, Uruguay to make repairs. According to international law, the ship may remain in a neutral harbour only long enough to make repairs for seaworthiness, not to refit for battle. The British initially demand that the Uruguayan authorities send Admiral Graf Spee out to sea within 24 hours, as the law dictates, but then change strategy and ask for an extension, in order that reinforcements can arrive for an impending second battle. In fact they are too far away, but local media spreads reports that more British warships have arrived, including battleships and aircraft carriers, when in fact only three cruisers (Exeter having been replaced by ) are waiting on station. Taken in by this ruse, Langsdorff takes his ship out with a skeleton crew aboard. As the onlookers watch from shore, she heads down the River Plate for the open sea, bursts into flames with a series of explosions and is scuttled. This is a relief to the Royal Navy fleet, which was expecting casualties, and they report 'Many a life has been saved today'. Now on board a merchant ship, Langsdorff is complimented for his humane decision by Captain Dove. ===== In the early morning of 6 April 1941 in Belgrade, the capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, two roguish bon vivants Petar Popara, nicknamed Crni (Blacky) and Marko Dren are heading home. They pass through Kalemegdan and shout salutes to Marko's brother Ivan, an animal keeper in the Belgrade Zoo. Marko lets Blacky's pregnant wife Vera know that they enrolled Blacky in the Communist Party (KPJ). ===== > > LYSISTRATA > There are a lot of things about us women > That sadden me, considering how men > See us as rascals. > CALONICE > As indeed we are! > These lines, spoken by the Athenian Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play,Lysistrata in Aristophanis Comoediae Tomus II, ed. F. Hall and W. Geldart (Oxford University Press, 1907), lines 10–11, Wikisource original Greek set the scene for the action that follows. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists in need of firm guidance and direction. Lysistrata, however, is an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual and social responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various Greek city-states that are at war with each other. (There is no explanation of how she manages this, but the satirical nature of the play makes this unimportant.) Soon after she confides in her friend her concerns for the female sex, the women begin arriving. With support from the Spartan Lampito, Lysistrata persuades the other women to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk as a means of forcing them to conclude the Peloponnesian War. The women are very reluctant, but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath around a wine bowl, Lysistrata choosing the words and Calonice repeating them on behalf of the other women. It is a long and detailed oath, in which the women abjure all their sexual pleasures, including the Lioness on the Cheese Grater (a sexual position). Soon after the oath is finished, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis—the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund their war. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt, and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response. A Chorus of Old Men arrives, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women do not open up. Encumbered with heavy timbers, inconvenienced with smoke and burdened with old age, they are still making preparations to assault the gate when a Chorus of Old Women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. The Old Women complain about the difficulty they had getting the water, but they are ready for a fight in defense of their younger comrades. Threats are exchanged, water beats fire, and the Old Men are discomfited with a soaking. The magistrate then arrives with some Scythian Archers (the Athenian version of police constables). He reflects on the hysterical nature of women, their devotion to wine, promiscuous sex, and exotic cults (such as to Sabazius and Adonis), but above all he blames men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from the state treasury to buy oars for the fleet and he instructs his Scythians to begin levering open the gate. However, they are quickly overwhelmed by groups of unruly women with such unruly names as (seed-market- porridge-vegetable-sellers) and (garlic-innkeeping-bread-sellers).Lysistrata Wikisource original Greek lines 457-58 Lysistrata restores order and she allows the magistrate to question her. She explains the frustrations that women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, and further complains that their wives' opinions are not listened to. She drapes her headdress over him, gives him a basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. She then explains the pity she feels for young, childless women, ageing at home while the men are away on endless campaigns. When the magistrate points out that men also age, she reminds him that men can marry at any age whereas a woman has only a short time before she is considered too old. She then dresses the magistrate like a corpse for laying out, with a wreath and a fillet, and advises him that he's dead. Outraged at these indignities, he storms off to report the incident to his colleagues, while Lysistrata returns to the Acropolis. The debate or agon is continued between the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women until Lysistrata returns to the stage with some news—her comrades are desperate for sex and they are beginning to desert on the silliest pretexts (for example, one woman says she has to go home to air her fabrics by spreading them on the bed). After rallying her comrades and restoring their discipline, Lysistrata again returns to the Acropolis to continue waiting for the men's surrender. A man suddenly appears, desperate for sex. It is Kinesias, the husband of Myrrhine. Lysistrata instructs her to torture him and Myrrhine then informs Kinesias that she can't have sex with him until he stops the war. He promptly agrees to these terms and the young couple prepares for sex on the spot. Myrrhine fetches a bed, then a mattress, then a pillow, then a blanket, then a flask of oil, exasperating her husband with delays until finally disappointing him completely by locking herself in the Acropolis again. The Chorus of Old Men commiserates with the young man in a plaintive song. A Spartan herald then appears with a large burden (an erection) scarcely hidden inside his tunic and he requests to see the ruling council to arrange peace talks. The magistrate, now also sporting a prodigious burden, laughs at the herald's embarrassing situation but agrees that peace talks should begin. They go off to fetch the delegates. While they are gone, the Old Women make overtures to the Old Men. The Old Men are content to be comforted and fussed over by the Old Women; thereupon the two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. Peace talks commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms, but with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. The war is ended. Another choral song follows. After a bit of humorous dialogue between tipsy dinner guests, the celebrants all return to the stage for a final round of songs, the men and women dancing together. All sing a merry song in praise of Athene, goddess of wisdom and chastity, whose citadel provided a refuge for the women during the events of the comedy, and whose implied blessing has brought about a happy ending to the play. ===== Somewhere in the jungles of South Africa, a multinational military unit, Special Force Unit, ambushes a convoy and kidnaps several scientists working on a highly-volatile compound extracted from a recently discovered meteorite. Among the operatives is a Hong Kong national identified as "Jackie Chan". The CIA assigns Morgan to investigate the incident, unaware that he and newly retired General Sherman orchestrated the abduction for their personal profit. At the same time, the CIA assigns another operative in South Africa for a more covert operation. Jackie wakes up in a tribal village somewhere in the African veldt, still recovering from injuries sustained in an accident he cannot remember; as a result, when asked for his name by the natives, he responds by asking himself, "Who Am I?", and is referred to as that by the natives. The tribesmen show him the remains of a crashed helicopter and graves of those who perished aboard. He spends weeks recuperating from his wounds and learning about the tribe's culture. After spotting rally cars from several miles away, "Who Am I?" bids the village farewell and ventures on a journey back to civilization. He befriends Japanese rally co-driver Yuki after saving her brother from a snake bite and offering to help them finish the race. When they reach Johannesburg, "Who Am I?" meets Christine Stark, a journalist sent to interview him about his rally adventure. However, Morgan hears of "Who Am I?" and sends a hitman team to kill him. Morgan also pretends to be his ally, telling him to contact him if he is in danger. After escaping from the hitmen, Christine cracks a secret code written on a matchbook found on one of the dead operatives, which leads them to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. "Who Am I?" and Christine bid Yuki farewell and head for Rotterdam to find more answers to his identity. In Rotterdam, "Who Am I?" discovers that Christine is actually an undercover CIA agent who tapped his calls. Not knowing whom to trust, he battles Sherman's hitmen and sneaks into the Willemswerf skyscraper alone, where he discovers the masterminds behind the kidnapping of the scientists. It is revealed that Morgan and General Sherman are about to sell the extraterrestrial compound to a powerful arms dealer named Armano. While waiting for the online transaction to finish, the three men leave the conference room for a coffee break - giving "Who Am I?" time to sneak in and steal the disc containing the compound information. He also cancels the transaction and sends the money to a children's charity, which infuriates the arms dealer. Once he discovers Morgan's betrayal, "Who Am I?" tries to kill Morgan, but is interrupted by Morgan's hitmen. After escaping from the building from a battle with Morgan's hitmen, "Who Am I?" regroups with Christine, who calls for the execution of a "Plan B", to surround the Erasmus Bridge and corner Morgan in cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps. Once Christine kicks Morgan and takes him into custody, "Who Am I?" throws the disc off the bridge and tells Christine he will return to Africa. ===== It presents a future in which Earth is deserted and only small bands of hunter-gatherer tribes exist, and live on paleolithic level. The name of the novel, "Niourk", comes from the pronunciation of the name of New York City. The "black child" lives with his tribe, but is denounced by the tribe chief. He follows the chief into the ruins of abandoned city, where he comes into contact with pre-apocalyptic human artifacts, and other still functioning devices along with a laser rifle which appears to be modelled after a Browning Citori shotgun. In the meantime, his tribe moves toward another hunting area, where they are attacked by an intelligent chimera-squid monster which were used before for sanitation of radioactive waste on the bottom of the sea. Tribesmen kill the squid, and eat it, which makes them stronger, faster and more intelligent. However, they are also heavily irradiated. The black child returns to the tribe to save them from a large squid attack, and then eats the radioactive Squid's brains and begins to experience exponential transformation of his intellect and abilities, but is also heavily irradiated. As they travel, they meet a human from a space-bound branch of mankind who directs them to New York. On the trip there, all of the tribesmen die from acute radiation sickness. Upon arrival in New York, he and his pet bear are forcibly and partially healed from radiation, but escape the facilities before the procedure is completed. The Black Child then meets humans from Mars that got shipwrecked on Earth. They heal the child, but in the process he develops tremendous intelligence, and via connection to ship's computer learns most of the human history. He is also increasingly able to manipulate matter and space, which enables him to "fly", go "through" walls and manipulate objects in ways he please. He then makes peace with the squid monsters, and relocates the Earth into the orbit of Saturn. ===== The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future from 1974) and consists of diary entries and reports of journalist William Weston, who is the first American mainstream media reporter to investigate Ecotopia, a small country that broke away from the United States in 1980. Prior to Weston's reporting, most Americans had been barred from entering the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. The novel takes its form as a narrative from Weston's diary in combination with dispatches that he transmits to his publication, the fictional Times-Post. At the beginning, Weston is skeptically curious about, not yet sympathetic to the Ecotopians. He describes details of the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle. This includes a wide range of gender roles, sexual freedom, and acceptance of non-monogamous relationships. Liberal cannabis use is evident. Televised passive, mass-media, spectator sports have been displaced in favor of local arts coverage, local participatory sports, and general fitness. A large fraction of young male Ecotopians participate voluntarily in a decidedly male ritual of mock warfare using wooden spears but no guns or arrows. The games are not re-enactments. Physical injuries, occasionally serious, are considered part of the game. Ecotopians on the whole value the benefits to young males over the accidental injuries. Ecotopia also tolerates the voluntary separatism of many people of African descent who have, in fact, chosen to live in a mini-nation in the San Francisco East Bay-area. Ecotopian society has favored decentralized and renewable energy production and green building construction. The citizens are technologically creative, while remaining involved with and sensitive to nature. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.) The national defense strategy has focused on developing a highly advanced arms industry, while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage conquest and annexation. Through Weston's diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, such as his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. The book's parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how Weston's internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive, and even occasionally violent – but also socially responsible, patriotic. They often live in extended families, and tend to live by choice in ethnically separated localities. Their economic enterprises are generally employee-owned and -controlled. The current governmental administration is that of a woman-led (but not exclusively female) party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world. ===== Eight-year-old Lillian Roth (Carole Ann Campbell) constantly is pushed by her domineering stage mother Katie (Jo Van Fleet) to audition and act even though she is merely a child. One day, Katie secures an opportunity in Chicago, which leads to Lillian, now older (Susan Hayward), to having a successful musical career. Even though 20 years have passed, Katie still is managing Lillian as well as running her life and career choices. Although her mother does not tell her, Lillian finds out that her childhood friend David (Ray Danton) tried to get in contact with her. She visits him in the hospital, and they soon fall in love. Because David is an entertainment company lawyer, he is able to secure Lillian shows at some big venues, including one at the Palace Theatre. However, there is latent tension between David and Katie because he feels that Katie is projecting her own ambitions onto Lillian and overworking her, and Katie feels a new man in Lillian's life only serves to distract from her high-profile career. When Lillian informs her mother she intends to marry David, Katie is disappointed and sees a repeat of her own life happening—giving up a career to have a husband and children. Suddenly, David falls ill and dies during the opening night of her show, and she is despondent at having lost the love of her life. Rebelling against her mother's domineering ways, Lillian turns to drinking. One night, in a drunken stupor, she goes out with a sailor, Wallie (Don Taylor), and marries him that night but does not remember it. They remain married, but the marriage is loveless from the beginning. The only thing the two have in common is drinking, and both drink to forget the present. Lillian's career suffers as a result of her persistent alcoholism, and she spends all her money without booking new shows. The two divorce after Wallie says he is "sick of being Mr. Lillian Roth." Two years later, Lillian meets fellow alcoholic Tony Bardeman (Richard Conte) at a dinner party, and she falls for him. However, Lillian goes through alcohol withdrawal when she stops drinking to please her mother, and instead she turns to being a secret drinker. Her drinking gets worse when Tony goes home to California, but when he returns, Lillian begs him to stay with her. They decide to stop drinking together, but once they are married, Tony starts to drink, and Lillian is outraged. When she tries to stop him from drinking and leave, he beats her. She escapes Tony's clutches and goes to New York City to live with her mother, but contemplates suicide after a fight with her mother. Lillian goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous shelter, and suffers bouts of delirium tremens as she goes through withdrawals. She begins to fall for her sponsor Burt McGuire (Eddie Albert), but the crippling effects of childhood polio make him wary of pursuing anything romantic. As she continues her recovery, she is invited to appear on the This Is Your Life television program to share her story of alcoholism and recovery. ===== Katharine Hepburn as Jane Hudson. Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is an unmarried, middle-aged, self-described "fancy secretary" from Akron, Ohio on her summer vacation, enjoying her lifelong dream of a trip to Venice after having saved money for it over several years. On the vaporetto to her hotel, she meets two fellow Americans, Lloyd (MacDonald Parke) and Edith (Jane Rose) McIlhenny. At the hotel, they are greeted by Signora Fiorini (Isa Miranda), a widow who has converted her home into a pensione. Also staying at the property are Eddie Yaeger (Darren McGavin), a young American painter, and his wife Phyl (Mari Aldon). Jane is pestered off and on during her stay by Mauro, a friendly Italian street urchin. On her first evening in Venice, Jane walks to the Piazza San Marco, where the sight of so many romantic couples intensifies her loneliness. While seated at an outdoor caffè, she becomes aware of a lone Italian man watching her; panicking, she quickly leaves. The following day, Jane goes shopping and sees a red glass goblet in the window of an antiques store. Upon entering the shop, she discovers that the owner, Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi), is the man from whom she had fled the night before. He assures her that the goblet is an authentic 18th-century artifact, and she purchases it after he teaches her the art of bargaining. Hoping to see her again, Renato offers to search for a matching goblet. The next morning, Jane returns to the shop with Mauro, and is disappointed to discover that Renato is not there. Jane is humiliated when she accidentally steps backward into a canal while filming de Rossi's shop. That evening, de Rossi comes to her pensione and confesses his attraction for her. When Jane resists his advances, he warns her not to waste an opportunity for happiness, and she is about to agree to have dinner with him when the McIlhennys return from a shopping trip to Murano where they purchased a set of new red goblets similar to the one Jane bought. Renato realizes that she thinks he has swindled her, but he assures her that some designs have been used for centuries on Murano and he insists that her goblet is an antique. The couple attend a concert at the piazza, where an orchestra plays the overture to La gazza ladra. When a flower seller approaches them, Renato is surprised when Jane chooses a simple gardenia instead of an orchid. Later, as the couple wander the city streets, Jane drops her gardenia into a canal; despite much effort, Renato is unable to retrieve it for her. As they return to the pensione, Renato kisses Jane, and she responds passionately and murmurs, "I love you," before rushing off to her room. The next day, Jane treats herself to salon treatments and new clothes in anticipation of their date that evening. While she waits for him at the piazza, Renato's "nephew" Vito (Jeremy Spenser) arrives and inadvertently reveals that he is Renato's son. Stunned to discover Renato is married and has several children, Jane takes refuge in a bar where she encounters Phyl, who confides that her marriage is in trouble. Upon returning to the pensione, Jane discovers that Eddie is having an affair with Signora Fiorini. Renato arrives and tells her their relationship is none of her business. He admits that he is married, but claims that he and his wife are separated, which he had concealed because he did not want to scare her away. He accuses her of being immature and unwilling to accept what she can have rather than longing for the unattainable. After dinner, Jane and Renato go to Renato's apartment where their affair is consummated. The couple spend several idyllic days on Burano. Jane, unwilling to remain in a relationship she knows is destined to end unhappily, decides to return home. Renato begs her to stay, but Jane insists it is better to leave the party before it ends. Although Jane asks Renato not to come to the train station, she hopes he will ignore her request. As the train begins to leave the station, Jane is thrilled to see Renato running toward it. He tries to hand her a package but the train is moving too quickly, so he opens it to reveal he has bought her another gardenia. ===== The story traces Marjorie's (Eleanor Parker) long, hard road to the top, her success on two continents, and her turbulent marriage to American doctor Thomas King (Glenn Ford). While touring South America in 1941, Lawrence is stricken with polio, which not only abruptly stops her career but briefly robs her of the will to live. With her husband's help, she makes a triumphant return to opera and the concert stage, beginning by singing for hospitalized soldiers and troops overseas. She returns to the Metropolitan Opera, appearing in a full production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. ===== Though the last Russian tsar and his family were executed in 1918, rumors persisted that one of his daughters, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, somehow survived. In 1928 Paris, Anna, an ailing woman resembling Anastasia, is brought to the attention of former White Russian General Bounine, now the proprietor of a successful Russian-themed nightclub. Bounine knows that while Anna was in a mental asylum being treated for amnesia, she told a nun that she was Anastasia. When approached by Bounine and addressed as the grand duchess, she refuses to have anything to do with him. She flees and tries to throw herself into the River Seine, but is stopped. Bounine meets with his associates Chernov and Petrovin. Bounine has already repeatedly raised funds from stockholders (eager to gain a share of £10 million belonging to Anastasia held by an English bank) based on his claim that he had found Anastasia. Privately he has admitted it was a scam. But the stockholders have lost their patience and given him eight days to produce her. Bounine arranges for Anna to be intensively trained to pass as Anastasia. During this time, she and Bounine begin to develop feelings for one another. Later, in a series of carefully arranged encounters with former familiars and members of the imperial court, Anna begins to display a confidence and style that astonish her skeptical interlocutors. But Anna has to go to Copenhagen, where she has to convince the highly skeptical dowager empress, Anastasia's grandmother, that she is Anastasia Romanov. Meanwhile, Bounine becomes increasingly jealous of the attentions that Prince Paul, another fortune hunter, pays to Anna. At a grand ball in Copenhagen at which Anna/Anastasia's engagement to Paul is to be announced, the dowager empress has a final private conversation with her. Although aware of Bounine's machinations, Empress Marie Feodorovna believes that Anna is truly her granddaughter. Realizing that Anna has fallen in love with Bounine, she helps her run away with him. The empress then makes it known that Anna is not Anastasia. ===== In the Mississippi Delta, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, naïve 19-year-old "Baby Doll" Meighan for two years. Archie Lee impatiently waits for her twentieth birthday, when, by prior agreement with her now-deceased father, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the meantime, she sleeps in a crib, because the only other bedroom furniture in the house is the bed in which Archie sleeps; Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall. Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort lives in the house as well, much to Archie's chagrin. After defaulting on payments to a furniture leasing company due to his failing cotton gin, virtually all the furniture in the house is repossessed, and Baby Doll threatens to leave. Archie's competitor, a Sicilian American named Silva Vacarro—who owns a newer and more modern cotton gin—has taken away all of Archie's business. Archie retaliates by burning down Vacarro's gin that night. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro visits the farm the following day with truckloads of cotton, offering to pay Archie Lee to gin for him. Archie asks Baby Doll to entertain Vacarro while he supervises the work, and the two spend the day together. Vacarro explicitly inquires about Archie's whereabouts the night before and makes sexual advances toward her. When Vacarro outright accuses Archie of burning down his gin, Baby Doll goes to find Archie, but he slaps her in the face and leaves for town to purchase new parts for his gin. Vacarro comforts Baby Doll, and after becoming friendly, Vacarro forces her to sign an affidavit admitting Archie's guilt. He then takes a nap in Baby Doll's crib, and is invited for supper at Baby Doll's request as a storm approaches. Archie, drunk and jealous of Baby Doll's romantic interest in Vacarro, angrily tells Aunt Rose she needs to move out of the house; Vacarro immediately offers to let her live with him as his cook, and he and Baby Doll flirt with one another and taunt Archie. After Vacarro confronts Archie with the affidavit, Archie retrieves his shotgun and chases Vacarro outside while Baby Doll calls the police. The police arrive, and Archie is arrested when Vacarro presents them with the affidavit. Vacarro then leaves the farm, telling Baby Doll he will be back the following day with more cotton. As Archie is taken away by the police, remarking that it is Baby Doll's birthday, Baby Doll and her Aunt Rose return inside the house to await Vacarro's return. ===== Rudy Baylor is a graduate of the University of Memphis Law School. Unlike most of his fellow grads, he has no high-paying job lined up and is forced to apply for part-time positions while serving drinks at a Memphis bar. Desperate for a job, he is introduced to J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone, a ruthless but successful ambulance chaser, who makes him an associate. To earn his fee, Rudy is required to hunt for potential clients at a local hospital. He meets Deck Shifflet, a less-than-ethical former insurance assessor-turned-paralegal who has failed the bar exam six times. However, Deck is resourceful in gathering information and is an expert on insurance lawsuits. Rudy has a case of insurance bad faith which could be worth several million dollars in damages. When Stone is raided by the FBI, Rudy and Deck set up a practice themselves. They file suit on behalf of a middle-aged couple, Dot and Buddy Black, whose 22-year-old son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, but could have been saved with a bone marrow transplant, denied by their insurance carrier Great Benefit. Rudy passes the Tennessee bar exam but has never argued a case before a judge and jury. Now he finds himself up against a group of experienced lawyers from a large firm, headed by Leo F. Drummond, an attorney who uses unscrupulous tactics to win his cases. The original judge, Harvey Hale, is set to dismiss because he sees it as a so-called "lottery" case that slows down the judicial process. However, a more sympathetic judge, Tyrone Kipler, takes over when Hale suffers a fatal heart attack. Kipler, a former civil rights attorney, immediately denies Great Benefit's petition for dismissal. While seeking new clients, Rudy meets Kelly Riker, a battered wife whose beatings by husband Cliff have put her in the hospital. Rudy persuades Kelly to file for divorce, which leads to a confrontation with Cliff that results in Rudy beating him nearly to death. To keep Rudy from being implicated, Kelly kills Cliff, then tells the police it was self-defense. The district attorney declines to prosecute. Donny Ray dies, but not before giving a video deposition at his home. The case goes to trial, where Drummond gets the vital testimony of Rudy's key witness, Jackie Lemanczyk, stricken from the record because it based on a stolen manual used as evidence. Nevertheless, thanks to Rudy's determination and some clandestine reference help from a now Caribbean-based fugitive Bruiser with whom Deck is connected by intermediaries, her testimony - and Great Benefit Employee Manual - are readmitted. Rudy's skillful cross-examination of Great Benefit's president, Wilfred Keeley is the evidence that leads the jury to find for Donny Ray's family for not only actual damages but also punitive damages that are more than Great Benefit have. It is a great triumph for Rudy and Deck, with Keeley being arrested by the FBI and investigation proceedings into Great Benefit launched in multiple jurisdictions. However, the insurance company declares bankruptcy, allowing it to avoid paying punitive damages. There is no payout for the grieving parents and no fee for Rudy. Deciding that this success will create unrealistic expectations for future clients, Rudy decides to abandon his new practice and teach law. He and Kelly leave town together, heading out for an uncertain, but bright, future together. ===== Eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark appears to be what every little girl brought up in a loving home should be. Outwardly, she is charming, polite and intelligent beyond her years. To most adults, she's every parent's dream: obedient, well-groomed, and compliant. She reads books, does her homework, and practices her piano scales, all without being asked by her parents. However, most children keep their distance from her, sensing there is something not quite right about her. This is especially true for the students at Fern Grammar School, her new school in a small town named Benedict. Rhoda is the only child of Christine Penmark and her husband, Kenneth, who goes away on business. Christine begins to notice that Rhoda acts strangely toward one of her classmates, Claude Daigle, who mysteriously drowns at a school picnic later. She then notices that Rhoda is indifferent to the boy's death, which is presumed accidental, albeit with one unexplained detail: his face was imprinted with crescent-shaped marks. Christine learns that Rhoda quarreled with Claude over a medal award for perfect penmanship that the boy won, but which Rhoda believed she deserved. She also lied about the last time she saw Claude. Faced with Rhoda's deception, Christine begins to reevaluate troubling incidents from the past. After Rhoda had begged her parents for a pet dog, she quickly became bored with it, and the animal died in what she described as an "accidental fall" from the window. An elderly neighbor, Clara Post, had promised her a special snow globe upon her death, and, soon after, suffered a fatal fall while babysitting Rhoda, who now proudly owns the trinket. Additionally, Rhoda was once expelled from a school for repeatedly being caught lying to teachers and staff who described her as a "cold, self- sufficient child". Disturbed by the idea that her daughter might indeed be the one behind all these tragedies, Christine begins investigating and discovers that she was actually adopted by her parents, including investigative journalist Richard Bravo, when she was found as the sole survivor of a murdering spree. Her birth mother was Bessie Denker, a notorious serial killer who died in the electric chair, and of whom Christine has vague memories. Christine blames herself for passing on the murderous "bad seed" gene to her child, yet clings to the hope that Rhoda might have killed Claude by accident. She writes a series of tortured letters to her husband about Rhoda but never mails them in fear of what may happen if someone reads the letters and goes to the authorities. In all this investigation, Christine slowly begins to deteriorate and become a shell of her former self, which is immediately noticed by Christine's friend and neighbor Monica Breedlove. Leroy Jessup, the maintenance man who lives and works at the Penmarks' apartment complex, is the only other adult besides Christine who sees through Rhoda's phony charming facade. Believing she simply has a mean streak, Leroy relentlessly teases her, pretending to believe her responsible for Claude's death. Leroy's wife Thelma warns him about harassing the girl, but he refuses to listen. Rhoda is unfazed by his teasing until Leroy teases that she must've used her cleated shoes to beat Claude, explaining the crescent-shaped marks left on the boy's face. Immediately after, he realizes he stumbled onto the truth by the way Rhoda reacts to his accusations. Afraid he will expose her, she waits until Leroy is asleep and lights his mattress ablaze before locking him inside. A horrified Christine witnesses the murder from a distance; it occurs so quickly she has no time to get help. Others believe his death to be accidental, from falling asleep while smoking, thus starting the fire. Christine confronts Rhoda, who initially attempts to lie and manipulate her mother before finally confessing to killing Claude, Leroy, and Clara Post, all the while expressing no remorse. Christine fears her daughter will eventually end up like Bessie Denker in the electric chair. In a desperate attempt to prevent Rhoda from killing anyone else, Christine secretly gives her sleeping pills so she will die painlessly in an overdose. She then shoots herself in the head with a pistol that was in her nightstand. Christine is in hospital, she does die. Another neighbor who often babysits Rhoda, Mrs, Bledlove hears the gunshot and saves Rhoda. A heartbroken Kenneth returns home, believing Christine had suffered a nervous breakdown. And no one the wiser as to what she has done, as Christine had destroyed her unsent letters and other evidence, Rhoda is free to kill again. ===== The story is in the form of a report written by Yrlh Vvg, an anthropologist from an alien civilization who investigates the remains of human civilization approximately 175,000 yukals into the future. It turns out that humankind's fall was brought about by information overload and the inability to catalog and retrieve that information properly. The title of the short story comes from the fact that all redundancy - and vowels - had been removed from our language in order for the information volume to shrink. Finally the sum of all human knowledge was compressed by means of subatomic processes and stored away in a drawer-sized box. However the access to that information required complicated indices, bibliographies etc., which soon outgrew the size of all knowledge. The use of indices grew exponentially, comprising a pseudo-city, pseudo-planet and eventually a pseudo-galaxy devoted to information storage. At this point, a case of circular reference was encountered, and the civilization needed to refer to the first drawer-sized box to find the error. However, this drawer had been lost in the pseudo- galaxy, and soon the civilization fell apart while trying to locate the first drawer. It turns out that the anthropologist's civilization is actually heading down the same path. Presumably, the report was given the name "MS Fnd in a Lbry" after the fall of the anthropologist's civilization by another anthropologist from another alien civilization that is also heading down the same path. ===== A framing device which takes place in 2099 (100 years after the events depicted) gives the novel's main text a historical context, which is presented as the journal of Earl Turner, an active member of a white "revolutionary" movement. As the story begins, the federal government has confiscated all civilian firearms in the country under the Cohen Act. Turner and his cohorts take their organization underground in order to wage a guerrilla war against the System, which is depicted as being under Jewish control. The "System" begins by implementing numerous repressive laws against various forms of prejudice, by making it a hate crime for white people to defend themselves when crimes are committed against them by non-whites even after all weapons have been confiscated, and pushing for new surveillance measures in order to monitor its citizens, such as requiring them to possess a special passport at all times and in all places in order to permanently monitor where individuals are. The "Organization" starts its campaigns by committing acts such as the bombing of the FBI headquarters, then executing an ongoing, low-level campaign of resistance, assassination, and economic sabotage throughout the United States. Turner plays a large part in activities in the Washington, D.C. area. When the President of the United States delivers a speech denouncing racists and demanding that all members of the Organization be brought to justice, Turner and other Organization members launch mortars into the streets of Washington from far away, forcing the president and other government officials to be evacuated. In another scene, Turner witnesses an anti-racism parade in which whites who are not part of the parade are pulled aside and beaten (sometimes to death) by non-white marchers; the march eventually turns into a full-scale riot. Turner's exploits lead to his initiation into the "Order", a secret rebel group that consists of an elite group of masterminds of the revolution, who are secretly leading the Organization and whose existence remains unknown both to ordinary Organization members and the System. Later, Turner's hideout is raided by law enforcement. During an ensuing gun battle with authorities, everyone in the unit manages to escape but Turner is captured after nearly being killed. He is arrested and sent to a military base for interrogation by the FBI and an Israeli intelligence officer. He is tortured to force the release of information, but resists. The interrogators fail to extract the most valuable pieces of information from him, lacking awareness of the existence of the Order. However, he does reveal some information to them. Months later, other members of the Order rescue him from the prison. They inform him that he will be punished sometime in the future for failing to resist while in captivity. He acknowledges the authority of the Order and pledges to accept whatever punishment they impose, whenever they impose it. Eventually, the Organization seizes physical control of the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California and targets missiles at New York City and Tel Aviv. While in control of California, the Organization ethnically cleanses the area of all non-Aryan whites by forcing them into the East, which is still controlled by the System. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of African Americans are forced into the desert to cause an economical crisis on the System's welfare system and all Jews are beaten, lynched or shot. The resulting racial conflict in the east causes many whites to "wake up" and begin fleeing to Southern California which now becomes a white sanctuary. Deliberately fomenting racial conflict is referred to as "demographic warfare" which begins bringing in new recruits to both the Organization and the Order. During this time, the Organization raids a black sanctuary and discovers a cannibalism operation where blacks kidnap, butcher, and eat whites. The Organization raids the houses of all individuals who have been reported to be race traitors in some way (such as judges, professors, lawyers, politicians, clergy, journalists, entertainers, etc.), and white women who defiled their race by living with or being married to non-whites. It drags these individuals from their homes and publicly hangs them in the streets in Los Angeles in an event which comes to be known as the "Day of the Rope" (August 1, 1993). Most of these public executions are filmed for propaganda purposes. The Organization has little use for most white "mainstream" Americans. Those on the left are seen as dupes or willing agents of the Jews, while conservatives and libertarians are regarded as mere businessmen out for themselves or misguided fools, because, the Organization states, the Jews "took over according to the Constitution, fair and square." Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who are seen to care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained. Once daily life is completely disrupted by the nuclear war it instigated, the Organization opens compounds where food and shelter are available - but those seeking admittance are given a bayonet and told to come back with "the freshly cut head of a non-white person"; those unable or unwilling to pay such an "admittance price" are left to starve, as their death would "improve the race". The Organization then uses both its southern Californian base of operations and its nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which it launches nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiates a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and plants nuclear weapons and new combat units throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. While the United States is being engulfed in a nuclear civil war, governments all over the world begin to fall one by one, and violent anti-Jewish riots break out in the streets. After the nuclear weapons are launched against Israel and Tel Aviv is destroyed, the Arabs take advantage of the opportunity and proceed to swarm into Israel, mostly armed with clubs and knives, and kill all of the Israelis. The governments of France and the Netherlands collapse, and the Soviet Union falls apart while it is seeing a surge in anti-Semitic violence. Meanwhile, the United States is put in a state of absolute martial law and transformed into a military dictatorship. The United States government decides to launch an invasion of the Organization's stronghold in Southern California. The leaders of the Order now inform Earl Turner of his punishment for having failed to resist his Jewish interrogators during his captivity: he must pilot a crop duster equipped with a nuclear warhead and destroy the Pentagon in a kamikaze- type suicide-strike, before the invasion can be ordered. The epilogue summarizes how the Organization went on to conquer the rest of the world and how all non-white races were eliminated. Africa was invaded; all of its black inhabitants were killed. Puerto Ricans (described as a "repulsive mongrel race") were killed and Puerto Rico was recolonized. After China attempts to invade European Russia, the Organization attacks its with nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons which render the entire continent of Asia uninhabitable and rife with "mutants". In the United States, the last remaining non-whites are hunted down, along with all of the individuals who are involved in organized crime (such as the Mafia). One of the last steps in the Organization's victory is its truce with the remainder of the American military's generals, who agree to surrender if the former swears not to harm them or their immediate families. The Organization gladly accepts. The epilogue concludes with the statement that "just 110 years after the birth of the 'Great One', the dream of a white world finally became a certainty... and the Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the earth for all time to come." ===== After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. The two end up at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's destruction by the Vogons. Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field and attack the assembled crowd, stealing The Ashes before departing. Another spaceship arrives, the Starship Bistromath, helmed by Slartibartfast, who discovers he is too late and requests Arthur and Ford's help. As they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying to stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a spacecraft on their planet. Reverse engineering the vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and determining it must go. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated. Realizing that the Krikkit population would not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe, it was decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope, allowing Krikkit to survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit Gate was the key to the envelope. (This also explains why Earth is ignored by the rest of the galaxy; any species that would turn a memory of a horrific war into a sport isn't worth bothering with.) However, one ship carrying a troop of robots from Krikkit avoided the Slo-Time envelope, and these robots began to retrieve the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time. Slartibartfast, Arthur, and Ford transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous generations where another Gate component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag. Agrajag reveals that Arthur has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating into a new form that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. However, when he realizes that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag discovered he took Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon and that killing him now would cause a paradox, but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing the ground while catching sight of a piece of luggage he had lost at a Greek airport years before. After collecting the suitcase, Arthur inadvertently comes across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots activating the Wikkit Gate. Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold, capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android at the same time. The Bistromath arrives too late at the gate to stop the robots, so its occupants transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet. With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities. Trillian deduces that the Krikkiters have been manipulated, reasoning that the people of Krikkit could not simultaneously be smart enough to develop their ultimate weapon—a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe—while also being stupid enough not to realize that this weapon would also destroy them. The characters discover that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar. Previously built to serve a war-faring species, Hactar was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverize him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit. However, Hactar was still able to function, though at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit to inspire their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated, his control on the population waned. As he struggles to remain functional, Hactar apologizes to Trillian and Arthur for his actions before they leave for their ship. With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart of Gold. Returning only moments after the robots' attack at the Lord's Cricket Ground, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his bag. However, in mid-throw, Arthur suddenly realizes that the ball he had was created and placed in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown, all this causing him to trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly. Arthur is able to throw the ball aside and disable the robot in mid-swoop. In the epilogue the characters are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when they come across a half-mad journalist. He tells them that he was at a court case and a witness there was given too much of a truth drug and started to tell all truth, which was driving everybody there mad. They go to the courtroom in the hope of learning the question of Life, the Universe and Everything from him. They discover he is finished (there was little truth to tell) and he has forgotten it all, except that knowledge of the Ultimate Question and Ultimate Answer is mutually exclusive. He then attempts to tell Arthur where God's last message to His creation is, though dies seemingly before Arthur is able to memorize the location. In the end Arthur goes to live on the planet Krikkit where he becomes a more skillful flier and learns bird language. ===== Fonzy, the pseudonym under which Diego Costa 20 years ago repeatedly donated sperm to the sperm bank. Today, at 42, he is a deliveryman in a family-owned fishmonger and leads a teenage irresponsible and blundering life. While his wife Elsa learns that she is pregnant, his past resurfaces. Diego discovers he is the father of 533 children, 142 of them want to know who is Fonzy. ===== Two swindlers arrive at the capital city of an emperor who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of state matters. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. A succession of officials, and then the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but pretends otherwise to avoid being thought a fool. Finally, the weavers report that the emperor's suit is finished. They mime dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever. ===== Borges' narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of adjacent hexagonal rooms. In each room, there is an entrance on one wall, the bare necessities for human survival on another wall, and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books are random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just 25 basic characters (22 letters, the period, the comma, and space). Though the vast majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for many of the texts, some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents. Despite—indeed, because of—this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitious and cult-like behaviors, such as the "Purifiers", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they scour through the library seeking the "Crimson Hexagon" and its illustrated, magical books. Others believe that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect index of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the "Man of the Book" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him. ===== Following the end of the Persian Gulf War, U.S. soldiers are sent over to tie up loose ends. The soldiers are bored from the lack of action and throw parties at night. Major Archie Gates, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, is trading sex for stories with a journalist, Cathy Daitch, when he is interrupted by Adriana Cruz, the television reporter he is assigned to escort. While disarming and searching an Iraqi officer, U.S. Army Reserve Sergeant First Class Troy Barlow, his best friend Private First Class Conrad Vig, and their unit find a map between the officer's butt cheeks. Troy goes to Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin to help translate the map. Major Gates appears, after tracking down a lead from Adriana. Archie convinces them that the document is a map of bunkers near Karbala, containing gold bullion stolen from Kuwait, which they decide to steal. To keep Adriana off his back, Gates sends Specialist Walter Wogeman to aid her on a false lead. They set off the next day and, among other goods plundered from Kuwait, find the gold, and stumble on the interrogation of Amir Abdullah. As they are leaving, Amir's wife pleads with them not to abandon the anti-Saddam dissidents, but she is executed by the Iraqi Republican Guard. The group decides to free the Iraqi prisoners, triggering a firefight. They pull out just as Iraqi reinforcements arrive, and as they try to evade a CS gas attack, they blunder into a minefield and get separated. Iraqi soldiers capture Troy while a group of rebels rescue the other Americans and take them to their underground hideout. There, Conrad, Chief and Archie agree to help the rebels and their families reach the Iranian border, after they rescue Troy. Troy gets taken back to the bunker, and is thrown in a room full of Kuwaiti cell phones. He manages to call his wife back home and tells her to report his location to his local Army Reserve unit. His call is cut short when he is dragged to an interrogation room where he is interrogated by Iraqi Captain Saïd. The Americans with the rebels go to a band of Iraqi Army deserters, who are persuaded to sell them luxury cars stolen from Kuwait. The cars are outfitted as Saddam's entourage, in a ruse to scare away the bunker's defenders. After storming the bunker, they free Troy, who spares Saïd, and find more Shi'ite dissidents held in a dungeon. A few of the soldiers who ran away return, and shoot Conrad and Troy. Conrad dies; Troy's lung is punctured, but he survives. Archie radios Walter and Adriana and arranges transport, while the hapless officers in the camp try to locate the trio after getting the message from Troy's wife. Each of the rebels is given a bar of gold and the rest is buried as they wait for the transport to arrive. The convoy goes to the Iranian border, where the three Americans intend to escort the rebels across to protect them from the Iraqi soldiers guarding the crossing. But the American officers arrive and stop the group, arresting the trio while the rebels are recaptured. Archie offers the buried gold to the American officers in exchange for letting the refugees through. The commanding officer acquiesces to assisting the rebels get into Iran, but still states that charges (of being absent without leave and disobeying orders by contradicting American post-war policy) and courts-martial will be convened against Archie, Troy, and Chief Elgin. As an epilogue, the film states that the three surviving soldiers (Archie, Troy, and Chief Elgin) are cleared of the charges and honorably discharged, thanks to Adriana's reporting. The epilogue goes on to show that Archie goes to work as a military adviser for Hollywood action films, Chief leaves his airport job to work with Archie, and Troy returns to his wife and baby to run his own carpet store. The stolen gold was returned to Kuwait, which claimed that some was missing, implying that the rebels managed to keep the gold they had been given. ===== TV newswoman Lee Carter witnesses the assassination of presidential candidate Charles Carroll atop Seattle's Space Needle. A waiter armed with a revolver is pursued and falls to his death while a second waiter, also armed, leaves the scene unnoticed. A congressional committee decides the killing was the work of a lone assassin. Three years later, Carter visits her former boyfriend, newspaper reporter Joe Frady, claiming others must have been behind the assassination as six of the witnesses to the killing have since died and she fears she will be next. Frady does not take her seriously; however, Carter is soon found dead. Guilty over disregarding Carter's pleas, Frady goes to the small town of Salmontail to probe the recent death of Judge Arthur Bridges, also a witness. A bar fight with the Salmontail sheriff's deputy draws the attention of the sheriff himself, L. D. Wicker, who offers to take Frady to the spot where Bridges drowned. When they arrive at the dam, however, Wicker pulls his gun on Frady while the floodgates are opening, plotting to have him drown the same way Bridges did. Frady manages to escape, while Wicker drowns. Frady commandeers Wicker's squad car, and at the sheriff's house he uncovers Parallax Corporation documents which reveal that the organization recruits political assassins. Frady tries to convince his skeptical newspaper editor Bill Rintels he is onto a big story, connecting the dots of witnesses of assassinations who have died, but Rintels refuses to support his efforts. Undaunted, Frady seeks out a local psychology professor who assesses the Parallax Corporation's personality test taken from Wicker's desk, and deems it to be likely a profiling exam to identify psychopaths. Austin Tucker, the paranoid aide to the assassinated Carroll, agrees to meet Frady on his boat, while anxiously revealing there have been two attempts on his life since Carroll's assassination. Shortly after Tucker shows photos to Frady of a suspicious waiter who may have been involved in Carroll's shooting, a bomb explodes onboard, killing Tucker and his assistant. Frady survives by diving overboard but is believed to be dead. Later that night, Frady slips into the newspaper's offices and informs Rintels of his belief that he has uncovered an organization that recruits assassins, and wants the public to believe he is dead so he can apply to the Parallax Corporation under an assumed identity. Days later, Jack Younger, a Parallax official, pays him a visit to let him know he is, based on his preliminary application, the kind of man Parallax is interested in. Frady is accepted for training in the Parallax Corporation's division of Human Engineering in Los Angeles, where he watches a montage which conflates positive images with negative actions. While leaving the Parallax's offices, Frady recognizes one of the Parallax operatives from a photo Tucker showed him, as the second waiter from Carroll's assassination. He watches the assassin retrieve a case from a car, drive to an airport, and check it as stowed baggage on a passenger jet. Frady boards the plane and notices a senator aboard, but cannot find the assassin, who is actually watching the jet's takeoff from the airport's roof. Frady writes a warning, that there is a bomb on board, on a napkin and slips it onto the drink service cart. The warning is found and the jet returns to Los Angeles. Passengers are evacuated moments before the bomb explodes. Returning to his apartment, Frady is confronted by Younger about not being the man whose identity he has been using. Frady 'confesses' he is actually yet another man who had gotten in trouble with the police, and Younger agrees to validate this new identity. Later, at the newspaper office, Rintels listens to a secretly recorded tape of the conversation between Frady and Younger, then places it in an envelope with other such tapes. Rintels is poisoned by the senator's killer and bomb-planter and the tapes disappear. Frady goes to the Parallax offices to see Younger, and is told he is not there, but then sees him leaving the building. He follows the operative to the dress rehearsal for a political rally for Senator George Hammond and hides in the auditorium's catwalks to observe Parallax agents, who are posing as security personnel. Frady attempts to follow one of the men back to the auditorium, but finds he had been locked in the catwalk area. As Hammond drives a golf cart across the auditorium floor, an unseen sniper fatally shoots him, causing pandemonium below. Frady realizes too late he has been set up as a scapegoat and attempts to flee across the catwalks, but is spotted by the police who are now in the auditorium below. As Frady runs to the reopened exit door from the catwalks, a shadowy agent (implied to be the same Parallax assassin whom the audience and Frady have seen throughout the film) steps through, killing Frady with a shotgun. Six months later, the same committee that investigated Carroll's death reports that Frady, acting alone, killed Hammond out of paranoia and misguided patriotism. ===== From official materials: :"It's just you, your trusty skateboard, and a hundred bucks as you skate, jump, slide, spin and move through four levels of difficulty, picking up loose cash, earning money through events, and finally, earning a ticket to one of the big skate parks! If you're lucky, you'll get to buy some rad equipment to make you the coolest skateboarder alive." ===== While walking down the street in Chicago, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear laboratory accident, by means of which he is instantaneously transported tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character's estimate, a figure later retconned by future Asimov works as a "mistake"). He finds himself in a place he does not recognize, and due to apparent changes in the spoken language that far into the future, he is unable to communicate with anyone. He wanders into a farm, and is taken in by the couple that lives there. They mistake him for a mentally deficient person, and they secretly offer him as a subject for an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure, which has killed several subjects, works in his case, and he finds that he can quickly learn to speak the current lingua franca. He also slowly realizes that the procedure has given him strong telepathic abilities, including the ability to project his thoughts to the point of killing or injuring a person. The Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet — it has rebelled three times in the past — and the inhabitants are widely frowned upon and discriminated against. Earth also has several large radioactive areas, although the cause is never really described. With large uninhabitable areas, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be euthanized. The people of the Earth must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as "The Sixty", with very few exceptions; mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. That is a problem for Schwartz, who is now sixty-two years old. The Earth is part of the Trantorian Galactic Empire, with a resident Procurator, who lives in a domed town in the high Himalayas and a Galactic military garrison, but in practice it is ruled by a group of Earth-centered "religious fanatics" who believe in the ultimate superiority of Earthlings. They have created a new, deadly supervirus that they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the Empire, and to avenge themselves for the way their planet has been treated by the galaxy at large. Citizens of the Empire are unaware of Earth's lethal viruses, and mistakenly believe it is Earth's environment that causes them "radiation sickness," and that Earthlings pose the Empire no threat. Joseph Schwartz, along with Affret Shekt, the scientist who developed the new device that boosted Schwartz's mental powers, his daughter Pola Shekt, and a visiting archaeologist Bel Arvardan, are captured by the rebels, but they escape with the help of Schwartz's new mental abilities, and they are narrowly able to stop the plan to release the virus. Schwartz uses his mental abilities to provoke a pilot from the Imperial garrison into bombing the site where the arsenal of the super-virus exists. The book ends on a hopeful note — perhaps the Empire can be persuaded to restore the Earth and reintroduce uncontaminated soil. ===== Crystalis takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, in 2097, one hundred years after "1997, October 1, The END DAY," when a global thermonuclear war began that reverted civilization to a primitive, medieval existence populated with fierce mutated creatures. Science and advanced technology have been abandoned, with the survivors deciding to study the ways of magic. The survivors of the destruction built a floating "Tower" to prevent any future cataclysms, as its occupants would have the power to govern the world due to the Tower's weapons systems. A man known as Draygon, however, revived the forbidden ways of science and combined them with magic. With these skills, he controls the world's last remaining military power and seeks to conquer what is left of the planet by attempting to enter the Tower. The protagonist awakens with no memory, but, guided by four wise sages, gradually learns that the world is sinking into turmoil due to the Draygonia Empire's destructive influence. Entrusted with the Sword of Wind, he seeks to aid Mesia, another survivor from his time, and to combine the four elemental Swords of Wind, Fire, Water, and Thunder into the legendary sword, Crystalis. Together, they must defeat Draygon before he uses the Tower to achieve his evil ambitions. ===== In this sequel to Them, an adult King returns to the House of Amon to reclaim his rightful place as heir to the house. However, unanswered questions about his sister's death, his mother's involvement with his diabolical therapist, and his own madness all prove to be difficult if not insurmountable obstacles. He makes a deal with "Them" (the unseen antagonists from the album of the same name, part one of the story) to return control of the house to Them in exchange for the chance to see his now-dead sister Missy again. He believes she can help answer some of his questions. An agreement is reached, and Missy returns from the grave nightly to help King uncover some of the mysteries from "Them". As a spirit, however, she cannot save him from the plot against him, try as she may to warn him. His mother and his doctor have conspired to get rid of him permanently in order to inherit the house themselves. While they think they are ultimately successful, the album closes with King's promise to torture and haunt them forever from beyond the grave. ===== Androcles, a fugitive Christian tailor, accompanied by his nagging wife, is on the run from his Roman persecutors. While hiding in the forest he comes upon a wild lion who approaches him with a wounded paw. His wife runs off. Androcles sees that the cause of the animal's distress is a large thorn embedded in its paw, which he draws out while soothing the lion in baby language. Androcles is captured and is sent to the Colosseum to be executed with other Christians in gladiatorial combat. They are joined by a new Christian convert called Ferrovius, who struggles to reconcile his Christian principles with his violent inclinations. The Roman captain guarding them is attracted to the genteel convert Lavinia. Eventually the Christians are sent into the arena, but Ferrovius kills all the gladiators before they can harm any Christians. He is offered a job in the Praetorian Guard, which he takes. The Christians are to be released, but the crowd demands blood. To satisfy them, Androcles offers himself to be savaged by lions. But the lion that is supposed to kill him turns out to be the one that Androcles saved, and the two dance around the arena to the delight of the crowd. The emperor comes into the arena to get a closer look, and the lion attacks him. Androcles calls him off and the emperor is saved. He then declares an end to the persecution of Christians. Androcles and his new 'pet' depart together. File:Androcles-and- the-Lion-Arthur-Wilson.jpg|Dooley Wilson as Androcles in the 1938 Federal Theatre Project production File:Androcles-and-the-Lion-Daniel- Haynes-2.jpg|Daniel L. Haynes as Ferrovius, lighting design by Abe Feder File:Androcles-and-the-Lion-Daniel-Haynes.jpg|Daniel L. Haynes as Ferrovius File:Androcles-and-the-Lion-15.jpg|Scene from the 1938 Federal Theatre Project production File:Androcles-Lion-Wilson-Bates.jpg|Dooley Wilson (Androcles) and Add Bates (Lion) ===== In 1951, Eve White is a timid, self-effacing wife and mother who has severe and blinding headaches and occasional blackouts. Eventually goes to see psychiatrist Dr. Luther, and while having a conversation, a "new personality", the wild, fun- loving Eve Black, emerges. Eve Black knows everything about Eve White, but Eve White is unaware of Eve Black. Eve White is sent to a hospital for observation after Eve Black is found strangling Eve White's daughter, Bonnie. When Eve White is released, her husband Ralph finds a job in another state and leaves her in a boarding house, while Bonnie stays with Eve's parents. When Ralph returns, he tells her that he doesn't believe she has multiple personalities and tries to take her to Jacksonville, Florida, with him but she feels she isn't well enough to leave and is afraid Eve Black will try to harm Bonnie again and refuses to go. Eve Black confronts Ralph at his motel where he not only realizes Eve Black is real, but also she convinces him to take her to Jacksonville. When Eve Black goes out dancing with another man, Ralph slaps her when she returns and ends up divorcing Eve White. Dr. Luther considers both Eve White and Eve Black to be incomplete and inadequate personalities. The film depicts Dr. Luther's attempts to understand and deal with these two faces of Eve. Under hypnosis at one session, a third personality emerges, the relatively stable Jane. Dr. Luther eventually prompts her to remember a traumatic event in Eve's childhood. Her grandmother had died when she was six, and according to family custom, relatives were supposed to kiss the dead person at the viewing, making it easier for them to let go. While Eve screams, her mother forces her to kiss the corpse. Apparently, Eve's terror led to create different personalities. After discovering the trauma, Jane remembers her entire life. When Dr. Luther asks to speak with Eve White and Eve Black, Jane says they are gone. Jane marries a man named Earl whom she met when she was Jane and reunites with her daughter Bonnie. ===== In the South Pacific in 1944, U.S. Marine Corporal Allison (Robert Mitchum) and his reconnaissance party had been in the process of disembarking from a U.S. Navy submarine when they were discovered and fired upon by the Japanese. The submarine's captain was forced to dive and leave the scouting team behind. Allison got to a rubber raft and after days adrift, reaches an island. He finds an abandoned settlement and a chapel with one occupant: Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), a novice nun who has not yet taken her final vows. She herself has been on the island for only four days; she came with an elderly priest to evacuate another clergyman, only to find the Japanese had arrived first. The frightened natives who had brought them to the island left the pair without warning, and the priest died soon after. Robert Mitchum with Deborah Kerr in a scene from the film For a while, they have the island to themselves, but then a detachment of Japanese troops arrives to set up a meteorological camp, forcing them to hide in a cave. When Sister Angela is unable to stomach the raw fish Allison has caught, he sneaks into the Japanese camp for supplies, narrowly avoiding detection. That night, they watch flashes from naval guns being fired in a sea battle over the horizon. The Japanese unexpectedly leave the island, and in both celebration and frustration, Allison gets drunk on sake. He blurts out that he loves Sister Angela and considers her devotion to her vows to be pointless, since they are stuck on the island "like Adam and Eve." She runs out into a tropical rain and falls ill as a result; Allison, now sober and contrite, finds her shivering. He carries her back, but the Japanese have returned, forcing them to retreat to the cave. Allison sneaks into the Japanese camp to get blankets. He kills a soldier who discovers him, alerting the enemy. To force him into the open, the Japanese set fire to the vegetation. When a Japanese soldier discovers the cave, Allison and Sister Angela have two choices: surrender or die from a hand grenade thrown inside. An ensuing explosion is not a grenade, but a bomb; the Americans have begun attacking the island in preparation for a landing. Allison comments that the landing will not be an easy one because when they returned, the Japanese brought with them four artillery pieces whose positions are well-concealed. In what he attributes to a message from God, Allison disables the artillery during the barrage that will precede the American assault, while the Japanese are still in their bunkers. He is wounded, but sabotages all the guns by removing their breechblocks, saving many American lives. After the landing, the Marine officers are puzzled by the missing breechblocks. Allison and Sister Angela say their goodbyes. Allison has reconciled himself to Sister Angela's dedication to Christ, though she reassures him that they will always be close "companions". After being found, Marines transfer Allison to the ship, with Sister Angela walking beside him. ===== In 1950 San Francisco, petty criminal and prostitute Barbara Graham faces a misdemeanor charge for soliciting sex. She returns to her native San Diego, but is soon charged with perjury after she provides two criminal friends a false alibi. She subsequently returns to sex work and other criminal activities to make a living. She begins working for thief Emmett Perkins by luring men to his gambling parlor. Barbara manages to earn a significant amount of money, and quits working for Emmett to marry Hank, her third husband. The couple have a son, Bobby, but their marriage is turbulent due to Hank's drug addiction, which leaves him jobless. Barbara throws Hank out of her house, but is subsequently evicted. Desperate, she leaves Bobby in the care of her mother and returns to working for Emmett, who is now associated with thugs John Santo and Bruce King. Police eventually crack down on the operation, and Barbara surrenders. During the interrogation, however, she is stunned when authorities accuse her of helping Perkins and Santo murder Mabel Monahan, an elderly Burbank woman. Barbara insists she was home with her husband and son the night of the murder, but is indicted by a grand jury. Barbara's childhood friend, Peg, visits her in jail, and agrees to help care for Bobby. Attorney Richard Tibrow is assigned to Barbara's case, and informs her that her alibi is meaningless unless Hank can corroborate it. Barbara foolishly accepts a phony alibi from Ben Miranda, a friend of her jail mate, Rita. Ben insists that Barbara admit she helped with the murder before agreeing to provide the alibi, and she reluctantly implicates herself. During the trial, Hank refutes Barbara's alibi, and a taped recording of her confession, made by Ben during their meeting, is used as evidence against her. Barbara insists that she sought the phony alibi only to avoid the death penalty, and that her admission is false. She is ultimately convicted, along with Emmett and John; all three are sentenced to death. Tibrow withdraws from Barbara's case and is replaced by Al Matthews. In prison, Barbara is relentlessly defiant, refusing to wear her uniform and demanding a radio. Matthews has psychologist Carl Palmberg evaluate Barbara in the hopes of ultimately administering a lie detection test. After visiting with her, Carl states that while Barbara appears to be amoral, she is averse to violence; he also points out that she is left-handed, and the bludgeoning death of Mabel was committed by a right-handed person. Journalist Edward Montgomery, who has covered Barbara's case since the beginning, begins questioning her conviction, and starts publishing a sympathetic series profiling her troubled life. As her execution date draws near, Barbara grows increasingly anxious. A Supreme Court stay gives her hope that her sentence may be commuted, but it is overturned when Carl dies unexpectedly of heart disease. Al's petition for a retrial is denied, and Barbara's execution date is set. The day before her execution, a demoralized Barbara is transferred to San Quentin Prison, where she meets with a priest. That evening, she is angered to hear that her son has been put up for adoption. An anxious Barbara stays up all night, wistfully recounting her marriage with Hank to a prison nurse. For her final meal, she requests an ice cream sundae. In the morning, forty-five minutes before Barbara's scheduled execution, California Governor Goodwin J. Knight declares a stay, but Al's writ is struck down and the execution ordered to proceed. Barbara is taken to the gas chamber, but the execution is again halted when Al's amended writ is declared. The uncertainty and desperation surrounding her fate reduces Barbara to hysterics. She is returned to her cell, where she and the prison staff wait several minutes for a response to Al's writ; they are informed it has again been rejected, and Barbara's execution is ordered to proceed immediately. Before entering the gas chamber, Barbara demands a mask, as she does not want to see the faces of the journalists there. She is strapped to the chair and executed with cyanide gas. After Barbara is pronounced dead, a despondent Edward leaves the prison. On his way out, he is met by Al, who gives him a note from Barbara thanking him for his efforts to help her. ===== Jan Morrow is a successful, self-reliant interior decorator in New York City. She lives alone and claims to be quite happy, when questioned on that subject by her drunken housekeeper, Alma. The only irritant in her life is the party line that she shares with Brad Allen, a talented, creative Broadway composer and playboy who lives in a nearby apartment building. She is unable to obtain a private phone line because the telephone company has been overwhelmed by the recent demand for new phone lines in the area. Jan and Brad, who have only ever "met" on the telephone, develop a feud over the use of the party line. Brad is constantly using the phone to chat with one young woman after another, singing to each of them an "original" love song supposedly written just for her, though he only changes the name or language he sings in. Jan and Brad bicker over the party line, with Brad suggesting that the single Jan is jealous of his popularity. One of Jan's clients is millionaire Jonathan Forbes, who repeatedly throws himself at her to no avail. Unknown to Jan, Jonathan is also Brad's old college buddy and his current Broadway benefactor. One evening in a nightclub, Brad finally sees Jan dancing and learns who she is. Attracted to her, he fakes a Texan accent and invents a new persona: Rex Stetson, a wealthy Texas rancher. He succeeds in wooing Jan, and the pair begin seeing each other regularly. Jan cannot resist bragging about her new beau on the phone to Brad Allen, while Brad teases Jan by having "Rex" show an interest in effeminate things, thereby implying "Rex's" homosexuality. When Jonathan finds out about Brad's masquerade, he forces Brad to leave New York City and go to Jonathan's cabin in Connecticut to complete his new songs. Brad invites Jan to join him. Once there, romance blossoms until Jan stumbles upon a copy of "Rex's" sheet music. She plunks the melody on the nearby piano and recognizes Brad's song. She confronts Brad and ignores his attempts at explanation, returning to New York with Jonathan, who has just arrived at the cabin. Back in New York, Jonathan is pleased to learn that the playboy has finally fallen in love, while conversely Jan will have nothing to do with Brad. Brad turns to Jan's housekeeper, Alma, for advice. Alma, pleased to finally meet Brad after listening in on the party line for so long, suggests he hire Jan to decorate his apartment so they will be forced to collaborate. Jan only concedes so that her employer will not lose the commission. Brad leaves all the design decisions up to Jan, telling her only to design a place that she'd want to live in herself. Still quite angry, Jan decorates Brad's apartment in the most gaudy and hideous decor she can muster. Horrified by what he finds, Brad angrily storms into Jan's apartment and carries her in her pajamas through the street back to his apartment to explain herself. He tells her of all the changes he's made to end his bachelor lifestyle because he thought they were getting married. Her face lights up and, as he leaves in anger, she uses one of his "playboy" remote control switches to lock the door. She flips the second switch and the player piano pounds out a honky-tonk version of Brad's standard love song. He turns around, their eyes meet, and they lovingly embrace. At the end of the film, Brad goes to tell Jonathan that he is going to be a father, only to be pulled by Dr. Maxwell (an obstetrician) and Nurse Resnick into their office for an examination, when he says that he's going to have a baby (a reference to when he ducks into Dr. Maxwell's office in an earlier scene to hide from Jan, but escapes before they can examine him). ===== Gloria Wandrous wakes up in the apartment of wealthy executive Weston Liggett and finds that he has left her $250. Insulted, she finds her dress was torn, and takes the mink coat of Liggett's wife Emily to cover herself, scrawling "No Sale" in lipstick on the mirror. She orders her telephone answering service, BUtterfield 8, to put Liggett through if he calls. Gloria visits a childhood friend, pianist Steve Carpenter, who chastises her for wasting her life on one-night stands, but agrees to ask his girlfriend Norma to lend her a dress. Gloria leaves, and Norma tells Steve to choose between her and Gloria. As Norma leaves, he calls, “Gloria, don't go like this.” “My name is Norma,” she replies. Liggett takes a train to the countryside, where his wife Emily is caring for her mother. His friend, Bingham Smith, advises him to end his adulterous relationships and return to Bing's law firm, instead of working for his father-in-law's chemical business. Meanwhile, Gloria lies to her mother Annie, claiming to have spent the night at Norma's. Liggett returns home. Finding the lipstick and money, he phones Gloria to explain the money was meant for her to buy a new dress, to replace the one that he had torn. While drinking later that night, Liggett advises her to ask a high price for her lovemaking talents. She insists she does not take payment from her dates and claims she has been hired as a model to advertise the dress she is wearing at three bistros that night. Liggett follows Gloria, watching her flirt with dozens of men at several clubs. He drives her to a run-down motel. After sleeping together, Liggett and Gloria decide to explore their relationship further. They spend five days together, growing closer and falling genuinely in love with one another. They part only after Liggett's wife Emily returns. When Gloria returns home, she confesses to her mother about having been the "slut of all time", but declares that that is all over now since she is truly in love. Gloria visits her psychiatrist Dr. Tredman to insist that her relationship with Liggett has cured her of promiscuity. For his part, Liggett also plans to change his life, taking up Bing's offer of a job at the law firm. When he returns home, Emily has noticed that her mink is gone. Liggett makes excuses and rushes out to search for Gloria at her regular clubs. He is unable to locate her, but in his search he is repeatedly confronted with the reality of Gloria's promiscuous past. When Gloria finds Liggett at a bistro the following evening, he drunkenly launches into insults. Gloria drives Liggett to his apartment building where Emily, spotting them from a window above, watches as her husband throws the coat at Gloria, saying he would never give the tainted object back to his wife. Heartbroken, Gloria goes to Steve, saying that she feels she has "earned" the mink coat she is wearing. Having never before taken payment from the men she slept with, she now has, and she laments "what that makes me". She recounts that when she was 13, a friend of her widowed mother taught her about "evil". She hates herself because she loved it and thus went on to make her life out of it. Steve insists that Gloria stay the night since both Gloria and he have to decide what to do next. Norma arrives the next morning, finding Gloria asleep on Steve's couch; having at last made up his mind, he asks Norma to marry him. The next day, a now-sober Liggett admits to himself that he still loves Gloria and asks Emily for a divorce. Meanwhile, Gloria tells her mother she is moving to Boston to begin a new life. Upon discovering Gloria's destination, Liggett drives until he spots her car at a roadside café. He tries to apologize to Gloria by asking her to marry him, but Gloria insists that his insults have "branded" her and that her past is a sore spot that no husband would ever truly be able to accept. They profess their love for each other, and though Gloria initially agrees to go with Liggett to the motel, she ultimately changes her mind and flees in her car. Pursuing Gloria's car, Liggett sees her miss a sign for road construction and accidentally hurtle over an embankment to her death. When he returns to the city, Liggett tells his wife about Gloria's death, announces that he is leaving to "find my pride", and says that if Emily is still home when he returns, they will see if it has any value to them. ===== The Roosevelt family at Campobello (1920) (l-r) Ralph Bellamy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Greer Garson at Hyde Park, NY, filming Sunrise at Campobello (1960) The film begins at the Roosevelt family's summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada (on the border with Maine), in the summer of 1921. Franklin D. Roosevelt is depicted in early scenes as vigorously athletic, enjoying games with his children and sailing his boat. He is suddenly stricken with fever and then paralysis. Subsequent scenes focus on the ensuing conflict in the following weeks between the bedridden FDR, his wife Eleanor, his mother Sara, and his close political adviser Louis Howe over FDR's future. A later scene portrays FDR literally dragging himself up the stairs as, through grit and determination, he painfully strives to overcome his physical limitations and not remain an invalid. In the final triumphant scene, FDR is shown re-entering public life as he walks to the speaker's rostrum at a party convention, aided by heavy leg braces and crutches after his eldest son James pushed his father's wheelchair near to the podium. ===== The film tells the story of Ilya, a self-employed, free-spirited prostitute who lives in the port of Piraeus in Greece, and Homer, an American tourist and classical scholar who is enamored of all things Greek. Homer feels Ilya's life style typifies the degradation of Greek classical culture, and attempts to steer her onto the path of morality, while, at the same time, Ilya attempts to loosen Homer up. ===== Cesira (Loren) is a widowed shopkeeper, raising her devoutly religious twelve-year-old daughter, Rosetta (Brown), in Rome during World War II. Following the bombing of Rome, mother and daughter flee to Cesira's native Ciociaria, a rural, mountainous province of central Italy. The night before they go, Cesira sleeps with Giovanni (Vallone), a coal dealer in her neighbourhood, who agrees to look after her store in her absence. After they arrive at Ciociaria, Cesira attracts the attention of Michele (Belmondo), a young local intellectual with communist sympathies. Rosetta sees Michele as a father figure and develops a strong bond with him. Michele is later taken prisoner by German soldiers, who force him to act as a guide through the mountainous terrain. After the Allies capture Rome, in June 1944, Cesira and Rosetta decide to head back to that city. On the way, the two are gang-raped inside a church by a group of Moroccan Goumiers - soldiers attached to the invading Allied Armies in Italy. Rosetta is traumatized, becoming detached and distant from her mother and no longer an innocent child. When the two manage to find shelter at a neighbouring village, Rosetta disappears during the night, sending Cesira into a panic. She thinks Rosetta has gone to look for Michele, but later finds out that Michele was killed by the Germans. Rosetta returns, having been out with an older boy, who has given her silk stockings, despite her youth. Cesira is outraged and upset, slapping and spanking Rosetta for her behavior, but Rosetta remains unresponsive, emotionally distant. When Cesira informs Rosetta of Michele's death, Rosetta begins to cry like the little girl she had been prior to the rape. The film ends with Cesira comforting the child. ===== Los Angeles International Airport theme restaurant and control tower Ressam returned to Montreal in February 1999 under the name "Benni Noris", bringing $12,000 in cash he had obtained in Afghanistan to fund the attack. He also brought in hexamine (used as an explosive booster in the manufacture of explosives) and glycol, and a notebook with instructions for making explosives. While in Montreal, he shared an apartment with Karim Said Atmani, an alleged forger for the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. In April 1999, French investigators asked Canadian authorities to locate Ressam for questioning, but the Canadians were unable to locate him, as he was living under the name Benni Noris. In the summer of 1999, informed by Abu Doha that the other members of his cell had been unable to reach Canada due to immigration issues, he chose to continue without them. In August 1999, he decided to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, the third-busiest airport in the world at the time. He was familiar with it and also thought it would be a politically and economically sensitive target. He planned to conduct a rehearsal using a luggage cart, putting it in a place that was not suspicious, and observing how long it would take for airport security to notice it. He planned to execute his plan in a passenger waiting area, using one or two suitcases filled with explosives. In September 1999, Ressam purchased electronic equipment and components in order to build detonators, and made four timing devices. He recruited Abdelmajid Dahoumane, an old friend of his, to help him. In November, with Dahoumane's assistance, he bought urea and aluminum sulfate from nurseries, and mixed it together with nitric and sulphuric acid he stole from fertilizer manufacturers to create a TNT-like explosive substance. He had met Mokhtar Haouari in early 1994, when he first arrived in Canada. Haouari was involved in fraudulent activity that included the theft and sale of stolen passports and creation of fraudulent credit cards, and Ressam sold him some stolen identity cards. In early November he recruited Haouari to assist him in what he described as "some very important and dangerous business in the U.S.", by providing continued funding for his project, a credit card, and a fake ID. In addition, Haouari in turn recruited Brooklyn, New York-based Algerian illegal immigrant Abdelghani Meskini, a con man who he said was involved in bank fraud, to assist Ressam. On November 17, 1999, Ressam and Dahoumane traveled from Montreal, Quebec, to Vancouver, British Columbia. They rented a small motel cottage at the 2400 Kingsway Motel, where they prepared the explosives for LAX. They left behind an acid burn stain on a table and corroded plumbing. In December Ressam called Abu Jaffar in Afghanistan to ask whether Osama Bin Laden wanted to take credit for the attack, but did not get an answer. He also called Abu Doha in London, told him that he wanted to return to Algeria after the attack, and was assured he would receive money and documents. Ressam arranged for the English-speaking Meskini to wait for him in Seattle. Meskini would assist him by helping him rent a car and communicate in English, driving him, and giving him a cell phone and money withdrawn with a stolen bank debit card. ===== In 1887, Lord Nelson Rathbone leads a band of Boxers into the Forbidden City, killing the Keeper of the Imperial Seal of China and stealing the seal. With his dying breath, the Keeper gives his daughter, Chon Lin, a puzzle box for her brother, Sheriff Chon Wang. In Carson City, Nevada, Wang has captured an impressive array of fugitives. Wang receives the box and a letter from Lin telling him of their father's death and that she has tracked the murderer to London. Wang travels to New York City to find his old partner Roy O'Bannon and collect his share of their gold so that he can buy passage to London. Roy has left law enforcement, broken off his marriage, invested all their gold in the Zeppelin, and is now a waiter and part-time gigolo. After an aborted attempt at prostitution to pay for tickets, the pair ship themselves to London in a crate. In London, Roy's pocket is picked by a youth named Charlie Chaplin. After a struggle between Roy, Wang, Charlie, and a gang angered by Charlie stealing on their turf, they are arrested. In Scotland Yard, Inspector Artie Doyle thanks the two for defeating the Fleet Street gang. When they ask about Lin, Artie shows them she is in custody, having attempted to kill Lord Rathbone. Roy is instantly smitten with Lin and gives her a deck of playing cards as a good luck charm. Wang and Roy encounter Charlie. Breaking into an estate for shelter, they find an invitation to a gala at Buckingham Palace. Roy and Wang infiltrate the gala in disguise: Roy as Major General "Sherlock Holmes" (a name he derives from the face of a clock) and Wang as the "Maharaja of Nevada". Wang and Roy follow Rathbone to a private library, where he slips through a secret passage. Wang finds the seal box, but the seal itself is gone and they are attacked by guards. Lin, having used Roy's playing cards to pick the lock on her cell, arrives and saves Roy. The three see Rathbone give the Imperial Seal to Wu Chow, the illegitimate brother of the Emperor of China. Charlie steals it. Rathbone escapes. At a brothel, Roy overhears Wang try to convince Lin that Roy is an unsuitable husband, even telling her of his gigolo history and suspected infertility. Wang soothes Roy's feelings of betrayal by treating him to a pillow fight with the brothel staff. Wang, Roy, and Lin are found and captured by Rathbone, who reveals his plan: In exchange for the seal, Wu Chow will kill the British royal family and frame Lin. As tenth in line for the throne, Rathbone will then become king. Awaiting death, Roy confesses he spent most of his fortune publishing novels such as Roy O'Bannon Vs. The Mummy, in which Wang is portrayed as a cowardly sidekick. The two are reconciled and Wang says he will not stand between him and Lin. He frees himself and saves Roy. Wong and Roy consult Artie about Charlie's location. Artie deduces from a hat he dropped that Charlie is at Madame Tussauds. They save him from the Boxers but lose the seal and are captured by police. Charlie rescues them. They save the royal family from Wu Chow, whom Lin kills with a rocket. The three pursue Rathbone to the top of Big Ben. Roy is thrown off but hangs onto the clock face, while Wang is hopelessly outmatched at swordplay by Rathbone, who repeatedly spares his life so as to prolong their duel. Wang gives up on trying to outright defeat Rathbone, instead severing the support ropes for their platform. Roy catches Wang as Rathbone falls to his death. Roy, Wang, and Artie are knighted. Artie decides to write stories, and asks Roy for use of the "Sherlock Holmes" name. Wang opens the box his father sent him to find a message reminding him of the importance of family. Roy proposes that he and Wang go to Hollywood to join the new motion picture industry. Charlie stows away as they drive off. ===== In prehistoric suburban Bedrock, Slate & Co.'s new vice-president Cliff Vandercave and secretary Miss Sharon Stone discuss their plan to swindle the company of its vast fortune and flee, and that they need one of their employees to be responsible for it. Fred Flintstone loans his best friend and neighbor Barney Rubble money so that he and his wife Betty can adopt a little boy named Bamm-Bamm, who can pronounce only his own name. Although he is initially difficult to control because he has super strength, he eventually warms up to his new family. Barney vows to repay his friend. Despite his mother-in-law Pearl Slaghoople's objections, Fred's wife Wilma remains supportive of his decision. Cliff holds an aptitude test; the worker with the highest mark will become the company's new vice president. Barney gets the highest score but switches his paper with Fred, whom he knows will fail. Fred receives the promotion, but his first order is to dismiss Barney, who now effectively has the lowest score. Fred is unwilling to fire him, but Cliff tells Fred if he does not, he will fire Barney for him and Fred will be fired too. Fred reluctantly but willingly accepts, but does his best to help Barney support his family, even inviting the Rubbles to live with them so that they can rent out their house. However, Fred's job and newfound wealth put a strain on his relationships with Wilma and the Rubbles. Cliff eventually tricks Fred into dismissing the workers, over the objections of his office Dictabird. Later, Barney confronts Fred after seeing worker riots on the news. He reveals that he switched tests with Fred, and the Rubbles move out, despite having nowhere to live. Wilma and Pebbles also leave for her mother's house, leaving Fred behind. Fred goes to the quarry and realizes his mistake and Cliff's plan, but also finds out that Cliff has manipulated events to make it look as if Fred stole the money, and has reported it to the police. A manhunt for Fred ensues by the police and the workers. Wilma and Betty see this on the news, and break into Slate & Co. to get the Dictabird, the only witness who can clear Fred's name, unaware that Cliff saw them from his office window. As Fred attempts to enter a cave where the workers are seeking refuge, they see through his disguise and attempt to hang him. Barney is almost hanged as well after he admits his part. Fred and Barney reconcile, but before they can be hanged, Wilma and Betty arrive with the Dictabird, who tells them the true story. The workers release Fred and Barney after realizing that Cliff was the one who fired them. Cliff kidnaps Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and demands the Dictabird in exchange for the children's safe return. Fred and Barney confront Cliff at the quarry, where Cliff has tied Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm to a huge machine. Though they hand him the Dictabird, Cliff activates the machine to stall them. Barney rescues the children from Cliff while Fred destroys the machine. The Dictabird escapes from Cliff and lures him back to the quarry, where Miss Stone knocks him out, having had a change of heart after learning that Cliff was planning to betray her. The police, Wilma, Betty, and Mr. Slate arrive and Cliff attempts to flee, but he is petrified by a substance falling from the machine. With the Dictabird's help, all charges against Fred are dropped, while Miss Stone is arrested as Cliff's accomplice, though Fred is confident she will be granted leniency for helping them stop Cliff. Impressed with the substance that Fred inadvertently created by destroying the machine, Mr. Slate dubs the substance "concrete" in honor of his daughter Concretia and makes plans to produce it with Fred as the president of its division, thus ending the Stone Age. Having realized the negatives of his wealth and status as the new CEO, Fred declines and asks that the workers be rehired and given the job benefits he initially set out to achieve, which is granted. As the Flintstones and Rubbles have finally made amends, Fred and Barney get into a humorous quarrel when Fred once again asks Barney for a small amount of money for breakfast. ===== =====