The series is set in a fantasy version of ancient Greece not precisely located in historical time. The show also has a mixture of Oriental, Egyptian and Medieval elements in various episodes. The show stars Kevin Sorbo as Hercules and regularly features Michael Hurst as his sidekick Iolaus. Rotating as Hercules' other regular companion, particularly in earlier seasons, is Salmoneus (Robert Trebor), a wheeler-dealer ever looking to make a quick drachma.

Typical plot lines involve Hercules and Iolaus saving rustic villagers from monsters, evil warlords, or the often selfish whims of the gods. There was also comedy and episodes often had "in-jokes" about modern themes.

In the earlier episodes as mentioned in the show's opening title, Hercules' main nemesis is his evil stepmother Hera, the powerful queen of the gods who seeks to destroy Hercules using various monsters and helping her various followers because he is a reminder of her husband Zeus' infidelity. As the series progressed, a wider range of enemies was used; notably Hercules' half-brother, the malicious god of war Ares replaced Hera as the show's primary antagonist. Towards the end of the series, Ares is himself replaced by the evil god Dahak who is the main villain in the show's fifth season and sets off a story arc that has Hercules traveling to Sumeria, Norseland and Éire. Although Zeus, Hercules' father, is frequently cited by Hercules as a neglectful father, Zeus' love for Hercules is well documented in the show. Indeed, Hercules is often referred to as "the favorite son of Zeus". Zeus makes several appearances on the show, even saving his son's life and restoring his superhuman strength on one occasion when he needs it the most. Hercules, for his own part, is always there for Zeus when his father needs him, and in the end, Hercules reconciles with his father and buries whatever issues he has with the father he has come to understand and love.

Set in 1993 London, ''About a Boy'' features two main protagonists: Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus Brewer, an incongruous schoolboy described as "introverted" by his suicidal mother, Fiona, despite his tendencies to bond and interact with people. Will's father wrote a successful Christmas song, the royalties of which have afforded Will the ability to remain voluntarily redundant throughout his life – he spends his plentiful free time immersing himself in 1990s culture, music, and pursuing sexual relations with women.

After a pleasant relationship with a single mother of two, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. Will then makes a number of acquaintances through his membership of the single parents group, two of which are Fiona and her son Marcus. Although their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true friendship despite Will being largely uninterested during the early-middle stages of the novel. Will, a socially aware and "trendy" person, aids Marcus to fit into 1990s youth culture by encouraging him not to get his hair cut by his mother, buying him Adidas trainers, and introducing him to contemporary music, such as Nirvana. Marcus and Will's friendship strengthens as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will's lie about having a child.

Marcus is befriended by Ellie McCrae, a tough, moody 15-year-old girl, who is constantly in trouble at school because she insists on wearing a Kurt Cobain jumper. He also spends some time with his dad Clive, who visits Marcus and Fiona for Christmas together with his new girlfriend Lindsey and her mother. Clive has a minor accident during some D.I.Y. work, and breaks his collarbone. This prompts Clive into having "a big think" about the meaning of his life, and he summons Marcus to Cambridge to see him. Marcus decides to bring Ellie along with him for support; however, they are arrested on the way as Ellie smashes a shop window displaying a cardboard cut-out of Kurt Cobain – accusing the shopkeeper of "trying to make money out of him" after his suicide.

Meanwhile, to Will's despair, he falls in love with a woman called Rachel. Rachel is a single mother with a son named Ali (Alistair), who is the same age as Marcus. The two originally fight, but quickly become friends. Will's emotional faculties are liberated and he begins to "shed [his] old skin" of emotional indifference; simultaneously Marcus is becoming more typical of his age, and he begins to enjoy his life more.

The penultimate scene takes place in a police station in a small suburban town, where nearly every significant character in the novel is present, their common link being Marcus. The novel ends during a three-way dialogue between Marcus, Will and Fiona, where Will, to see if Marcus has truly changed, proposes the idea that he play a Joni Mitchell song on Fiona's piano, which she is enthusiastic about. However, Marcus responds saying he "hates" Joni Mitchell, whereby Hornby concludes the novel with the narration saying "Will knew Marcus would be OK".

In Los Angeles, a traffic light changes to red and there are offscreen sounds of an automobile collision.

Five years later, Jerry Welbach has been working off a debt to imprisoned mob boss Arnold Margolese. After Jerry fouls up what was meant to be his final errand, Margolese's second-in-command, Bernie Nayman sends Jerry on a new final errand: retrieving an antique pistol for Margolese in Mexico from a man named Beck. Jerry's additional job for Margolese proves to be the last straw for Jerry's girlfriend Sam, who leaves him to move to Las Vegas.

Arriving in Mexico, Jerry finds the pistol with Beck, who explains the history of the legendary gun known as "the Mexican". When Beck is killed by a stray bullet from celebratory gunfire, Jerry calls his colleague Ted and learns that Beck was Margolese's grandson. Just then, Jerry's car is stolen, with Beck's body and the pistol inside. Jerry recovers the car and the gun, shooting one of the thieves in the foot and burying the body.

En route to Las Vegas, a well-dressed hitman tries to abduct Sam, but is shot by another hitman who captures her instead. The second hitman introduces himself as Leroy, explaining that he was hired to hold Sam hostage to ensure Jerry delivers the pistol.

Sam explains to Leroy that Jerry became indebted to Margolese five years ago, after crashing into Margolese's car, while running a red light. This was the accident heard at the beginning of the film. The police discovered someone tied up in Margolese's trunk that he intended to kill. Margolese was sent to prison for five years and Jerry was forced to run errands for Margolese for that same period.

Bonding with Leroy, Sam deduces that he is gay and encourages him to pick up Frank, a traveling postal worker. The three of them reach Las Vegas, and Leroy and Frank spend the night together.

In Mexico, Jerry is briefly arrested after a police officer notices Beck's blood in his car. Confiscating the pistol, the officer elaborates on its cursed history and takes it to a pawn shop. Ted arrives and reveals that the infamous Leroy has been sent after Sam. Jerry overhears a call with Nayman ordering Ted to kill him. They recover the pistol from the pawn shop, but Jerry confronts Ted and leaves with the gun. Realizing he grabbed Ted's passport instead of his own, he returns to find Ted has already fled.

In Las Vegas, the well-dressed hitman murders the innocent Frank and returns for Sam, but is killed by a vengeful Leroy. Sam and Leroy fly to Mexico to meet Jerry, who crashes the car in an argument with Sam. Leroy finds the pistol and prepares to kill Jerry, but Jerry kills him first. He explains to a distraught Sam that Leroy was an imposter – his driver’s license reveals he is actually Winston Baldry – and that Jerry once met the real Leroy: the well-dressed hitman. Jerry realizes that Margolese hired the real Leroy, but Nayman sent Baldry to intercept Sam and the pistol, allowing him to sell it himself and frame Jerry.

Sam and Jerry prepare to go their separate ways, but Sam remembers Baldry's advice to never give up when you truly love someone, and reconciles with Jerry. Soon after, Jerry gets kidnapped by the thieves who stole his car. He is brought to Margolese, newly released from prison, who explains the true story of the pistol: it was crafted by a gunsmith for his daughter's marriage to a nobleman's cruel son, but the daughter and the gunsmith's assistant were truly in love. When the gun refused to fire for the nobleman's son, he killed the assistant, leading the daughter to take her own life with the pistol.

Margolese reveals that his cellmate was the gunsmith's great-grandson; he was killed protecting Margolese, who swore to return the pistol to his cellmate's father. Jerry agrees to give him the pistol, but Nayman kidnaps Sam. A Mexican standoff ensues, until Sam kills Nayman with the pistol; the shot dislodges a ring from the gunbarrel, which Jerry uses to propose to Sam. The Mexican pistol is restored to the gunsmith's family, as Jerry and Sam drive off together.

"Second Variety" occurs in the aftermath of an extensive nuclear war between the Soviet Union (sometimes referred to as Russia) and the United Nations. Early Soviet victories forced the North American government and production to flee to a Moon base, leaving the majority of their troops behind. To counter the almost complete Soviet victory, U.N. technicians develop robots, nicknamed "claws" —the basic models are "a churning sphere of blades and metal" that ambush their unsuspecting victims "spinning, creeping, shaking themselves up suddenly from the gray ash and darting toward… [any warm body]." U.N. forces are protected from the claws by a special radiation-emitting wrist tab. Within six years, the sophisticated and independent claws have destroyed the Soviet forces, repairing and redesigning themselves in underground automated factories run without any human oversight.

The U.N. forces receive a message from the Soviets asking for a policy-level officer to go to them for a gravely urgent conference. The U.N. victory was costlier than they had expected. Major Joseph Hendricks is sent to negotiate with the Soviets. En route to the rendezvous, he meets a small boy named David who asks to accompany Hendricks. When they near the Soviet bunker, soldiers immediately kill the boy, revealing him to be an android. The claws' development program has evolved to develop sophisticated robots, indistinguishable from humans, designed to infiltrate and kill. The three Soviets met by Major Hendricks—soldiers Klaus, Rudi, and a young woman named Tasso—reveal that the entire Soviet army and command structure collapsed under the onslaught of the new robots - they are all that are left in the command center.

From salvaged internal metal identification plates, two varieties are identified: I-V, a wounded soldier, and III-V, David. II-V—the "second variety"—remains unknown. The different models are produced independently of each other in different factories. The Soviets also reveal that the U.N. protective tabs are ineffective against the new robots. Hendricks attempts to transmit a warning to his headquarters bunker, but is unable to do so.

During the night, Klaus claims Rudi is the II-V and kills him, only for human organs to be revealed. The next morning, Hendricks and the two remaining Soviets return to the U.N. lines. When they reach the bunker, they discover it overrun: a crowd of David and Wounded Soldier robots attack, but Tasso destroys them with a very powerful hand grenade, stating that it was designed to destroy the robots. Hendricks and Tasso flee, leaving Klaus to the old-style claws. However, Klaus survives both the claws and the bomb blast only to be shot by Tasso, sending "gears and wheels" flying. Tasso tells Hendricks that Klaus must have been the II-V robot.

Hendricks, now suffering from a wounded arm and internal injuries, hopes to escape to the Moon Base. He and Tasso search for a hidden escape rocket, which is found to be a single-seat spacecraft. Hendricks attempts to leave, but Tasso convinces him to let her leave and send back help. In his injured state, he has no choice but to agree. Hendricks provides Tasso with the signal code needed to find the Moon Base.

Alone and armed with Tasso's pistol, Hendricks returns to Klaus' remains and discovers from the parts that the robot was not a II-V, but a IV-V. A group of robots then attack Hendricks, including Davids, Wounded Soldiers, and several Tasso—the true II-V—models. Hendricks recognizes that he has doomed the Moon Base by sending a robot to them, and that he cannot withstand the onslaught of robots attacking him. Noticing the bombs carried by all the Tasso models, Hendricks' final thought is that the robots are already producing weapons designed for killing each other.

In 1951, Norman Dale arrives in rural Hickory, Indiana. His old friend, high school principal Cletus Summers, has hired him as the civics and history teacher and as head basketball coach.

The townspeople, passionate about basketball, are disappointed that Hickory's best player, Jimmy Chitwood, has left the team. At a meet-and-greet, Dale tells the townspeople he used to coach college basketball. The next day, fellow teacher Myra Fleener warns Dale not to recruit Jimmy. She is encouraging Jimmy to focus solely on his studies so that he will have a future away from Hickory.

The small school has only seven players. At the first practice, Dale dismisses Buddy Walker for rudeness, causing another player, Whit Butcher, to walk out in protest. Dale begins drilling the others (Rade Butcher, Merle Webb, Everett Flatch, Strap Purl, and manager Ollie McLellan) with fundamentals and conditioning but no scrimmages or shooting, much to the Huskers' dismay. Whit later apologizes to Dale and rejoins the team.

Dale instructs the Huskers to pass four times before shooting. During the season opener, Rade disobeys and repeatedly makes baskets without passing first. Dale benches him for the rest of the game, even when Merle fouls out, leaving only four Huskers on the floor. In a subsequent game, when a rival player jabs Dale in the chest during an on-court argument, Rade jumps to his defense and hits the player. During the altercation, Principal Summers, acting as assistant coach, suffers a mild heart attack. Dale further erodes community support by employing a slow, defensive style that does not immediately produce results. Dale also loses his temper on court and gets ejected from two games.

With Summers laid up, Dale asks former Husker Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch, Everett's alcoholic father, to be his assistant, with the requirement that Shooter be sober during all games and practices. This confounds the town and embarrasses Everett.

Mid-season, disgruntled townspeople decide to vote on dismissing Dale. Before the meeting, Fleener, sensing something amiss regarding Dale's past, uncovers years-old information about his hitting a player and being banned from coaching. However, Fleener chooses not to reveal this fact to the townspeople, instead telling them at the meeting to give Dale another chance. Nevertheless, they vote to fire the coach. Then Jimmy Chitwood arrives and announces he will rejoin the team, but only if Dale remains as coach. A new vote is taken, and the residents overwhelmingly choose to keep Dale.

After Jimmy's return, the reinvigorated Huskers rack up a series of wins. To prove to the townspeople (and to Shooter himself) Shooter's value to the team, Dale intentionally gets ejected from a game. This forces Shooter to devise a play that helps Hickory win on a last-second shot.

Despite a setback when Shooter relapses and is hospitalized, the team advances through the state tournament with Jimmy's strong performance. Unsung players, such as short Ollie and devoutly religious Strap, also contribute. Hickory reaches the championship game in Indianapolis.

At Butler Fieldhouse, and before the largest crowd they have ever seen, the Huskers face long odds to defeat the heavily favored South Bend Central Bears, who have taller and more athletic players. After falling behind, Hickory fights their way back and ties the game with just a few seconds left. Dale calls his team's final timeout and sets up a play for Jimmy to put up the last shot. He scores as the game buzzer sounds, and Hickory wins the 1952 Indiana state championship. Sometime after the game, a large black-and-white photograph of Coach Dale and the team with their state championship trophy is seen hanging in the Hickory High School gymnasium, with a voiceover from Dale stating, "I love you guys."

At a Manhattan teaching hospital, the life of Dr. Bock, the Chief of Medicine, is in disarray: he has left his wife, his children don't talk to him, and his once-beloved teaching hospital is falling apart.

The hospital is dealing with the sudden deaths of two doctors and a nurse. These are attributed to coincidental or unavoidable failures to provide accurate treatment.

At the same time, administrators must deal with a protest against the hospital's annexation of an adjacent and decrepit apartment building. The annexation is to be used for a drug rehabilitation center; the building's current occupants demand that the hospital find them replacement housing before the building is demolished despite the building being condemned sometime before.

Dr. Bock admits to impotence and has thoughts of suicide, but falls in love with Barbara Drummond, a patient's daughter who came with her father from Mexico for his treatment. This temporarily gives Dr. Bock something to live for, after Barbara challenges and engages with him.

The deaths are discovered to have been caused by Barbara's father as retribution for the "inhumanity" of modern medical treatment. Drummond takes no personal responsibility, claiming his victims would have been saved if they had received prompt, appropriate treatment, but they did not. Dr. Bock and Barbara use a final, accidental death of a doctor at the hospital to cover Drummond's misdeeds. Barbara makes plans to fly with her father back to Mexico. Dr. Bock at first intends to go with them, but at the last minute, driven by his sense of obligation, he insists on staying behind at the hospital so that it will not descend into total chaos.

The film begins with narration by Spencer Tracy as the aerial-borne camera sweeps over the Rocky Mountains. "This land has a name today", says Tracy in the opening lines of the film, "and is marked on maps."

The film then moves into "The Rivers" sequence (considerably to the east of the Rockies).

The Rivers (1839)

Mountain man Linus Rawlings (Stewart) is making his way by horse and waterway through the mountains. He confers with a group of Native Americans. The scene then shifts to Zebulon Prescott and his family.

Prescott (Malden) and his family set out west for the frontier via the Erie Canal, the "West", at this time, being the Ohio River country, at the southern edge of Illinois. Pulled the first section on a barge, they then build rafts to continue on the river free of charge. Along the journey, they meet Rawlings, who is traveling east, to Pittsburgh, to trade his furs. Rawlings and Zebulon's daughter, Eve (Carroll Baker), are attracted to each other, but Linus is not ready to settle down.

Rawlings stops at an isolated trading post, selling "likker" from a cave in the steep river bank. However, it is run by a murderous clan of river pirates, headed by "Alabama Colonel" Jeb Hawkins (Walter Brennan). Linus is betrayed when he accompanies Jeb's seductive daughter Dora Hawkins (Brigid Bazlen) into a cave, modeled after a real outlaw haunt (now a part of Cave-in-Rock State Park) to see a "varmint". Dora Hawkins stabs him in the back and Rawlings falls into a deep hole. They steal his furs and sink his canoe. But he is not mortally wounded, and follows the robbers to a site where they are conning the Prescott party from a similar fate. The bushwhacking thieves (Lee Van Cleef plays one), including Dora Hawkins, are dispatched, being killed in an attack by Rawlings, in a form of rough frontier justice.

After Zebulon prays to God for their lost loved ones and commends to Him the thieves' souls "whether You want 'em or not", the settlers continue down the river, but the lead raft is caught in rapids, and Zebulon and his wife Rebecca (Agnes Moorehead) drown. Linus re-encounters the survivors and decides that he cannot live without Eve, and asks to marry her and take her to Pittsburgh. However, she insists on homesteading at the spot where her parents died.

In the final scene her younger sister pines at the whistle of a paddle steamer on the wide river.

This section was directed by Henry Hathaway.

The Plains (1851)

Eve's sister Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) chose to go back East but after some years finds herself touring in St. Louis, where she and her stage troupe are hired to perform their acts at the Music hall. She attracts the attention of professional gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck). After overhearing that she has just inherited a California gold mine, and to avoid paying his debts to another gambler (John Larch), Cleve joins the wagon train taking her there. Wagonmaster Roger Morgan (Robert Preston) and he court her along the way, but she rejects them both, much to the dismay of her new friend and fellow traveler Agatha Clegg (Thelma Ritter), who is searching for a husband.

Surviving an attack by Cheyennes, Lilith and Cleve arrive at the mine, only to find that it is worthless. Cleve leaves. Lilith returns to work in a dance hall in a camp town, living out of a covered wagon. Morgan finds her and again proposes marriage unromantically. She tells him, "Not now, not ever."

Later, Lilith is singing in the music salon of a riverboat. By chance, Cleve is a passenger. When he hears Lilith's voice, he leaves the poker table (and a winning hand), tells her he fell in love with her at first sight, and proposes to her. He tells her of the opportunities waiting in the rapidly growing city of San Francisco. She accepts his proposal.

This section also was directed by Henry Hathaway.

The Civil War (1861–1865)

Linus Rawlings joins the Union army as a captain in the American Civil War. Despite Eve's wishes, their son Zeb (Peppard) eagerly enlists as well, looking for glory and an escape from farming. Corporal Peterson (Andy Devine) assures them the conflict will not last very long. The bloody Battle of Shiloh shows Zeb that war is nothing like he imagined, and unknown to him, his father dies there. Zeb encounters a similarly disillusioned Confederate (Russ Tamblyn), who suggests deserting.

By chance, they overhear a private conversation between generals Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) and William Tecumseh Sherman (Wayne). The rebel realizes he has the opportunity to rid the South of two of its greatest enemies and tries to shoot them, leaving Zeb no choice but to kill him with the bayonet from his shattered musket. Afterward, Zeb rejoins the army.

When the war finally ends, Zeb returns home as a lieutenant, only to find his mother has died. She had lost the will to live after learning that Linus had been killed. Zeb gives his share of the family farm to his brother Jeremiah, who is content to be a farmer, and leaves in search of a more interesting life.

This section was directed by John Ford.

The Railroad (1868)

Following the daring riders from the Pony Express and the construction of the transcontinental telegraph line in the late 1860s, two ferociously competing railroad lines, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad, one building westward and the other eastward, open up new territory to eager settlers.

Zeb becomes a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry, trying to maintain peace with the Native Americans with the help of grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart (Fonda), an old friend of Linus'. When ruthless railroad man Mike King (Widmark) violates a treaty by building on Native American territory, the Arapahos retaliate by stampeding buffalo through his camp, killing many, including women and children. Disgusted, Zeb resigns and heads to Arizona.

A subplot was cut featuring Hope Lange as Stuart's daughter, Julie, who becomes involved in a love triangle with Zeb and King; she ultimately marries and abandons Zeb.

This section was directed by George Marshall.

The Outlaws (1889)

In San Francisco, widowed Lilith auctions off her possessions (Cleve and she had made and spent several fortunes) to pay her debts. She travels to Arizona, inviting Zeb and his family to oversee her remaining asset, a ranch.

Zeb (now a marshal), his wife Julie (Carolyn Jones), and their children meet Lilith at Gold City's train station. However, Zeb also runs into an old enemy there, outlaw Charlie Gant (Wallach). Zeb had killed Gant's brother in a gunfight. When Gant makes veiled threats against Zeb and his family, Zeb turns to his friend and Gold City's marshal, Lou Ramsey (Lee J. Cobb), but Gant is not wanted for anything in that territory, so Ramsey can do nothing.

Zeb decides he has to act rather than wait for Gant to make good his threat someday. Suspecting Gant of planning to rob an unusually large gold shipment being transported by train, he prepares an ambush with Ramsey's reluctant help. Gant and his entire gang (one member played by Harry Dean Stanton) are killed in the shootout and resulting train wreck. In the end, Lilith and the Rawlings family travel to their new home.

This section also was directed by Henry Hathaway.

Epilogue

A short epilogue shows how modern America has grown from the West in the early 1960s, which includes footage of the Hoover Dam, the four-level downtown freeway interchange in Los Angeles and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

This section also was directed by Henry Hathaway.

The film begins aboard a steamship crossing the Atlantic Ocean and initially showcases an unnamed immigrant's misadventures, the Little Tramp (Chaplin), who finds himself in assorted mischief. The scene opens with Charlie bent double over the side of the ship, appearing to be seasick. Then it is revealed he is only fishing.

Much humor is derived from the heavy sway of the boat, with much sliding around the deck.

Charlie, among other things, plays cards, eats in the mess hall and avoids seasick passengers. Along the way, he befriends another unnamed immigrant (Purviance) who is traveling to America with her ailing mother. The two have been robbed by a pickpocket who loses the money to the Tramp in a card game. The Tramp, feeling sorry for the two penniless women, attempts to secretly place his winnings from his card game in the woman's pocket but ends up being mistakenly accused of being a pickpocket. The woman manages to clear the Tramp's name. Upon arrival in America, the passengers stare at the Statue of Liberty but once landed, the Tramp and the woman part company.

Later, hungry and broke, the Tramp finds a coin on the street outside a restaurant and pockets it. He doesn't realize there is a hole in his pocket, and the coin has fallen straight through and is back on the ground. He enters the restaurant, where he orders a plate of beans, at first eating one bean at a time. There, he is reunited with the woman and discovers her mother is dead. The Tramp orders a second bowl of beans for her.

As they eat, they watch the restaurant's burly head waiter (Campbell) and other waiters attack and forcibly eject a patron who is short 10 cents in paying his bill. The Tramp, intimidated by the waiter, checks and now realizes he has lost his coin. Terrified of facing the same treatment as the man he saw thrown out, the Tramp begins planning how he will fight the huge man. However, a stranger enters, flaunting the coin he found outside. When the headwaiter takes the coin, it also falls from his pocket onto the floor. The Tramp then makes many failed attempts to retrieve it without notice. He finally retrieves the coin and nonchalantly pays the waiter, only to be thunderstruck when the waiter reveals the coin to be fake. Once again, the Tramp prepares for the fight of his life. Just then, a visiting artist spots the Tramp and the woman and offers them a job to pose for a painting. The two agree. The artist offers to pay for the Tramp and the woman's meal, but the Tramp declines the offer several times for reasons of etiquette, intending to accept the artist's offer eventually; however, he's dismayed when the artist does not renew his offer to pay at the last moment. The artist pays for his meal and leaves a tip for the waiter. The Tramp notices that the tip is enough to cover the couple's meal and, without the artist noticing, palms the tip and presents it to the waiter as his payment for his and the woman's meal. As a final riposte, he lets the waiter keep the remaining change - one small coin - after paying his bill. The waiter thinks the artist himself has given no tip whatsoever and is upset at this supposed action.

Afterward, outside a marriage license office in the rain, the Tramp proposes marriage to the woman, who is coy and reluctant until the Tramp physically carries her into the office while she waves her arms and kicks her feet in protest.

Chaplin and Purviance in the memorable restaurant scene

The following plot synopsis was published in conjunction with a 1915 showing of the film at Carnegie Hall:

To gain power from the spirit forces, Motana, a great chief's son, goes on a vigil-journey. But though the tribal law forbids the thought of woman during the fasting, his dreams are ever of Naida; her face appearing in the coilng smoke of the prayer-fire he builds high upon a mountain peak. To forfend the anger of the spirits he must pass a stronger ordeal. He sleeps upon the Island of the Dead, then hunts and kills the whale; and raids the clustered sea-lion rookeries, a whole day's paddle out to sea.

Naida is wooed and won by Motana, and splendid is the wooing. But Naida, with her dowry, is coveted by the Sorcerer. He is evil, old and ugly. Waket, Naida's father fears the baleful "medicine" of the Sorcerer, and also stands in dread of the Sorcerer's brother, who is Yaklus, "the short life bringer," and the head-hunting scourge of all the coast. Waket promises Naida to the Sorcerer. So ensues war between the two factions.

Motana and his father, Kenada, and their clan resolve to rid the region of the head hunters. In their great canoes they attack the village of the Sorcerer and Yaklus. The Sorcerer's head they bring to prove his death to those who believed him "deathless." But Yaklus escapes. After the wedding of Motana and Naida, with pomp of primitive pageantry, and dancing and feasting, in which the throngs of two great totem villages take part, Yaklus attacks and burns Motana's village. Motana is left for dead. Naida is carried away into captivity. Wild is the reveling that follows at the village of Yaklus. The beauty of Naida's dancing saves her life. Naida's slave boy, a fellow captive, escapes. His message brings Motana, who rescues Naida by stealth. The raging Yaklus pursues. Motana, hard pressed, dares the waters of the surging gorge of Hyal. His canoe flies through, but Yaklus is overwhelmed and drowned.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell), is called to the emergency room of a California hospital, where a highly agitated man is being held in custody. Dr. Hill agrees to listen to his story. The man identifies himself as a doctor, and recounts, in flashback, the events leading up to his arrest and arrival at the hospital.

In the nearby town of Santa Mira, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) sees a number of patients apparently suffering from Capgras delusion, the belief that their relatives have somehow been replaced with identical-looking impostors.

Returning from a trip, Miles meets his former girlfriend, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), who has recently come back to town after a divorce. Becky's cousin Wilma (Virginia Christine) expresses the same fear about her Uncle Ira, with whom she lives. Psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kauffman (Larry Gates) assures Bennell that these cases are merely an "epidemic of mass hysteria".

That evening, Miles and Becky are urgently called to the home of Bennell's friend, Jack Belicec (King Donovan), who has found what appears to be a dead body in his home. Inexplicably, the body has no discernible facial features or fingerprints but, to their horror, within a short period of time it begins to take on the exact physical features of Belicec. Later, another body is found in Becky's basement that is her exact duplicate. When Bennell calls Dr. Kauffman to the scene, the bodies have mysteriously disappeared, and Kauffman tells Bennell that he is falling for the same hysteria.

The following night, Bennell, Becky, Jack, and Jack's wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones) again find duplicates of themselves, emerging from giant seed pods in Bennell's greenhouse. They conclude that the townspeople are being replaced while asleep with exact physical copies. Bennell tries to make a long-distance call to federal authorities for help, but the phone operator claims that the long distance lines are all busy and the call can't be put through, so Jack and Teddy drive off to seek help in the next town. Bennell and Becky soon realize that all of the town's inhabitants have been replaced and are devoid of any sort of humanity. They hide at Bennell's office for the night, vowing to stay awake so as not to be replaced by their duplicates.

The next morning, Bennell and Becky watch from the office window as truckloads of the giant pods arrive in the town center. They listen as Nick Grivett (the chief of police) (Ralph Dumke) directs the others to take them to neighboring towns to be planted and used to replace their populations. Kauffman and Belicec, both of whom are now also "pod people", arrive at Bennell's office with new pods for Becky and Bennell. They reveal that an extraterrestrial life form is responsible for the invasion and that the pods, capable of replicating any life form, traveled through space and landed in a field. After their takeover, Kauffman explains, humanity will lose all emotions and sense of individuality, creating a simplistic, stress-free, superior world.

After scuffling with and knocking out the aliens (Kauffman, Belicec, and Grivett), Bennell and Becky escape from the office. Outside, they pretend to be emotionless pod people but Becky screams when she sees a dog dart out into traffic, her reaction exposing their humanity. A town alarm is sounded and the couple flee on foot, pursued by a mob of pod people.

Exhausted, they manage to escape and hide in an abandoned mine outside town, struggling to stay awake so their bodies won't be taken over. Later, they hear music, and Bennell leaves Becky briefly to investigate. Over a hill, he sees a large greenhouse farm with hundreds of giant seed pods being loaded onto trucks. Bennell returns to tell Becky, and upon kissing her, he realizes, to his horror, that she fell asleep before he returned and is now one of ''them''. Becky sounds the alarm as Bennell runs away. He is again chased by the mob, and eventually finds himself on a crowded highway. After seeing a transport truck bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles filled with the pods, he frantically screams at the passing motorists, "They're here already! You're next! You're next!"

The flashback ends with Bennell finishing his story back at the hospital. Dr. Hill and the on-duty doctor step outside the room, the latter expressing his certainty that Bennell is psychotic. Just then, a truck driver is wheeled into the hall on a gurney after having been badly injured in an accident. The orderly tells the doctors that the man had to be dug out from under a load of giant pods coming from Santa Mira. Now finally believing Bennell's story, Dr. Hill calls for the police to block the roads in and out of Santa Mira while he alerts the FBI.

Mickey is trying to fly an airplane to imitate Charles Lindbergh. After building his own airplane, he does a flight simulation to ensure that the plane is safe for flight but the flight fails, destroying the plane. Using a roadster and remains of his plane to create another plane, he asks a young mouse girl, Minnie, to join him for its first flight after she presents him with a horseshoe for good luck. They take an out-of-control flight with exaggerated, impossible situations. Clarabelle Cow briefly "rides" the aircraft. Mickey uses a turkey's tail as a tail for his plane. Once he regains control of the plane, he repeatedly tries to kiss Minnie. When she refuses, he uses force: he breaks her concentration and terrifies her by throwing her out of the airplane, catching her with the airplane, and he uses this to kiss her. Minnie responds by slapping Mickey and parachutes out of the plane using her bloomers. While distracted by her, Mickey loses control of the plane and eventually crashes into a tree. Minnie then lands, and Mickey laughs at her exposed bloomers. Minnie then storms off, rebuffing him. Mickey then angrily throws the good luck horseshoe given to him by Minnie and it boomerangs around a tree, hitting him, ringing around his neck, and knocking him out; this causes stars to fly out toward the screen, with one of the stars filling the screen up, ending the film.

In a dystopian, polluted, hyper-consumerist, overbearing bureaucratic totalitarian future somewhere in the 20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day, shortly before Christmas, a fly becomes jammed in a teleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.

Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had been debited for the arrest. He visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he catches a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, a truck driver, and is astonished to discover that Jill resembles the woman from his dreams. Sam frantically tries to approach Jill, but she disappears before he can find her. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle.

Meanwhile, Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but then Tuttle, who used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork, unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape. The workers later return to demolish Sam's ducts and seize his apartment under the pretence of fixing the system.

Sam discovers that Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He had previously turned down a promotion arranged by his high-ranking mother, Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenating plastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. After obtaining Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested. Sam clumsily confesses his love to Jill, and they cause mayhem as they escape government agents. They stop at a mall and are frightened by a terrorist bombing (part of a campaign that has been occurring around the city), then government agents arrive and take Sam. He awakens briefly detained in police custody.

At work, Sam is chastised by his new boss Mr Warrenn for his lack of productivity. Sam returns home to find that the two Central Services workers have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle then appears in secret and helps Sam enact revenge on Spoor and Dowser by filling their hazmat suits with raw sewage. Jill finds Sam outside his apartment and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home. Sam falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two share a romantic night together, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, Sam is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend, Jack Lint.

As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building. Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following botched cosmetic surgery. Sam discovers that his mother now resembles Jill, and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Government agents disrupt the funeral, and Sam falls into the open casket. Through a black void he lands in a street from his daydreams, and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to find himself in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together. However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: it is revealed that Sam is still strapped to the torture chair. Realising that Sam has descended into irrecoverable insanity, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. Sam remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.

Recuperating from a broken leg, professional photographer L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. His rear window looks out onto a courtyard and other apartments. During an intense heat wave, he watches his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool. They are a lonely woman whom Jeff nicknames 'Miss Lonelyhearts', a newlywed couple, a pianist, a pretty dancer nicknamed 'Miss Torso', a middle-aged couple whose small dog likes digging in the flower garden, and Lars Thorwald, a traveling costume jewelry salesman with a bedridden wife.

Jeff is visited regularly by his socialite girlfriend, Lisa Fremont, and a nurse named Stella. One night after an argument with Lisa, Jeff is alone in his apartment and hears a woman scream, "Don't!" and the sound of breaking glass. Later that night, during a thunderstorm, he observes Thorwald making repeated late-night trips carrying a suitcase. The next morning, Jeff notices that Thorwald's wife is gone, and sees him cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Thorwald also has moving men haul away a large trunk. Jeff becomes convinced that Thorwald has murdered his wife, and shares this with Lisa and Stella, who believe him when they observe Thorwald acting suspiciously. Jeff calls his friend Tom Doyle, a New York City Police detective, and asks him to investigate Thorwald. Doyle finds nothing suspicious—apparently, Mrs. Thorwald is upstate.

Soon after, the neighbor's dog is found dead. The distraught owner yells and everyone runs to their windows except Thorwald, who sits quietly in his dark apartment. Certain that Thorwald killed the dog, Jeff telephones him to lure him away so that Stella and Lisa can investigate. He believes Thorwald buried something in the flower bed and killed the dog because it was digging there. When Thorwald leaves, Lisa and Stella dig up the flowers but find nothing.

Much to Jeff's amazement and admiration, Lisa climbs up the fire escape to Thorwald's apartment and clambers in through an open window. Jeff and Stella get distracted when they see Miss Lonelyhearts take out some pills and write a note, realizing she is going to attempt suicide. They call the police but before they can report it Miss Lonelyhearts stops, opening the window to listen to the pianist's music. Thorwald returns and confronts Lisa, and Jeff realizes that Thorwald is going to kill her. He calls the police and reports an assault in progress. The police arrive and arrest Lisa when Thorwald indicates that she broke in to his apartment. Jeff sees Lisa coyly pointing to her finger with Mrs. Thorwald's wedding ring on it. Thorwald sees this also and, realizing that she is signaling someone, spots Jeff across the courtyard.

Jeff phones Doyle and leaves an urgent message while Stella goes to bail Lisa out of jail. When his phone rings, Jeff assumes it is Doyle, and blurts out that the suspect has left. When no one answers, he realizes that it was Thorwald calling. Thorwald enters Jeff's dark apartment and Jeff sets off a series of camera flashbulbs to temporarily blind him. Thorwald pushes Jeff out the window and Jeff, hanging on, yells for help. Police enter the apartment, Jeff falls, and officers on the ground break his fall. Thorwald confesses to the police that he murdered his wife.

A few days later, Jeff rests in his wheelchair, now with casts on both legs, and watches the neighbors again. The couple whose dog was killed have a new puppy, the newlyweds are having their first argument, Miss Torso's true love comes back from the war, Miss Lonelyhearts starts seeing the pianist and Thorwald's apartment is being refurbished. Lisa is with Jeff, reading a book titled ''Beyond the High Himalayas''. After seeing that he is sleeping, she happily opens a fashion magazine.

The film tells the story of Pietro "Beppo" Donnetti. Donnetti is a poor, but happy, gondolier in Venice, Italy. Beppo falls in love with Annette Ancello, but her father, Trudo, wants her to marry another suitor, one who is a successful businessman. If Beppo can prove himself within a year, Trudo agrees to allow him to marry Annette.

Beppo sails for America to make his fortune, making a living working as a shoeshiner on a street corner in New York City. He borrows money from an Irish ward boss, Bill Corrigan, and sends for Annette to join him. In exchange, Beppo agrees to help Corrigan's candidate win the Italian vote in the ward.

When Annette arrives in New York, she and Beppo are married, and the following year they have a son, Tony. Beppo, Annette and Tony live a happy life in their Lower East Side tenement. The happiness is interrupted when the baby contracts a fever during a heatwave. The doctor instructs them to feed pasteurized milk to the baby. Beppo works hard to earn the money to purchase the expensive milk. While walking to the store to buy the milk, Beppo is robbed. He attacks the men who robbed him and is arrested. Beppo asks Corrigan to help his baby while he is in jail: "I must get-a-de-milk or my babee is die." Corrigan rebuffs Beppo, and Beppo's baby dies during Beppo's five days in jail.

When Beppo is released from jail, he learns that Corrigan's young daughter is ill and vows to avenge his son's death by killing Corrigan's daughter. Beppo sneaks into Corrigan's house, but when he sees Corrigan's daughter lying in her crib, he cannot act on his plan, and he leaves the child unharmed.

In the final scene of the narrative, Beppo is shown placing flowers and sobbing over his son's grave.

In the New England beach town of Amity Island, a young woman, Chrissie Watkins, goes skinny dipping in the ocean. While treading water, she is attacked and pulled under the water by an unseen force. The next day, her partial remains are found on shore. The medical examiner's conclusion that the death was due to a shark attack leads police chief Martin Brody to close the beaches. Mayor Larry Vaughn persuades him to reverse his decision, fearing that the town's summer economy will be ruined. The coroner tentatively concurs with the mayor's theory that Chrissie was killed in a boating accident. Brody reluctantly accepts their conclusion until the shark kills a young boy, Alex Kintner, in full view of a crowded beach. A bounty is placed on the shark, causing an amateur shark-hunting frenzy, and local professional shark fisherman Quint offers his services for $10,000. Meanwhile, consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper examines Chrissie's remains, and confirms her death was caused by a shark—an unusually large one.

When local fishermen catch a tiger shark, the mayor proclaims that the beach is safe. Mrs. Kintner, Alex's mother, confronts Brody and blames him for her son's death. Hooper expresses doubts that the tiger shark is responsible for the attacks, and his suspicions are confirmed when no human remains are found inside its stomach after dissection. Hooper and Brody find a half-sunken vessel while searching the night waters in Hooper's boat. Underwater, Hooper removes a sizable great white shark's tooth from the boat's hull, but drops it in fright after discovering the partial corpse of local fisherman Ben Gardner. Vaughn dismisses Brody and Hooper's assertions that a huge great white shark is responsible for the deaths, and refuses to close the beaches, allowing only increased safety precautions. On the Fourth of July weekend, tourists pack the beaches. Following a juvenile prank with a fake shark, the real shark enters a nearby lagoon, killing a boater and causing Brody's oldest son, Michael, to go into shock. Brody then convinces a guilt-ridden Vaughn to hire Quint.

Quint, Brody, and Hooper set out on Quint's boat, the ''Orca'', to hunt the shark. While Brody lays down a chum line, Quint waits for an opportunity to hook the shark. Without warning, it appears behind the boat. Quint, estimating its length at and weight at , harpoons it with a line attached to a flotation barrel, but the shark pulls the barrel underwater and disappears.

At nightfall, Quint and Hooper drunkenly exchange stories about their assorted scars, and Quint reveals that he survived the attack on the USS ''Indianapolis''. The shark returns unexpectedly, ramming the boat's hull, and disabling the power. The men work through the night, repairing the engine. In the morning, Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, but Quint, who has become obsessed with killing the shark without outside assistance, smashes the radio. After a long chase, Quint harpoons the shark with another barrel. The line is tied to the stern cleats, but the shark drags the boat backward, swamping the deck and flooding the engine compartment. Quint prepares to sever the line to prevent the transom from being pulled out but the cleats break off, keeping the barrels attached to the shark. Quint heads toward shore to draw the shark into shallower waters, but he overtaxes the damaged engine and it fails.

As the ''Orca'' slowly sinks, the trio attempts a riskier approach. Hooper enters the water in a shark-proof cage, intending to lethally inject the shark with strychnine, using a hypodermic spear. The shark attacks the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear, which sinks and is lost. While the shark thrashes in the tangled remains of the cage, Hooper manages to escape to the seabed. The shark breaks free and leaps onto the boat, devouring Quint in the process. Trapped on the sinking vessel, Brody shoves a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth and climbs onto the crow's nest. He shoots the tank with Quint's rifle, killing the shark with the resulting explosion. Hooper resurfaces and paddles back to Amity Island with Brody, clinging to the remaining barrels.

Stan works long hours at a slaughterhouse in Watts, Los Angeles. The monotonous slaughter affects his home life with his unnamed wife and his two children, Stan Jr. and Angela. Through a series of confusing episodic events—some friends try to involve Stan in a criminal plot, a white woman propositions Stan to work in her store, and Stan and his friend Bracy attempt to buy a car engine—a mosaic of an austere working-class life emerges in which Stan feels unable to affect the course of his life.

in ''The Lady Eve'' Jean Harrington is a beautiful con artist. Along with her equally larcenous father, "Colonel" Harrington, and his partner Gerald, she is out to fleece rich, naive Charles Pike, the heir to the Pike Ale ("The Ale That Won for Yale") fortune, on an ocean liner. Charles is a woman-shy snake expert just returning from a year-long expedition up the Amazon. The young women aboard the ship compete for his attention, but Charles is more concerned with reading about snakes.

Jean contrives a way to meet Charles, who is smitten with her. After Jean runs off, terrified by a real snake that Charles has brought on board, the two share a steamy scene in her cabin.

Charles's minder Muggsy suspects that Jean is a trickster looking to steal from Charles, but Charles refuses to believe him. However, despite the con, Jean falls in love with Charles and shields him from her card sharp father. Muggsy discovers the truth and presents proof to Charlie, who dumps Jean.

Furious at being scorned, Jean soon re-enters Charles's life masquerading as the posh Lady Eve Sidwich, niece of Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith, another con man who has been swindling the rich of Connecticut. Jean takes on an English accent, determined to torment Charles mercilessly, as she explains, "I've got some unfinished business with him—I need him like the axe needs the turkey."

When Charles meets Jean as Lady Eve, he is so bewildered at her resemblance to the Jean that he knew that he constantly trips and falls over himself. Although Muggsy tries to convince him that "she's the same dame," Charles reasons that Jean would not come close to his home without at least disguising herself. Then, after Sir Keith feeds him a story that the Lady Eve is Jean's sister, Charles accepts the resemblance. After a brief courtship they marry, right on Jean's schedule. And just as she had planned, on the train to their honeymoon Eve begins to confess her past, continuously dropping names of many old boyfriends and lovers. A disgusted Charles jumps off the train.

Jean's con team urges her to close the deal by pursuing a huge divorce settlement, but she tells Charles' father on the phone that she wants no money, but only wants Charles to tell her that their marriage is over in person. Charles refuses. Jean is then told by Charles' father that Charles is departing on another ocean voyage. She arranges passage for herself and her father, and then schemes to happen upon Charles, just as they had met before. Charles is overjoyed to see the real Jean again, and they dash to her cabin, where they mutually affirm their love for each other. Charles confesses that he is married, and Jean replies, "So am I, darling."

Joe is an impoverished New York newsboy who lives with his abusive grandmother. While selling papers, he is given a ticket for a children's excursion sponsored by the Fresh Air Fund. The next morning, Joe sneaks out of his tenement home to join the excursion, where he sees the countryside and the ocean for the first time. After a picnic, an adult volunteer reads to the children a fanciful tale from storybook, a tale about a young prince who is beaten by an old witch. A group of fairies rescues the boy, take him to a boat, and sail off for "the Land Beyond the Sunset, where he lived happily ever after." Joe imagines himself as the boy in the story. When the other children and adults begin their return to the city, Joe manages to get the book, linger, and then hide, afraid that his grandmother will be mad at him and dreading the prospect of returning to his wretched life in the city's slums. Next he wanders to the beach, where he finds a rowboat and decides to embark alone on a voyage to the wonderful, far-off land. He pushes the oarless boat into the water and climbs aboard. The film ends with a distant view of Joe, holding the storybook against his chest, slowly drifting out to sea toward the horizon and most likely to his death.

Set in Depression-era Yorkshire, England, Mr and Mrs Carraclough are hit by hard times and forced to sell their collie, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling, who has always admired her. Young Joe Carraclough grows despondent at the loss of his companion.

Lassie will have nothing to do with the Duke, however, and finds ways to escape her kennels and return to Joe. The Duke finally carries Lassie to his home hundreds of miles distant in Scotland. There, his granddaughter Priscilla senses the dog's unhappiness and arranges her escape.

Lassie then sets off for a long trek to her Yorkshire home. She faces many perils along the way, dog catchers and a violent storm, but also meets kind people who offer her aid and comfort. At the end, when Joe has given up hope of ever seeing his dog again, the weary Lassie returns to her favorite resting place in the schoolyard at home. There, Lassie is joyfully reunited with the boy she loves.

In 1757, in the midst of the French and Indian War, three French divisions and their Huron Indian allies are advancing on Fort William Henry, a British stronghold south of Lake George in the colony of New York. Chingachgook (Theodore Lorch) sends his son Uncas (Roscoe), the last living warrior of the Mohican tribe, to warn the fort's commander, Colonel Munro (James Gordon), of the imminent danger. Uncas is admired by Munro's daughter Cora (Barbara Bedford), much to the displeasure of her suitor, Captain Randolph (George Hackathorne).

Upon receiving Munro's plea for assistance, General Webb (Sydney Deane) dispatches a relief force of 3000 men to Fort William Henry with the Munro sisters, but with the aid of an Indian runner named Magua (Beery), the sisters and Major Heyward (Henry Woodward) take a shortcut through the wilderness. Magua, who is a Huron sympathizer, then pretends to lose his way. In the forest they encounter Uncas, Chingachgook and the hunter and scout Hawkeye (Harry Lorraine), accompanied by an eccentric preacher named David Gamut (Nelson McDowell). When Heyward asks for directions to Fort Edward, the men become suspicious of Magua who, like all Indians in the area, should have an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Their fears of treachery are confirmed when they discover that Magua has disappeared.

Uncas and Hawkeye conceal Heyward and the women in a cave, but Magua and his men find the hiding place, and after a fierce firefight the women are captured. Magua offers to spare "Golden Hair" (Alice) if Cora will become his squaw; but Uncas, Chingachgook and Hawkeye counterattack and rescue the hostages. Although they leave Magua for dead, he is actually uninjured.

The hostages and their rescuers arrive at Fort William Henry at the same time as the column of troops, but the situation is still dire. The only thing keeping the besiegers at bay is a formidable gun emplacement on the left rampart. The cowardly Captain Randolph informs Montcalm, the French commander, that the rampart guns are nonfunctional, leaving Munro no choice but to surrender the fort. Though promised safe passage for the women and children, the Hurons, under the influence of French-supplied whiskey, slaughter the civilians and torch the fort.

Magua kidnaps the Munro sisters for a second time and flees. Uncas and Hawkeye pursue him, but Magua reaches a neutral Delaware village. The dispute is taken before a Delaware council of three; their judgment is that Cora be released to Uncas, and that Alice remain with Magua. To save her sister, Cora offers to take her place. Uncas vows that Magua will not leave with his true love; but by Delaware law, Magua is protected until sundown.

That night, Cora escapes and is pursued by Magua to the edge of a precipice. She threatens to jump if he approaches, so Magua waits patiently for her to fall asleep. When she does, he grabs her arm. She flings herself off the cliff, but Magua still has hold of her arms. When Uncas appears, the situation is reversed: Cora tries to save herself, but Magua uses his knife to pry her fingers loose, and she falls to her death. In the ensuing fight, Magua stabs Uncas, whose body rolls down the embankment to rest near Cora's. With his final, dying strength, Uncas reaches forth and takes Cora's hand in his. Magua flees when Chingachgook and Hawkeye arrive, but Hawkeye shoots him dead.

At Cora and Uncas's burial ceremony, Munro laments the passing of his daughter and Chingachgook mourns for his son, the last of the Mohicans.

In 1951, Sonny Crawford and Duane Jackson are high-school seniors and friends in tiny Anarene, a declining oil town in northern Texas. Duane is dating Jacy Farrow, the richest and prettiest girl in town. Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend Charlene Duggs.

At Christmas time, Sonny begins an affair with Ruth Popper, the depressed middle-aged wife of his high-school coach. At a Christmas dance, Jacy is invited by Lester Marlow to a skinny dipping party at the home of Bobby Sheen, a wealthy young man who seems to be a better prospect than Duane.

A group of boys take their young, mentally disabled friend, Billy, to a prostitute to lose his virginity, but she hits Billy in the face when he ejaculates prematurely. When Duane and Sonny take Billy back home, local businessman Sam tells them that since they cannot even take care of a friend, he is barring them from the pool hall, movie theater, and café he owns, all centerpieces of the town's social life. Duane successfully hides in the back seat. At the café, Genevieve, the waitress, tells Sonny she knows that Duane was with the group but agrees not to tell Sam.

During the weekend of New Year's Eve Duane and Sonny go on a road trip to Mexico. Before they drive off, Sam, who has forgiven Sonny, wistfully wishes he still had the stamina to join them, and gives them some extra money. They return from the trip hung over and tired, to learn that Sam died suddenly of a stroke on New Year's Eve. In his will he left the movie theater to the woman who ran the concession stand; the café to Genevieve; $1,000 to the preacher's son, Joe Bob Blanton; and the pool hall to Sonny.

Because Bobby has told Jacy that he doesn't date virgins, she invites Duane to a motel for sex, but Duane is unable to get an erection. She loses her virginity to Duane on their second attempt and then breaks up with him by telephone. When Bobby marries another girl, Jacy is disappointed. Out of boredom she has sex on a pool table with Abilene, a roughneck foreman who works for her father, who is also her mother's lover. He is brutally cold to her afterward. Jacy then sets her sights on Sonny, who drops Ruth without a word. Duane quarrels with Sonny over Jacy, "his" girl, smashing a bottle into Sonny's left eye that leaves him badly injured and disqualified for military service. Duane then joins the Army to fight in Korea.

Jacy suggests to Sonny that they elope to Oklahoma. They marry and on their way to a honeymoon on Lake Texoma they are stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper. Jacy had left a note telling her parents about their plan, secretly hoping they would stop her. The Farrows have them held in custody until they arrive, her father dismissing Sonny completely and taking Jacy home. Sonny rides back with Jacy's mother, Lois, who reveals she was Sam's youthful lover and chides Sonny that he was much better off with Ruth Popper than with Jacy. The marriage is promptly annulled.

Duane returns to town on leave from the Army before shipping out for Korea. Sonny shows up at his home, and the two make amends. They go to the picture show, its very final screening (the Western, ''Red River'', set in Texas and starring John Wayne). The next morning, Sonny sees Duane off on the bus. Billy is sweeping the street and is hit and killed by a truck, to the complete indifference of some of the local townsmen who blame him for being stupid and careless. Sonny is devastated and berates the men for their behavior. He then seeks comfort from Ruth who has since become even more depressed and has shuttered herself in her house. She explodes in hurt and anger. Then, spent, she takes his outstretched hand, tentatively reuniting the pair.

New York City Police Department detective Mark McPherson is investigating the murder of a young, beautiful, highly successful advertising executive, Laura Hunt, killed by a shotgun blast to the face just inside the doorway of her apartment.

He first interviews charismatic newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker, an imperious, effete older man who relates how he met Laura and became her mentor. She had become his platonic friend and steady companion, and, wishing more, he used his considerable fame, influence, and connections to advance her career.

McPherson also questions Laura's parasitic playboy fiancé, Shelby Carpenter, a "kept man" tethered to her wealthy socialite aunt, Ann Treadwell. Treadwell is tolerant of her niece's infatuation with Carpenter, apparently out of her practical acceptance of Carpenter's need for the affection of a woman closer to his own age.

Bessie Clary, Laura's loyal and highly distraught housekeeper, is also questioned by McPherson.

Through the testimony of Laura's friends and reading through her letters and diary McPherson becomes obsessed with her – so much so that Lydecker finally accuses him of falling in love with the dead woman. He also learns that Lydecker was jealous of Laura's suitors, using his newspaper column and influence to keep them at bay.

One night, the detective falls asleep in Laura's apartment in front of her portrait. He is awakened by a woman entering with her own key, and is shocked that it is Laura. She finds a dress in her closet that had belonged to one of her models, Diane Redfern. McPherson concludes that the body assumed to have been Laura was in fact Redfern, drawn there for a liaison by Carpenter while Laura was away in the country. Now, with Laura still alive, unmasking the killer becomes even more urgent.

At a party celebrating Laura's return McPherson arrests Laura for the murder of Redfern. Upon questioning her, he becomes convinced both that she is innocent and that she does not love Carpenter. He goes to search Lydecker's apartment, where he becomes suspicious of a clock that is identical to the one in Laura's apartment. On closer examination, he finds it has a secret compartment.

McPherson returns to Laura's apartment. Lydecker is there and notices a growing bond between Laura and the detective. Lydecker insults McPherson and is sent away by Laura, but pauses on the stairwell outside. McPherson examines Laura's clock and finds the shotgun that killed Diane, but leaves it there. Laura is confronted with the truth that Lydecker is the murderer.

McPherson and Laura kiss, then he locks her into her apartment, warning her to admit no one. After he leaves, Lydecker, who had slipped in, retrieves the shotgun, emerges from another room and attempts to kill Laura, saying that if he cannot have her no one can. She deflects his shot and flees just as McPherson arrives, and Lydecker is shot down by McPherson's sergeant. Waldo's last words are: "Goodbye, Laura. Goodbye, my love."

Newt Winger, Marcus Savage, and several of their friends steal apples from Jake Kiner's orchard, and when Jake confronts the boys, he is beaten and left for dead by Marcus, who is later sent to jail for his actions. While Marcus is in jail, Newt begins to work for Jake to make up for his actions and those of his friends, and also begins a relationship with the new girl in town Arcella Jefferson, but his relationship with her is ultimately destroyed when Chauncey Cavanaugh, a white man and son of the local judge, rapes and impregnates Arcella, who ultimately moves away out of shame. Another scene depicts Newt forced into a brutal boxing match at the County fair.

One day when Newt is eating his lunch in the loft of Jake's barn, he witnesses the brutal attack and murder of Jake by Booker Savage, Marcus' father. Newt initially keeps quiet about what he has seen, but appears to be bothered that Silas Newhall, who was at the scene of the crime for another reason, is being accused for a murder he did not commit. Encouraged by his mother Sarah, Newt reveals to Judge Cavanaugh that Booker committed the murder, and also testifies in court, but rather than doing the good he intended it to do, Newt's testimony leads to the suicide of Booker and almost being killed by Marcus.

Through all this, the film is able to capture "an adolescent boy's initiation in sex, love, death, justice and injustice, and, because he is black, a fair measure of racial hatred" in "a profoundly nostalgic way", according to ''New York Times'' movie reviewer Roger Greenspun.

A rich and well-known writer (R.), returning home to Vienna from one of many holidays, finds a long letter from an unknown woman (Fräulein). As a teenager the woman had lived with her poor widowed mother in the same building and had fallen totally in love with both the opulent cultured lifestyle of her neighbour and the handsome charming man himself. Her passion for the writer was not lessened by the flow of attractive women spending the night with him nor when she had to leave Vienna and moved to Innsbruck when her mother remarried. At age 18 she returned to Vienna, took a job and tried to meet the writer again. He did not recognise her and, without revealing her name, she succeeded in spending three nights with him before he disappeared on a long holiday. Pregnant, she lost her job and had to give birth in a refuge for the indigent. Resolved that their child should have a good life, she spent nights with or became mistress of various rich men but would never marry because her heart belonged always to the writer. Out one night with a current lover, she saw the writer in a night club and went home with him instead. To him, she was just an agreeable companion for that night, as he again did not recognise her. In the 1918 flu pandemic, the child died and she, ill herself, wrote the letter to be posted after her death.

Mr. Jones (Jules Raucourt), an artist and aspiring movie star, arrives in Hollywood and is immediately star-struck by the film industry's glitz and glamour. He speaks with a film-studio representative, presenting a letter of recommendation and trying to speak on his own behalf. The representative cuts him off, however, and writes the number "9413" on his forehead. From this point on, 9413 speaks only in unintelligible gibberish and moves mechanically, mindlessly following the instructions of film directors and studio representatives. He goes on a series of casting calls, but is unable to find success; he is repeatedly confronted with signs reading "No Casting Today". A series of images are interspersed through these scenes: shots of Hollywood, cameras filming, the word "Dreams" written in the stars, and a repeating loop of a man walking up a stairway toward the word "Success" without ever reaching the top.

Unlike 9413, other extras around him become successful. A woman (Adriane Marsh) with the number 13 on her forehead repeatedly sits down and stands back up at the behest of a film director, and eventually succeeds in landing a part after she is greeted by a "Casting Today" sign. Another extra (Voya George) with the number 15, who (unlike 9413) has an expressionless, unenthusiastic facial expression, holds paper masks symbolizing his performances in front of his face. He is greeted enthusiastically by cheering crowds, all of whom speak in the same gibberish as 9413. His number is replaced with a star, and he becomes tremendously successful. 9413 admires the new movie star and can't contain his excitement when the two meet in person. He presents his own (much more impressive-looking) mask to the star to show he is also an actor. The star is unimpressed and turns his back on 9413, who sadly cradles his mask like a baby and laments his inability to achieve success.

Time passes, and 9413 remains unable to find work in Hollywood. Despite repeated phone calls to studio representatives begging for work, he is always confronted by "No Casting Today" signs. He cannot afford food, and bills he is unable to pay are slipped under his door. A series of images symbolizing his mental anguish include twisted trees blowing in the wind and a man lying on the stairway leading to "Success", still unable to reach the top. Starving, exhausted, and in despair about his failures, he collapses and dies. After the other actors laugh at him, his tombstone is shown. It reads: "Here Lies No. 9413, a Hollywood Extra"; the words "No Casting Today" appear next to it.

After his death, 9413's spirit leaves his body and is pulled up a ramp into the sky. As he gets higher, he grows angelic wings and ascends into heaven: a place with glittering crystal towers and bright, blinking lights. A hand removes the "9413" from his forehead, he smiles happily, and he flies further into heaven.

Joey Norton, seven years old, lives with his older brother Lennie in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Brooklyn. Joey is too small to be taken seriously by Lennie and Lennie's friends.

Richie Andrusco in ''Little Fugitive''

One day, while their mother is away visiting her sick mother, Lennie and his friends play a joke on Joey. They stage an incident using catsup and a toy gun, so that Joey thinks he has shot and killed his brother.

Joey, who is told the police will catch and imprison him, runs to the nearest elevated train station and flees to Coney Island. He seems to forget his predicament and spends the day wandering around the arcades, pony rides, beach—a little boy's paradise. He gets money for snacks by cashing in deposit bottles and spends the night sleeping under the boardwalk. Meanwhile, Lennie is frantically trying to find him as their mother is due home soon.

Joey loves horses, and he begins hanging around a pony ride. The proprietor of the ride becomes suspicious that Joey is a runaway. He tricks Joey into giving him his address. He calls home and alerts Lennie. Lennie comes to Coney Island, and after a frantic search, finds little Joey.

Their mother returns just after the two brothers arrive home. She is unaware of what happened, and pleased that her two sons behaved so well during her absence, says they will have a reward that weekend: a trip to Coney Island!

The film tells the story of "Marky" (Shirley Temple), whose father gives her to a gangster-run gambling operation as a "marker" (collateral) for a bet. When he loses his bet and commits suicide, the gangsters are left with her on their hands. They decide to keep her temporarily and use her to help pull off one of their fixed races, naming her the owner of the horse to be used in the race.

Marky is sent to live with bookie Sorrowful Jones (Adolphe Menjou). Initially upset about being forced to look after her, he eventually begins to develop a father–daughter relationship with her. His fellow gangsters become fond of her and begin to fill the roles of her extended family. Bangles (Dorothy Dell) – girlfriend of gang kingpin Big Steve (Charles Bickford), who has gone to Chicago to place bets on the horse – also begins to care for Marky, and to fall in love with Sorrowful, whose own concern for Marky shows he has a warm heart beneath his hard-man persona. Encouraged by Bangles and Marky, Sorrowful gets a bigger apartment, buys Marky new clothes and himself a better cut of suit, reads her bedtime stories, and shows her how to pray.

However, being around the gang has a somewhat bad influence on Marky, and she begins to develop a cynical nature and a wide vocabulary of gambling terminology and slang. Worried that her acquired bad-girl attitude means she will not get adopted by a "good family", Bangles and Sorrowful put on a party with gangsters dressed up as knights-of-the-round-table, to rekindle her former sweetness. She is unimpressed until they bring in the horse and parade her around on its back. Returning to New York, Big Steve frightens the horse, which throws her, and she is taken to the hospital. Big Steve goes there to pay back Sorrowful for trying to steal Bangles but is roped into giving Marky the direct blood transfusion she needs for her life-saving operation. Praying for her survival, Sorrowful destroys the drug which, administered to the horse, would have helped it win the race but killed it soon after. Informed that he has "good blood" and pleased to have given life for a change, Big Steve forgives Bangles and Sorrowful. They plan to marry and adopt Marky.

The film deals with the adventures of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon, who live a somewhat idyllic existence playing in the bayous of Louisiana. A sub-plot involves his elderly father allowing an oil company to drill for oil in the inlet that runs behind their house. An inland barge is towed into the inlet from interconnecting waterways. Most if not all of South Louisiana swamps and inland waters without land access were and are explored using dredged channels and barge rigs. The film presents the rig crew tripping pipe (an oilfield operations term), changing a bit, and closing valves on the blow out preventers. The rig crew are not actors, they are actual roughnecks. Even though there is a moment of probable manufactured crisis when the rig drills into a trouble zone, the crew's actions are not choreographed per se. The time frame is pre-OSHA, however there are serious doubts that drillers at that time allowed unshoed kids to hang out on the rig floor - ever. As the story progresses the rig completes its operation and friendly drillers depart, leaving behind a phenomenally clean environment and a wealthy Cajun family.

Conflict and action for the plot is provided by the presence of a giant alligator in the area, which is believed to have eaten the pet raccoon and which is hunted in revenge. There is no individual or organized resistance to the incursion of the oil seekers, even after the (brief, offscreen) disaster, who are unequivocally portrayed as friendly, progressive humanitarians.

The boy, named in the film as Alexander Napoleon Ulysses Le Tour, but in the credits just identified as "the boy", was played by Joseph Boudreaux. The film was photographed by Richard Leacock and edited by Helen van Dongen, who were also the associate producers. Its original release was through independent film distributor Lopert Films.

l= * Joseph Boudreaux as The Boy * Lionel Le Blanc as His Father * E. Bienvenu as His Mother (as Mrs. E. Bienvenu) * Frank Hardy as The Driller * C.P. Guedry as The Boilerman

It is December 1938 in the town of Carvel. Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) is putting a down payment on a used car, desperate to take his girlfriend Polly Benedict (Ann Rutherford) to the Christmas Eve dance in his own car. When Polly tells Andy she will be visiting her grandmother for the next three weeks and will not be able to attend the Christmas Eve dance with him, Andy vows to attend the dance alone. Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone), Andy’s father, later encounters his son, who broaches the subject of car ownership, but Judge Hardy tells Andy that he cannot have his own car.

Returning home for the evening, Judge Hardy runs into 12-year-old Betsy Booth (Judy Garland), who is staying with her grandparents for the Christmas holiday. Betsy’s grandmother has been effusive about Andy Hardy and Betsy is thrilled to learn he will be her next door neighbor during her stay. Judge Hardy’s wife, Emily (Fay Holden), receives a telegram that evening informing her that her mother has had a stroke. Emily and her sister leave immediately for rural Canada to care for their mother. Andy meets Betsy while delivering some of his mother’s freshly canned preserves. Betsy is obviously taken with Andy but he does not reciprocate her admiration; he leaves as quickly as possible.

Beezy (George P. Breakston), Andy’s friend, asks Andy to date Cynthia (Lana Turner), Beezy’s girlfriend, while Beezy is out of town over the Christmas holiday period, so that she will avoid other men. Beezy promises to pay Andy $8 plus 50 cents a week for expenses for his efforts. Andy needs the money to purchase his car, so he agrees. Andy starts going out with Cynthia, but she is bored by sports activities, and they find they only get along when they are busy kissing; after walking Cynthia home Andy stops in to visit Betsy Booth—only he’s covered in Cynthia’s lipstick. Betsy gives Andy a handsome new radiator cap for his anticipated car, and, after he leaves, she sadly sings “In-Between.”

One morning, Andy receives a telegram from Polly saying she will be home for the Christmas Eve dance after all. Andy telephones her saying he can’t take her to the dance because of a previous engagement. He thereafter opens a letter from Beezy. Beezy wrote saying he found a new girlfriend so he will not pay Andy for dating Cynthia. Betsy, from a moneyed family, offers to help Andy pay for his car, but he refuses her aid. That evening, he tells his father about the mess he made. Judge Hardy explains his point of view about spending money on a car versus putting it aside as savings—and then discloses his deep concern for Andy’s mother. Judge Hardy would like to convey a message to his wife, but there is no telephone at her mother’s home and Emily finds telegrams unnerving.

Andy suggests a message be sent to their mother via ham radio in lieu of sending her a telegram. Andy brings Judge Hardy to the home of twelve-year-old ham radio operator James McMann Jr. (Gene Reynolds) and he sends a message to Mrs. Hardy in Brigham, Quebec. Judge Hardy is so impressed with James’s help and his son’s ingenuity that he pays the last $8 for Andy’s car.

Betsy deceives Cynthia into thinking that Andy’s car is an absolute wreck; Cynthia haughtily refuses to go to the Christmas Eve dance with Andy. Andy feels relieved to be able to date Polly again. Andy tries to clear things up with Polly but, having learned of his fling with Cynthia, she angrily tells Andy that she won’t go to the dance with him because she has a date with a college boy. Christmas Eve finds Andy wholly dejected at the prospect of not having a date for the dance—but when Betsy comes over in her evening gown he decides to take her to the dance.

At the dance, Polly’s date recognizes Betsy as an accomplished singer and asks her to perform; Andy is scared that she will embarrass him, but she proves to be a fantastic singer and quickly wins over the crowd with “It Never Rains But it Pours” and encores with “Meet the Beat of My Heart.” Betsy and Andy lead the dance in a grand march after Polly leaves in tears. Late that evening at home after the dance, Betsy Booth and the Hardy family are gathered together around the Christmas tree when Mrs. Hardy unexpectedly returns home—her mother is getting better.

On Christmas Day, Betsy explains everything to Polly. Polly and her date from the dance come over to the Hardy home, and Polly’s date turns out to be her cousin. Betsy expresses her gratitude to Andy for a wonderful evening and leaves. Polly and Andy make up.

The story describes an encounter between a Parisian tailor named Maurice Courtelin (Chevalier) and a family of local aristocrats. These include Vicomte Gilbert de Varèze (Ruggles), who owes Maurice a large amount of money for tailoring work; Gilbert's uncle the Duc d'Artelines (C. Aubrey Smith), the family patriarch; d'Artelines' man-hungry niece Valentine (Loy); and his other 22-year-old niece, Princesse Jeanette (MacDonald), who has been a widow for three years. D'Artelines has been unable to find Jeanette a new husband of suitable age and rank. The household also includes three aunts and an ineffectual suitor the Comte de Savignac (Butterworth).

Maurice custom-tailors clothing for de Varèze on credit, but the Vicomte's unpaid tailoring bills become intolerable, so Maurice travels to d'Artelines’ castle to collect the money owed to him. On the way, he has a confrontation with Princesse Jeanette. He immediately professes his love for her, but she haughtily rejects him.

When Maurice arrives at the castle, Gilbert introduces him as "Baron Courtelin" in order to hide the truth from the Duc. Maurice is fearful of this scheme at first, but changes his mind when he sees Jeanette. While staying at the castle, he arouses Valentine's desire, charms the rest of the family except for Jeanette, saves a deer's life during a hunt, and continues to woo Jeanette. The Comte de Savignac discovers that Maurice is a fake, but the Vicomte then claims that Maurice is a royal who is traveling incognito for security reasons. Finally, Jeanette succumbs to Maurice's charms, telling him "Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are, I love you."

When Maurice criticizes Jeanette's tailor, the family confronts him for his rudeness, only to catch him and Jeanette alone with Jeanette partially undressed. Maurice explains that he is redesigning Jeanette's riding outfit, and he proves this by successfully altering it, but in the process he is forced to reveal his true identity. Despite her earlier promise, Jeanette recoils from him and runs to her room on hearing that he is a commoner. The entire household is outraged, and Maurice leaves. However, as a train carries him back to Paris, Jeanette struggles with her fears, finally realizes her mistake, and catches up to the train on horseback. When the engineer refuses to stop the train, she rides ahead and stands on the track. The train stops, Maurice jumps out, and the two lovers embrace as steam from the train envelops them.

Attention-craving Mysto the Magician rudely interrupts a world-famous opera singer, the great Poochini (a pun on opera composer Giacomo Puccini), in the midst of his rehearsal to let him perform an opening act at the show that night. Mysto's tricks primarily come from his magic wand, which can summon flowers and rabbits. After Mysto performs a poorly executed dance and asks him if he gets the job, an annoyed and the unimpressed Poochini emphatically says "NO!" as he kicks Mysto out the door into the alley.

While on the ground, the self-pitying Mysto plays with his magic wand, but soon realizes he can pass it off as a conductor's baton; being further inspired by seeing himself in place of the conductor in a promotional poster outside the door and plans to get revenge on Poochini. Later, as the performance is starting he freezes the conductor, steals his tuxedo, nose and hair; then takes his place in front of the orchestra to conduct the Poochini, who is unaware of the imposter in front of him.

During the performance, in which Poochini (performed by the Colombian baritone Carlos Julio Ramírez) sings ''Largo al factotum'' from Gioacchino Rossini's 1816 opera ''The Barber of Seville'', Mysto unleashes a variety of tricks with his wand. He begins tamely by summoning rabbits and flowers, then turning Poochini into a ballet dancer, an Indian, a tennis player, a prisoner rock-breaker, and a football player. Mysto's revenge gets more brutal as he throws a cymbal on Poochini's head, turning him Chinese and making him sing the Oriental riff; and next transforming him into a country singer and sings "Oh My Darling, Clementine". After levitating Poochini to the ceiling and slamming him down to the stage, Mysto turns him into a square dance caller. Poochini actually continues his performance for a good 20 seconds after this without interruption, except for the "hair gag" where he removes a hair from the film gate and tosses it away.

Poochini is then transformed into a Shirley Temple-esque child (who sings "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" before the balloon blows up and pops), then a Carmen Miranda-type singer, singing "Mamãe Eu Quero" (with two rabbits accompanying him on guitar) after an irritated audience member hurls an armload of fruit onto Poochini's head where it piles up like Miranda's headdress. The same man later sprays black ink on Poochini from a fountain pen, turning him into Bill Kenny from the Ink Spots, then drops an anvil on top of him, crushing him into a shorter height and deepening his voice to that of the Ink Spots' bass, "Hoppy" Jones (parodying the Ink Spots' famous "Top & Bottom" format). After a rabbit hoses off Poochini's face and another rabbit works his arm like an automobile jack to get him back up to full height, the fun continues as he is transformed into a Hawaiian singer with two rabbits for harmony.

Reaching the end of the number, Mysto's plan is finally revealed to Poochini as his wig falls off. Mysto quickly puts the wig back on, but it's too late. Now set for revenge of his own, Poochini furiously grabs the hairpiece and puts it on while a now defeated and exposed Mysto cowardly tries to flee; but Poochini, having also grabbed the magic wand, stops the magician by using the wand on him as placing Mysto to the stage and unleashes the same gimmicks on the hapless magician at high speed. A red curtain with the words "The End" then falls on the magician and the rabbits (at the end of the Hawaiian singer shtick) thus ending the cartoon.

The film opens with a montage of images of Manhattan and other parts of New York City accompanied by George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'', with Isaac Davis narrating drafts of an introduction to a book about a man who loves the city. Isaac is a twice-divorced, 42-year-old television comedy writer who quits his boring job. He is dating Tracy, a 17-year-old girl attending the Dalton School. His best friend, college professor Yale Pollack, married to Emily, is having an affair with Mary Wilkie. Mary's ex-husband and former teacher, Jeremiah, also appears, and Isaac's ex-wife Jill is writing a confessional book about their marriage. Jill, who before their marriage told Isaac that she was bisexual, has since come out and lives with her lesbian partner, Connie.

When Isaac meets Mary, her cultural snobbery offends him. Isaac runs into her again at an Equal Rights Amendment fund-raising event at the Museum of Modern Art hosted by Bella Abzug and escorts her home. They chat until sunrise in a sequence that culminates in a shot of the Queensboro Bridge. In spite of a growing attraction to Mary, Isaac continues his relationship with Tracy but emphasizes that theirs cannot be a serious relationship and encourages her to go to London to study acting.

After Yale breaks up with Mary, he suggests that Isaac ask her out. Isaac does, always having felt that Tracy was too young for him. Isaac breaks up with Tracy, much to her distress, and before long, Mary has virtually moved into his apartment. Emily is curious about Isaac's new girlfriend. The two couples enjoy a day out and upon walking down a street Isaac spots Jill's new book, ''Marriage, Divorce, and Selfhood''. Emily proceeds to read parts of the book aloud, including passages about a ménage à trois Isaac had with Jill and another woman, and an incident where Isaac attempted to run Connie over, much to Mary and Yale's amusement. Publicly humiliated, Isaac confronts Jill, who responds nonchalantly and mentions a film rights deal she has acquired. Upon returning home, Isaac learns from Mary that she is returning to Yale and wants to break up. A furious Isaac confronts Yale at the college where he teaches, and Yale argues that he found Mary first. Isaac discusses Yale's extramarital affairs with Emily and learns that Yale told her Isaac introduced Mary to him.

In the dénouement, Isaac lies on his sofa, musing into a tape recorder about the things that make "life worth living". When he finds himself saying "Tracy's face", he sets down the microphone. Unable to reach her by phone, he sets out for Tracy's on foot. He arrives at her family's apartment building just as she is leaving for London. He asks her not to go and says he does not want "that thing about [her] that [he] like[s]" to change. She replies that the plans have already been made and reassures him that "not everybody gets corrupted" before saying "you have to have a little faith in people". He gives her a slight smile, with a final look to the camera then segueing into final shots of the skyline with some bars of ''Rhapsody in Blue'' playing again. An instrumental version of "Embraceable You" plays over the credits.

The backdrop for the film is St. Louis, Missouri, in the year preceding the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair.

In the summer of 1903, the Smith family leads a comfortable upper-middle class life. Alonzo Smith and his wife Anna have four daughters: Rose, Esther, Agnes and Tootie, and a son, Lon Jr. Esther, the second-oldest daughter, is in love with the boy next door, John Truett, although he does not notice her at first. Tootie rides with iceman Mr. Neely and debates whether St. Louis is the nation's top city. Rose, the eldest daughter, hopes in vain to receive a marriage proposal from Warren Sheffield.

Esther finally meets John properly when he is a guest at the Smiths' party and hopes to meet him again on a trolley ride to the construction site of the World's Fair.

On Halloween, Tootie and Agnes attend a bonfire. Later, after Tootie appears with a split lip and lost tooth, she claims that John tried to kill her. Esther confronts John, physically attacking and scolding him. After Esther returns, Tootie and Agnes confess the truth: John was trying to protect them from the police after a dangerous prank went wrong. Upon learning the truth, Esther apologizes to John and they share their first kiss.

Mr. Smith announces that he is to be sent to New York City on business and they will all move there after Christmas. The family is devastated by the news, especially Rose and Esther, whose romances, friendships and educational plans are threatened. Esther is also aghast because they will miss the World's Fair. Although Mrs. Smith is also upset, she reconciles with her husband and they sing a tender duet at the piano.

An elegant ball takes place on Christmas Eve. John cannot take Esther because he was too late to pick up his tuxedo. Esther is relieved when her grandfather offers to take her to the ball instead. At the ball, Esther and Rose plot to ruin the evening of Warren's date Lucille Ballard by filling her dance card with losers. They are surprised to find that Lucille is warm, friendly and not a snob. She suggests that Warren should be with Rose, allowing her to be with Lon. Esther switches her dance card with Lucille's and takes on the clumsy and awkward partners. After being rescued by Grandpa, Esther is overjoyed when John appears in a tuxedo, and they dance for the rest of the evening. Later, John proposes to Esther and she accepts, but their future is uncertain because she must still move to New York.

Esther returns home to find Tootie waiting impatiently for Santa Claus and worrying about whether she can bring all her toys with her to New York. After Esther's poignant rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", an inconsolable Tootie destroys the snowmen that they must leave behind. Esther reassures Tootie that they will be together no matter where they go. Mr. Smith, who has witnessed the girls outside, begins to have second thoughts. After thinking in the living room, he summons the family downstairs and announces that they will not move to New York, much to everyone's surprise and joy. Warren rushes into the Smith home, declares his love for Rose, and announces that they will marry at the first possible opportunity. Realizing that it is now Christmas, the Smiths celebrate.

At the World's Fair, the family gathers overlooking the Grand Lagoon just as thousands of lights around the grand pavilion are illuminated.

A woman (Maya Deren) sees someone on the street as she is walking back to her home. She goes to her room and sleeps on a chair. As soon as she is asleep, she experiences a dream in which she repeatedly tries to chase a mysterious hooded figure with a mirror for a face but is unable to catch it. With each failure, she re-enters her house and sees numerous household objects including a key, a bread knife, a flower, a telephone and a phonograph. The woman follows the hooded figure to her bedroom where she sees the figure hide the knife under a pillow. Throughout the story, she sees multiple instances of herself, all bits of her dream that she has already experienced. The woman tries to kill her sleeping body with a knife but is awakened by a man (Alexander Hammid). The man leads her to the bedroom and she realizes that everything she saw in the dream was actually happening. She notices that the man's posture is similar to that of the hooded figure when it hid the knife under the pillow. She attempts to injure him and fails. Towards the end of the film the man walks into the house and sees a broken mirror being dropped onto wet ground. He then sees the woman in the chair, who was previously sleeping, but is now dead.

Trudy Kockenlocker is the daughter of the police chief of the small town of Morgan's Creek. Against her father's orders, she attends a wild farewell party for a group of soldiers at which she hits her head on a chandelier while dancing. The next morning, Trudy is in a daze and slowly begins to recall the previous night's events. She had married a soldier but cannot remember his name, except that "it had a ''z'' in it. Like Ratzkywatzky...or was it Zitzkywitzky?" She believes that she and the groom had used fake names, so she doesn't know how to get in touch with him and cannot remember what he looks like. She also does not have the marriage license.

Trudy learns that she became pregnant that night as well. Norval Jones, a local 4-F boy who has been in love with Trudy for years, steps in to help out, but Trudy's overprotective father becomes involved and complicates matters. Norval and Trudy devise a plan: they will get married secretly under false names, which will provide her a marriage certificate with the fake name of Ratzkywatzky and help her avoid a scandal. Later, Trudy will get a divorce, and she and Norval will get married legitimately.

At the rushed wedding ceremony, in which Norval wears an antique WW1 “doughboy” uniform, a frazzled Norval mistakenly signs his real name and the minister calls the police. Norval is brought to the Kockenlocker house where military, state and federal officers fight with Constable Kockenlocker over jurisdiction. Norval is accused of abducting Trudy, impersonating a soldier, impairing the morals of a minor, resisting arrest and perjury. Trudy's father arrests Norval and locks him in the town jail after the justice of the peace rips up the fake marriage certificate. Trudy then tells her father the truth about the marriage, her pregnancy and Norval's attempt to pose as her groom. Her father agrees to let Norval escape so that he can find Trudy's real husband.

Needing money to begin his quest but with the bank where he works closed for the night, Norval sneaks into the bank with the constable's assistance to take $900 while leaving his bonds there that are worth the same amount. Trying to open a safe, Norval trips the burglar alarm, so Trudy and her sister Emmy tie up their father at the police station to make it look as if he had been incapacitated by a burglar. After months in hiding, Norval appears at his attorney's office, where he learns that the constable was fired after his ruse was not believed and that the Kockenlockers have moved out of town. Norval's attorney urges him to disappear, but Norval is determined to find Trudy. However, he is spotted in town by the bank manager, who alerts the police.

Near the end of her pregnancy at Christmas time, the constable approaches the city council to tell them that Trudy wants to tell the real story and exonerate Norval. But before she can do so, Trudy goes into labor and is rushed to the hospital, where she gives birth to sextuplets, all boys. After receiving the news, Governor McGinty and The Boss demand that Norval be set free, with the charges dropped. Trudy's first marriage is annulled and Trudy and Norval are declared to be married after all. The governor even gives Norval a retroactive commission in the state guard, entitling him to legally wear a uniform, and Trudy’s father is named police chief.

When Norval discovers that Trudy has given birth to six boys, he is overwhelmed, and the film ends with this epilogue on a title card:But Norval recovered and
became increasingly happy
for, as Shakespeare said:
"Some are ''born'' great, some
''achieve'' greatness, and some
have greatness ''thrust upon
them''." THE END|author=|title=|source=

The story concerns a woman, Lulu, who lives with her sister's family, essentially acting as a servant. She does not complain about her position, but is not happy. When her brother-in-law's brother, Ninian, comes to visit, there is a certain attraction between them. While joking around one evening they find themselves accidentally married, due to the laws of the state requiring little more than wedding vows to be recited while a magistrate is in the room for a marriage to count as legal. On learning this, Ninian and Lulu decide they like the idea of being married, and choose to remain together. However, within a month, Lulu is back home, having discovered that Ninian was already legally married: 18 years prior he had wed a girl who left him after 2 years, but he had forgotten about it. Lulu considers this a reasonable story, but her brother-in-law, Dwight, insists that it would be a humiliation to the family to reveal such a thing, and insists that she tell everyone instead that Ninian grew bored with her and left her. Lulu is unable to see why this should be a less humiliating story, and begins to complain about her circumstances for the first time. She also notices that her teenage niece, Di, is unhappy, and also seems to be trying to use marriage as a way to escape her circumstance. Lulu eventually has to prevent Di from eloping, and is finally inspired to move out of her sister's home and live independently.

The Tramp works on an assembly line, where he suffers greatly due to the stress and pace of the repetitive work. He eventually suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, getting stuck within a machine and throwing the factory into chaos; he is then sent to the hospital. Following his recovery, the now unemployed Tramp is mistakenly arrested in a Communist demonstration. In jail, he accidentally ingests smuggled cocaine, and in his subsequent delirium, he avoids being put back in his cell. When he returns, he stumbles upon a jailbreak and knocks the convicts unconscious for which he is hailed as a hero and given special treatment. When he is informed that he will soon be released due to his heroic actions, he argues unsuccessfully that he prefers life in jail.

Upon release, he applies for a new job with a shipbuilder but leaves after causing an accident. Soon after, he runs into a orphaned girl, Ellen (Paulette Goddard), who is fleeing the police after stealing a loaf of bread. Determined to go back to jail and to save her from arrest, the Tramp tells the police that he is the thief and asks to be arrested, but a witness reveals his deception and he is freed. He then eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying to get arrested, and once again encounters Ellen in a paddy wagon after he is put in it. It soon crashes however, and she convinces him to escape with her. The Tramp then gets a job as a night watchman at a department store, and encounters three burglars led by "Big Bill," a fellow worker from the factory, who explains that they are hungry and desperate. After sharing drinks with them, he wakes up the next morning during opening hours and is arrested once again for failing to call the police on the burglars and for sleeping in the store’s clothes on a desk, shocking a customer and the storekeeper.

Days later, Ellen takes him to a run down shack to live in. The next morning, he reads about an old factory’s re-opening and lands a job as a mechanic's assistant. The other workers then suddenly decide to go on strike, and tell the Tramp to leave with them. Outside the factory, he accidentally launches a brick at a policeman and is arrested again.

He is released two weeks later, and learns that Ellen is now a café dancer. She gets him a job as a singer and waiter, but goes about his duties clumsily. During his floor show, he loses his cuffs, which bear the lyrics to his song, but he rescues the act by improvising the lyrics using gibberish and by pantomiming. When police arrive to arrest Ellen for her earlier escape, the two are forced to flee again, and Ellen despairs that their struggles are all pointless, but the Tramp reassures her. At a bright dawn, they walk down the road towards an uncertain but hopeful future.

In Mogador, Morocco in the late 1920s, a unit of the French Foreign Legion returns from a campaign. Among the legionnaires is Private Tom Brown. Meanwhile, on a ship bound for Mogador is the disillusioned nightclub singer Amy Jolly. Wealthy La Bessière tries to make her acquaintance, but she rebuffs him.

Amy becomes the headliner at a nightclub. After a performance, she sells apples to members of the audience, including La Bessière and Brown. When Amy gives the latter his "change", she slips him her key.

On the way to Amy's house, Tom encounters Adjudant Caesar's wife. She clearly has a clandestine relationship with him, which she desires to maintain, but Tom rejects her. He enters Amy's house and he and Amy become acquainted. She is embittered with life and men after repeated betrayals, and asks if Tom can restore her faith in men. He answers that he is the wrong man for that. Unwilling to risk heartbreak yet again, she asks him to leave before anything serious happens.

Back in the street, Tom encounters Caesar's wife again, while her husband watches undetected from the shadows. Meanwhile, Amy changes her mind and comes after Tom, who heads back with her to her house. Madame Caesar hires two ruffians to attack Tom, but he manages to seriously wound both.

The next day, Tom is brought before Caesar, who is Tom's commanding officer, for injuring the two natives. Amy helps Tom's case by testifying that he was attacked, but Caesar makes Tom aware that he knows about Tom's involvement with his wife. La Bessière, whose affections for Amy continue unabated, knows of her feelings for Tom and offers to use his influence to lighten Tom's punishment. Instead of a court-martial, Tom is reassigned to a detachment commanded by Caesar that is leaving soon for Amalfi Pass. Suspecting that Caesar intends to rid himself of his romantic rival while they are gone, Tom decides to desert and run away with Amy.

Tom goes to Amy's nightclub dressing room. He overhears La Bessière offer to marry Amy, and her politely reject the proposal, before knocking on the door. La Bessière leaves Amy alone with Tom, who tells her that, if she will join him, he will desert and board a freighter to Europe. She agrees to go along and asks Tom to wait while she performs. Once he is alone, he notices a lavish bracelet that La Bessière has given to Amy. Though he has fallen in love with her, Tom decides Amy would be better off with a rich man than with a poor Legionnaire. He writes on the mirror, "I changed my mind. Good luck!" and leaves.

In the morning, Amy arrives in the town square with La Bessière so she can bid Tom farewell. She asks La Bessière about some women following the company, remarking that the women must be mad. La Bessière responds, "I don't know. You see, they love their men."

On the way to Amalfi Pass, Tom's detachment runs into a machine-gun nest. Caesar orders Tom to deal with it, and Tom suspects it is a suicide mission. To his surprise, Caesar decides to accompany him. After drawing his pistol (apparently to kill Tom), Caesar is shot and killed by the enemy.

Back in Mogador, Amy accepts La Bessière's marriage proposal and tries to make herself love him, but she still pines for Tom. At an engagement party, she hears the return of what is left of Tom's detachment. She leaves the party and is told Tom was wounded and left behind to recuperate in a hospital. She informs La Bessière that she must go to Tom, and, wanting only her happiness, he drives her to the hospital. It turns out Tom had been faking an injury to avoid combat and, when this was discovered, he was assigned to a new unit in the Legion.

The next morning, Amy and La Bessière watch Tom's new unit march away. She catches Tom's eye and the two wave goodbye. When Amy sees the handful of women following the legionnaires they love, she leaves La Bessière, kicks off her high-heeled shoes, and follows Tom into the desert.

In a music store, a woman (Hazel Howell) orders a player piano as a surprise birthday gift for her husband. She tells the manager her address — 1127 Walnut Avenue — and he hires the Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company to deliver the piano in their freight wagon.

The duo soon learn from a postman (Charlie Hall) that the home is at the top of a ''very'' long stairway. Their attempts to carry the piano up the stairs result in it rolling and crashing into the street below several times, twice with Ollie in tow. During their first attempt, they encounter a nursemaid (Lilyan Irene) pushing a baby carriage down the steps; in trying to let her pass, they knock the piano back down the stairs. After the lady laughs at them, Stan kicks her in her backside, causing her to punch him back and hit Ollie over the head with a milk bottle. Stan and Ollie then heft the piano back up the stairs. In a double entendre line, the angry woman tells a policeman (Sam Lufkin) on the corner that she was "kicked right in the middle of my daily duties". The cop then confronts the hapless duo, kicking Ollie twice and hitting Stan with his nightstick after the latter suggests the officer is "bounding over his steps" (i.e. "overstepping his bounds"). Meanwhile, the piano has rolled down the steps again.

The two doggedly persist in carrying the piano up the stairs for a third time. Halfway up, they encounter the short-tempered and pompous Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen (Billy Gilbert), M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F-F-F-''and''-F. He impatiently tells them to take the piano out of his way; he should like to pass. Ollie very reasonably and sensibly suggests he ''walk'' around, which sets off the Professor in a fit of Teutonic rage. He screams at Stan and Ollie to get the piano out of his way, and Stan knocks the Professor's top hat down the stairs and into the street, where it is crushed by a passing vehicle. The outraged professor leaves, loudly threatening to have the two arrested.

Finally, Stan and Ollie get the piano to the top, where Ollie falls into a fountain. As they ring the bell of 1127 Walnut Avenue, the piano rolls back down to the street again. They wearily drag it back up the stairs, and meet the postman by the house, who informs them they did not have to lift the piano up the stairs; they could have driven up the hill and stopped in front of the house. Stan and Ollie promptly carry the piano back down the stairs, put it back in their wagon and drive it up the hill to the house.

Finding no one home, they finally succeed in getting the piano in the house, after dropping it into the fountain and falling in themselves. They make a shambles of the living room while unpacking it. Meanwhile, the owner of 1127 Walnut Avenue is revealed to be Professor von Schwartzenhoffen, who returns and is outraged at what he finds, as he hates pianos. He attacks the piano with an axe, destroying it, but regrets his actions when his wife returns home and tearfully tells her husband it had been a surprise birthday present. To apologize for his actions, the Professor signs the delivery receipt, but the pen Stan and Ollie give him squirts ink over his face. Furious, Schwartzenhoffen blows his temper again and makes the duo run away.

A ''plot outline'' is a prose telling of a story which can be turned into a screenplay. Sometimes it is called a "one page" because of its length. In comics, the roughs refer to a stage in the development where the story has been broken down very loosely in a style similar to storyboarding in film development. This stage is also referred to as storyboarding or layouts. In Japanese manga, this stage is called the ''nemu'' (pronounced like the English word "name"). The roughs are quick sketches arranged within a suggested page layout. The main goals of roughs are to:

• lay out the flow of panels across a page
• ensure the story successfully builds suspense
• work out points of view, camera angles, and character positions within panels
• serve as a basis for the next stage of development, the "pencil" stage, where detailed drawings are produced in a more polished layout which will, in turn, serve as the basis for the inked drawings.

In fiction writing, a plot outline gives a list of scenes. Scenes include events, character(s) and setting. Plot, therefore, shows the cause and effect of these things put together. The plot outline is a rough sketch of this cause and effect made by the scenes to lay out a "solid backbone and structure" to show why and how things happened as they did.

A ''plot summary'' is a brief description of a piece of literature that explains what happens. In a plot summary, the author and title of the book should be referred to and it is usually no more than a paragraph long while summarizing the main points of the story.

In 1882 (a year after the actual gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881), Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, and James Earp are driving cattle to California when they encounter Old Man Clanton and his sons. Clanton offers to buy their herd, but they curtly refuse to sell. When the Earps learn about the nearby boom town of Tombstone, the older brothers ride in, leaving the youngest, James, as watchman. The threesome soon learns that Tombstone is a lawless town without a marshal. Wyatt proves the only man in the town willing to face a drunken Indian shooting at the townspeople. When the brothers return to their camp, they find their cattle rustled and James murdered.

Wyatt returns to Tombstone. Seeking to avenge James's murder, he takes the open position of town marshal and encounters the hot-tempered Doc Holliday and scurrilous Clanton gang several times. During this time, Clementine Carter, Doc's former love interest from his hometown of Boston, arrives after a long search for her beau. She is given a room at the same hotel where both Wyatt and Doc Holliday reside.

Chihuahua, a hot-tempered Latina love interest of Doc's, sings in the local saloon. She runs afoul of Wyatt trying to tip a professional gambler off to his poker hand, resulting in Wyatt dunking her in a horse trough. Doc, who is suffering badly from tuberculosis and fled from Clementine previously, is unhappy with her arrival; he tells her to return to Boston or he will leave Tombstone. Clementine stays, so Doc leaves for Tucson. Wyatt, who has been taken by Clementine since her arrival, begins to awkwardly court her. Angry over Doc's hasty flight Chihuahua starts an argument with Clementine. Wyatt walks in on their spat and breaks it up. He notices Chihuahua is wearing a silver cross that had been taken from his brother James the night he'd been killed. She claims Doc gave it to her.

Wyatt chases down Doc, with whom he has had a testy relationship. Doc forces a shoot-out, ending with Wyatt shooting a pistol out of Doc's hand. The two return to Tombstone, where after being questioned, Chihuahua reveals the silver cross was actually given to her by Billy Clanton. During the interrogation Billy shoots Chihuahua through a window and takes off on horseback, but is wounded by Wyatt. Wyatt directs his brother Virgil to pursue him. The chase leads to the Clanton homestead, where Billy dies of his wounds. Old Man Clanton then shoots Virgil in the back in cold blood.

In town, a reluctant Doc is persuaded to operate on Chihuahua. Hope swells for her successful recovery. The Clantons then arrive, toss Virgil's body on the street and announce they will be waiting for the rest of the Earps at the O.K. Corral.

Chihuahua dies and Doc decides to join the Earps, walking alongside Wyatt and Morgan to the corral at sunup. A gunfight ensues in which most of the Clantons are killed, as is Doc.

Wyatt and Morgan resign as law enforcers. Morgan heads West in a horse and buggy. Wyatt bids Clementine farewell at the school house, wistfully promising that if he ever returns he will look her up. Mounting his horse, he muses aloud, "Ma'am, I sure like that name...Clementine," and rides off to join his brother.

During the Great Depression, Godfrey "Smith" Parke is unemployed, living with other homeless men down on their luck at a New York City dump in a Hooverville on the East River near the 59th Street Bridge. One night, a spoiled socialite named Cornelia Bullock offers him $5 to be her "forgotten man" for a scavenger hunt. The annoyed Godfrey refuses, causing Cornelia to retreat and fall on a pile of ashes, much to the glee of her younger sister and rival Irene. After talking with Irene, Godfrey finds her to be kind and offers to go with her to help her beat Cornelia, as well as satisfy his own curiosity regarding their scavenger hunt.

In the ballroom of the Waldorf-Ritz Hotel, Irene's businessman father Alexander Bullock waits resignedly as his wife Angelica and her mooching protégé Carlo play the game. Godfrey arrives and is authenticated as a "forgotten man", allowing Irene to win the game. However, Godfrey takes the opportunity to address his contempt for the audience's antics before leaving in a huff. Realizing what she brought him into, an apologetic Irene offers Godfrey to be her protégé by hiring him as the new family butler, which he gratefully accepts.

On his first day as the new butler, Godfrey is warned by the Bullocks' maid Molly that he is merely the latest in a long line of butlers who didn't last long due to the Bullocks' conflicting personalities and antics. Despite this, Godfrey proves to be surprisingly competent and resourceful in his duties, but Cornelia holds a grudge against him, intending to get him in trouble and have him dumped back into the streets. In the meantime, Irene proves herself to be far kinder and more empathetic than her family, particularly her sister, but just as spoiled and altogether naïve, becoming infatuated with Godfrey through no more than basic interaction and general allure. She even goes as far as to kiss him, causing a job-anxious Godfrey to politely but firmly outline the boundaries of their employee-employer relationship.

Eventually, Godfrey is recognized by his longtime friend Tommy Gray at a tea party thrown by Irene. Godfrey makes up a story that he was Tommy's valet at Harvard, to which Tommy plays along by embellishing Godfrey's story with a nonexistent wife and five children. Upon hearing this, a dismayed Irene impulsively announces her engagement to the surprised Charlie Van Rumple but breaks down in tears and flees after being congratulated by Godfrey. Over lunch the next day, Tommy is curious to know what one of the elite "Parkes of Boston" is doing as a servant. Godfrey explains that a broken love affair left him broke and considering suicide, but the undaunted attitude of the homeless men living at the dump rekindled his spirits.

Eventually, Irene breaks her engagement with Charlie. Cornelia attempts to seduce Godfrey on his day off, but when he rebuffs her, she plants her pearl necklace under Godfrey's mattress and calls the police, intending to have him arrested. However, the police couldn't find the pearls inside the mattress, and Mr. Bullock (having deduced what Cornelia did) furiously informed Cornelia that the pearls are not insured and that she will lose a great deal of money if she doesn't find the necklace, distressing her. The Bullocks send their daughters to Europe to get Irene away from her now-broken engagement, but when they return, Cornelia implies that she intends to seduce Godfrey again. A worried Irene stages a fainting spell and swoons into Godfrey's arms, but he rebuffs her after realizing that she's faking. Having enough of Irene's behavior, Godfrey announces his resignation as the butler.

Before Godfrey is about to leave, Mr. Bullock throws Carlo out (literally), and announces to the family that their business is failing and that he tried to recoup the losses with his stockholders' money behind their backs, which will land him in prison on embezzlement charges and leave the rest of the family penniless. However, Godfrey provides good news: he had sold short, using some of the money raised by pawning Cornelia's pearl necklace to buy up the stock that Bullock had sold. He gives the stock back to Mr. Bullock, saving the family from financial ruin. Godfrey also returns the necklace to Cornelia, who concedes defeat by confessing to planting the necklace in the mattress and humbly expressing her gratitude and remorse for her behavior. As Godfrey leaves, the grateful Molly and the Bullocks are saddened to see him go, but Irene is determined to follow him.

With Godfrey's remaining profits, Godfrey and Tommy become business partners as they convert the now-filled-in dump into a fashionable nightclub called "The Dump", creating new jobs for the other homeless men, with a housing plan for new SRO apartments for them. Upon hearing of Godfrey's new occupation during The Dump's grand opening, a determined Irene finds Godfrey and convinces him to marry her by persuading the Mayor (who is the guest of honor) to perform a civil wedding while her chauffeur serves as a witness.

In 1938, handsome, irresponsible playboy Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) meets bespectacled Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) on a train in England and later persuades her to take a walk with him. She is defensive and suspects his motives; he insults her in a ploy to create familiarity. But later, at a window, she overhears her parents talking about her. They assume she will never marry, and hurt by this she kisses Johnnie.

She hopes to hear from him but he cancels their afternoon date and then vanishes. However, he returns for a hunt ball a week later and charms her into eventually eloping despite the strong disapproval of her wealthy father, General McLaidlaw (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). After a lavish honeymoon and returning to an extravagant house, Lina discovers that Johnnie has no job and no income, habitually lives on borrowed money, and was intending to try to sponge off her father. She talks him into getting a job, and he goes to work for his cousin, estate agent Captain Melbeck (Leo G. Carroll).

Gradually, Lina learns that Johnnie has continued to gamble wildly, despite promising to quit, and that to pay a gambling debt, he sold two antique chairs (family heirlooms) that her father had given her as a wedding present. Beaky (Nigel Bruce), Johnnie's good-natured but naive friend, tries to reassure Lina that her husband is a lot of fun and a highly entertaining liar. She repeatedly catches Johnnie in ever more significant lies, discovering that he was fired weeks before for embezzling from Melbeck, who says he will not prosecute if the money is repaid.

Lina writes a letter to Johnnie that she is leaving him, but then tears it up. After this, Johnnie enters the room and shows her a telegram announcing her father's death. Johnnie is severely disappointed to discover that Lina has inherited no money, only her father's portrait. He convinces Beaky to finance a hugely speculative land development scheme. Lina is afraid this is a confidence trick or worse, and futilely tries to talk Beaky out of it. Johnnie overhears and angrily warns his wife to stay out of his affairs, but later he calls the whole thing off.

When Beaky leaves for Paris, Johnnie accompanies him partway. Later, news reaches Lina that Beaky died in Paris. Johnnie lies to her and an investigating police inspector, saying that he (Johnnie) stayed in London. This and other details lead Lina to suspect he was responsible for Beaky's death.

Lina then begins to fear that her husband is plotting to kill her for her life insurance. He has been questioning her friend Isobel Sedbusk (Auriol Lee), a writer of mystery novels, about untraceable poisons. Johnnie brings Lina a glass of milk before bed, but she is too afraid to drink it. Needing to get away for a while, she says she will stay with her mother for a few days. Johnnie insists on driving her there. He speeds recklessly in a powerful convertible on a dangerous road beside a cliff. Lina's door unexpectedly swings open. Johnnie reaches over, his intent unclear to the terrified woman. When she shrinks from him, he stops the car.

In the subsequent confrontation, Johnnie asserts that he was actually intending to commit suicide after taking Lina to her mother's. At this time he states that he has decided that suicide is the coward's way out, and is resolved to face his responsibilities, even to the point of going to prison for the embezzlement. He reveals being in Liverpool at the time of Beaky's death, trying to borrow on Lina's life insurance policy to repay Melbeck. Her suspicions allayed, Lina asks him to go home and see it all through together. Johnnie initially refuses but eventually they drive away together.

Racial wars have torn the U.S. apart, resulting in a post-apocalyptic world. Many small pockets of civilization still exist; from isolated super high-tech fortresses, hidden research labs, or racial groups in walled-in cities — all fighting each other among the more regular population which in many ways resembles the "old west".

Jeremiah and his friend Kurdy travel the country, taking odd jobs and getting mixed up in various affairs. Jeremiah, being the more noble of the two, often sticks his neck out to help others, while Kurdy is a more wily, opportunistic scoundrel.

Despite its setting, ''Jeremiah'''s underlying motif is of hope and the survival of mankind. The storylines carry little from album to album, meaning they can be read individually.

The year is 2021, 15 years after a plague has killed nearly everyone over the age of thirteen (both the event and the virus itself are referred to as "The Big Death" and "The Big D"). Two young men, Jeremiah and Kurdy, meet up and join forces with those inside "Thunder Mountain" and help rebuild civilization. Jeremiah is searching for the "Valhalla Sector" where his father may still be alive.

The eponymous Jeremiah is a semi-loner who has spent the last 15 years travelling back and forth across the United States, seeking out a living and looking for a place called "Valhalla Sector" (the remains of Raven Rock), which his father—a viral researcher—had mentioned to Jeremiah as a possible refuge shortly before disappearing into the chaos of "the Big Death." A stop in the Colorado trading town of Clarefield results in Jeremiah teaming up with another lone traveller named Kurdy, before being imprisoned by the town's warlord in a cell with a man named Simon, who wants to recruit Jeremiah for a vague and mysterious organization. With Kurdy's help, Jeremiah and Simon escape, but Simon is fatally wounded in the process.

Following the instructions given to them by the dying Simon, Jeremiah and Kurdy take Simon's truck back to "Thunder Mountain," the remains of the NORAD complex, where they discover a well-organized and -equipped group operating out of the base, led by the former child prodigy Markus Alexander. Markus chooses to employ Jeremiah and Kurdy as a recon team to replace the now dead Simon and his partner, sending the two men back outside to gather information in preparation for the time when the mountain will need to start rebuilding the world.

Over the course of the first season, the group increasingly encounters threats originating from Valhalla Sector, which they discover to be a sealed and heavily armed bunker complex in West Virginia, used to house the remains of the US government and military leadership during the Big Death. The survivors there plan to rebuild the world in an authoritarian mold, combining their military power with attempts to control the "Big Death" virus itself in order to wipe out resistance by slaughtering non-compliant populations. The second half of Season 1 primarily deals with the efforts of Jeremiah and Thunder Mountain to stop Valhalla Sector.

After the final defeat of Valhalla Sector in the opening episodes of Season 2, a new threat emerges in the form of a crusading army from the East, led by a mysterious prophetic figure known as Daniel. Season 2 deals with the impending conflict between the unifying survivor communities under Thunder Mountain, and the advancing Army of Daniel.

Although a third season was considered, series creator J. Michael Straczynski made it clear that if the show ran a further season he would have nothing to do with it. The show concluded with the end of the second season resolving most plot threads.

The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, wherein women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The first half of the story goes through the practicalities of existing in a two-dimensional universe as well as a history leading up to the year 1999 on the eve of the 3rd Millennium.

On New Year's Eve, the Square dreams about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) inhabited by men, consisting of lines, while the women consisted of "lustrous points". These points and lines are unable to see the Square as anything other than a set of points on a line. Thus, the Square attempts to convince the realm's monarch of a second dimension, but is unable to do so. In the end, the monarch of Lineland tries to kill the Square rather than tolerate his nonsense any further.

Following this vision, he is himself visited by a three-dimensional sphere. Similar to the "points" in Lineland, the Square is unable to see the sphere as anything other than a circle. The Sphere then levitates up and down through the Flatland, allowing Square to see the circle expand and contract. The Square is not fully convinced until he sees Spaceland (a tridimensional world) for himself. This Sphere visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hope of eventually educating the population of Flatland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the Sphere and prescribing on the silencing. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste), including the Square's brother.

After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth and higher spatial dimensions, but the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace.

The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland, whereof the Point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any communication as a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism):

The Square recognises the identity of the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of higher dimensions. Once returned to Flatland, the Square cannot convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced that anyone preaching the existence of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason, with only occasional contact with his brother who is imprisoned in the same facility. He does not manage to convince his brother, even after all they have both seen. Seven years after being imprisoned, A Square writes out the book ''Flatland'' in the form of a memoir, hoping to keep it as posterity for a future generation that can see beyond their two-dimensional existence.

Planet Spaceball, led by the incompetent President Skroob, has squandered all of its fresh air. Skroob schemes to force King Roland of the neighboring planet Druidia to give them the code to the shield that protects Druidia, allowing them to steal all their air, by kidnapping his daughter Princess Vespa on the day of her arranged marriage to the narcoleptic Prince Valium. Skroob sends the villainous Dark Helmet to complete this task with ''Spaceball One'', an impossibly huge ship commanded by Colonel Sandurz. Before they can arrive, Vespa abandons her wedding and flees the planet in her Mercedes spaceship with her droid of honor, Dot Matrix.

Roland contacts mercenary Lone Starr and his "mawg" (half man, half dog) companion Barf, offering a lucrative reward to retrieve Vespa before she is captured. Lone Starr readily accepts, as he is in major debt to gangster Pizza the Hutt. In their Winnebago spaceship, ''Eagle 5'', Lone Starr and Barf are able to reach Vespa before ''Spaceball One'', rescue both her and Dot, then escape. ''Spaceball One'' tries to follow at light-speed, but Helmet orders the ship to "ludicrous speed", causing it to overshoot the escapees by a large distance.

Out of fuel, Lone Starr is forced to crash-land on the nearby "desert moon of Vega". The group travels on foot in order to evade the Spaceballs, but they eventually pass out under the blazing sun. They are found by the Dinks, a group of diminutive sparkly brown-clad aliens, and are taken to a cave occupied by the sage Yogurt, who introduces the group and the audience to the film's merchandising campaign. Yogurt later teaches Lone Starr about the metaphysical power known as "the Schwartz", and gives him a ring which can be used to control the "Upside" of the Schwartz. During this time, Lone Starr and Vespa develop romantic feelings for each other, but Vespa insists she can only marry a prince.

Helmet and Sandurz break the fourth wall by using a VHS copy of ''Spaceballs'' to discover Vespa's location, and Helmet orders ''Spaceball One'' to go to the moon of Vega. When Helmet discovers Yogurt's lair, he lures Vespa out by pretending to be Roland and captures both her and Dot, taking them back to planet Spaceball. He then threatens to reverse Vespa's nose job, forcing Roland to reveal the code to Druidia's shield. Skroob, Helmet and Sandurz take ''Spaceball One'' to Druidia, while Lone Starr and Barf rescue Vespa and Dot from the Spaceballs prison complex. When they arrive at Druidia, ''Spaceball One'' transforms into ''Mega Maid'', a Statue of Liberty-like colossal robot maid with a vacuum cleaner. The vacuum is activated and begins sucking the air off the planet. When the vacuum bag is almost full, Lone Starr uses the Schwartz to reverse the vacuum, blowing the air back onto the planet.

The group then enters ''Mega Maid'' and attempts to destroy it. Lone Starr and Helmet fight using lightsaber-like weapons created by their Schwartz-rings, until the former loses his ring. Yogurt speaks to Lone Starr, telling him that the ring was a Cracker Jack box prize and that the real Schwartz is inside him. Lone Starr defeats Helmet, causing him to inadvertently strike the self-destruct button. Lone Starr and his friends escape the ship, while Skroob, Helmet, and Sandurz fail to reach any escape pods in time, trapping them in the robot's head as the ship explodes. They subsequently crash-land on a nearby planet, much to the chagrin of its ''Planet of the Apes''-like population.

With Lone Starr's debt to Pizza nullified by the gangster's untimely death, he returns Vespa to Roland and leaves, taking only enough money to cover his expenses. After a lunch break at a diner and a strange incident involving an alien and an astronaut similar to the events in ''Alien'', Lone Starr finds a final message from Yogurt, informing him that the medallion necklace Lone Starr has been wearing reveals that he is a prince, and thus eligible to marry Vespa. He reaches Druidia in time to stop her wedding to Valium, announces his royal lineage, then marries Vespa.

Eagle 5 flies off into the stars, its glowing exhaust revealing a message: MAY THE SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOU.

In 1868, in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Howard Kemp offers grizzled prospector Jesse Tate $20 for help tracking Ben Vandergroat, wanted for killing a marshal in Abilene, Kansas. Kemp shows him a torn WANTED poster. Tate assumes that Kemp is a sheriff.

An avalanche of rocks blocks their path. Kemp fires, provoking another rock slide. Roy Anderson, recently discharged from the 6th Cavalry, is attracted by the shots. Kemp asks to see his discharge: Anderson is "morally unstable".

Anderson scales a cliff face and catches Vandergroat. The outlaw's companion, Lina Patch, jumps in. Kemp and Tate stop the fight. Lina's father, killed robbing a bank in Abilene, was Vandergroat's friend.

James Stewart and Millard Mitchell Vandergroat reveals that Kemp is no lawman and that the bottom of the WANTED poster offers $5,000 to whoever brings him in. Tate and Anderson want their shares. Lina believes that Vandergroat is innocent. On the trail, Vandergroat wages a constant psychological campaign to turn his captors against each other by various means, starting with the observation that the reward will be larger divided by two.

Scouting a mountain pass, Kemp and Tate spot a dozen Blackfoot far from their normal territory. Anderson confesses that they are after him for raping the chief's daughter. Kemp tells Anderson to ride away, fast, so the rest of them will be safe. The Blackfoot catch up to Kemp's group, and when they all stop, Anderson shoots the chief from hiding.

Millard Mitchell and James Stewart During the ensuing battle, Kemp saves Vandergroat and is shot in the leg. Lina helps him to cover. They all ride on. When Kemp passes out, they make camp. Delirious, he thinks that he is leaving to fight in the Civil War and Lina is Mary, his fiancée. Strains of "Beautiful Dreamer" play.

Vandergroat explains that Mary sold Kemp's ranch and ran away. He adds that Kemp's one-third share of the reward is not enough to buy his ranch: They should worry. Lina tells Kemp that she is not “with” Vandergroat romantically. She has only seen him fighting fair and believes his promise of a ranch in California. Later, Vandergroat loosens Kemp's saddle cinch and pushes him over the edge of a steep mountain trail. A tree breaks his fall, and he crawls back up. That night, Vandergroat grins to see Kemp gently pull Lina's blanket over her.

They take refuge from a storm in a cave. Vandergroat tells Lina to distract Kemp so that he can escape through the back of the cave. The alternative: He will kill Kemp. The "Beautiful Dreamer" theme plays as Lina describes her dream of California and Kemp reminisces about his ranch. They kiss. Vandergroat takes his chance. Kemp hauls him back. Anderson wants to kill Vandergroat: The reward is "dead or alive". Tate stops Anderson but, infuriated, Kemp challenges Vandergroat to a quick draw, which he refuses.

At the river, now running so high they must detour downstream, Anderson lassoes Vandergroat's neck, intending to drag the “sack of money” across. Kemp and Anderson fight. While Kemp and Anderson recover and Lina searches for firewood, Vandergroat offers Tate an irresistible temptation: a gold mine.

Vandergroat and Lina ride double; Tate follows, holding a rifle. Vandergroat yells "Snake!" and in the confusion, grabs the rifle. Vandergroat kills Tate where the body will be seen by the others. Lina finally accepts the truth about him.

Vandergroat fires on Kemp and Anderson from the cliff above, but Lina grabs the rifle barrel. While Anderson exchanges gunfire with Vandergroat, Kemp uses one of his spurs as a piton to climb the cliff and outflank Vandergroat.

Suspicious, Vandergroat rises to fire at Kemp. Kemp throws the spur into his cheek, and Anderson shoots Vandergroat. The body falls into the river and is entangled in the roots of dead trees lodged on the opposite bank. Anderson lassos a snag and crosses. He wraps the rope around Vandergroat's body but is carried off by a huge floating tree trunk.

Kemp drags Vandergroat's body across the river and hoists it onto his horse, in a rage, vowing that he will take him back. Lina says she will go with him, no matter his choice, marry him, and live with him. Weeping, he declares one last time that he is taking him back. The "Beautiful Dreamer" theme soars. Calming, Kemp asks her if she still wants to try California. He begins to dig the grave, and she makes coffee.

Hal Philip Walker, Replacement Party candidate in the 1976 United States presidential election, arrives in Nashville for a fundraising gala. Meanwhile, two recording sessions are taking place in a nearby studio: in one room, country superstar Haven Hamilton records a patriotic song commemorating the Bicentennial, while next door, Linnea Reese, a white gospel singer, records a song with the Jubilee Singers of historically black Fisk University. Opal, an Englishwoman who claims to be working on a documentary for the BBC (though she refers to the British Broadcasting Company), attempts to listen in on the sessions. Later that day, country singer Barbara Jean returns to Nashville following what the crowd believes was a burn accident (which may actually have been a nervous breakdown and stay at a mental hospital). She is greeted at Berry Field by local industry elites, including Haven and his companion, Lady Pearl, a nightclub owner. Also present are Pfc. Glenn Kelly, who is obsessed with Barbara Jean, and a popular folk trio consisting of married couple Bill and Mary, and guitarist Tom, who are in town to record an album. Meanwhile, Martha, a teen groupie going by the name "L.A. Joan", is picked up by her uncle, Mr. Green, at the airport; she has arrived to visit her dying aunt Esther, but covertly plans to pursue musicians. In the airport cafe, African-American cook Wade Cooley and his co-worker, a waitress named Sueleen, discuss her aspirations to become a singer.

On the tarmac, Barbara Jean collapses from heat exhaustion, and those in attendance depart the airport only to become stranded after a vehicle pile-up occurs. During the commotion, Winifred, an aspiring country singer, runs away from her husband Star; Star then gives a ride to Kenny Frasier, who has just arrived in town carrying a violin case. Opal takes advantage of the traffic jam to interview Linnea, as well as Tommy Brown, an African-American country singer. That night, Sueleen performs at an open mic at Lady Pearl's club, demonstrating no singing ability. Meanwhile, Linnea's husband Del has John Triplette, Walker's political organizer, over for dinner. Throughout the meal, Linnea mainly focuses on communicating with her two deaf children. Tom, who crossed paths with Linnea earlier that day, phones the house to ask Linnea on a date, but she dissuades him. Glamorous singer Connie White performs that night, in lieu of Barbara Jean at the Grand Ole Opry. Mary misses Connie's performance to Bill's dismay, instead having sex with Tom at the hotel. At the hospital, Barbara Jean argues with her manager husband Barnett over Connie replacing her, and he accuses her of having another nervous breakdown.

On Sunday morning, Lady Pearl, Wade, and Sueleen attend a Catholic mass, while Linnea sings in the choir of a black Baptist church. In the hospital chapel, Barbara Jean sings "In the Garden" from her wheelchair while Mr. Green, Pfc. Kelly, and others watch. Opal wanders through a massive auto scrapyard, recording observations on a tape recorder. Haven, Tommy, and their families attend the stock car races, where Winifred unsuccessfully attempts to sing on a small stage. Bill and Mary argue in their hotel room and are interrupted by Triplette, who recruits them to perform at the gala, while Tom tries to get chauffeur Norman to score him drugs.

After Barbara Jean is discharged, she gives a performance at Opryland USA that ends in her being pulled off stage as she rambles between songs. To remediate her poor performance, Barnett pledges her to perform at Walker's gala. Martha meanwhile agitates Kenny, who is renting a room in her uncle's house, when she attempts to investigate his violin case. At Lady Pearl's club that night, Linnea, Martha, Bill, Mary, Opal, Norman and Wade are among those attending an open mic. Tom sings "I'm Easy" and Linnea, moved, goes back to his room, where they have sex. Tom is accustomed to women becoming clingy and emotional after trysts but Linnea is polite but detached afterwards. She leaves Tom’s room oblivious to his blatant attempts to rattle her and make her jealous, frustrating him. Meanwhile, at an all-male Walker fundraiser, Sueleen is booed off stage for singing poorly; Del and Triplette convince her to perform a striptease in exchange for a slot at the gala. A drunken Del later comes onto Sueleen, but Wade rescues her. He tells her that she cannot sing and attempts to persuade her to come to Detroit with him; she refuses, determined to "sing with Barbara Jean".

The next morning, the performers and audience converge at the Parthenon for Walker's gala concert. The lineup consists of Haven, Barbara Jean, Linnea and her choir, Mary and Tom, and Sueleen; Winifred arrives, hoping to sing. Meanwhile, Mr. Green and Kenny arrive at the gala searching for Martha, who has failed to attend her aunt Esther's funeral, and find her accompanying Bill. During Barbara Jean's set, Kenny produces a gun from his violin case, and begins shooting at the stage. A bullet grazes Haven's arm, but Barbara Jean is seriously injured. Kelly disarms Kenny as chaos breaks out. Barbara Jean is carried from the stage, bleeding and unconscious, while Haven tries to calm the crowd by exhorting them to sing, asserting that "This isn't Dallas". Winifred is handed the microphone in the melee, and begins singing "It Don't Worry Me", joined by Linnea's gospel choir.

In fall 1962, Faber College freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman seek to pledge a fraternity. After they are unable to fit in at the prestigious Omega Theta Pi house's party, Kent suggests they visit the Delta Tau Chi house next door as he is a "legacy" and cannot be turned down because his older brother Fred was a member. John "Bluto" Blutarsky welcomes them and they meet other Deltas including Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day, Chapter President Robert Hoover, Eric "Otter" Stratton, and Otter's best friend Donald "Boon" Schoenstein and girlfriend Katy. Kroger and Dorfman are invited to pledge and Bluto, Delta's sergeant-at-arms, gives them their fraternity names ("Pinto" and "Flounder" respectively).

Dean Vernon Wormer wants to remove the Deltas who are already on probation due to various campus conduct violations and an abysmal academic standing. Invoking his emergency authority, he places Delta on "double-secret probation" and directs Omega president Greg Marmalard to find a method to permanently remove Delta. Various incidents further increase the Dean's and the Omegas' animosity toward the Deltas, including the prank-related accidental death of a horse belonging to Omega member and ROTC Cadet Commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer as well as Otter flirting with Marmalard's girlfriend, Mandy Pepperidge.

Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming test from the trash, unaware that the Omegas have switched the mimeograph negative for the exam. The Deltas all fail and their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer tells them he needs only one more incident to revoke their charter. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party and bring in Otis Day and the Knights to provide live music. Wormer's wife Marion attends at Otter's invitation. Pinto hooks up with Clorette, a cashier he meets at the supermarket. They make out until she passes out drunk. Pinto takes her home in a shopping cart and discovers she is the mayor's under-age daughter.

Outraged by Marion's escapades and with the mayor threatening personal violence, Wormer organizes a hearing and revokes Delta's charter. To clear their heads, Otter, Boon, Flounder, and Pinto go on a road trip in Fred's car. Otter picks up four young women from the Emily Dickinson College as dates for himself and fellow Deltas by posing as Frank Lymon, the fiancé of a college student who died in a recent kiln explosion. They stop at a roadhouse bar where The Knights are performing, ignoring its exclusively African-American clientele. A couple of hulking patrons intimidate the Deltas, who flee, abandoning their dates and damaging their car.

Later, Marmalard and other Omegas lure Otter to a motel and beat him up after Mandy's best friend Barbara Sue "Babs" Jansen fabricates an affair between Mandy and Otter. Due to the Deltas' dismal midterm grade, Wormer ecstatically expels them, having already notified their local draft boards that they have lost their student deferments and are now eligible for military service. After Bluto rallies the despondent Deltas with an impassioned speech, they decide to get revenge on Wormer, the Omegas, and the college at the annual homecoming parade. D-Day converts Fred's damaged car into an armored vehicle, which they conceal inside a cake-shaped breakaway float and sneak into the parade. The Deltas then sabotage all aspects of the parade and drive through the viewing stand. As chaos ensues, the futures of several of the characters are revealed: most of the Deltas become respectable professionals while the Omegas and the other adversaries suffer less fortunate outcomes: Neidermeyer being killed in Vietnam by his own troops, and Marmalard becoming an aide to President Nixon and getting raped in prison in 1974.

At a restaurant in Milan, Italy, Mrs. Claypool, a wealthy widow, has apparently been stood-up for dinner by Otis B. Driftwood, her business manager. After she discovers him dining with another woman and seated directly behind her, Driftwood joins Mrs. Claypool and soon introduces her to Herman Gottlieb, director of the New York Opera Company, also dining at the restaurant. Driftwood has arranged for Mrs. Claypool to invest $200,000 in the opera company, allowing Gottlieb to engage Rodolfo Lassparri, the "greatest tenor since Caruso".

Backstage at the opera house, chorister Ricardo Baroni hires his best friend Fiorello to be his manager. Ricardo is in love with the soprano, Rosa Castaldi, who is also being courted by Lassparri. Driftwood arrives backstage and finds Lassparri attacking Tomasso, his dresser; Tomasso knocks Lassparri unconscious by hitting him over the head with a mallet. Fiorello appears and introduces himself to Driftwood as the manager of the "greatest tenor in the world". Driftwood, who believes Fiorello is referring to Lassparri (who is lying unconscious at their feet), unwittingly signs Ricardo to a contract.

Soon, Driftwood, Mrs. Claypool, Rosa, Lassparri and Gottlieb all set sail from Italy to New York aboard an ocean liner. After bidding farewell to Rosa at the pier, Ricardo, Fiorello, and Tomasso stow away inside Driftwood's steamer trunk. After being discovered, Driftwood attempts to get the three of them to leave, as he is expecting a rendezvous with Mrs. Claypool. Fiorello refuses to go until they've eaten, and eventually Driftwood's very small stateroom is crowded with an assortment of people. (See ''Stateroom scene'' below.)

Later, Lassparri spots the three stowaways among the Italian immigrants on the ship, and they are caught and thrown into the brig. They escape with help from Driftwood and are able to sneak into the country by assuming the identities of three famous bearded aviators,The nationality of the aviators is never identified. In ''The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer's Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details'' (2015, McFarland, ), Matthew Coniam points out that the omission seems to have been intentional, in order to avoid an obvious lampoon of the Italian fascist aviator Italo Balbo, and that in the newspaper caption that follows they are identified as the "Santopoulos Brothers", suggesting that they may be Greek. (pp. 124-125) who are traveling aboard the ship. During a hero's welcome in New York, the stowaways are exposed as frauds and they flee, hiding out in Driftwood's hotel room while pursued by police sergeant Henderson.

Meanwhile, Ricardo is reunited with Rosa after climbing in the window of her hotel room. Lassparri appears and after a physical altercation with Ricardo, both Rosa and Driftwood are fired from the opera company by Gottlieb. The boys decide to seek revenge by sabotaging the opening night performance of ''Il trovatore'' with various antics, climaxing with the abduction of Lassparri, which forces Gottlieb to substitute Ricardo and Rosa in his place. Mrs. Claypool and the audience clearly prefer Ricardo over Lassparri, and the latter is booed and hit with an apple after he is untied and attempts to return to the stage. The film ends with Driftwood and Fiorello negotiating another contract, as Rosa and Ricardo sing an encore.

In West Virginia in the Great Depression, Reverend Harry Powell is a misogynistic serial killer and self-proclaimed preacher who travels along the Ohio River, justifies murdering widows he marries for their money as doing God's work. After reaching a small town sometime after his latest murder, Powell ends up being arrested for driving a stolen car and serves 30 days at Moundsville Penitentiary. There he shares a cell with Ben Harper, an impoverished father of two who killed two men in a bank robbery for $10,000 he stole so that his children wouldn’t go hungry. With the police about to catch him, Harper made his children, John and Pearl, promise to never reveal where he hid the money. Despite Powell's attempts to worm it out of him, Harper takes the secret to his grave.

Following his release, Powell makes his way to Harper's tiny hometown, where he charms the townsfolk and woos Harper's widow, Willa, a waitress for Walter Spoon and his wife Icey. Overnight Powell manages to win the town's trust and weds Willa; only John remains instinctively distrustful. Powell overhears John accidentally revealing he knows the money's location when he reminds Pearl of their promise. Willa becomes deluded that Powell married her to redeem her soul, and begins preaching alongside him in tent revivals, even ignoring Powell threatening Pearl to reveal the money’s whereabouts.

Powell murders Willa soon after, dumping her body in the river while spreading the tale that she left her family for a life of sin. Powell proceeds to threaten the children before learning the money is hidden inside Pearl's doll. While fishing, Birdie Steptoe, an elderly friend of the family, discovers Willa’s body, but refrains from telling the police in fear that he will be accused of the murder.

The children escape an enraged Powell and attempt to seek refuge with Birdie, who has drunk himself into a stupor. They use their father's small johnboat to flee down the river, and eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper, a tough old woman who looks after stray children.

Powell tracks them down, but Rachel sees through his deceptions and runs him off her property with a shotgun. Powell threatens to come back after dark, and does. During the all-night standoff, Rachel gives Powell a face full of birdshot, who flees into her barn. She summons the state police, who arrive and arrest Powell for Willa’s murder. John breaks down during Powell’s handcuffing, having a flashback of his father’s fate. He beats the doll against the struggling man in anguish, spilling the cash out.

During Powell’s trial John once again transposes Powell for his father and cannot bring himself to testify against him. Following Powell's sentencing, Rachel takes John and the other children away as a deranged Icey leads a lynch mob toward the police station. Powell is escorted out the back to safety just in time, but the prison hangman promises to see him again soon. John and Pearl then have their first Christmas together with Rachel and their new family.

Duff Anderson works on a railroad section gang near Birmingham, Alabama, earning a good wage and living an itinerant life with his black co-workers. On their night off, while the other men drink and visit a pool hall, Duff decides to walk into the nearby small town, and ends up at a church meeting featuring good food and lively gospel music. There, Duff meets the pretty and genteel schoolteacher Josie, the daughter of Preacher Dawson. They begin to date against the wishes of Josie's father and stepmother, who think the relatively uneducated, non-religious, and (to them) arrogant Duff is not good enough for Josie. Despite her parents' objections, Josie continues to see Duff, partly because Duff shows himself willing to resist and challenge the social conventions that oppress black people, rather than just accepting the status quo in order to get along with white people, as Josie's father has done.

Initially, Duff is just looking for a sexual relationship and tells Josie he doesn't want to get married. But after Duff visits his four-year-old illegitimate son in the care of an unloving, indifferent stepmother, and his emotionally abusive, hardly functioning drunken father (Harris) living off his girlfriend (Lee), Duff realizes that he prefers the stability of a family to the life of a drifter. Duff and Josie marry with bright hopes for the future but then begin to face a series of challenges as a married couple.

Duff quits the section gang and takes a lower paying job at the local sawmill in order to have a stable home life. Being on the move had given Duff the illusion of freedom, but living in the town makes Duff subject to the town's social rules, and he immediately starts to have problems. Unlike his peers, Duff refuses to pretend to be friendly to white people who treat him obnoxiously or patronize him. Duff tries to encourage his black co-workers at the mill to stick together and stand up for their rights, but one of them informs on him to the white mill bosses, who suspect him of being a union organizer and troublemaker. After Duff refuses to follow his white boss's order to retract his statements to the other men, Duff is fired, and subsequently finds himself blacklisted at other area mills. Despite diligently searching for work, he is unable to find another job that is not humiliating and that also pays enough to support his family, now including a baby on the way.

Duff hates his preacher father-in-law, whom he sees as having sold out to the white people in return for social status and economic gain, and he hurtfully says to his wife, "You've never really been a nigger, living with them, in that house." Nevertheless, out of concern for Josie, Preacher Dawson uses his connections in the town to get Duff a job at a white-owned gas station. Soon, white customers who find Duff too proud for a black "boy" threaten to cause trouble if the boss keeps him on, and he loses that job as well. Although Josie is understanding, Duff, under emotional pressure and in a rage, shoves his pregnant wife to the floor when she tries to comfort him. Duff packs his bag and leaves their house, telling Josie that he will write her when he is on his feet again.

Duff storms off to his father, and finds him so inebriated that he dies as Duff and Lee are driving him to the hospital. Neither Duff nor Lee know where Duff's father was born or how old he was, and the only possessions he has handed down to Duff are the contents of his pockets. Duff decides to return home with his young son, whom Josie had been wanting to adopt. Duff and Josie tearfully embrace as he reassures her that it "ain't gonna be easy, baby, but it's going to be alright. Baby, I feel so free inside”.

Joe Stefanos arrives in Bridgeport, California, a rural mountain town, seeking Jeff Bailey, who owns a local gas station. Bailey is fishing with Ann Miller. They are in love. (Her lifelong friend Jim is jealous.) The Kid, Jeff's deaf-mute employee and friend, interrupts them, signing to Jeff. At the station, Stefanos tells Jeff that he must go to Lake Tahoe to meet "Whit." Jeff invites Ann to ride with him. He tells her about his past in a flashback.

Bailey's real last name is Markham. He and Jack Fisher were partners, private investigators in New York. Whit Sterling, a gambling kingpin, hires Markham—solo—to find Sterling's girlfriend, Kathie Moffat, who shot him and stole $40,000. Sterling promises she will not be harmed.

Jeff eventually corners Kathie in Acapulco. She seduces him. She admits that she shot Sterling, but denies taking his money. Eventually, Jeff proposes that they run away together. Sterling and Stefanos arrive. Jeff says that Kathie is on a south-bound steamer. Sterling instructs Jeff to keep looking for her.

The couple flee to San Francisco. Fisher, now working for Sterling, spots Jeff at the track. Jeff arranges to meet Kathie at a mountain cabin, but Fisher follows Kathie and tries to blackmail them. The two men brawl. Kathie deliberately kills Fisher and drives away, leaving behind a bank book showing a balance of $40,000.

The flashback ends. Jeff wants to clean things up and return to Ann. Ann leaves him at Sterling's estate. A cheerful Sterling tells Jeff he has a job for him. Jeff is startled when Kathie appears at breakfast. She comes to his room; he tells her to get out.

Leonard Eels, a crooked San Francisco lawyer, helped Sterling dodge $1 million in taxes and is blackmailing him. Sterling wants Jeff to recover the incriminating records. Eels' secretary, Meta Carson, explains the plan to Jeff, who suspects he is being framed. That night, at Eels' apartment, Jeff alerts Eels, obliquely, promising to return. After they leave, Jeff trails Carson, then returns and finds Eels dead. He hides the body.

In Carson's apartment, Jeff overhears Kathie arranging for the discovery of Eels' body. When the hidden body is not found, she believes Eels has escaped. Jeff confronts her and analyses the frame. The motive is provided when Kathie reveals that she gave Sterling a signed affidavit swearing that Jeff killed Fisher. She says they can start all over again. They kiss, he leaves. Stefanos arrives and confirms that he killed Eels.

Jeff consigns the tax papers to a delivery service. Sterling's thugs capture him. He tells them not to bother Whit, and offers the papers in exchange for the affidavit, without implicating Kathie. When Kathie and Meta arrive at Eels' apartment to retrieve the affidavit, the police are already there. They instead phone Sterling.

The police want Jeff for the murders of Fisher and Eels. They expect him to return to Bridgeport. Kathie orders Stefanos to trail the Kid, who drives to the gorge where Jeff is hiding. The Kid spots Stefanos aiming at Jeff and hooks his coat with a fishing line, accidentally pulling him over to his death. Jeff returns to Sterling's mansion to tell Kathie that Joe is dead and to tell Whit about Kathie's doublecross. He suggests making Stefanos' death look like a guilt-ridden suicide. He will return the records if Sterling destroys Kathie's affidavit and hands her over to the police for Fisher's death. Sterling accepts, promising Kathie he will kill her if she does not cooperate.

Jeff meets Ann in the woods. She believes in him, but tells him to be absolutely sure of what he wants. She will wait.

Jeff discovers that Kathie has killed Sterling. She gives him a choice: run away with her or take the blame for all three murders. He dials the phone while she is upstairs. They leave in a car with Jeff driving. Seeing a police roadblock ahead, Kathie shoots him. She fires at the police. A machine gun riddles the car with bullets, killing her.

In Bridgeport, Ann asks the Kid if Jeff was going away with Kathie. Lying, the Kid nods his head. Ann gets into Jim's car, and the Kid smiles, saluting Jeff's name on the gas station's sign.

In Bridger's Wells, Nevada in 1885, Art Croft and Gil Carter ride into town and enter Darby's Saloon. The atmosphere is subdued due to recent incidents of cattle-rustling. Art and Gil are suspected to be rustlers because they have rarely been seen in town.

A man enters the saloon and announces that a rancher named Lawrence "Larry" Kinkaid has been murdered. The townspeople immediately form a posse to pursue the murderers, who they believe are cattle rustlers. A judge tells the posse that it must bring the suspects back for trial, and that its formation by a deputy (the sheriff being out of town) is illegal. Art and Gil join the posse to avoid raising even more suspicion. Davies, who was initially opposed to forming the posse, also joins, along with "Major" Tetley and his son Gerald. Poncho informs the posse that three men and cattle bearing Kinkaid's brand have just entered Bridger's Pass.

The posse encounters a stagecoach. When they try to stop it, the stagecoach guard assumes that it is a stickup, and shoots, wounding Art. In the coach are Rose Mapen, Gil's ex-girlfriend, and her new husband, Swanson.

Later that night in Ox-Bow Canyon, the posse finds three men sleeping, with what are presumed to be stolen cattle nearby. The posse interrogates them: a young, well-spoken man, Donald Martin; a Mexican, Juan Martínez; and an old man, Alva Hardwicke. Martin claims that he purchased the cattle from Kinkaid but received no bill of sale. No one believes Martin, and the posse decides to hang the three men at sunrise.

Martin writes a letter to his wife and asks Davies, the only member of the posse that he trusts, to deliver it. Davies reads the letter, and, hoping to save Martin's life, shows it to the others. Davies believes that Martin is innocent and does not deserve to die.

The Mexican "Juan" is recognized as a gambler named Francisco Morez. He tries to escape and is shot and wounded. The posse discovers that Morez has Kinkaid's gun.

Major Tetley wants the men to be lynched immediately. A vote is taken as to whether the men should be hanged or taken back to stand trial. Only seven, among them Davies, Gerald Tetley, Gil and Art, vote to take the men back to town alive; the rest support immediate hanging. Gil tries to stop it, but is overpowered.

After the lynching, the posse heads back towards Bridger's Wells and immediately encounters Sheriff Risley, who tells them that Lawrence Kinkaid is not dead and that the men who shot him have been arrested. Risley strips the deputy of his badge and asks Davies who is responsible. “All but seven,” Davies replies, and the sheriff declares “God better have mercy on you. You won't get any from me.”

The men of the posse gather in Darby's Saloon and drink in silence. Major Tetley returns to his house, shuts out his son (who condemns his sadistic behavior), goes to his study and closes the door, before a gunshot is heard from within. In the saloon, Gil reads Martin's letter to Art while members of the posse listen. In the letter, Martin confessed feeling sorry for the posse members, who will have to live with what they have done for the rest of their lives. In the final scene Gil and Art head out of town by the same route they rode in to deliver the letter and $500 ($ today) raised by those in the posse for Martin's wife.

Josey Wales, a Missouri farmer, is driven to revenge by the murder of his wife and young son by a band of Redlegs, a unit of pro-Union Jayhawker militants from Senator James H. Lane's Kansas Brigade, led by the brutal Captain Terrill.

After grieving and burying his wife and son, Wales practices shooting a gun before joining a group of pro-Confederate Missouri bushwhackers led by William T. Anderson, taking part in attacks on Union sympathizers and army units. At the conclusion of the war, Josey's friend and superior, Captain Fletcher, persuades the guerrillas to surrender, having been promised by Senator Lane that they will be granted amnesty if they hand over their weapons. Wales refuses to surrender, and as a result, he and a young guerrilla named Jamie are the only survivors when Terrill's Redlegs massacre the surrendering men. Wales intervenes and wipes out many of the Redlegs with a Gatling gun before fleeing with Jamie, who dies from a bullet wound after helping Josey kill two pursuing bounty hunters.

Lane forces a reluctant Fletcher to assist Terrill in finding his friend and puts a $5,000 bounty on his head, attracting the attention of Union soldiers and bounty hunters who seek to hunt him down. Along the way, and despite his aversion to traveling with company, he accumulates a diverse group of companions. They include an old Cherokee man named Lone Watie; Little Moonlight, a young Navajo woman; Sarah Turner, an elderly woman from Kansas; and her granddaughter Laura Lee, whom Wales and Little Moonlight rescue from a group of marauding Comancheros. Josey and Laura later sleep together as do Lone Watie and Little Moonlight. At the town of Santo Rio, two men, Travis and Chato, who had worked for Sarah Turner's deceased son Tom, join the group. Travis and Chato are soon after captured by Comanche tribe leader, Ten Bears.

Wales and his companions find an abandoned ranch once owned by Tom and settle in. Then Wales rides off to Ten Bears' camp, parleys and makes peace with the neighboring Comanche tribe leader, Ten Bears. Wales rescues Travis and Chato and brings them back to the ranch. Meanwhile, a bounty hunter whose partner was gunned down by Wales at Santo Rio guides Captain Terrill and his men to the town. The following morning, the Redlegs launch a surprise attack on the ranch. Wales's companions open fire from the fortified ranch house, gunning down all of Terrill's men. A wounded Wales, despite being out of ammunition, pursues the fleeing Terrill back to Santa Rio. When he corners him, Wales dry fires his four pistols through all the empty chambers before holstering them. Terrill attempts to draw his cavalry sabre, but Wales grabs the blade and stabs him through the chest, finally avenging his family.

Returning to the Santa Rio saloon, Wales enters to find the locals are telling Fletcher, along with two Texas Rangers, how an outlaw named Josey Wales had recently been killed in Monterrey, by five pistoleros. The Rangers accept the story, along with a signed affidavit, and move on, while Fletcher says nothing about Wales and pretends not to recognize him. After the Rangers ride off, Fletcher says that he will go to Mexico to look for Wales himself and try to tell him that the war is over. Wales says, "I reckon so. I guess we all died a little in that damned war", before riding off.

Schultz is proud of his prize-winning rooster, Brigham. Davidson, who lives next door, raises flowers and has a son named Ignatz. Schultz's son has just become engaged to Davidson's daughter. Although the two fathers don't get along, their children's engagement seems like a good time to bury the hatchet. A celebration dinner is planned and Ignatz is given two dollars to go purchase a chicken. But Ignatz, wanting to keep the money for himself, takes Brigham instead. When the families gather together to eat the chicken, Ignatz realizes that he left Brigham's 1st Prize tag on the now cooked leg. Gradually, they all realize the chicken is Brigham, everyone, except the two fathers, Schultz and Davidson. Ignatz runs away. The engaged couple pantomime the truth to Davidson who after a scuffle runs away too.

Plot background

The story opens in Los Angeles in the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse. Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads, and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them. Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs), each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential ''burbclaves'' (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress.

Summary

Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier (courier), who refers to herself in the third person, during a failed attempt to make a delivery on time. Y.T. completes the delivery on his behalf, and they strike up a partnership, gathering intel and selling it to the CIC.

Within the Metaverse, Hiro is offered a datafile named Snow Crash by a man named Raven, who hints that it is a form of narcotic. Hiro's friend and fellow hacker Da5id views a bitmap image contained in the file, which causes his computer to crash and Da5id to suffer brain damage in the real world. Hiro meets his ex-girlfriend Juanita Marquez, who gives him a database containing a large amount of research compiled by her associate, Lagos. This research posits connections between the virus, ancient Sumerian culture, and the legend of the Tower of Babel. Juanita advises him to be careful and disappears.

The Mafia boss Uncle Enzo begins to take a paternal interest in Y.T. Impressed by her attitude and initiative, he arranges to meet her and offers her freelance jobs. Hiro's investigations and Y.T.'s intelligence gathering begin to coincide, with links between the neuro-linguistic viruses, a religious organization known as Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates and a media magnate named L. Bob Rife beginning to emerge. Lagos's research showed that the ancient Sumerian ur-language allowed brain function to be "programmed" using audio stimuli in conjunction with a DNA-altering virus. Sumerian culture was organized around these programs (known as ''me''), which were administered by priests to the populace. Enki, a figure of legend, developed a counter-virus (known as ''the nam-shub of Enki''), which when delivered stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash in order to make the public vulnerable to new forms of ''me'', which he would control. The physical form of the virus is distributed in the form of an addictive drug and within Reverend Wayne's church via infected blood. There is also a digital version, to which hackers are especially vulnerable, as they are accustomed to processing information in binary form.

Hiro heads north to the Oregon Coast, where the Raft, a huge collection of boats containing Eurasian refugees, is approaching the West Coast of the United States. The center of the Raft is L. Bob Rife's yacht, formerly the USS ''Enterprise'' nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Rife has been using the Raft as a mechanism to indoctrinate and infect thousands with the virus and to import it to America. Y.T. is captured and brought to Rife on the Raft, who intends to use her as a hostage, knowing her connection to Uncle Enzo. With help from the Mafia, Hiro fights his way onto the Raft and recovers the ''nam-shub'' of Enki, which Rife had been concealing. With help from Juanita, who had previously infiltrated the Raft, the ''nam-shub'' is read out and Rife's control over the Raft is broken. Rife flees the Raft, taking Y.T., and his mercenary, Raven, attempts to activate the digital form of Snow Crash at a virtual concert within the Metaverse. Hiro is able to neutralize the virus, and Y.T. escapes. At Los Angeles International Airport, Raven ambushes the Mafia and fights Uncle Enzo to a stalemate (though both men are severely injured in the process), while Rife is killed as he attempts to flee the airport on his private jet. Y.T. is reunited with her mother, and Hiro and Juanita reconcile and agree to rekindle their relationship.

Robert Clapley, a former drug smuggler-turned-real estate developer, plans to build high-rise condominiums and golf courses on Toad Island, the home to a large population of oak toads. The project requires the construction of a massive new bridge to the mainland to accommodate Clapley's cement trucks. On the recommendation of Richard "Dick" Artemus, a corrupt governor of Florida to whom Clapley has given major campaign contributions, Clapley hires lobbyist Palmer Stoat to expedite the government funding for the bridge construction. By random happenstance, Stoat becomes subject to the obsessive wrath of ecoterrorist Twilly Spree after he witnesses him litter the highway from his luxury Range Rover. He tracks him back to the Fort Lauderdale residence he shares with his wife, Desirata.

Twilly arranges ironic pranks - hijacking a garbage truck and dumping its load into Desi's convertible, and filling Stoat's Range Rover with dung beetles - but is aggravated when Stoat continues to litter. When he breaks into Stoat's home, he is confronted by his massive Labrador Retriever and by Desi herself. Desi, who is increasingly unhappy with her marriage, tells Twilly that he is "aiming low" if he is trying to correct Stoat's misbehavior. She guides him to Toad Island, where Clapley's construction crew has deliberately buried thousands of oak toads to avoid later protest by environmentalists. Twilly orders Desi to tell Stoat that he will kill the dog if he doesn't stop the bridge project. Stoat dismisses the threat until Twilly sends him a roadkill Labrador's severed ear via FedEx. The actual dog becomes Twilly's companion after he changes his name to "McGuinn."

Stoat convinces Artemus to veto funding for the bridge but has no intention of letting the project fail. He tells Clapley and Artemus that the funding can be put back into the budget later, through a special session of the Florida legislature. Clapley sends a hit man, Mr. Gash, to kill Twilly, while Artemus, in an effort to avoid the bridge project being tainted by a violent death, locates ex-governor Clinton Tyree, a.k.a. "Skink", who vanished in the mid-1970s after a short term of office and is said to be hiding in the remaining wilderness of Florida. Artemus knows that Skink's mentally disturbed elder brother, Doyle, is still on the state's payroll as the keeper of an abandoned lighthouse, and threatens to put him on the street if Skink doesn't apprehend Twilly. Artemus fails to realize the dire consequences of threatening a man with Skink's volcanic temper, or of putting him and Twilly in contact with each other.

Desi becomes attracted to Twilly, and the two eventually develop a relationship. Stoat is disgusted and washes his hands of her and McGuinn, telling Twilly that the bridge is going up no matter what he does. A violent confrontation with Twilly, Desi, and Skink on Toad Island leaves Mr. Gash mortally wounded. Twilly is left in Skink's care while Desi returns to her parents' home in Atlanta. Despite her pleadings, Twilly is still committed to stopping the Toad Island project. Accompanied by Skink, Twilly trails Stoat, Clapley, and Artemus to a private canned hunting reserve in northern Florida, where Stoat has arranged for Clapley to shoot a black rhinoceros and win over Willie Vasquez-Washington, a crucial member of the Florida House who is opposed to the special session.

Twilly is on the verge of shooting Clapley with a rifle, but McGuinn runs into the preserve and nips playfully at the rhino's tail. The rhino - so ancient that it has hardly moved since it arrived at the ranch - goes berserk and charges at the hunting party. Clapley is gored to death on the rhino's horn, and Stoat is trampled flat. Artemus escapes the chaos but is mortified to learn that Willie snapped plenty of pictures of the fiasco. Clapley's death dooms the Toad Island project. Apart from his many lobbying clients and crony politicians, only a few friends and family members show up at Stoat's funeral. Desi is among the mourners, during which she is approached by McGuinn, holding a note with Twilly's new address on it. Meanwhile, Twilly and Skink are driving along the highway when they see another group of litterbugs. They immediately agree they have to teach them a lesson.

The story begins with the closing moments of a rather dull government lecture and slideshow on agricultural policy until the leader of the security police of a right-wing military-dominated government takes over the podium for an impassioned speech describing the government's program to combat leftism by using the metaphors "a mildew of the mind", an infiltration of "isms" and "sunspots".

The scene shifts to preparations for a rally of the opposition faction in which the pacifist deputy is to give a speech advocating nuclear disarmament. There have been attempts by the government to prevent the speech from being delivered. The venue has been changed to a much smaller hall, logistical problems have appeared out of nowhere and the people handing out leaflets about the change of venue are attacked by thugs under the command of the police. On his way to the venue, the deputy is hit on the head by one of the right-wing anticommunist protestors, some of whom are sponsored by the government, but carries on with his sharp speech. As the deputy crosses the street from the hall after giving his speech, a delivery truck speeds past him, and a man on the open truck bed strikes him down with a club. The injury eventually proves fatal, and the police manipulate witnesses to force the conclusion that the deputy was simply run over by a drunk driver.

However, the police do not control the hospital, where the autopsy disproves their interpretation. The examining magistrate, with the assistance of a photojournalist (Perrin), now uncovers sufficient evidence to indict not only the two right-wing militants who committed the murder but also four high-ranking military police officers. The action of the film concludes with one of the deputy's associates rushing to see his widow to give her the surprising news of the officers' indictments. The widow looks distressed and appears not to believe things will change for the better.

An epilogue provides a synopsis of the subsequent turns of events. Instead of justice being served, the prosecutor is mysteriously removed from the case, several key witnesses die under suspicious circumstances, the assassins receive relatively short sentences, the officers receive only administrative reprimands, the deputy's close associates die or are deported and the photojournalist is sent to prison for disclosing official documents. The heads of the government resign after public disapproval, but before elections are carried out, a coup d'état occurs, and the military seize power. They ban modern art, popular music, avant-garde novelists, modern mathematics, classic and modern philosophers and the use of the term "Ζ" ( , or , which is used by protesters against the former government), which refers to the deputy and means: "He lives."

In pre-Revolution Paris, the Marquise de Merteuil plots revenge against her ex-lover, the Comte de Bastide, who recently ended their relationship. To soothe her wounded pride and embarrass Bastide, she seeks to arrange the seduction and disgrace of his young virgin fiancée, Cécile de Volanges, who has only recently been presented to society after spending her formative years in the shelter of a convent.

Merteuil calls on the similarly unprincipled Vicomte de Valmont, another ex-lover of hers, to do the deed. Valmont declines, as he is plotting to seduce Madame de Tourvel, the wife of a member of Parliament away in Burgundy and a current houseguest of Valmont's aunt, Madame de Rosemonde. Amused and incredulous at Valmont's hubris in pursuing the chaste, devoutly religious Tourvel, Merteuil ups the ante: if Valmont somehow succeeds in seducing Tourvel and can furnish written proof, Merteuil will sleep with him as well. Never one to refuse a challenge, Valmont accepts.

Tourvel rebuffs all of Valmont's advances. Searching for leverage, he instructs his page Azolan to seduce Tourvel's maid Julie and gain access to Tourvel's private correspondence. One of the letters intercepted is from Cécile's mother and Merteuil's cousin, Madame de Volanges, warning Tourvel that Valmont is a nefarious and untrustworthy individual. Valmont resolves to seduce Cécile as revenge for her mother's accurate denunciation of him.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Cécile meets the charming and handsome Chevalier Raphael Danceny, who becomes her music teacher. They fall in love with coaxing from Merteuil, who knows that Danceny, a poor commoner, can never qualify as a bona fide suitor.

Valmont gains access to Cécile's bedchamber on a pretense, sexually assaults her, and blackmails her into sex as she pleads with him to leave. On the pretext of illness, Cécile remains locked in her chambers, refusing all visitors. A concerned Madame de Volanges asks Merteuil to speak to Cécile; Cécile confides in Merteuil, naively assuming that she has Cécile's best interests at heart. Merteuil advises Cécile to welcome Valmont's advances; she says young women should take advantage of all the lovers they can acquire in a society so repressive and contemptuous of women. The result is a "student-teacher" relationship; by day, Cécile is courted by Danceny, and each night she receives a sexual "lesson" from Valmont. In the meantime, Merteuil begins an affair with Danceny.

Meanwhile, Valmont somehow manages to win Tourvel's heart, but at a cost: the lifelong bachelor playboy falls in love. In a fit of jealousy, Merteuil mocks Valmont and threatens to trash his reputation as a carefree gigolo. She also refuses to honor her end of their agreement since Valmont has no written proof that the relationship has been consummated. Valmont abruptly dismisses Tourvel with a terse excuse: "It is beyond my control." Meanwhile, after a night in Valmont's bed, Cécile miscarries his child.

Overwhelmed with grief and shame, Tourvel retreats to a monastery where her health deteriorates rapidly. Valmont warns Danceny of Merteuil's ulterior motives in seducing him; she retaliates by informing Danceny that Valmont has been sleeping with Cécile. Danceny challenges Valmont to a duel and mortally wounds him. With his dying breath, Valmont asks Danceny to communicate to Tourvel—by now near death—his true feelings for her. He also gives Danceny his collection of intimate letters from Merteuil, and Danceny publishes them, while Cécile informs her mother of her intention to return permanently to the convent. All of Paris learns the full range of Merteuil's schemes and depredations. Booed and humiliated at the opéra by her former friends and sycophants, Merteuil flees in disgrace.

Son Goku, a monkey-tailed boy, and Bulma, a teenage girl, travel to find the seven Dragon Balls, which summon the dragon Shenlong to grant the user one wish. Their journey leads to the desert bandit Yamcha, who later becomes an ally; Chi-Chi, whom Goku unknowingly agrees to marry; and Pilaf, an impish man who seeks the Dragon Balls to fulfill his desire to rule the world. Goku undergoes rigorous training regimes under the martial arts master Kame-Sen'nin to fight in the . He becomes friends with a monk named Kuririn, his training partner and initial rival. After the tournament, Goku searches for the Dragon Ball his grandfather left him and almost single-handedly defeats the Red Ribbon Army and their hired assassin, Taopaipai. Goku then reunites with his friends to defeat the fortune teller Baba Uranai's fighters and use her to find the last Dragon Ball in order to revive a friend killed by Taopaipai.

Three years later at the ''Tenkaichi Budōkai'', Goku and his allies oppose Kame-Sen'nin's rival and Taopaipai's brother, Tsuru-Sen'nin, and his students Tenshinhan and Chaozu. Kuririn is killed after the tournament; Goku tracks down the murderer's leader, Piccolo Daimao, but is defeated. The samurai Yajirobe takes Goku to the hermit Karin, who heals him and gives him a power boost. Meanwhile, Piccolo defeats and kills Kame-Sen'nin and Chaozu before using the Dragon Balls to regain his youth and destroy Shenlong. Goku then kills Piccolo Daimao, who, before dying, spawns his son/reincarnation Piccolo. Karin then directs Goku to Kami, the original creator of the Dragon Balls and Piccolo Daimao's other half, to restore Shenlong and revive his slain friends. Goku trains under Kami for the next three years, once again reuniting with his friends at the ''Tenkaichi Budōkai''. There, he defeats Piccolo, whose life he spares as it would also kill Kami. Goku leaves with Chi-Chi to keep his promise to marry her.

Five years later, Goku is a young adult and father to a son, Gohan. A man named Raditz arrives on Earth, identifies Goku as his younger brother Kakarrot, and reveals to him that they are members of a nearly extinct extraterrestrial race called the , who sent Goku to conquer Earth for them; however, Goku had suffered a severe head injury as an infant and lost all memories of his mission. Goku refuses to continue the mission, and sides with Piccolo to kill Raditz at the cost of his own life. In the afterlife, Goku trains under the North Kaiō until he is revived by the Dragon Balls to save the Earth from the invading Nappa and Vegeta. In the battle, Yamcha, Chaozu, Tenshinhan, and Piccolo are killed, and the Dragon Balls cease to exist. Kuririn and the galactic tyrant Freeza learn of another set of Dragon Balls on the planet , Piccolo's homeworld. Bulma, Gohan, and Kuririn search for them to revive their friends and restore Earth's Dragon Balls. Their goal leads to several battles with Freeza's minions and Vegeta, the latter standing alongside the heroes to fight the Ginyu Force, a team of mercenaries. The long battle with Freeza ends when Goku transforms into a legendary and defeats him. Barely surviving, Freeza recovers and goes to Earth to take his revenge on Goku; however, he is killed by a Super Saiyan from the future named Trunks.

Three years later, a group of created by a member of the former Red Ribbon Army, Doctor Gero, appears, seeking revenge against Goku. During this time, an evil life form called Cell also emerges and, after absorbing two of the Androids to achieve his "perfect form", holds his own fighting tournament to challenge the protagonists. After Goku sacrifices his own life to no avail, Gohan avenges his father by killing Cell. Seven years later Goku, briefly revived for one day, and his allies are drawn into a fight against Majin Boo. After many battles, including the destruction and re-creation of the Earth, a resurrected Goku destroys Boo with a ''Genki-Dama'' (a sphere of pure energy drawn from all intelligent beings on Earth) and wishes for him to be reincarnated as a "good person". Ten years later, at the ''Tenkaichi Budōkai'', Goku meets Boo's human reincarnation, Oob. After testing his powers, Goku departs with Oob to train him to be the Earth's new guardian.

Hidetora Ichimonji, a powerful but elderly warlord, decides to divide his kingdom among his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Taro, the eldest, will receive the prestigious First Castle and become leader of the Ichimonji clan, while Jiro and Saburo will be given the Second and Third Castles. Hidetora is to retain the title of Great Lord and Jiro and Saburo are to support Taro. However, Saburo is exiled after criticizing his father's lecture about unity. Hidetora's servant Tango is also exiled for defending Saburo.

Following the division of Hidetora's lands between his remaining two sons, Taro's wife, Lady Kaede, still bitter about Hidetora killing her family and taking their land, successfully urges him to usurp control of the entire Ichimonji clan. When Taro demands Hidetora renounce his title, Hidetora leaves and travels to Jiro's castle, only to discover that Jiro is only interested in using Hidetora as a titular pawn. As Hidetora and his retinue wander, Tango warns Hidetora of Taro's new decree: death to whoever aids his father. Hidetora takes refuge in the Third Castle, abandoned after Saburo's forces followed him into exile. Kyoami, the court fool, then jokes about Hidetora's predicament, only to be thrown out of the Third Castle.

Later, Hidetora and his retinue are attacked by Taro and Jiro's combined forces. Taro is killed by a bullet fired by Jiro's general, Kurogane. Hidetora is allowed to survive and succumbs to madness as he wanders away from the decimated castle. Kyoami and Tango, still loyal to Hidetora, find him and stay to assist. Hidetora is haunted by visions of the people he killed in the past. They take refuge in a peasant's home only to discover that the occupant is Tsurumaru, the brother of Lady Sue, Jiro's wife. Tsurumaru had been blinded and left impoverished due to Hidetora's siege. With Taro dead, Jiro becomes the Great Lord of the Ichimonji clan, and moves into the First Castle. Lady Kaede manipulates Jiro into having an affair with her, and demands that he kill Lady Sue, and marry her instead. Jiro orders Kurogane to do the deed, but he refuses, seeing through Kaede's perfidy. Kurogane then warns Sue and Tsurumaru to flee. Tango encounters former spies and before killing them, he is informed that Jiro is considering sending assassins after Hidetora. Tango rides off to alert Saburo. As his madness grows, Hidetora runs off into a volcanic plain.

After Saburo's army enters Jiro's territory to find Hidetora, Jiro hastily mobilizes his army. After a truce, Saburo learns from Kyoami of Hidetora's potential location. After Saburo leaves, Jiro attacks Saburo's smaller forces, suffering losses, and orders his remaining forces to retreat after learning of another army marching on the First Castle. Saburo finds Hidetora, who partially recovers his sanity, and reconciles with Saburo. However, Saburo is killed by one of Jiro's snipers. Hidetora dies from grief. Tsurumaru and Sue arrive at the ruins of a castle, but inadvertently leave behind the flute that Sue gave him when he was banished. She gives him a picture of Amida Buddha for protection while she attempts to retrieve the flute. However, she never returns.

As the First Castle is besieged, Kurogane learns of Sue's death, and confronts Kaede. After she confesses her plot was revenge against the Ichimonji clan, she is killed by Kurogane. Jiro, Kurogane, and all Jiro's men subsequently die in battle. A funeral procession is held for Saburo and Hidetora. Meanwhile, left alone in the castle ruins, Tsurumaru trips, dropping the Amida Buddha image Sue had given to him. The film ends with a distant shot of Tsurumaru silhouetted against the castle's landscape atop the ruins.

''The Plow That Broke the Plains'' begins with a written prologue appearing as words on the screen that gives a physical description of the Great Plains region as well as a brief history of the plains. Following the written prologue, a map shows the outlines of the Great Plains region within the United States and the political boundaries of the states within it. The motion picture scenes are introduced by displaying the vast grasslands of the Great Plains with narrator Thomas Chalmers speaking about the weather and geographical features of the land, reiterating that the plains are a region with "high winds and sun without rivers, without steams, and with little rain." The following scene introduces the first settlers of the region, the cattle farmers. The narrator continues on, explaining that following the cattle came to the railroads bringing even more settlers who established towns and attracted additional pioneers and plowmen. The next sequences show the arrival of settlers through wagons and caravans as well as the first settlers constructing settlements and breaking the soil in order to farm. The narrator reiterates the phrase "high winds and sun without rivers, without steams, and with little rain" but ends with a warning, "settler, plow at your peril."

Following this, the next sequence shows the mechanization of agriculture and the production of grains and crops. The narrator comes back in as the scene transitions to farmers plowing dry soil and a woman sweeping dust from a staircase, explaining that the "rains failed and the sun-baked the light soil" and that "many left" the region. Despite the narrator stating that many settlers were disappointed, a new hope for increasing profits came in the form of World War I. The following scenes show newspapers that display the declaration of World War I and the resulting prices of wheat souring due to demand. The atmosphere of the film changes to an uplifting and patriotic tone as farmers use mechanized agricultural equipment to prepare the fields for planting and harvesting crops. The narrator exclaims, "wheat will win the war!" multiple times while scenes of wheat and grain production appear alongside scenes of war. While scenes of settlers using mechanized farm equipment to harvest the crops continue, the narrator explains how millions of acres were converted over to farmland followed by more images of newspaper articles announcing that large acreage was available to purchase to establish more farmlands.

Following the scenes showing extensive plowing and harvesting, the film cuts to images of dried land, animal bones, and abandoned farm equipment. The narrator again states that the rain did not come and the sun-baked millions of acres of plowed land, with footage of arid plains. As a result of this desertification, massive dust storms swept across the plains, causing people to take shelter, with homes buried under the dust. The narrator states that "once again they headed West," referring to the settlers losing hope and migrating in search of better opportunities. Within the final sequence, the narrator exclaims "Four hundred million acres the Great Plains seemed inexhaustible yet in 50 years we turned a part of it into a Dust Bowl" and continues to list the factors that led to the Dust Bowl, such as too many cattle and sheep, plowed lands that should have been left untouched, removal of native grasses to hold soil, and farm machines that made it easy for a single person to plow many acres. The narrator continues to explain that the federal government has been working to salvage whatever land is left and restore it through New Deal initiatives including the Soil Conversation Service, Forest Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, while the Resettlement Administration worked to resettle the stranded farmers. The viewer is left with one last message from the narrator who warns that conservation is necessary in order to save the rest of the plains and that "another decade of reckless use, and the grasslands will truly be the great American desert."

Gwendolyn is an 11-year-old girl who is left by her rich and busy parents to the care of unsympathetic domestic workers at the family's mansion. Her mother is only interested in her social life and her father has serious financial problems and is even contemplating suicide. When she manages to have some good time with an organ-grinder or a plumber, or have a mud-fight with street boys, she is rapidly brought back on the right track. One day, she becomes sick because the maid has given her an extra dose of sleeping medicine to be able to go out. She then becomes delirious and starts seeing an imaginary world inspired by people and things around her; the Garden of Lonely Children in the Tell-Tale forest. Her conditions worsen and Death tries to lure her to eternal rest. But Life also appears to her and finally wins.

In a world co-populated by humans and cartoon characters, "toons" regularly interact with real people, act in animated shorts and films, and reside in an area of Los Angeles known as Toontown. Private detective Eddie Valiant once worked closely with toons alongside his brother Teddy, but sank into depression and alcoholism after Teddy was murdered by a toon during a case.

In 1947, R.K. Maroon, head of Maroon Cartoon Studios, is concerned about the recent poor performances of one of his stars, Roger Rabbit. Maroon hires Eddie to investigate rumors about Roger's voluptuous toon wife Jessica being romantically involved with Marvin Acme, owner of both the Acme Corporation and Toontown. After watching Jessica perform at an underground nightclub, Eddie secretly photographs her and Acme playing patty-cake in her dressing room, which he shows to Roger, who becomes distraught about his wife cheating on him.

The next morning, Acme is discovered dead in his factory, and evidence points to Roger being responsible. While investigating, Eddie meets Judge Doom, Toontown's sinister superior court judge, who uses a chemical substance known as "The Dip", capable of destroying the otherwise invulnerable toons. Eddie later runs into Roger's toon co-star, Baby Herman, who tells him that Roger is innocent and that Acme's missing will, which will give Toontown's ownership to the toons, may be the key to his murder. In his office, Eddie finds Roger, who begs him to help exonerate him. Eddie reluctantly hides Roger in a local bar, where his girlfriend Dolores works. Jessica approaches Eddie and says that Maroon forced her to pose for the photographs so he could blackmail Acme.

Doom and his toon weasel henchmen discover Roger, but he and Eddie escape with help from Benny, a toon taxicab. They flee to a theater, where Eddie tells Roger about the tragic loss of Teddy. As they leave with Dolores, Eddie sees a newsreel detailing the sale of Maroon Cartoons to Cloverleaf Industries, a mysterious corporation that bought the city's Pacific Electric transit system shortly before Acme's murder. Eddie goes to the studio to interrogate Maroon. Roger is sent to guard outside but he is kidnapped by Jessica. Maroon tells Eddie that he blackmailed Acme into selling his company so he could sell the studio, then admits he only did so out of fear for the safety of the toons. Maroon is then murdered by an unseen assailant before he can explain the consequences of the missing will. Eddie spots Jessica fleeing the scene, and assuming she is the culprit, follows her into Toontown. Once he finds her, Jessica reveals that it was Doom who killed Acme and Maroon and that the former gave her his will for safekeeping, but she soon discovered it was blank. She and Eddie are then captured by Doom and the weasels.

At the Acme factory, Doom reveals himself as the sole shareholder of Cloverleaf Industries and explains his plot to destroy Toontown with a machine fueled with dip to build a freeway full of attractions in its place and force people to drive it once he has the transit system decommissioned to control all the profits. When Roger unsuccessfully attempts to save Jessica, the couple is tied onto a hook in front of the machine's water cannon. Eddie performs a comedic vaudeville act full of pratfalls, causing the weasels to die of laughter before he kicks their leader into the machine's dip vat, killing him. Eddie then fights Doom, who is flattened by a steamroller but survives, revealing himself as a disguised toon - and the one who killed Teddy. Eddie empties the machine's supply onto the factory floor, spraying it all over Doom and melting him to death.

The emptied machine then crashes through the wall into Toontown, where it is destroyed by a train. As the police and many dozens of toons gather at the scene, Eddie reveals Doom as Acme's murderer to everyone, clearing Roger's name. Eddie also discovers that Roger inadvertently wrote a love letter for Jessica on Acme's will, which was written in disappearing/reappearing ink, and Toontown's ownership is handed over to the toons. Having regained his sense of humor now that he has avenged Teddy, Eddie happily enters Toontown with Dolores alongside Roger, Jessica, and the other toons.

A newspaper shows Porky Pig traveling to Africa to hunt for the last do-do bird. Upon landing his airplane in Darkest Africa, Porky sees a sign telling him that he is in Wackyland, where anything can happen. He tiptoes along the ground in his airplane and is greeted by a roaring beast, who suddenly becomes effeminate and dances away into the forest.

A musical interlude introduces several more bizarre creatures that inhabit Wackyland's impossible landscape. These include a one-man band that plays its nose like a flute, a rabbit swinging in midair, a duck caricature of Al Jolson, and a beast with the heads of the Three Stooges. One creature wears a sandwich board advertising information about the do-do. The creature beckons Porky into a dark passage, where he falls down a chute and watches the do-do's big entrance. The do-do introduces itself and then tramples Porky while scat singing. Porky gives chase, but the do-do repeatedly uses surreal tricks to escape and humiliate him.

Some time later, the do-do encounters a creature selling newspapers announcing that Porky's hunt has been a success. Shocked by the news, the do-do drops its guard long enough for the creature (Porky in disguise) to grab it. Porky briefly celebrates catching the last do-do, but is bested again when the bird calls for its other do-do friends.

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is an aging, fraudulent, corruptible, and greedy Broadway producer past his prime who ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence romancing lascivious, wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for a "next play" that may never be produced. Accountant Leopold "Leo" Bloom (Gene Wilder), a nervous young man prone to hysterics, arrives at Max's office to audit his accounts and discovers a $2,000 discrepancy in the accounts of Max's last play. Max persuades Leo to hide the relatively minor fraud, and while shuffling numbers, Leo has a revelation—a producer can make a lot more money with a flop than a hit by overselling shares in the production, because no one will audit the books of a play presumed to have lost money. For this same reason, no duped investor will be aware of the many others, thus protecting the pair from charges of fraud. Max instantly puts this scheme into action. They will oversell shares on a massive scale and produce a play that will close on opening night, thus avoiding payouts and leaving the duo free to flee to Rio de Janeiro with the profits. Leo is afraid such a criminal venture will fail and they will go to prison, but Max eventually convinces him that his current drab existence is no better than prison.

The partners find the ideal play for their scheme: ''Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.'' It is "a love letter to Hitler" written in total sincerity by deranged ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars). Max and Leo persuade Liebkind to sign over the stage rights, telling him they want to show the world a positive representation of Hitler. To guarantee the show is a flop, they hire Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett), a director whose plays "close on the first day of rehearsal." The part of Hitler goes to a charismatic but barely coherent flower power hippie named Lorenzo Saint DuBois, also known as L.S.D. (Dick Shawn), who had mistakenly wandered into the theater during the casting call. Max sells 25,000% of the play to his regular investors. At the theatre on opening night, Max tries to ensure a truly terrible review by attempting to bribe the critic who came to see the show. As expected, the man is outraged and hurls the money Max wrapped around the tickets he gave him at Max's feet. Max and Leo sneak off to a bar across the street to wait for the audience to storm out once they actually see the show.

The play opens with a lavish production of the title song, "Springtime for Hitler", which celebrates Nazi Germany crushing Europe ("Springtime for Hitler and Germany/Winter for Poland and France"). The audience is horrified and rises en masse after the number, but at this point L.S.D. comes on stage as Hitler and they find his beatnik-like portrayal and constant misinterpretations of the story hilarious, construing the production as a satire. Meanwhile, L.S.D.'s portrayal of Hitler enrages and humiliates Franz, who—after dropping the curtain and rushing out on stage—confronts the audience and rants about the treatment of his beloved play. He is knocked out and removed from the stage, and the audience assumes that his rant was part of the act. To Max and Leo's shock and horror, ''Springtime for Hitler'' is declared a smash hit, which means that the investors will be expecting a larger financial return than can be paid out.

A gun-wielding Franz confronts Max and Leo, accusing them of breaking the "Siegfried Oath". He tries to shoot himself, but runs out of bullets. The three then decide to blow up the theater to end the production, but they are injured, arrested, tried, and found "incredibly guilty" by the jury. Before sentencing, Leo makes an impassioned statement praising Max for changing his life and being his friend while also referring to him as "the most selfish man I have ever met in my life". Max tells the judge that they have learned their lesson.

Max, Leo, and Franz are sent to the state penitentiary. There they produce a new play called ''Prisoners of Love'', a show which proves to be even worse than ''Springtime for Hitler'', mostly because Leo and Max are striving to make a good play instead of a bad one. While Max and Franz earnestly supervise rehearsals, Leo continues their old scam—overselling shares of the play to their fellow prisoners, and even to the warden. The song "Prisoners of Love" plays while the credits roll.

In spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a World War I veteran—journeys to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman. He rents a bungalow in the Long Island village of West Egg, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who hosts dazzling soirées yet does not partake in them.

One evening, Nick dines with a distant relative, Daisy Buchanan, in the fashionable town of East Egg. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, formerly a Yale football star whom Nick knew during his college days. The couple has recently relocated from Chicago to a mansion directly across the bay from Gatsby's estate. There, Nick encounters Jordan Baker, an insolent flapper and golf champion who is a childhood friend of Daisy's. Jordan confides to Nick that Tom keeps a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who brazenly telephones him at his home and who lives in the "valley of ashes", a sprawling refuse dump. : The valley of ashes was a landfill in Flushing Meadows, Queens. "In those empty spaces and graying heaps, part of which was known as the Corona Dumps, Fitzgerald found his perfect image for the callous and brutal betrayal of the incurably innocent Gatsby". Flushing Meadows was drained and became the location of the 1939 World's Fair. That evening, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone on his lawn, staring at a green light across the bay.

Days later, Nick reluctantly accompanies a drunken and agitated Tom to New York City by train. En route, they stop at a garage inhabited by mechanic George Wilson and his wife Myrtle. Myrtle joins them, and the trio proceed to a small New York apartment that Tom has rented for trysts with her. Guests arrive and a party ensues, which ends with Tom slapping Myrtle and breaking her nose after she mentions Daisy.

One morning, Nick receives a formal invitation to a party at Gatsby's mansion. Once there, Nick is embarrassed that he recognizes no one and begins drinking heavily until he encounters Jordan. While chatting with her, he is approached by a man who introduces himself as Jay Gatsby and insists that both he and Nick served in the 3rd Infantry Division during the war. Gatsby attempts to ingratiate himself with Nick and when Nick leaves the party, he notices Gatsby watching him.

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In late July, Nick and Gatsby have lunch at a speakeasy. Gatsby tries impressing Nick with tales of his war heroism and his Oxford days. Afterward, Nick meets Jordan at the Plaza Hotel. Jordan reveals that Gatsby and Daisy met around 1917 when Gatsby was an officer in the American Expeditionary Forces. They fell in love, but when Gatsby was deployed overseas, Daisy reluctantly married Tom. Gatsby hopes that his newfound wealth and dazzling parties will make Daisy reconsider. Gatsby uses Nick to stage a reunion with Daisy, and the two embark upon a sexual affair.

In September, Tom discovers the affair when Daisy carelessly addresses Gatsby with unabashed intimacy in front of him. Later, at a Plaza Hotel suite, Gatsby and Tom argue about the affair. Gatsby insists Daisy declare that she never loved Tom. Daisy claims she loves Tom and Gatsby, upsetting both. Tom reveals Gatsby is a swindler whose money comes from bootlegging alcohol. Upon hearing this, Daisy chooses to stay with Tom. Tom scornfully tells Gatsby to drive her home, knowing that Daisy will never leave him.

While returning to East Egg, Gatsby and Daisy drive by Wilson's garage and their car accidentally strikes Myrtle, killing her instantly. Gatsby reveals to Nick that Daisy was driving the car, but that he intends to take the blame for the accident to protect her. Nick urges Gatsby to flee to avoid prosecution, but he refuses. After Tom tells George that Gatsby owns the car that struck Myrtle, a distraught George assumes the owner of the vehicle must be Myrtle's lover. George fatally shoots Gatsby in his mansion's swimming pool, then commits suicide.

Several days after Gatsby's murder, his father Henry Gatz arrives for the sparsely attended funeral. After Gatsby's death, Nick comes to hate New York and decides that Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and he were all Midwesterners unsuited to Eastern life.

Nick encounters Tom and initially refuses to shake his hand. Tom admits he was the one who told George that Gatsby owned the vehicle that killed Myrtle. Before returning to the Midwest, Nick returns to Gatsby's mansion and stares across the bay at the green light emanating from the end of Daisy's dock.

As youngsters in 1900s Chicago, Irish-Americans Tom Powers and his lifelong friend Matt Doyle engage in petty theft, selling stolen items to "Putty Nose". Putty Nose persuades them to join his gang on a fur warehouse robbery, assuring them he will take care of them if anything goes wrong. When Tom is startled by a stuffed bear, he shoots it, alerting the police, who kill gang member Larry Dalton. Chased by a cop, Tom and Matt gun him down. However, when they go to Putty Nose for help, they find he has left town.

Tom's straitlaced older brother Mike Powers tries and fails to talk Tom into giving up crime. Tom keeps his activities secret from his doting mother. When America enters World War I in 1917, Mike enlists in the Marines.

In 1920, with Prohibition about to go into effect, Paddy Ryan recruits Tom and Matt as beer "salesmen" (enforcers) in his bootlegging business. He allies himself with noted gangster Samuel "Nails" Nathan. As the bootlegging business becomes ever more lucrative, Tom and Matt flaunt their wealth.

Mike finds out that his brother's money comes not from politics, as Tom claims, but from bootlegging, and declares that Tom's success is based on nothing more than "beer and blood". Tom retorts in disgust: "Your hands ain't so clean. You killed and liked it. You didn't get them medals for holding hands with them Germans."

Tom and Matt acquire girlfriends, Kitty and Mamie, respectively. Tom eventually tires of Kitty; when she complains once too often, he angrily pushes half a grapefruit into her face. He then drops her for Gwen Allen. At a restaurant on the night of Matt's wedding reception to Mamie, Tom and Matt recognize Putty Nose and follow him home. Begging for his life, Putty plays a song on the piano that he had entertained Tom and Matt with when they were children. Tom shoots him in the back.

Tom gives his mother a large wad of money, but Mike rejects the gift. Tom tears up the banknotes and throws them in his brother's face. "Nails" Nathan dies in a horse-riding accident, prompting Tom to find the horse and shoot it. A rival gang headed by "Schemer" Burns takes advantage of the disarray resulting from Nathan's death, precipitating a gang war.

Later, Matt is gunned down in public, with Tom narrowly escaping the same fate. Furious, Tom takes it upon himself to single-handedly settle scores with Burns and some of his men. Tom is seriously wounded in the shootout and ends up in the hospital. When his mother, brother, and Matt's sister Molly come to see him, he reconciles with Mike and agrees to reform. However, Paddy warns Mike that Tom has been kidnapped by the Burns mob from the hospital. Later, his dead body is returned to the Powers home.

Jim Stark is in police custody. In Los Angeles during the mid-1950s, teenager Jim Stark is arrested and taken to the juvenile division of a police station for public intoxication. At the station he crosses paths with John "Plato" Crawford, who was brought in for killing a litter of puppies, and Judy, who was brought in for curfew violation. The three each separately reveal their innermost frustrations to the officers; all three of them suffer from problems at home: Jim feels betrayed and anguished by his constantly bickering parents, Frank and Carol, but even more so by his father's timid attitude and failure to stand up to Carol; the issues are further complicated by Frank's interfering mother. His frustrations are made manifest to officer Ray Fremick when Jim is released to their custody. Judy is convinced that her father ignores her because she is no longer a little girl, so she dresses up in racy clothes to get attention, which only causes her father to call her a "dirty tramp". *Plato's father abandoned his family when he was a toddler, and his mother is often away from home, leaving Plato in the care of his housekeeper.

On the way to his first day at Dawson High, Jim again meets Judy and offers her a ride. Seemingly unimpressed by Jim at first, she declines and is instead picked up by her "friends", a gang of delinquents led by Buzz Gunderson. Jim is shunned by the rest of the student body but is befriended by Plato, who comes to idolize Jim as a father figure.

After a field trip to Griffith Observatory, Buzz provokes and challenges Jim to a knife fight. Jim beats Buzz in the knife fight, so to preserve his status as gang leader, Buzz suggests stealing some cars to have a "Chickie Run" at a seaside cliff. At home, Jim ambiguously asks his father for advice about defending one's honor in a dangerous situation, but Frank advises him against confrontation of any kind. That night, during the chickie run, Buzz plunges to his death when the strap on his jacket sleeve becomes entangled with his door-latch lever, preventing him from exiting the car in time. As police approach, the gang flees, leaving Judy behind, but Jim patiently persuades her to leave with him and Plato.

Jim confronts his father while his mother watches. Jim later confides to his parents his involvement in the crash and considers turning himself in. When Carol declares they are moving again, Jim protests and pleads with Frank to stand up for him; but when Frank refuses, Jim attacks him in frustration, then storms off to the police station to confess, only to be turned away by the desk sergeant. Jim drives back home, and finds Judy waiting for him. She apologizes for her prior treatment of him due to peer pressure, and the two begin to fall in love. Agreeing that they will never return to their respective homes, Jim suggests they visit an old deserted mansion Plato told him about.

Meanwhile, Plato is intercepted by three members of Buzz's gang, who are convinced that Jim betrayed them to the police. They steal Plato's address book and go off after Jim; Plato retrieves his mother's gun and leaves to warn Jim and Judy, finding them at the mansion. The three new friends act out a fantasy as a family. Plato then falls asleep, and Jim and Judy leave to explore the mansion, where they share their first kiss and voice their love. Buzz's gang find and wake up Plato, who, frightened and distraught, shoots and wounds one of the gang. When Jim returns, he attempts to restrain Plato, but he flees, accusing Jim of leaving him behind.

Plato runs to the observatory and barricades himself inside as more police converge including Fremick who, with Frank and Carol, have been searching for Jim. Jim and Judy follow Plato into the observatory, where Jim persuades Plato to trade the gun for his red jacket; Jim quietly removes the ammunition before returning it, and then convinces Plato to come outside. But when the police notice that Plato still has the gun they shoot Plato down as he charges them, unaware that Jim had removed the bullets. Frank comforts his grieving son, vowing to be a stronger father. Now reconciled to his parents, Jim introduces them to Judy.

Thomas Dunson wants to start a cattle ranch in Texas. Shortly after he begins his journey to Texas with his trail hand Nadine Groot, Dunson learns that his love interest Fen was killed in an Indian attack. He had told Fen to stay behind with the California-bound wagon train, with the understanding that he would send for her later.

That night, Dunson and Groot fend off an attack by Indians. On the wrist of one, Dunson finds a bracelet he had been left by his late mother, which he had given to Fen as he left the train. The next day, an orphaned boy named Matthew Garth (played as a boy by Mickey Kuhn) wanders into Dunson and Groot's camp. He is the sole survivor of the wagon train, and Dunson adopts him.

Dunson, Groot, and Matt enter Texas by crossing the Red River. They settle in deep South Texas near the Rio Grande. Dunson names his new spread the Red River D, after his chosen cattle brand for his herd. He promises to add M (for Matt) to the brand, once Matt has earned it.

Fourteen years pass, and Dunson has a fully operational cattle ranch, but he is broke as a result of widespread poverty in the southern United States following the Civil War. He decides to drive his massive herd hundreds of miles north to the railhead at Sedalia, Missouri, where he believes they will fetch a good price. After Dunson hires men to help, including professional gunman Cherry Valance, the northward drive starts.

Along the way, they encounter many troubles. One of the men, Bunk Kenneally, raises a maudlin ruckus in one of the wagons, triggering a stampede. This leads to the death of Dan Latimer. When Dunson attempts to whip Bunk as punishment for causing the stampede, the latter draws his gun. Matt shoots and wounds Bunk, probably saving his life because Dunson certainly would have shot to kill. Bunk is fired and sent home. Dunson tells Matt that he is weak because he did not kill his man.

Continuing with the drive, Valance relates that the railroad has reached Abilene, Kansas, which is much closer than Sedalia. When Dunson confirms that Valance had not actually seen the railroad, he ignores the rumor in favor of continuing to Missouri.

Dunson's tyrannical leadership style begins to affect the men, with his shooting three drovers who try to quit the drive. After Dunson announces he intends to lynch two men who stole supplies, tried to desert, and were captured by Valance, Matt rebels. With the support of the cowhands, he takes control of the herd in order to drive it along the Chisholm Trail to the hoped-for railhead in Abilene. Valance and Buster become his right-hand men. Dunson curses Matt and promises to kill him when they next meet. The drive turns toward Abilene, leaving Dunson behind.

On the way to Abilene, Matt and his men repel an Indian attack on a wagon train made up of gamblers and dance hall girls. One of the people they save is Tess Millay, who falls in love with Matt. They spend a night together, and he gives her Dunson's mother's bracelet. Eager to beat Dunson to Abilene, he leaves early in the morning, the same way Dunson had left his lady love with the wagon train 14 years before.

Later, Tess encounters Dunson, who has followed Matt's trail and now sees her wearing his mother's bracelet. Weary and emotional, he tells Tess what he wants most of all is a son. She offers to bear him one if he will abandon his pursuit of Matt. Dunson sees in her the anguish that Fen had expressed when he left her, and decides to resume the chase with Tess accompanying him.

When Matt reaches Abilene, he finds the town has been awaiting the arrival of such a herd to buy. He accepts an offer for the cattle and meets Tess again. The next morning, Dunson arrives in Abilene with his posse. Dunson and Matt begin a fistfight, which Tess interrupts, demanding that they realize the love that they share. Making peace, Dunson advises Matt to marry Tess and tells him that when they get back to the ranch, he will incorporate an M into the brand, telling Matt that he had earned it.

Cited as one of the first full-length gangster films, ''Regeneration'' tells the story of a poor orphan who rises to control the mob until he meets a woman for whom he wants to change.

The film is a "candid adaptation" of the autobiography of Owen Frawley Kildare, called the Kipling of the Bowery. The story follows the life of Owen (Rockliffe Fellowes), a young Irish American boy who is forced into a life of poverty after his mother dies. As a result, Owen is forced to live on the street eventually turning to a life of crime. Owen is eventually reformed, however, by the benevolent social worker Marie Deering (Anna Q. Nilsson). Also featured is a fire aboard an excursion ferry, much like the General Slocum disaster of 1904.

Deering's choices perplex her beau, a district attorney (Harbaugh) who has declared war on the gangs.

Teachers Mike Donnelly (MacDonald) and Katie Sipriano (Renzi) prepare to host a gathering of their old college activist friends at their rural New Hampshire home. Frances (Cousineau), now in medical school, drives in with her old boyfriend, wannabe folk singer J.T. (LeFevre), who she found hitchhiking to the gathering. Irene (Passanante), a speechwriter for a Democratic U.S. senator, arrives with her conservative boyfriend, Chip (Clapp), who did not attend college with the others. Maura (Trott) says that she and Jeff (Arnott) are no longer a couple, which shocks the others and causes a somewhat uneasy first evening. Maura and J.T. are mutually attracted and have sex that night while Frances is nearby. The group attends a play that their old friend, Lacey, is acting in. Katie heckles Lacey, annoying Mike.

Jeff arrives and is apparently unaware that Maura has ended their relationship. This further strains the group's cohesion, especially when J.T. tells Jeff he had sex with Maura, believing she was single. Jeff acknowledges being angry at J.T., but it does not end their friendship. After playing basketball and skinny-dipping with Mike's high school friends, Ron (Strathairn) and Howie (Sayles), the group goes to a bar. Jeff and Maura get into a loud argument and Ron make a pass at Frances, who is upset that J.T. and Maura were intimate. Ron and Frances leave for a local hotel, while Maura leaves by herself, and the rest of the group drives separately. Out on the road, the group come upon a deer carcass. An undercover cop arrests them on suspicion of illegal game hunting. While sitting in lock-up, the group recounts their various arrests during their college years and the formation of their nickname, the "Secaucus 7". A local drunk confesses to hitting the deer, and everyone is released. The following day, the group leaves one-by-one, and J.T. insists on hitchhiking to Boston, refusing money from Maura for a bus ticket. Jeff is left alone, and angrily chops wood on Mike's property. The film ends with Mike and Katie finding a farewell note from Jeff reading, "I'm sorry. --Jeff".

In the early years of the 20th century, an aging ex-lawman, Steve Judd, is hired by a bank to transport gold from a high country mining camp to the town of Hornitos, California. Six miners were recently murdered trying to transport their gold on the one trail leading down from the crest of the Sierra Nevada. In his prime, Judd was a tough and respected lawman, but now his threadbare clothes and spectacles serve as reminders that he is long past his prime. Judd enlists the help of his old friend and partner Gil Westrum to guard the gold transfer. Gil, who had been making his living passing himself off as a legendary sharpshooter named The Oregon Kid, enlists the help of his young sidekick, Heck Longtree.

Judd, Gil and Heck hit the trail on horseback toward Coarsegold, a mining camp located in the Sierra foothills, north of the town of Fresno. Judd doesn't realize that Gil and Heck are planning to steal the gold for themselves — preferably with Judd's help, but without it if necessary. Along the way they stop for the night at the farm of Joshua Knudsen and his daughter Elsa. Knudsen is a domineering religious man who warns against those who "traffic in gold" and trades Bible verses with Judd at the dinner table. That night, Elsa and Heck secretly meet in the moonlight for conversation, but the elder Knudsen catches them and pulls her away. Back at the house, he admonishes and slaps her; even though her father had only met Heck that evening, "I can see that the boy is no good"- just as all her other boyfriends were no good. Elsa replies "I promised the next time you hit me you'd be sorry for it!"

The next morning, after the three men had left on the trail to the mining camp, she catches up to them and asks whether she can keep them company on the way. She announces that she is also going to Coarsegold, to marry a miner named Billy Hammond. He had previously proposed to her when he was in town, although she had not accepted his proposal back then. Along the way, Elsa and Heck flirt, and at one time he tries to force himself on her. Heck is stopped by Judd, and then punched by both Judd and Gil. He later apologizes to Elsa.

When they reach the mining camp, the two older men set up a tent to weigh and accept gold dust in individual bags for which they give receipts of deposit, with safe transport guaranteed by the bank.

Having brought her mother's wedding dress with her, Elsa and Billy are married in the camp's brothel the only substantial building there by a real retired judge who happens to be at the camp. The madam and prostitutes serve as "maid of honor" and "flower girls". Then Billy forces Elsa to a room in the brothel for their wedding night even though she emphatically states "No, Billy, not here!"; he strikes her when she refuses to obey him. By now intoxicated and passed out, he fails to prevent his disreputable brothers Elder, Sylvus, Jimmy, and Henry from entering the room and attempting to rape her.

Outside, hearing her screams, Judd and Heck rescue Elsa from the brothel and the Hammonds and let her stay in their tent that night.

The next day, the miners of the camp organize a "miner's trial" (without any need for a judge) to force the outsiders to return Elsa to her "legal" husband; because they are outnumbered, former lawman Judd agrees to the miner's demands as "that's the law in places like this". However, Gill wakes up the drunken judge and demands to see his license (which in fact is duly issued in Sacramento), and then keeps it. He forces the judge at gunpoint to agree that when asked if the judge has a license to marry, he must say no (because Gill has it).

This ruse works and the three men are allowed to leave the camp with the gold and Elsa.

Along the way, Judd talks to Gil about right and wrong and how that's "something you just know". After all the lost years working in disreputable places, he tells Gil that he's now grateful to have gained back some of his self-respect and intends on keeping it "with the help of you and that boy back there". When Gil asks if that's all he wants, Judd replies, "All I want is to enter my House justified."

Realizing Judd will never go along with his plan to steal the gold, Gil plans to take the gold without his help. During the night as Gil and Heck prepare to leave with the gold, Judd confronts them at gunpoint. Heck, after previously expressing a change of mind to Gil, gives up his gun immediately. Angered by his old friend's Gil's betrayal, Judd puts his gun away, then slaps Gil and challenges him to draw. Instead, Gil throws down his guns and accepts that Judd will turn him in when they return to town.

Judd is forced to change his plans when the Hammond brothers appear in hot pursuit of Elsa. They found out about the ruse and learned that the judge's license could be verified in Sacramento, proving the marriage legal.

In the ensuing gunfight, two of the brothers, Jimmy and Sylvus, are killed, and Billy, Elder and Henry give up and escape.

During the night, Gil leaves camp and heads back to the site of the gunfight, where he takes a horse and gun from one of the dead brothers. Then he follows Judd, Heck, and Elsa down the only trail. Meanwhile, Heck has shown himself to be trustworthy, and even though he will most likely go to prison, Elsa tells him she'll be there when he gets out. When they reach Elsa's farm, the Hammond brothers are waiting, having already killed her father. A gunfight breaks out and soon both Judd and Heck are wounded. Gil comes riding in to help his old friend, and together the pair insult and challenge the brothers to a face-to-face shootout in the open. When the dust settles, the three brothers are dead, but Judd is mortally wounded. He tells his old friend, "I don't want them to see this. I'll go it alone." When Gil pledges to take care of everything just like he would have, Judd says, "Hell, I know that. I always did. You just forgot it for a while, that's all." Judd casts a look back towards the high country and then dies.

The film opens with a freighter at sea exploding and news announcements. The cause of the explosion is a mystery, with all crew accounted for with the exception of two unidentified stowaways.

Jeff Peters (Bing Crosby) and Orville 'Turkey' Jackson (Bob Hope) are seen floating at sea aboard a pile of wreckage. It was Jeff's idea to stow away, but it was Orville 'smoking in the powder room' that caused the explosion. As the two joke about eating one another to survive, they spot land in the distance.

As they sit on the beach, Orville reminds Jeff of his promise to Aunt Lucy, to take care of him. Jeff reminds him that Aunt Lucy died before he could agree. They are interrupted by a convenient camel, and they hitch a ride.

Once in the city, they are nearly run over by Arabs shooting guns, led by the sheik Mullay Kasim (Anthony Quinn). Jeff and Orville learn the sheik is pursuing a princess for marriage. Orville is approached by a group of bearers carrying someone in a veiled box. A beautiful hand takes his and then leaves, with Orville in pure bliss. In a restaurant, Jeff and Orville eat heartily, while trying to figure out how to get past the knife-wielding owner without paying. A man (Dan Seymour) takes Jeff aside and hands over a great deal of money. Orville is happy to be able to pay for the meal, until he learns that Jeff 'sold' him. Orville is furious, especially since neither of them know why the man bought him. Jeff calms him down and tells Orville he'll buy him back, eventually; and two men throw a hood over Orville and carry him off.

A week later, Jeff is woken by a vision of Aunt Lucy (played by a harp-wielding Bob Hope) who shames him for his act. Jeff says he tried to buy Orville back, but learned he was re-sold to someone else. Aunt Lucy tells him he has to find Orville, and recommends singing Orville's favorite song.

Jeff walks through the street singing, (accompanied by Aunt Lucy's ghost) until a note, with Orville's locket is tossed at him from the palace window. The note, written by Orville, says he's being tortured and warns Jeff of danger. Jeff, thinking Orville is in trouble, scales the palace wall. Hearing a woman singing, Jeff sneaks into the palace and see a lot of beautiful girls dancing for the beautiful Princess Shalmar (Dorothy Lamour) and singing to a very relaxed Orville.

Jeff storms in and is grabbed by guards. Orville feigns ignorance and tries to send him away. The princess dismisses everyone, except for Jeff. Orville admits the truth, but it's clear he's still mad at Jeff. He says he and the princess are to be married. Jeff is surprised, but the princess says her wise man read the stars and told her to marry Orville. She was the one that passed Orville in the veiled box, and also the one that purchased him. As she plants a passionate kiss on Orville, Jeff decides to stick around; a decision that almost brings him and Orville to blows, but the princess invites Jeff to stay.

As Orville is waited on by beautiful girls, he learns from one of them, Mihirmah (Dona Drake), the princess was supposed to marry Kasim (Anthony Quinn), but also tells Orville she loves him too. Jeff breaks up the party and confronts Orville, who has Jeff thrown out.

Jeff wanders the palace singing, an act that attracts the princess and they go on a moonlit walk. Mihirmah tries to get Orville to run away with her. Jeff tries to tell the princess that HE was the one sold and should be marrying her, but he is interrupted by a sword-wielding Orville.

The next morning, an angry Kasim confronts Princess Shalmar for marrying someone else. He is prepared to kill Orville, but the princess takes him to the wise man Hyder Kahn (Vladimir Sokoloff). Hyder Khan said he had read the stars and found that Princess Shalmar's first husband is destined to die a violent death within a week of the marriage, and the second husband would be blessed with long life and happiness. The princess tells Kasim that Orville is the first husband, and when he dies, she'll happily marry Kasim and they will live in happiness. Kasim finally understands and embraces the princess.

Orville finds out about the prophecy and runs to Jeff and convinces him that the princess actually loves him and he's going to run off with Mihirmah. Later that night, Orville is visited and shamed by Aunt Lucy's spirit, but Orville refuses to tell Jeff the truth. Meanwhile, the wise man realizes that he had been misreading the stars due to fireflies in his telescope; his prophecies are incorrect.

Princess Shalmar refuses to marry Jeff, even though Orville is eager to get out of the marriage. The princess sends Orville away to get ready for the wedding. The wise man runs in and tells the princess and Jeff of the incorrect prophecy. The princess is happy and tells Jeff now she can marry him and not Kasim. Jeff realizes why Orville was so eager to get out of the marriage, but decides not to tell him. Instead, he says the princess changed her mind, and Orville is only too eager to accept. Meanwhile, the wise man's assistant tells Kasim, who rallies his men.

The Princess and Jeff decide to get married in the U. S., accompanied by Orville and Mihirmah but they are confronted by Kasim, who takes the princess and gives Mihirmah to one of his men. Jeff and Orville try to use their 'patty-cake' routine on Kasim, but it backfires. They escape into the palace with the girls but are found and captured.

Kasim takes the women and strands Jeff and Orville in the desert. They wander aimlessly, seeing a drive-in restaurant, but it's a mirage. They see a vision of Princess Shalmar singing Moonlight Becomes You, which they join but with voices swapped. They find an oasis which is near Kasim's camp. They try to sneak in, but are captured. They see another set of horsemen and learn it is an enemy sheik who was invited as a token of peace. They manage to escape and set the two sheiks against each other. In the chaos, Jeff and Orville grab the girls and escape.

Later, on a boat home, Orville sneaks into the powder room for a cigarette. There is an explosion and then we see all four afloat a pile of wreckage. Fortunately, they are near New York harbor.

Ann, a crown princess from an unnamed European nation on a state visit to Rome, becomes frustrated with her tightly scheduled life and secretly leaves her country's embassy. The delayed effect of a sedative makes her fall asleep on a bench, where Joe Bradley, an expatriate reporter for the "American News Service", finds her, without recognizing who she is. Thinking that she is intoxicated, Joe lets her spend the night in his apartment.

The next morning, Joe hurries off late to work and gives his editor, Mr. Hennessy, false details of his attendance at the princess's press conference. When Hennessy informs him that the event had been cancelled and shows him a news item about the princess's "sudden illness" with a picture of her in it, he realizes who is asleep in his apartment. Seeing an opportunity, Joe privately calls his photographer friend, Irving Radovich, to get him to secretly take pictures. Joe then tells Hennessy that he will get an exclusive wide-ranging interview with the princess and asks how much that would be worth. Hennessy offers to pay $5000, but bets Joe $500 that he will not be able to get it.

Joe hurries home and, hiding the fact that he is a reporter, offers to show "Anya" around Rome. However, Ann declines Joe's offer and leaves. Enjoying her freedom, she explores an outdoor market, buys a pair of shoes, observes the people and daily life of Rome, and gets her long hair cut short. Joe follows and "accidentally" meets Ann on the Spanish Steps. This time, he convinces her to spend the day with him, taking her to a street café where he meets up with Irving. When Anya tries to drive Joe on a Vespa through heavy Roman traffic they are all arrested, but Joe and Irving show their "fake" press passes and the group is set free. They visit the Mouth of Truth, where Joe tricks Ann into thinking that his hand has been bitten off, and later tour the Colosseum.

That night, at a dance on a boat that her barber had invited her to, government agents called in by the embassy spot Ann and try to forcibly take her away. Joe, Irving, and the barber rush in to save her from the abductors. Ann joins in the fight that breaks out. As police arrive and subdue the agents, Joe and Ann run away, but after Joe is ambushed and falls into the river, Ann jumps in to save him. They swim away from the dance and kiss as they sit shivering on the riverbank. Later at Joe's apartment, while drying their wet clothes, they share tender bittersweet moments. Regretfully bowing to her royal responsibilities, Ann asks Joe to drive her to a corner near the embassy, where they kiss again. She bids a tearful farewell and resumes her duties as a princess.

Joe decides not to write the story, although he tells Irving he is free to sell his photographs. Joe and Irving then leave to attend the postponed press conference at the embassy, much to Princess Ann's surprise. Joe assures Ann (in words she, but not the other reporters, will understand) that he will print nothing about their day together. At the end of the interview, the princess unexpectedly asks to meet the journalists, speaking briefly with each. As she reaches Joe and Irving, Irving presents her with his photographs as a memento of Rome. She and Joe share a few innocuous words together, before she reluctantly departs. After the rest of the press leave, Joe stays for awhile, then walks away alone.

The film opens in 1922, with Harold Lloyd (the character has the same name as the actor) behind bars. His mother and his girlfriend, Mildred, are consoling him as a somber official and priest show up. The three of them walk toward what looks like a noose. It then becomes obvious they are at a train station and the "noose" is actually a trackside pickup hoop used by train crews to receive orders without stopping, and the bars are merely the ticket barrier. He promises to send for his girlfriend so they can get married once he has "made good" in the big city. Then he is off.

He gets a job as a salesclerk at the De Vore Department Store, where he has to pull various stunts to get out of trouble with the picky and arrogantly self-important head floorwalker, Mr. Stubbs. He shares a rented room with his pal "Limpy" Bill, a construction worker.

When Harold finishes his shift, he sees an old friend from his hometown who is now a policeman walking the beat. After he leaves, Bill shows up. Bragging to Bill about his supposed influence with the police department, he persuades Bill to knock the policeman backwards over him while the man is using a callbox. When Bill does so, he knocks over the wrong policeman. To escape, he climbs up the façade of a building. The policeman tries to follow, but cannot get past the first floor; in frustration, he shouts at Bill, "You'll do time for this! The first time I lay eyes on you again, I'll pinch you!"

Meanwhile, Harold has been hiding his lack of success by sending his girlfriend expensive presents he cannot really afford. She mistakenly thinks he is successful enough to support a family and, with his mother's encouragement, takes a train to join him. In his embarrassment, he has to pretend to be the general manager, even succeeding in impersonating him to get back at Stubbs. While going to retrieve her purse (which Mildred left in the manager's office), he overhears the real general manager say he would give $1,000 to anyone who could attract people to the store. He remembers Bill's talent and pitches the idea of having a man climb the "12-story Bolton building", which De Vore's occupies. He gets Bill to agree to do it by offering him $500. The stunt is highly publicized and a large crowd gathers the next day.

When a drunkard shows "The Law" (the policeman who was pushed over) a newspaper story about the event, the lawman suspects Bill is going to be the climber. He waits at the starting point despite Harold's frantic efforts to get him to leave. Finally, unable to wait any longer, Bill suggests Harold climb the first story himself and then switch his hat and coat with Bill, who will continue on from there. After Harold starts up, the policeman spots Bill and chases him into the building. Every time Harold tries to switch places with Bill, the policeman appears and chases Bill away. Each time, Bill tells his friend he will meet him on the next floor up. Eventually, Harold reaches the top, despite his troubles with a clock and some hungry pigeons, and kisses his girl.

The documentary follows four salesmen as they travel across New England and southeast Florida, trying to sell large, expensive Bibles door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods, and attend a sales meeting in Chicago. The film focuses in particular on salesman Paul Brennan, a middle-aged Irish-American Catholic from Jamaica Plain, Boston, who struggles to maintain his sales.

As described in a film magazine, during a banquet at Herod's palace, the Tetrarch (Lewis) pays too much attention to his stepdaughter Salomé (Nazimova), angering his wife Herodias (Dione). Salomé goes out into the courtyard adjoining the banquet hall and induces the soldier on guard to let her see Jokanaan (De Brulier), who is then brought up from the prison below. Salomé shows her love for the Prophet and, when he ignores her attentions, declares that she will kiss him. The price is a dance before Herod, who promises her that he will accede to any demand for the dance. Salomé asks for and gets the Prophet's head and kisses it. Herod then turns upon her and orders her killed.

Esperanza Quintero (Rosaura Revueltas) is a miner's wife in Zinc Town, New Mexico, a community which is essentially run and owned by Delaware Zinc Inc. Esperanza is thirty-five years old, pregnant with her third child and emotionally dominated by her husband, Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón).

The majority of the miners are Mexican-Americans and want decent working conditions equal to those of white, or "Anglo" miners. The unionized workers go on strike, but the company refuses to negotiate and the impasse continues for months. Esperanza gives birth and, simultaneously, Ramon is beaten by police and jailed on bogus assault charges following an altercation with a union worker who betrayed his fellows. When Ramon is released, Esperanza tells him that he's no good to her in jail. He counters that if the strike succeeds they will not only get better conditions right now but also win hope for their children's futures.

The company presents a Taft-Hartley Act injunction to the union, meaning any miners who picket will be arrested. Taking advantage of a loophole, the wives picket in their husbands' places. Some men dislike this, seeing it as improper and dangerous. Esperanza is forbidden to picket by Ramon at first, but she eventually joins the line while carrying her baby.

The sheriff, by company orders, arrests the leading women of the strike. Esperanza is among those taken to jail. When she returns home, Ramon tells her the strike is hopeless, as the company will easily outlast the miners. She insists that the union is stronger than ever and asks Ramon why he can't accept her as an equal in their marriage. Both angry, they sleep separately that night.

The next day the company evicts the Quintero family from their house. The union men and women arrive to protest the eviction. Ramon tells Esperanza that they can all fight together. The mass of workers and their families proves successful in saving the Quinteros' home. The company admits defeat and plans to negotiate. Esperanza believes that the community has won something no company can ever take away and it will be inherited by her children.

In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug Antonio "Tony" Camonte (Paul Muni), hired to work as a bodyguard for crime lord "Big" Louis Costillo, betrays his boss by siding with Costillo's disgruntled lieutenant John "Johnny" Lovo (Osgood Perkins) and gunning down Costillo after one of his famous parties. Lovo takes over Costillo's former territory in the South Side and has Tony and his associates, Angelo and Guino "Little Boy" Rinaldo, set up a lucrative bootlegging operation selling illegal beer to all of the South Side's bars.

Tony urges Lovo to start moving in on the North Side, where the bootlegging is controlled by the Irish gangs of their rival, O'Hara; Lovo refuses, ordering Tony to leave the North Side alone. Tony ignores these orders and starts attacking O'Hara's men and businesses while expanding his beer rackets to the North. Before long, Lovo is effectively forced out of his position as boss of the South Side as Tony wins over their gang with his success.

Meanwhile, Tony pursues Johnny's girlfriend Poppy (Karen Morley) with increasing confidence. At first, she is dismissive of him, but pays him more attention as his reputation rises and he starts flaunting his wealth by dressing in fine suits and jewelry. She visits his "gaudy" apartment where he shows her his view of an electric billboard advertising Cook's Tours, which features the slogan which inspires him: "The World Is Yours".

Tony finally gets rid of O'Hara by having Guino assassinate him in the flower shop he uses as his office. O'Hara's successor, Tom Gaffney, declares war on the South Side and attempts to kill Tony in a restaurant with tommy guns – which an excited Tony quickly arms his own men with. The war results in Gaffney's gang being killed off one by one until he's forced to go into hiding. A group of prominent citizens, including the police chief, vow to bring Tony down for all the carnage and bloodshed he has inflicted on the city.

During a night out at the theater, Tony is tipped off that Gaffney and his entourage are at a nearby bowling alley. Leaving Angelo behind to watch the rest of the show, Tony personally kills Gaffney as he gets a strike. Lovo's anger at Tony finally boils over when Tony openly flirts and dances with Poppy right in front of him at dinner. Tony sees his beloved sister Francesca "Cesca" (Ann Dvorak) dancing with a stranger and takes her to his mother's home by force before hitting and yelling at her. As he leaves, a crew of gunmen try to assassinate him before Tony runs them off the road with his bulletproof car.

Suspecting Lovo's involvement, Tony goes to his office with Guino in tow after bribing one of Lovo's men to call him and pretend to be part of the hit crew. When Lovo hangs up after claiming that he must have gotten a wrong number, Tony forces him to confess to the hit and then has Guino kill him. Tony, now the undisputed ruler of the city's underworld, takes Poppy on an expensive vacation to Florida to escape the police and media attention, while Cesca secretly visits Guino at Tony's office.

Returning home, Tony learns from his mother that Cesca has moved in with another man and rushes over to find her with Guino. He kills his friend in a jealous rage, and Cesca runs away in tears after revealing that they had just gotten married and were planning to surprise him. The police issue a warrant for Tony's arrest, and he barricades himself in his home while Angelo is killed trying to protect him.

Cesca slips inside, planning to kill her brother, but then gives in and admits her love for him. Tony and Cesca arm themselves and Tony shoots at the police from the window, laughing maniacally. Moments later, however, Cesca is killed by a stray bullet. Calling Cesca's name as the apartment fills with tear gas, Tony stumbles down the stairs just as the police break down his door. Tony pleads for his life but makes a break for it, resulting in the officers outside shooting him multiple times. He stumbles for a moment, falls in the gutter, and dies. Above the sounds of cheering, the electric billboard blazes "The World Is Yours".

In 1868, Ethan Edwards returns after an eight-year absence to the home of his brother Aaron in the wilderness of West Texas. Ethan fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, and in the three years since that war ended, he apparently fought in the Mexican revolutionary war, as well. He has a large quantity of gold coins of uncertain origin in his possession, and a medal from the Mexican campaign that he gives to his eight-year-old niece, Debbie. As a former Confederate soldier, he is asked to take an oath of allegiance to the Texas Rangers; he refuses. As Rev. Captain Samuel Clayton remarks, Ethan "fits a lot of descriptions" (in reference to whether he may be wanted for any crime).

Shortly after Ethan's arrival, cattle belonging to his neighbor Lars Jorgensen are stolen, and when Captain Clayton leads Ethan and a group of Rangers to recover them, they discover that the theft was a Comanche ploy to draw the men away from their families. When they return, they find the Edwards homestead in flames. Aaron, his wife Martha, and their son Ben are dead, and Debbie and her older sister Lucy have been abducted.

After a brief funeral, the men set out in pursuit. They come upon a burial ground of Comanches who were killed during the raid. Ethan shoots out the eyes of one of the bodies, as a cosmic insult, mocking Comanche religion. When they find the Comanche camp, Ethan recommends a frontal attack, but Clayton insists on a stealth approach to avoid killing the hostages. The camp is deserted, and further along the trail, the men ride into an ambush. Although they fend off the attack, the Rangers are left with too few men to fight the Native Americans effectively. They return home, leaving Ethan to continue his search for the girls with only Lucy's fiancé, Brad Jorgensen, and Debbie's adopted brother, Martin Pawley. Ethan finds Lucy brutally murdered and presumably raped in a canyon near the Comanche camp. In a blind rage, Brad rides directly into the Native American camp and is killed.

When winter arrives, Ethan and Martin lose the trail and return to the Jorgensen ranch. Martin is enthusiastically welcomed by the Jorgensens' daughter Laurie, and Ethan finds a letter waiting for him from a trader named Futterman, who claims to have information about Debbie. Ethan, who would rather travel alone, leaves without Martin the next morning, but Laurie reluctantly provides Martin with a horse to catch up. At Futterman's trading post, Ethan and Martin learn that Debbie has been taken by Scar, the chief of the Nawyecka band of Comanches. A year or more later, Laurie receives a letter from Martin describing the ongoing search. In reading the letter aloud, Laurie narrates the next few scenes, in which Ethan kills Futterman for trying to steal his money, Martin accidentally buys a Comanche wife, and the two men find a portion of Scar's band killed by soldiers.

The search leads Ethan and Martin to a military fort, and then to New Mexico, where a Mexican man leads them to Scar. They find Debbie after five years, now an adolescent, living as one of Scar's wives. She tells the men that she has become a Comanche and wishes to remain with them. Ethan would rather see her dead than living as a Native American, and tries to shoot her, but Martin shields her with his body and a Comanche wounds Ethan with an arrow as they escape. Although Martin tends to Ethan's wound, he is furious with him for attempting to kill Debbie, and wishes him dead. "That'll be the day," Ethan replies, as they return home.

Meanwhile, Charlie McCorry has been courting Laurie in Martin's absence. Ethan and Martin arrive home just as Charlie and Laurie's wedding is about to begin. After a fistfight between Martin and Charlie, a nervous Yankee soldier, Lt. Greenhill, arrives with news that Ethan's half-crazy friend Mose Harper has located Scar. Clayton leads his men to the Comanche camp, this time for a direct attack, but Martin is allowed to sneak in ahead of the assault to find Debbie, who welcomes him. Martin kills Scar to save Debbie, and Ethan scalps him. Ethan then locates Debbie, and pursues her on horseback. Martin fears that he will shoot her as he has promised and chases them desperately, but instead, Ethan sweeps her up onto his saddle and says, "Let’s go home, Debbie." She is taken to the Jorgensen ranch, and Martin reunites with Laurie. While everyone else enters the house, Ethan departs the homestead as he arrived – alone, clutching his arm – and the cabin door slowly shuts on his receding silhouette.

Charles Oakley lives alone in a rooming house. One day, his landlady tells him that two men came looking for him; he sees the two men waiting on the street in front of his room, and he decides to leave town.

Charlotte "Charlie" Newton is a bored teenage girl living in the idyllic town of Santa Rosa, California. She receives wonderful news: Her mother's younger brother (her eponym), Charles Oakley, is arriving for a visit. Her uncle arrives, and at first, everyone is delighted with his visit, especially young Charlie. Uncle Charlie brings everyone presents. He gives his niece an emerald ring that has someone else's initials engraved inside. Charlie's father, Joseph Newton, works at a bank, and Uncle Charlie tells him he wants to open an account and deposit $40,000 ($ million today) at his bank.

Two men appear at the Newton home, posing as interviewers working on a national survey. Uncle Charlie is upset and berates his sister for opening up her home to strangers. One of the men takes a photo of Uncle Charlie, who demands the film roll because "no one takes my photograph." The younger interviewer, Jack Graham, asks out young Charlie, and she guesses that he is really a detective. He explains that her uncle is one of two suspects who may be the "Merry Widow Murderer". Charlie refuses to believe it at first but then observes Uncle Charlie acting strangely, primarily with a news clipping from her father's newspaper that describes a murder. The initials engraved inside the ring he gave her match those of one of the murdered women, and during a family dinner, he reveals his hatred of rich widows.

One night, when Charlie's father and his friend Herbie discuss how to commit the perfect murder, Uncle Charlie lets his guard down and describes elderly widows as "fat, wheezing animals"; he then says, "What happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?" Horrified, Charlie runs out. Uncle Charlie follows and takes her into a seedy bar. He admits he is one of the two suspects. He begs her for help; she reluctantly agrees not to say anything, as long as he leaves soon to avoid a horrible confrontation that would destroy her mother, who idolizes her younger brother. Detective Fred Saunders, Jack Graham's older colleague, tells Charlie that the photo they took of Uncle Charlie was sent for identification by witnesses. News breaks that an alternative suspect was chased by police and killed by an airplane propeller; it is assumed that he was the murderer. Jack tells young Charlie that he loves her and would like to marry her, and leaves.

Uncle Charlie is delighted to be exonerated, but young Charlie knows all his secrets. Soon, she falls down dangerously steep stairs, which she later notices were cut through. Uncle Charlie says he wants to settle down, and young Charlie says she will kill him if he stays. Later that night, she is prodded by Uncle Charlie to get the car from the garage. The engine was left running, and the garage is full of exhaust fumes. She tries to turn the engine off, but the key is not in the ignition, and when she tries to leave, she finds the garage door jammed, and she is trapped in the garage. Mr. Newton's friend Herbie comes by and hears Charlie banging on the garage door and gets her out in time.

Uncle Charlie announces he is leaving for San Francisco, along with a rich widow, Mrs. Potter. At the train station, young Charlie boards the train with her younger sister Ann and their brother to see Uncle Charlie's compartment. Uncle Charlie restrains his niece Charlie on the train as the children disembark, hoping to kill her by shoving her out after it picks up speed. However, in the ensuing struggle, he falls in front of an oncoming train. At his funeral, Uncle Charlie is honored by the townspeople. Jack has returned, and Charlie confesses that she withheld crucial information. They resolve to keep Uncle Charlie's crimes a secret.

Ben, diffident and awkward, is meant to be a jazz trumpeter but wastes his time drinking in Manhattan bars and trying to pick up girls with two fellow-idlers, Dennis and Tom. He is supported by his brother Hugh(the sibling with the most African-American skin-tone characteristics), who is supposed to be a jazz singer but is unable to find much work because of his old-fashioned style. Hugh's career is managed by Rupert. Ben and Hugh live with their fair-skinned, younger sister Lelia, who intends to be a writer. Initially, she is under the wing of an older boyfriend and intellectual, David. At a party, she abandons him for the younger Tony, who professes his love and takes her virginity. She has been disappointed by Tony, and the first act of sex but they continue dating. Seeing her home, he is shocked to find that her family are black and is kicked out by Hugh, who does not want his sister going with a perceived bigot. Lelia is paired with a pleasant black man, also called David, who is shocked at the modern and independent ways she has acquired. Ben, after getting beaten up for trying to drunkenly muscle in on some girls in a bar, comes back to the apartment. Hugh gets into an argument over bookings and his manager confesses he wants to split up. Hugh convinces Rupert that they should remain partners and swears to be more flexible.

As Lelia and David head out for another date, Tony arrives at the door looking for her. He is disappointed to see her already dating another man, and she walks past him, but Hugh also arrives and they get into an argument over Lelia. A beaten up and more sanguine Ben becomes the arbiter and calms the situation down. Hugh discovers he has a good booking in Chicago and leaves. Ben is the last sibling to leave the apartment and heads down the street. Destination unknown.

In January 1971,Calendar in Shaft's office shows January 1971. See '''Production'''. private detective John Shaft is informed that some gangsters are looking for him. He spots one of the men waiting for him in his office building, and ambushes him. At gunpoint, he brings him to his office, where the second gangster is already waiting. During a short fight, Shaft dodges one of them, who falls out of a window. The other one reveals that Bumpy Jonas, the leader of a Harlem-based organized crime family, wants Shaft brought uptown to Harlem for a meeting. At the police station, Lt. Vic Androzzi and a detective question Shaft about the gangster's death, which Shaft calls an "accident". Androzzi allows Shaft to return to the streets for 48 hours to gather more information. Shaft meets with Bumpy, who tearfully reveals that his daughter has been kidnapped. He asks Shaft to ensure her safe return, and Shaft agrees to help. Bumpy advises that Shaft should seek out Ben Buford, a black militant leader.

Shaft tracks down Buford, and a shootout ensues with an unknown assailant. Afterwards, Shaft is told by Androzzi that Shaft, not Ben, was the target, and that tensions brewing between the uptown hoods belonging to Bumpy Jonas and the downtown Mafiosi have culminated in other murders. Androzzi laments that the issue is seen as black-against-white to the general public and worries about the escalation into a full-blown race war. He also shows Shaft some pictures of Mafia men who just arrived in New York. Shaft and Ben meet with Bumpy and accuse him of setting up the shootout. After agreeing to pay $10,000 for each of Ben's men who died, Ben and Shaft join forces to find Bumpy's daughter.

Later, Shaft surmises that mobsters are watching his apartment from a local bar. Shaft pretends to be a bartender and calls Androzzi to have the mobsters arrested. Shaft then confronts the arrested mobsters about Bumpy's daughter, and he sets up a meeting. When he gets home, Vic arrives and tells Shaft that the room at the station house was bugged and his superior wants to bring Shaft in for questioning regarding the kidnapping. Instead of taking him in, Androzzi leaves. Shaft is escorted by a Mafia member to the apartment where Marcy Jonas is being held, and Ben and two of his men tail them. Once there, a shootout ensues: two Mafia men are killed and Shaft takes a bullet in the shoulder. After receiving medical attention, Shaft tells Ben to round up his men and meet him at the hotel where Marcy has been taken. He calls Bumpy to tell him his daughter is fine, but that he needs taxicabs at the hotel for the getaway.

At the hotel, Shaft, Ben, and Ben's men dress as hotel workers and slowly infiltrate the hotel. Shaft gets to the roof of the hotel, and swings into the room where Marcy is kept. He kills the gangster guarding her and brings her outside. Meanwhile, Ben and his men kill the gangsters in the surrounding rooms, and exit. After the taxicabs take Marcy, Ben, and Ben's men away, Shaft calls Androzzi from a phone booth, telling him that his case has just busted open. Androzzi asks him to close it, and Shaft replies, in reference to an earlier scene, "You're gonna have to close it yourself, shitty!", then hangs up the phone and walks away laughing.

Buster is a movie theater projectionist and janitor. When the cinema is empty, he reads a book on How to be a Detective. He is in love with a beautiful loveable girl. However, he has a rival, the "local sheik". Neither has much money. He finds a dollar note in the garbage he swept up in the lobby. He takes it and adds it to the $2 he has. A girl comes and says that she lost a dollar. He gives it back. But then a sad old woman also says that she lost a dollar, so he gives that also, leaving himself with $1. A man comes and searches the garbage and finds a wallet full of money.

The projectionist buys a $1 box of chocolates, all he can afford, and changes the price to $4 before giving it to her at her house. He later gives her a ring.

The sheik comes into the house and steals the girl's father's pocket watch and pawns it for $4. With the money, he buys a $3 box of chocolates for the girl. When the father notices that his watch is missing, the sheik slips the pawn ticket into the projectionist's pocket unnoticed. The projectionist, studying to be a detective, offers to solve the crime, but when the pawn ticket is found in his pocket, he is banished from the girl's home.

However, when the sheik leaves, he walks closely behind him and shadows every movement. The girl takes the pawn ticket to the pawnbroker and asks him to describe who pawned it. He points to the sheik outside.

While showing a film (advertised in the lobby as "Hearts and Pearls") about the theft of a pearl necklace, the projectionist falls asleep and dreams that he enters the movie as a detective, Sherlock Jr. The other actors are replaced by the projectionist's "real" acquaintances. The dream begins with the theft being committed by the villain with the aid of the butler. The girl's father calls for the world's greatest detective, and Sherlock Jr. arrives.

Fearing that they will be caught, the villain and the butler attempt to kill Sherlock through several traps, poison, and an elaborate pool game with an exploding 13 ball. When these fail, the villain and butler try to escape. Sherlock Jr. tracks them down to a warehouse but is outnumbered by the gang to which the villain was selling the necklace. During the confrontation, Sherlock discovers that they have kidnapped the girl. With the help of his assistant, Gillette, Sherlock Jr. manages to save the girl, and after a car chase, manages to defeat the gang.

When he awakens, the girl shows up to tell him that she and her father learned the identity of the real thief after she went to the pawn shop to see who actually pawned the pocket watch. As a reconciliation scene happens to be playing on the screen, the projectionist mimics the actor's romantic behavior.

Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett hopes to uncover the facts behind the unsolved murder of Sloan, an inmate at a psychiatric hospital. He convinces an expert psychiatrist, Dr. Fong, to coach him to appear insane when it involves relating imaginary accounts of incest with his "sister", who is impersonated by his exotic-dancer girlfriend, Cathy; though against her wishes, she is talked into assisting him by filing a police complaint, and his performance during the investigation convinces the authorities to incarcerate him in the institution where the murder took place. Johnny is quickly disturbed by the behavior of his fellow inmates, and on one occasion is mauled by a group of female nymphomaniacs who assault him in their ward.

Johnny learns the murder had three witnesses, each driven insane by the stresses of war, bigotry, or fear of nuclear annihilation. The first, Stuart, is the son of a Southern sharecropper who was taught bigotry and hatred as a child. He was captured in the Korean War and was brainwashed into becoming a Communist. Stuart was ordered to indoctrinate a fellow prisoner, but instead the prisoner's unwavering patriotism reformed him. Stuart's captors pronounced him insane and he was returned to the United States in a prisoner exchange, after which he received a dishonorable discharge and was publicly reviled as a traitor. Stuart now imagines himself to be Confederate States of America General J.E.B. Stuart. Through conversation with Stuart, Johnny discerns that the killer was likely a hospital staff member, as Stuart recalled the assailant was dressed in white.

The second witness to Sloan's murder, Trent, was one of the first black students to integrate a segregated Southern university. Psychologically traumatized by the abuses he suffered there, he now imagines himself a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and stirs up the patients with white nationalist dogma. The third and final witness is Boden, an atomic scientist scarred by the knowledge of the devastating power of intercontinental ballistic missiles. He has regressed to the mentality of a six-year-old child.

After a hospital riot, Barrett is straitjacketed and subjected to shock treatment, and comes to believe Cathy is truly his sister, rejecting her when she comes to visit. He experiences many other symptoms of mental breakdown while he learns the identity of the killer - Wilkes, a hospital attendant who committed the murder to cover up his sexual liaisons with numerous female patients. Johnny confronts Wilkes in the hydrotherapy room, and begins a violent altercation with him, eventually extracting a confession in front of witnesses.

Wilkes is apprehended, and Johnny is finally able to write his story on Sloan's murder, but the ordeal leaves him with a shattered psyche, and he is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Some time later, Cathy visits Johnny in the hospital. She laments to a psychologist about Johnny's mental decline, as Johnny sits idly in a catatonic state.

Shane, a laconic but skilled gunfighter with a mysterious past, rides into an isolated valley in the sparsely settled Wyoming Territory in 1889. A drifter, he is hired as a farmhand by hardscrabble rancher Joe Starrett, who is homesteading with his wife, Marian, and their young son, Joey. Starrett tells Shane that a war of intimidation is being waged on the valley's settlers. Though they have claimed their land legally under the Homestead Acts, a ruthless cattle baron, Rufus Ryker, has hired various rogues and henchmen to harass them and force them out of the valley.

Shane goes to town alone to buy supplies at Grafton's, a general store with an adjacent saloon. Shane enters the saloon where Ryker's men are drinking and orders a soda pop for Joey. Chris Calloway, one of Ryker's men, ridicules and taunts Shane by throwing his drink on him, but Shane ignores him and leaves. On Shane's next trip to town with the Starretts and other homesteaders, he defeats Calloway, and then he and Starrett win a bar room brawl against most of Ryker's other men. Ryker promises the next fight will be with guns. Ryker hires Jack Wilson, an unscrupulous and notoriously skilled gunfighter. Joey admires Shane, much to his mother's chagrin, after Shane demonstrates his shooting skills.

Frank "Stonewall" Torrey, a hot-tempered ex-Confederate homesteader, is taunted by Wilson, who then shoots Torrey dead outside the saloon. At Torrey's funeral, the settlers discuss abandoning their struggle and leaving the valley; but after witnessing one of their homesteads being destroyed in a fire set by Ryker's men, they find new resolve to continue the fight.

With the purpose of killing him, Ryker invites Starrett to a meeting at the saloon, ostensibly to negotiate a settlement. Calloway, no longer loyal to Ryker, warns Shane of the double-cross. Shane and Starrett argue over who will go into town to face Wilson. The two fight, with Shane knocking Starrett unconscious. Shane rides to town with Joey following on foot to watch the fight. Shane kills Wilson, Ryker, and Ryker's brother, but is injured. Outside, Shane sees Joey, who notices that Shane is bleeding. In an iconic closing scene, Shane bids farewell and rides off into the valley, ignoring Joey's desperate cries of "Shane, come back!"

in ''The Shop Around the Corner''

Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) is the top salesman at a leathergoods shop in Budapest owned by the high-strung Mr. Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan). Kralik's coworkers at Matuschek and Company include his friend, Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), a kindly family man; Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), a two-faced womanizer; saleswoman Ilona Novotny (Inez Courtney); clerk Flora Kaczek (Sara Haden); and Pepi Katona (William Tracy), an ambitious, precocious delivery boy. One morning, Kralik reveals to Pirovitch that he's been corresponding anonymously with an intelligent and cultured woman whose ad he came across in the newspaper.

Kralik is Mr. Matuschek's oldest and most trusted employee, but lately there has been tension between the two. They get into an argument over Mr. Matuschek's idea to sell a cigarette box that plays "Ochi Chërnye" when opened. After their exchange, Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) enters the gift shop looking for a job. Kralik tells her there are no openings, but when she is able to sell one of the cigarette boxes (as a candy box), Mr. Matuschek hires her. However, she and Kralik do not get along.

Mr. Matuschek begins to suspect his wife is having an affair as she stays out late and requests money from him.

As Christmas approaches, Kralik is preparing to meet his mystery correspondent for a dinner date. The meeting is frustrated when Mr. Matuschek demands that everyone stay after work. Later Kralik is called into Mr. Matuschek's office and is fired. No one in the shop understands Mr. Matuschek's actions are related to his suspicions that Kralik is having an affair with his wife. Later, Mr. Matuschek meets with a private investigator who informs him that his wife is having an affair with one of his employees—Ferencz Vadas. Pepi returns to the shop just in time to prevent Mr. Matuschek from committing suicide.

Meanwhile, Kralik arrives at the Cafe Nizza, where he discovers that his mystery woman is Novak. Despite his disappointment, Kralik goes in and talks with her, pretending he is there to meet Pirovitch. In his mind, Kralik tries to reconcile the cultured woman of his letters with his annoying coworker—secretly hoping that things might work out with her. Concerned that Kralik's presence will spoil her first meeting with her "far superior" mystery correspondent, she calls Kralik a "little insignificant clerk" and asks him to leave.

Later that night, Kralik goes to the hospital to visit Mr. Matuschek, who offers him a job as manager of Matuschek and Company. Grateful to Pepi for saving his life, Mr. Matuschek promotes him to clerk. The next day, Novak calls in sick after her mystery man failed to show. That night, Kralik visits her at her apartment. During his visit, she receives a letter from her correspondent and reads it in front of Kralik (who wrote the letter).

Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, Matuschek and Company achieves record sales. Kralik and Miss Novak, alone in the shop, talk about their planned dates for the evening and Miss Novak reveals that she had a crush on Kralik when they first met. After pretending to have met Novak's mystery man, Kralik puts a red carnation in his lapel and reveals to her that he is her mystery correspondent and they kiss.

Grant Newbury (Tom Mix), Deputy Inspector of Immigration at the US/Mexico border is asked by his boss to infiltrate a gang smuggling Chinese workers through the border at Calexico, in order to identify and arrest their ringleader. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Estelle Halloway (Eva Novak) is disappointed because her guardian wrote that she would not be able to spend her holidays with him in Calexico as planned. When she wires him that she will come nevertheless with her roommate Marguerite (Adele Warner) and her brother (William Buckley), he tells her that they will meet instead near the Grand Canyon as it is too warm in Calexico.

In Calexico, Grant finds out that the ringleader is none other than Jim Frazer (J. Farrell MacDonald), Estelle's guardian. He becomes part of the gang and is requested to go and help taking of the Chinese now hidden in a camp in Grand Canyon. After having left discreetly the camp to fetch the police, he sees Estelle on the point of drowning in a river and saves her. He is caught by the bandit who have learned that he is a government agent but manages to escape first on horseback then in a motor car and reaches the little town of Williams where he gets the help of the police.

While the police drives to the hidden camp in motor cars, Grant borrows an aircraft and flies into the Grand Canyon where he jumps in a river and manages to free Estelle. Jim Frazer is identified as the ringleader and arrested, but to protect Estelle, Grant accepts that he lets her believe that he is leaving for a long trip. Frazer asks Grant whether he would help take care of Estelle while he is in jail and Grant answers: "I'll look after her the rest of her life if she'll let me."

Having lost both of her parents at a young age, Snow White is a princess living with her wicked and cold-hearted stepmother, the Queen. Fearing that Snow White's beauty will outshine her own, the Queen forces her to work as a scullery maid and asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all." For years, the mirror always answers that the Queen is, pleasing her.

One day, the Magic Mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is now the fairest in all of the land. On that same day, Snow White meets and falls in love with a prince who overhears her singing. The jealous Queen orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest, kill her, and bring back her heart in a jeweled box. However, the Huntsman cannot bring himself to kill Snow White. He begs for her forgiveness and reveals the Queen wants her dead. He then urges her to flee into the woods and never return.

Lost and frightened, Snow White is befriended by woodland creatures who lead her to a cottage deep in the woods. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the untidy home of seven orphaned children. With the animals' help, she proceeds to clean the place and cook a meal.

As it turns out, the cottage actually belongs to seven adult dwarfs named Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey, who work in a nearby mine. Returning home, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean, and suspect that an intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs find Snow White upstairs, asleep across three of their beds. Snow White awakes to find the dwarfs at her bedside and introduces herself, and all of the dwarfs eventually welcome her into their home after she offers to clean and cook for them. Snow White keeps house for the dwarfs while they mine for jewels during the day; and at night, they all sing, play music, and dance.

Back at the castle, the Magic Mirror reveals that Snow White is still living, and with the dwarfs. Enraged that the Huntsman had tricked and betrayed her, the Queen creates a poisoned apple that will put whoever eats it into a sleep-like death. She learns the curse can be broken by "love's first kiss," but is certain Snow White will be buried alive before this can happen. Using a potion to disguise herself as an old hag, the Queen goes to the cottage while the dwarfs are away. The animals attack her, but Snow White defends her. Unable to warn Snow White, the animals rush off to find the dwarfs. Claiming the apple is a magical, wish-granting one, the Queen fools Snow White into biting into it. As Snow White falls asleep, the Queen proclaims that she is now the fairest of the land.

The dwarfs return with the animals as the Queen leaves the cottage, and give chase, trapping her on a cliff. She tries to roll a boulder onto them, but lightning strikes the cliff before she can do so, causing her to fall and get crushed to death by the boulder.

In their cottage, the dwarfs find Snow White being kept in a deathlike slumber by the poison. Unwilling to bury her out of sight in the ground, they instead place her in a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. Together with the woodland creatures, they keep watch over her.

A year later, the prince learns of her eternal sleep and visits her coffin. Saddened by her apparent death, he kisses her, which breaks the spell and awakens her. The dwarfs and animals all rejoice as the prince takes Snow White to his castle.

In February 1929, in Prohibition-era Chicago, Joe is a jazz saxophone player and an irresponsible, impulsive ladies' man; his anxious friend Jerry is a jazz double bass player. They work in a speakeasy owned by gangster "Spats" Colombo. Tipped off by informant "Toothpick" Charlie, the police raid the joint. Joe and Jerry escape, but later accidentally witness Spats and his henchmen gunning down "Toothpick" and his gang in revenge (inspired by the real-life Saint Valentine's Day Massacre ). Spats and his gang see them as they flee. Broke, terrified, and desperate to get out of town, Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women named Josephine and Daphne so they can join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, an all-female band headed (by train) to Miami. On the train Joe and Jerry befriend Sugar Kane, the band's vocalist and ukulele player.

Joe and Jerry become obsessed with Sugar and compete for her affection while maintaining their disguises. Sugar confides to "Josephine" that she has sworn off male saxophone players, who have taken advantage of her in the past. She hopes to find a gentle, bespectacled millionaire in Florida. During the forbidden drinking and partying on the train, "Josephine" and "Daphne" become close friends with Sugar, and struggle to remember that they are supposed to be girls and cannot make passes at her.

Once in Miami, Joe woos Sugar by assuming a second disguise as millionaire Junior, the heir to Shell Oil, while feigning indifference to her. An actual millionaire, the much-married, aging, mama's-boy Osgood Fielding III, persistently pursues "Daphne", whose refusals only increase his appetite. He invites "her" for a champagne supper on his yacht, ''New Caledonia''. Joe convinces Jerry to keep Osgood occupied onshore so that "Junior" can take Sugar to Osgood's yacht, and pass it off as his own. Once on the yacht, "Junior" tells Sugar that psychological trauma has left him impotent and frigid, but that he would marry anyone who could cure him. Sugar tries to arouse him, with considerable success. Meanwhile, "Daphne" and Osgood dance the tango ("La Cumparsita") till dawn. When Joe and Jerry get back to the hotel, Jerry announces that Osgood has proposed marriage to "Daphne" and that he, as Daphne, has accepted, anticipating an instant divorce and huge cash settlement when his ruse is revealed. Joe convinces Jerry that he cannot actually marry Osgood.

The hotel hosts a conference for "Friends of Italian Opera", which is in fact a major meeting of the national crime syndicate, presided over by "Little Bonaparte". Spats and his gang recognize Joe and Jerry as the witnesses they have been looking for. Joe and Jerry, fearing for their lives, realize they must quit the band and leave the hotel. Joe conceals his deception from Sugar by telling her, over the telephone, that he, Junior, must marry a woman of his father's choosing and move to Venezuela for financial reasons. Sugar is distressed and heartbroken. Joe and Jerry evade Spats' men by hiding under a table at the syndicate banquet. "Little Bonaparte" has Spats and his men killed at the banquet; again, Joe and Jerry are witnesses and they flee through the hotel. Joe, dressed as Josephine, sees Sugar onstage singing a lament to lost love. He runs onto the platform and kisses her, causing Sugar to realize that Josephine and Junior are the same person.

Jerry persuades Osgood to take "Daphne" and "Josephine" away on his yacht. Sugar runs from the stage at the end of her performance and jumps aboard Osgood's launch just as it is leaving the dock with Joe, Jerry, and Osgood. Joe confesses his deception to Sugar and tells her that he is not good enough for her, but Sugar wants him anyway. Meanwhile, Jerry tries to get out of his promise to marry Osgood, by listing reasons why "Daphne" and Osgood cannot marry, ranging from a smoking habit to infertility. Osgood dismisses them all; he loves Daphne and is determined to go through with the marriage. Exasperated, Jerry removes his wig and snaps, "I'm a ''man''!" Osgood, unfazed, replies: "Well, nobody's perfect." Jerry, nonplussed, tries to digest this.

At a mansion on Sunset Boulevard, a group of police officers and photographers discover the body of Joe Gillis, floating face down in the swimming pool. In a flashback, Joe relates the events leading to his death.

Six months earlier, Joe was a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, trying to interest Paramount Pictures in a story he submitted. Script reader Betty Schaefer harshly critiques it, unaware that Joe is listening. Later, while fleeing from repossession men seeking his car, Joe turns into the driveway of a seemingly deserted mansion inhabited by forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond. Learning that Joe is a writer, Norma asks his opinion of a script she has written for a film about Salome. She plans to play the role herself in her return to the screen. Joe finds her script abysmal but flatters her into hiring him as a script doctor.

Moved into Norma's mansion at her insistence, Joe sees that Norma refuses to accept that her fame has evaporated, and learns that her butler Max secretly writes the fan letters she receives. At her New Year's Eve party, he realizes she has fallen in love with him. Joe tries to let her down gently, but Norma slaps him and retreats to her room. Joe visits his friend Artie Green and again meets Betty, who thinks a scene in one of Joe's scripts has potential. When he phones Max to have him pack his things, Max tells him Norma cut her wrists with his razor. Joe returns to Norma and they become lovers.

Norma has Max deliver the edited ''Salome'' script to her former director Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount. She starts getting calls from Paramount executive Gordon Cole but refuses to speak to anyone except DeMille. Eventually, she has Max drive her and Joe to Paramount in her 1929 Isotta Fraschini. DeMille welcomes her affectionately and treats her with great respect, tactfully evading her questions about her script. Max learns that Cole merely wants to rent her unusual car for a film.

Preparing for her imagined comeback, Norma undergoes rigorous beauty treatments. Joe secretly works nights at Betty's office room, collaborating on an original screenplay. His moonlighting is found out by Max, who reveals that he was a respected film director who discovered Norma, made her a star, and was her first husband. After she divorced him, he abandoned his career to become her servant.

Norma discovers a manuscript with Joe's and Betty's names on it and phones Betty, insinuating that Joe is not the man he seems. Joe, overhearing, invites Betty to see for herself. When she arrives, he pretends he is satisfied being a gigolo. However, after she tearfully leaves, he packs for a return to his old Ohio newspaper job. He bluntly informs Norma there will be no comeback; her fan mail comes from Max, and she has been forgotten. He disregards Norma's threat to kill herself and the gun she shows him to back it up. As Joe leaves the house, Norma shoots him three times, and he falls into the pool.

The flashback ends. The house is filled with police and reporters. Norma, having lost touch with reality amid her arrest, believes the newsreel cameras are there to film ''Salome''. Max and the police play along. Max sets up a scene for her and calls, "Action!" As the cameras roll, Norma descends her grand staircase and makes an impromptu speech about how happy she is to be making a film again, ending with the film's iconic line, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Morally bankrupt Manhattan press agent Sidney Falco is a frustrated fringe player who, of late, has been unable to gain positive publicity for his clients in media kingpin J.J. Hunsecker's influential, nationally syndicated newspaper column. Hunsecker is overly protective of his younger sister Susan, and seeks to derail her romance with up-and-coming jazz guitarist Steve Dallas.

In return for a failed promise, the bullying Hunsecker offers Falco the opportunity to make good by breaking the couple up. Falco is losing money and clients, and knows this crucial back-scratch could save his career. Sidney hopes to plant a rumor in a rival column that Dallas is a marijuana-smoking Communist, enough to get him fired from the jazz club where his combo plays. Hunsecker will then gain points with Susan by defending Dallas and getting his job back, with Falco counting on an overly prideful Dallas rejecting a tainted favor.

To get his dirt planted, Falco plans to blackmail a prominent columnist by threatening to expose his marital infidelity. Instead, the columnist chooses exposure over his journalistic integrity - which even his wife praises as his first decent act in years. Falco then bribes a second columnist with a sexual favor to be provided by a cigarette girl he has a friendly relationship with, misleading her into waiting for him in his bedroom only to arrive with the columnist - a new low, even for Falco. He flips her outrage by claiming he is doing it to help her career. The lies get printed and Dallas' jazz group is fired from the club.

As planned, in Dallas and Susan's presence Hunsecker theatrically gets Dallas rehired with a phone call, but Dallas still insults and denounces J.J. for his malignant influence on society. Forced to choose between them, Susan breaks up with Dallas in order to protect him from her vengeful brother. In spite of this, Hunsecker is so incensed by Dallas's insults - which he twists around to characterize as attacks on his loyal, patriotic audience - that he escalates things. Holding Falco's feet to the fire, he orders the shill to plant marijuana on Dallas then have him arrested and roughed up by corrupt police lieutenant Harry Kello, a move so dirty even Falco recoils from it. To swing him round, Hunsecker dangles three months of writing his column while J.J. takes Susan to Europe to forget about Steve.

It proves too much to resist. At the jazz club, Falco slips marijuana cigarettes into the pocket of Dallas's coat. Dallas is accosted by Kello outside the club and beaten so badly he ends up in the hospital. Falco then celebrates at a bar where, surrounded by his industry pals, he toasts to his favorite perfume, "success".

The festivities are interrupted when Falco is summoned to Hunsecker's penthouse apartment, where he finds Susan in her nightgown about to jump off the balcony. Falco stops her, then lectures her and calls her childish. Hunsecker arrives to find Falco and Susan in an outwardly compromising position in her bedroom, as Falco begins to suspect that Susan has set him up. Unable to talk himself out of what seems like a trap, Falco is brutally slapped around by Hunsecker. Livid, Falco reveals to Susan that her brother conspired to frame Dallas. Hunsecker then calls Kello and deems Dallas innocent and Falco guilty of planting evidence. Falco declares that Kello's beating will not stop him from making the whole story public and leaves. As he exits the building, he is caught in Times Square by the brutal cop.

Susan packs a bag to leave. Stopped by J.J., she explains that she indeed had attempted suicide, having considered death preferable to living with him, and that she is leaving to be with Dallas. J.J. then watches from the balcony as she walks past Falco's beaten form into the coming dawn.

Aged emissary Hitu arrives by Western sailing ship to the island of Bora Bora, a small island in the South Pacific, on an important mission. He bears a message from the chief of Fanuma to the chief of Bora Bora: a maiden sacred to their gods has died and Reri has been given the great honour of replacing her because of her royal blood and virtue. From this point on, she is tabu: "man must not touch her or cast upon her the eye of desire" upon penalty of death. This is painful news to Reri and the young man Matahi, who love each other. Matahi cannot bear it. That night, he sneaks her off the ship, and the couple escape the island by outrigger canoe.

Eventually, they reach a French colony, half dead. They recover quickly, and Matahi becomes the community's most successful pearl diver. They are happy with their new life together. However, Matahi is unfamiliar with the concept of money, so he does not understand the bills and signs for drinks for everyone during a celebration.

The local policeman receives a notice from the French government announcing a reward for the return of the couple, but Matahi bribes him with his last pearl. Then, Hitu arrives on the island and sees Reri alone, informing her that she has three days to give herself up or Matahi will be put to death. Without telling Matahi of her meeting with Hitu, Reri decides they must flee once more. However, when Matahi goes to buy tickets on a schooner, the shopkeepers instead take the money as partial payment of his debt.

That night, Hitu returns with a spear. Reri first throws herself in front of the sleeping Matahi, then agrees to return to Bora Bora to save his life. When Matahi stirs, Reri pretends to be asleep. Matahi gets up and decides to get money by getting a pearl from a tabu region of the lagoon, a perilous place guarded by a shark that has already taken the life of one diver. While he is away, Reri writes a farewell note, and leaves with Hitu. Matahi manages to get a pearl while fending off the shark. When he returns, however, he finds the note. He swims after Hitu's boat. He manages to grab a rope trailing from the boat, unbeknownst to the sleeping Reri, but Hitu cuts it. Undaunted, Matahi continues swimming after them until he eventually tires and drowns.

Passing a stagecoach way station on his journey into town, Pat Brennan agrees to return with some store-bought candy for the friendly station manager's young son. At a ranch where he once worked, Brennan tries to buy a bull, but is talked into riding one. If he wins, he gets the bull. If he loses he has to give up his horse. Brennan loses, and is forced to walk home, carrying his saddle.

He manages to get a lift from stagecoach driver Rintoon, an acquaintance of Brennan's from town, who has been hired specially to transport the newlyweds Willard and Doretta Mims. Doretta is a plain woman, but the daughter of the richest man in the state. It tickles Brennan, who tells Rintoon this is the first time he's ever been on a honeymoon.

When they stop at the way-station, they are mistaken for the regular stage by three outlaws, Chink, Billy Jack, and their leader, Frank Usher, who have already killed the station manager and his son. Rintoon goes for his shotgun, only to be killed by gun-happy Chink.

Terrified of sharing the same fate, Willard suggests to the outlaws that ransoming his wife would be far more profitable than robbing the stage. Frank likes the idea. He also immediately recognises, and is disgusted by, the groom's clear lack of devotion to his bride.

The outlaw leader takes a liking to Brennan, later telling him that under different circumstances the two of them might have been friends. After ordering Billy Jack to ride along with Willard and deliver a ransom note demanding $50,000 to Doretta's father, Frank takes the woman and Brennan to a remote hideout. Willard returns, saying his father-in-law has agreed and is gathering the money. Willard is told he is no longer needed and can leave. A coward, he does not even bother to say goodbye to his new wife, which deepens Frank's disgust for him. As Willard begins to ride off, Chink ruthlessly shoots him down.

Brennan knows full well that he and Doretta will also end up dead once the ransom is paid. He tells the distraught widow to collect herself and be ready to take any opportunity for life that presents itself. He then takes her in his arms. She hesitates, then kisses him. She confesses she married Willard because she was getting older and did not want to be alone.

Billy Jack and Chink are left behind to guard the hostages while Frank goes off to collect the money. Brennan plants the thought that their ringleader might just ride off alone with all the money, so Chink leaves the camp to keep an eye out for Frank. Brennan suggests to Billy Jack that he take advantage of Doretta, a lonely woman denied even her wedding night. Billy Jack does indeed try to force himself on Doretta, whereupon Brennan overpowers him and shoots him dead.

Chink hears the shots and turns back. Brennan kills him. Frank then returns with the money. Brennan sneaks up behind him, so Frank surrenders his revolver and the money. He slowly walks away, gambling that Brennan will not shoot him in the back. He mounts his horse and rides off. However, he has a rifle stowed in his saddle, so he pulls it and turns around; he rides back towards Brennan, who is forced to kill the outlaw. Walking away, side by side, Doretta reaches for Brennan's arm, which he places around her.

The film is presented in two parts, divided by an intermission.

Part I

After hearing the prophecy of a Hebrew deliverer, Pharaoh Rameses I of Egypt orders the death of all newborn Hebrew males. Yochabel saves her infant son by setting him adrift in a basket on the Nile. Bithiah, the Pharaoh Rameses' recently widowed daughter (and sister of the future Pharaoh Seti I), finds the basket and decides to adopt the boy, even though her servant, Memnet, recognizes that the child is Hebrew. Bithiah names the baby Moses.

Prince Moses grows up to become a successful general, winning a war with Ethiopia and establishing an alliance. Moses and Nefretiri fall in love, but she must marry the next Pharaoh to preserve the royal line. While working on the building of a city for Pharaoh Seti I's jubilee, Moses meets the stonecutter Joshua, who tells him of the Hebrew God. Moses saves an elderly woman from being crushed, not knowing that she is his biological mother, Yochabel, and he reprimands the taskmaster and overseer Baka.

Moses reforms the treatment of slaves on the project, but Prince Rameses, Moses's adoptive brother and Seti's son, charges him with planning an insurrection. Moses says he is making his workers more productive, making Rameses wonder if Moses is the man the Hebrews are calling the Deliverer.

Nefretiri learns from Memnet that Moses is the son of Hebrew slaves. She kills Memnet, but reveals the story to Moses after he finds the piece of Levite cloth he was wrapped in as a baby, which Memnet had kept. Moses follows Bithiah to Yochabel's house, where he meets his biological mother, brother Aaron, and sister Miriam.

Moses learns more about the slaves by working with them. Nefretiri urges him to return to the palace, so that he may help his people when he becomes pharaoh, to which he agrees after he completes a final task. Moses saves Joshua from death by killing Baka, telling Joshua that he, too, is Hebrew. The confession is witnessed by the overseer Dathan, who then reports to Prince Rameses. After being arrested, Moses explains that he is not the Deliverer, but would free the slaves if he could. Seti I declares Prince Rameses his sole heir, and Rameses banishes Moses to the desert. At this time, Moses learns of the death of his mother.

Moses makes his way across the desert to a well in Midian. After defending seven sisters from Amalekites, Moses is housed with the girls' father Jethro, a Bedouin sheik, who worships the God of Abraham. Moses marries Jethro's eldest daughter Sephora. Later, he finds Joshua, who has escaped from the hard labor imposed on the Hebrews in Egypt. While herding, Moses sees the burning bush on the summit of Mount Sinai and hears the voice of God. Moses returns to Egypt to free the Hebrews.

Part II

Moses comes before Rameses, now Pharaoh Rameses II, to win the slaves' freedom, turning his staff into a cobra. Jannes performs the same trick with his staves, but Moses's snake swallows his. Rameses prohibits straw from being provided to the Hebrews to make their bricks. Nefretiri rescues Moses from being stoned to death by the Hebrews wherein he reveals that he is married.

Egypt is visited by plagues. Moses turns the river Nile to blood at a festival of Khnum, and brings burning hail down upon Pharaoh's palace. Moses warns him that the next plague to fall upon Egypt will be summoned by Pharaoh himself. Enraged at the plagues, Rameses orders that all first-born male Hebrews will die, but a cloud of death instead kills all the first-born of Egypt, including the child of Rameses and Nefretiri. Despairing at the loss of his heir, Pharaoh exiles the Hebrews, who begin the Exodus from Egypt.

After being taunted by Nefretiri, Rameses takes his chariots and pursues the Hebrews to the Red Sea. Moses uses God's help to stop the Egyptians with a pillar of fire, and parts the Red Sea. After the Hebrews make it to safety, Moses releases the walls of water, drowning the Egyptian army. A devastated Rameses returns empty-handed to Nefretiri, stating that he now acknowledges Moses's god as God.

Moses again ascends the mountain with Joshua. He sees the Ten Commandments created by God in two stone tablets. Meanwhile, an impatient Dathan tells the people that Moses is dead and urges a reluctant Aaron to construct a golden calf idol. A wild saturnalia occurs and a decadent orgy is held by most of the Hebrews.

After God informs Moses of the Hebrews fallen into debauchery, the latter descends from the mountain with Joshua. Enraged at the sight of decadence he deems the Hebrews unworthy, and smashes the tablets at the golden calf, which explodes, killing the wicked revelers, and causing the others to wander in the wilderness for forty years. An elderly Moses later leads the Hebrews towards Canaan. However, he cannot enter the Promised land due to a mentioned previous disobedience to the Lord. He instead names Joshua as leader, and bids farewell to the Hebrews at Mount Nebo.

Ahmed steals as he pleases in the city of Bagdad. Wandering into a mosque, he tells the holy man he disdains his religion; his philosophy is, "What I want, I take."

That night, he sneaks into the palace of the caliph using a magic rope he stole during ritual prayers. All thoughts of plunder are forgotten when he sees the sleeping princess, the caliph's daughter. The princess's Mongol slave alerts the guards, but he gets away.

When his associate Abu reminds the disconsolate Ahmed that a bygone thief once stole another princess during the reign of Haroun al-Rashid, Ahmed sets out to do the same. The next day is the princess's birthday. Three princes arrive, seeking her hand in marriage (and the future inheritance of the city). Another of the princess's slaves foretells that she will marry the man who first touches a rose-tree in her garden. The princess watches anxiously as first the glowering Prince of the Indies, then the obese Prince of Persia and finally the Prince of the Mongols pass by the rose-tree. The mere sight of the Mongol fills the princess with fear, but when Ahmed appears (disguised in stolen garments as a suitor), she is delighted. The Mongol slave tells her countryman of the prophecy, but before he can touch the rose-tree, Ahmed's startled horse tosses its rider into it.

That night, following ancient custom, the princess chooses Ahmed for her husband. Out of love, Ahmed gives up his plan to abduct her and confesses all to her in private. The Mongol prince learns from his spy, the princess's Mongol slave, that Ahmed is a common thief and informs the caliph. Ahmed is lashed mercilessly, and the caliph orders he be torn apart by a giant ape, but the princess has the guards bribed to let him go.

When the caliph insists she select another husband, her loyal slave advises her to delay. She asks that the princes each bring her a gift after "seven moons"; she will marry the one who brings her the rarest. In despair, Ahmed turns to the holy man. He tells the thief to become a prince, revealing to him the peril-fraught path to a great treasure.

The Prince of the Indies obtains a magic crystal ball from the eye of a giant idol, which shows whatever he wants to see, while the Persian prince buys a flying carpet. The Mongol prince leaves behind his henchman, telling him to organize the soldiers he will send to Bagdad disguised as porters. (The potentate has sought all along to take the city; the beautiful princess is only an added incentive.) After he lays his hands on a magic apple which has the power to cure anything, even death, he sends word to the Mongol slave to poison the princess. After many adventures, Ahmed gains a cloak of invisibility and a small chest of magic powder which turns into whatever he wishes when he sprinkles it. He races back to the city.

The three princes meet as agreed at a caravanserai before returning to Bagdad. The Mongol asks the Indian to check whether the princess has waited for them. They discover that she is near death, and ride the flying carpet to reach her. Then the Mongol uses the apple to cure her. The suitors argue over which gift is rarest, but the princess points out that without any one gift, the remaining two would have been useless in saving her. Her loyal slave shows her Ahmed in the crystal ball, so the princess convinces her father to deliberate carefully on his future son-in-law. The Mongol prince chooses not to wait, unleashing his secret army that night and capturing Bagdad.

Ahmed arrives at the city gate, shut and defended by Mongols. When he conjures up a large army with his powder, the Mongol soldiers flee. The Mongol prince is about to have one of his soldiers kill him when the Mongol slave suggests he escape with the princess on the flying carpet. Ahmed liberates the city and rescues the princess, using his cloak of invisibility to get through the Mongols guarding their prince. In gratitude, the caliph gives his daughter to him in marriage.

In Anchorage, journalist Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer), looking for a story, visits the Alaskan Air Command officer's club, where he meets Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), his co-pilot Lieutenant Eddie Dykes, (a friend of Scott's), and flight navigator Ken "Mac" MacPherson. General Fogarty orders Hendry to fly to Polar Expedition Six at the North Pole, per a request from its lead scientist, Nobel laureate Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite); Carrington has radioed that an unusual aircraft has crashed nearby. With Scott, Corporal Barnes, crew chief Bob, and a pack of sled dogs, Hendry pilots a Douglas C-47 transport aircraft to the remote outpost.

Upon arrival, Scott and the airmen meet radio operator Tex, Dr. Chapman, his wife Mrs. Chapman, a man named Lee, who is one of two cooks, and the Inuit dog handlers. Also present are scientists Vorhees, Stern, Redding, Stone, Laurence, Wilson, Ambrose, Auerbach, Olson, and Carrington. Hendry later rekindles his romance with Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), Carrington's secretary. Several scientists fly with the airmen to the crash site, finding a large object buried beneath the ice. As they spread out to determine the object's shape, they realize that they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a flying saucer. The team attempts to melt the ice covering the saucer with thermite, but a violent reaction with the craft's metal alloy completely destroys it. Their Geiger counter, however, detects a frozen body buried nearby; it is excavated in a large block of ice and loaded aboard the C-47 transport. They fly out as an Arctic storm closes in on their site.

Hendry assumes command of the outpost and, pending radio instructions from General Fogarty, denies Scott permission to send out his story; he also denies the scientists' demands to examine the body. Tex sends an update to Fogarty, and the airmen settle in as the storm arrives. A watch is posted; Barnes relieves McPherson and, disturbed by the creature's appearance in the clearing ice, covers it with an electric blanket, which he does not realize is plugged in. The block slowly thaws and the creature, still alive, escapes into the storm and is attacked by the sled dogs. The airmen recover the creature's severed arm after the attack.

The scientists examine the arm, concluding that the alien is an advanced form of plant life. Carrington is convinced of its superiority to humans and becomes intent on communicating with it. The airmen begin a search, which leads to the outpost's greenhouse. Carrington stays behind with Vorhees, Stern, and Laurence, having noticed evidence of alien activity. They discover a third sled dog hidden away, which has had all of its blood drained; the carnivorous plant creature feeds on blood. Carrington and the scientists post a secret watch of their own, hoping to encounter the alien before the airmen find it.

The next morning, the airmen continue their search. Tex informs them that Fogarty is aware of their discovery and demands further information, now prevented by the fierce storm. Stern appears, badly injured, and tells the group that the creature has killed Auerbach and Olson. When the airmen investigate, the alien attacks them; they manage to barricade it inside the greenhouse. Hendry confronts Carrington and orders him to remain in his lab and quarters.

Carrington, obsessed with the alien, shows Nicholson and the other scientists his experiment: using seeds taken from the severed arm, he has been growing small alien plants by feeding them from the blood plasma supply at the base. Hendry finds the plasma missing when it is needed to treat Stern, which leads him to Carrington. Fogarty transmits orders to keep the creature alive, but it escapes from the greenhouse and attacks the airmen in their quarters. They douse it with buckets of kerosene and set it afire, forcing it to retreat into the storm. After regrouping, they realize that their building's temperature is falling rapidly; the furnaces have stopped working, sabotaged by the alien. They retreat to the station's generator room to keep warm, and rig an electrical "fly trap". The alien continues to stalk them, but at the last moment, Carrington attempts to communicate, pleading with the creature. It knocks him aside, walks into the trap, and is electrocuted. On Hendry's order, it is reduced to a pile of ash.

When the weather clears, Scotty is finally able to file his "story of a lifetime" by radio to a roomful of reporters in Anchorage. He ends his broadcast with a warning: "Tell the world. Tell this to everybody, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies...".

The well-known stars of a Warsaw theater company, including "ham" actor Josef Tura and wife Maria, are rehearsing "Gestapo", a Nazi satirical play. That night, when the company is performing ''Hamlet'', with Tura in the title role, one of the actors, Bronski, commiserates with colleague Greenberg about being limited to being spear carriers. Greenberg, who is implied to be Jewish, reveals he has always dreamed of playing Shylock in ''The'' ''Merchant of Venice''.

Maria meets pilot Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski, while Tura begins his "To be or not to be..." speech. Soon, the government orders to cancel "Gestapo" to avoid possibly worsening relations with Germany. The following night, after a brief assignation, Sobinski walks out during "To be or not to be", infuriating Tura. Sobinski confesses his love to Maria, assuming that she will leave her husband, as well as the stage, to be with him. Before Maria can correct Sobinski's assumption, news breaks out that Germany has invaded Poland. Sobinski leaves to join the fight at the Polish division of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and the actors hide as Warsaw is bombed.

Sobinski and his fellows meets the Polish resistance leader Professor Siletsky. Siletsky will return to Warsaw soon, and the men give him messages for their loved ones. However, Sobinski becomes suspicious when Siletsky doesn't know of Maria Tura. The Allies realize that Siletsky has the identity of the relatives of Polish airmen in the RAF, against whom reprisals can be taken. Sobinski flies back to warn Maria, however Siletsky has Maria brought to him by German soldiers. He invites Maria to dinner, hoping to recruit her as a spy. Just before she arrives home, Tura returns and finds Sobinski in his bed. Maria and Sobinski try to figure out what to do about Siletsky, while Tura tries to figure out what is going on with his wife and the pilot. Tura proclaims that he will kill Siletsky.

Later, a member of the company disguised as Gestapo summons Siletsky to "Gestapo headquarters", the theatre. Tura pretends to be Colonel Ehrhardt of the Gestapo. Siletsky reveals Sobinski's message for Maria, and that "To be or not to be" signals their rendezvous. Tura uncontrollably reveals himself. Siletsky tries to escape but is shot and killed by Sobinski. Tura disguises as Siletsky, destroying his extra copy of the information to confront Maria about her affair. He meets Ehrhardt's adjutant, Captain Schultz, and taken to meet him. Tura passes himself off, and names recently executed prisoners as the leaders of the resistance. Just as Tura is about to leave the theater, several actors yank off Tura's props upon Maria's request, and pretend to drag him out. Everyone is safe, but cannot leave Poland as planned on the plane Ehrhardt had arranged for Siletsky.

The Germans stage a show to honor Hitler during his visit. The actors slip into the theater dressed as Germans and hide until Hitler and his entourage arrive and take their seats. As the Germans are singing the ''Deutschlandlied'', Greenberg suddenly appears and rushes Hitler's box, causing enough distraction to exchange the actors for the real Germans. Acting as the head of Hitler's guard, Tura demands to know what Greenberg wants, giving the actor his chance to deliver Shylock's speech, ending with "if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?!" Tura orders Greenberg to be "taken away"; all the actors march out, get in Hitler's cars and drive away.

At her apartment, Maria waits for the company, as they all intend to leave. Bronski enters costumed as Hitler, then walks out speechless, shocked at seeing Ehrhardt trying to seduce Maria—which makes Erhardt believe she is Hitler's mistress. Maria flees, and Ehrhardt shoots himself out of shame.

The actors take off on Hitler's plane. Sobinski flies to Scotland, where the actors are interviewed by the press. Asked what reward Tura would like for saving the underground movement, Maria asserts that Josef wants to play Hamlet. While performing, Tura is gratified to see Sobinski sitting quietly in the audience at the critical moment of his soliloquy. But as he proceeds, the audience is distracted as a handsome young officer gets up and heads noisily backstage.

Michael Dorsey is a respected actor, but nobody in New York City wants to hire him because he is a perfectionist and difficult to work with. He makes ends meet by working as a server in a restaurant and teaching acting classes. After many months without an acting job, Michael hears of an opening on the popular daytime soap opera ''Southwest General'' from his friend and acting student Sandy Lester, who tries out unsuccessfully for the role of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly. In desperation, Michael impersonates a woman, auditioning as "Dorothy Michaels", and gets the hospital administrator part. Michael takes the job as a way to raise $8,000 to produce a play by his roommate Jeff Slater, which will star himself and Sandy. As “Dorothy”, Michael plays Emily Kimberly as a feisty feminist, which surprises the other actors and the crew, who expected her to be (as written) another swooning female. His character quickly becomes a national sensation.

When Sandy catches Michael in her bedroom half undressed because he wants to try on her clothes for ideas for Dorothy's wardrobe, he covers up by claiming he wants to have sex with her. Sandy is receptive and they sleep together. Exacerbating matters further, he is attracted to one of his co-stars, Julie Nichols, a single mother in an unhealthy relationship with the show's amoral, sexist director, Ron Carlisle. At a party, when Michael (as himself) approaches Julie with a pick-up line to which she had previously told Dorothy she would be receptive, she throws a drink in his face. Later, as Dorothy, when he makes tentative advances, Julie—having just ended her relationship with Ron per Dorothy's advice—makes it known that she is not a lesbian.

Meanwhile, Dorothy has her own admirers to contend with: older cast member John Van Horn and Julie's widowed father, Les. Les proposes marriage, insisting that Dorothy think about it before answering. When Michael returns home, he finds John, who almost forces himself on Dorothy until Jeff walks in on them. A few minutes later, Sandy arrives, asking why he has not answered her calls. Michael admits he is in love with another woman, and Sandy screams and breaks up with him.

The tipping point comes when, due to Dorothy's popularity, the show's producers want to extend her contract for another year. Michael extricates himself when a technical problem forces the cast to perform live, by improvising a revelation about Emily: that she is actually Edward, Emily's twin brother who took her place to avenge her. This allows everybody a way out, but Julie is so outraged at Michael's deception that she punches him in the groin once the cameras have stopped rolling and storms off.

Some weeks later, Michael is moving forward with producing Jeff's play. He returns Les's engagement ring, and Les says, "The only reason you're still living is because I never kissed you." Despite his anger, Les admits that Michael was good company as Dorothy, and Michael buys him a beer.

Michael later waits for Julie outside the studio. She is reluctant to talk to him, but he tells her that he and her father played pool and had a good time. She finally admits she misses Dorothy. Michael tells her Dorothy is within him and he misses her too, adding, "I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man." Julie forgives him and they walk away together, engaged in conversation.

In Venice, Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall), a master thief masquerading as a baron, meets Lily (Miriam Hopkins), a beautiful pickpocket posing as a countess. The two fall in love and decide to team up. They leave Venice for Paris.

There, Gaston steals a diamond-encrusted purse worth 125,000 francs from Madame Mariette Colet (Kay Francis), owner of the famous perfume manufacturer Colet and Co. When Mariette offers a large reward for its return, Gaston claims it, giving the name of Lavalle.

While claiming the reward, Gaston charms Mariette, and admits to being broke. Mariette hires him as her private secretary. He arranges for Lily to be employed in Mariette's office, and stands up to Mariette's board of directors, led by Monsieur Adolph J. Giron (C. Aubrey Smith), the manager, who is openly suspicious of him.

Having observed Mariette open her private safe (and memorized the combination), Gaston persuades her that she should keep a large sum there, including half of her next dividend installment. Mariette begins to flirt with Gaston, and he begins to have feelings for her.

Unfortunately for the thieves, Mariette has two suitors: the Major (Charles Ruggles), and François Filiba (Edward Everett Horton), who was robbed in Venice by Gaston (posing as a doctor). François sees Gaston at a garden party, and is sure they have met, but can't immediately recall where. Fearing imminent discovery, Gaston and Lily decide to flee that night with what is in the safe, and not wait for the dividend installment.

Mariette is invited to a dinner party given by the Major. She cannot decide whether to go or to spend the night in bed with Gaston. Eventually she goes, but not before Lily catches on that Gaston has fallen for her rival, and wants to back out of the plan.

At the party, the Major tells François that he once mistook Gaston for a doctor, and François then recalls the Venice incident. François tells Mariette about Gaston, but she refuses to believe it's true.

Lily robs the safe after confronting her partner. Mariette returns home and suggestively probes Gaston, who admits that the safe has been cleaned out, but claims that he took the cash. He also tells her that Monsieur Giron has stolen millions from the firm over the years.

Lily then confronts Mariette and Gaston, admitting that it was she who stole the money from the safe. She says at first that she doesn't want the money—then says she might as well get it in exchange for Gaston, and leaves. Gaston goes after Lily, then returns to say goodbye to Mariette. He tells her that as marvelous as their affair would be, it would end with a policeman coming to arrest them both. As he leaves, Gaston reveals that he took her pearl necklace—which he describes as her gift to Lily—which makes her smile.

In the taxi, facing a chilly Lily, Gaston reaches for his present, only to realize she's lifted it from his pocket. Lily is at first triumphant, then realizes Gaston has lifted the money from her. This echoes their original meeting, when they first became partners in crime, and she embraces him in delight as the cab rolls away.

A Dutch boy and girl's idyllic existence is destroyed when they are overrun by a group of Nazi-like mechanical men called "The Screwballs", who lay waste to everything they touch. The Screwballs are later destroyed by a thunderstorm (the rain of which causes them to rust) and the boy and girl's idyllic life resumes.

In 1949, former United States Army Air Forces officer Harvey Stovall spots a familiar Toby Jug in the window of a London antique shop and learns that it came from Archbury, an airfield where Stovall served during World War II. Convinced that it is the same jug which used to stand on the mantel of the airfield's officers' club, he buys it and journeys to the derelict airfield, where he reflects on his wartime experiences.

In a flashback, the setting shifts to 1942, when the 918th Bomb Group at Archbury has gained a reputation as the "hard luck group". After a particularly disastrous mission, group commander Colonel Keith Davenport appears exhausted and demoralized. His defeatist attitude spreads to other senior leaders of the group, including his Air Exec, Lieutenant Colonel Ben Gately. Ordered to fly another mission the next day, at a dangerously low altitude, Davenport protests to his friend, Brigadier General Frank Savage, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations at VIII Bomber Command. Later, Savage reluctantly shares with Major General Pritchard, the commanding general of VIII Bomber Command, his belief that Davenport has become emotionally too close to his men and may no longer be fit to command. That night, Pritchard and Savage visit the group headquarters to investigate the cause of the mission's heavy losses. Pritchard realizes that Savage is right: Davenport has become over-protective and is unwilling to discipline his men, even for costly mistakes. Davenport is relieved of command and Savage is asked to take over.

Savage takes a harsh approach to restoring the group's discipline and morale. He begins by reprimanding Gately, demoting him to aircraft commander and insisting that he henceforth fly every mission. Savage assigns Gately only the most incompetent crewmen, ordering him to paint the name "Leper Colony" on his airplane. Rough-and-ready Major Cobb impresses Savage with his independent spirit and replaces Gately as Air Exec. Savage conducts a series of training missions and waits for an opportunity to restore the group's pride in its abilities. Upset by the contrast of Savage's stern leadership with Davenport's easygoing ways, all of the group's pilots apply for transfers. Savage asks the Group Adjutant, Major Stovall, to delay processing their applications to buy him some time. An attorney in civilian life, Stovall knows how to use bureaucratic red tape to his advantage.

When the group returns to combat, all the groups are ordered to abort their mission due to heavy weather. Savage ignores the recall order. The 918th successfully bombs the target and is the only group to do so. All of its crews return safely. Though Pritchard is furious, Savage claims that he did not hear the recall due to a radio malfunction and instead persuades Pritchard to recommend the group for a Distinguished Unit Citation. Savage also acquires a surrogate son in Lieutenant Jesse Bishop, a Medal of Honor recipient who is Savage's eyes and ears among the combat aircrews. When the Inspector General arrives to investigate the pilots' transfer requests, Savage packs his belongings, expecting to be relieved of command and possibly court-martialed. But, led by Bishop, the pilots withdraw their requests. Savage also softens his attitude towards the men as he becomes more closely involved with them. Gately goes on to win Savage's respect and admiration by demonstrating extraordinary leadership and courage in combat.

With enemy resistance intensifying as the air war advances deeper into Germany, missions become longer and riskier and many of Savage's best men are shot down or killed. Pritchard tries to get Savage to return to a staff job at VIII Bomber Command, but Savage feels that the 918th is not yet ready to do without him. Reluctantly, Pritchard leaves him in command. Ordered to return to the same target after a particularly brutal raid on a ball bearing factory, Savage finds himself physically unable to haul himself up into his B-17. Gately takes his place as lead pilot and strike commander for the mission. While waiting for the group's return, Savage becomes catatonic. Only as they return to Archbury does he regain his composure and fall asleep.

The story then returns to 1949, as Stovall pedals away from Archbury.

On the eve of Columbus Day festivities in New York, the boxer Mateo Vargas is released early from a jail term he served after he struck a police officer. He returns home for a surprise reunion with his family, but his wife Blanca faints. Mateo learns from her doctor that she is pregnant. Mateo is shocked, and knows that he cannot be the father. His trainer wants him to return to the boxing ring, but Mateo is too preoccupied with Blanca's infidelity. While he was in jail, Blanca had been seeing Claudio, the fiancé of Mateo's sister Lola. When Lola tells her suspicions to her mother, she slaps Lola. Vargas confronts Blanca about her pregnancy, but she refuses to name the father. Mateo becomes obsessed with finding his wife's lover.

In 2005, the Decepticons have conquered the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron. The Autobots, operating from Cybertron's two moons, prepare a counter-offensive. Autobot leader Optimus Prime sends a shuttle to Autobot City on Earth for supplies. The Decepticons, led by Megatron, kill Ironhide, Prowl, Ratchet, and Brawn and hijack the ship.

Outside Autobot City, Hot Rod, is relaxing with Daniel Witwicky (son of Spike Witwicky). Seeing the shuttle, they head back, but Hot Rod spots Megatron and hits the craft with missiles, causing it to crash. Megatron then leads an all-out assault on the city. Hot Rod and Daniel barely make it inside as the walls are raised. Unable to penetrate the wall, the Constructicons form Devastator and destroy the city's defenses, allowing the Decepticons to raid the city.

Optimus arrives with reinforcements, killing several Decepticons, then engages and defeats Megatron. Megatron attempts to use a hidden gun; when Hot Rod tries to stop him, the Deception leader overpowers him and fatally shoots Prime. As Megatron goes for the kill, Prime uses the last of his strength to kick Megatron over a hillside. The remaining Decepticons get inside Astrotrain and retreat from Autobot City, heading back to Cybertron.

On his deathbed, Optimus passes the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus, telling him that its power will light the Autobots' darkest hour. It drops from Optimus's hands and is caught by Hot Rod (who briefly feels its power), who hands it to Ultra Magnus. Prime succumbs to his injuries.

To conserve fuel, several Decepticons, led by second-in-command Starscream, jettison Thundercracker, Skywarp, Shrapnel, Kickback, Bombshell and Megatron. The wounded Decepticons are found by Unicron, a sentient planet who consumes other worlds. Unicron offers Megatron a new body in exchange for destroying the Matrix, which can destroy him; telling him Ultra Magnus has it.

Megatron refuses, but reluctantly agrees when Unicron threatens to allow him to drift helplessly in space forever. Megatron is remade into Galvatron, while the corpses of the other Decepticons are converted into his new troops: Cyclonus, Cyclonus' Armada, Scourge, and the Sweeps. Unicron also supplies Galvatron with a ship.

Unicron consumes Cybertron's moons, including the secret bases with the Autobots and Spike. On Cybertron, Galvatron disrupts Starscream's coronation as Decepticon leader and kills him. Retaking command of the Decepticons, Galvatron leads his forces to seek out Ultra Magnus at the ruined Autobot City.

The surviving Autobots escape in separate ships. Hot Rod and Kup's take off first, with Magnus, Arcee and Springer's close behind. Galvatron hits the second one, confident he has done Unicron's bidding; unaware that Magnus separated the back half. The explosion causes the Autobots to crash on different planets. Galvatron reports to Unicron, only to be punished for his failure, then sent to the Planet of Junk.

Hot Rod and Kup are taken prisoner by the Quintessons, a clutch of tyrants who hold kangaroo courts and execute prisoners by feeding them to the Sharkticons. They learn of Unicron from Kranix, a lone survivor of Lithone, a planet devoured by Unicron at the beginning of the film. After Kranix is executed, Hot Rod and Kup escape, aided by the Dinobots and the small Autobot Wheelie, who helps them find an escape ship.

The other Autobots land on Junk where they are attacked by the native Junkions, who then hide from Galvatron's arriving forces. Ultra Magnus secures the remaining Autobots, but is cornered by Galvatron. Failing to release the power of the Matrix, he is destroyed by Galvatron who seizes the Matrix, intent on using it to control Unicron.

The Autobots befriend the local Junkions, led by Wreck-Gar, who rebuild Magnus. They are joined by the Autobots from the planet of the Quintessons. The Autobots and Junkions (who have their own ship) fly to Cybertron to retrieve the Matrix. Galvatron attempts to threaten Unicron, but cannot activate the Matrix. In response to Galvatron's threats, Unicron transforms into a colossal robot and attacks Cybertron. When Galvatron attacks him, Unicron swallows him and the Matrix whole.

The Autobots crash their spaceship through Unicron's eye and become disbanded. Unicron continues to battle the Dinobots, Decepticons, and Junkions. Daniel saves his father Spike from Unicron's digestive system, and the group rescue Bumblebee, Jazz, and Cliffjumper.

Galvatron attempts to form an alliance with Hot Rod, but Unicron forces him to attack. During the fight, Galvatron gains the upper hand. Realizing this is the Autobot's darkest hour, the Matrix transforms Hot Rod into Rodimus Prime, the new Autobot leader. Rodimus tosses Galvatron into space and uses the Matrix's power to destroy Unicron, then escapes with the other Autobots. With the Decepticons in disarray from Unicron's attack, the Autobots celebrate the war's end and the retaking of their home planet while Unicron's severed head orbits Cybertron.

After a rooftop chase, where a fellow policeman falls to his death, San Francisco detective John "Scottie" Ferguson retires due to fear of heights and vertigo. Scottie tries to conquer his fear, but his ex-fiancée, underwear designer Marjorie 'Midge' Wood, says that another severe emotional shock may be the only cure.

Gavin Elster, an acquaintance from college, asks Scottie to follow his wife, Madeleine, claiming that she has been behaving strangely and her mental state is abnormal. Scottie reluctantly agrees and follows Madeleine to a florist where she buys a bouquet, to the Mission San Francisco de Asís and the grave of Carlotta Valdes (1831–1857) and to the Legion of Honor art museum where she gazes at the ''Portrait of Carlotta''. He watches her enter the McKittrick Hotel, but upon investigating, she does not seem to be there.

A local historian explains that Carlotta Valdes committed suicide: she had been the mistress of a wealthy married man and bore his child; the otherwise childless man kept the child and cast Carlotta aside. Gavin reveals Carlotta (who he fears is possessing Madeleine) is Madeleine's great-grandmother, although Madeleine has no knowledge of this and does not remember the places she has visited. Scottie tails Madeleine to Fort Point and when she leaps into the bay, he rescues her.

The next day, Madeleine stops to deliver a letter of gratitude for Scottie, and they decide to spend the day together. They travel to Muir Woods and Cypress Point on 17-Mile Drive, where Madeleine runs down towards the ocean. Scottie grabs her and they embrace. The following day, Madeleine visits Scottie and recounts a nightmare. Scottie identifies its setting as Mission San Juan Bautista, the childhood home of Carlotta. He drives her there and they express their love for each other. Madeleine suddenly runs into the church and up the bell tower. Scottie, halted on the steps by his acrophobia, sees Madeleine plunge to her death.

The death is declared a suicide. Gavin does not fault Scottie, but Scottie breaks down, becomes clinically depressed and is sent to a sanatorium, almost catatonic. Following his release, Scottie frequents the places that Madeleine visited, often imagining that he sees her. One day, he notices a woman on the street who reminds him of Madeleine, despite her different appearance. Scottie follows her to her hotel room where she identifies herself as Judy Barton, from Salina, Kansas.

Judy has a flashback revealing that she was the person Scottie knew as "Madeleine Elster." She was impersonating Gavin's wife in an elaborate murder scheme. Judy drafts a letter to Scottie explaining her involvement: Gavin had deliberately taken advantage of Scottie's acrophobia to substitute his wife's freshly killed body in the apparent "suicide jump." However, Judy rips up the letter and continues the charade because she loves Scottie.

They begin seeing each other, but Scottie remains obsessed with "Madeleine." He asks Judy to change her clothes and dye her hair to resemble Madeleine. After Judy complies, hoping that they may finally find happiness together, he notices her wearing the necklace portrayed in Carlotta's painting. Scottie realizes the truth and insists on driving Judy back again to the Mission.

There, he tells her he must re-enact the event that led to his madness, admitting he now understands that "Madeleine" and Judy are the same person, and that Judy was Gavin's mistress before being cast aside, just as Carlotta was. Scottie forces her up the bell tower and makes her admit her deceit. Scottie reaches the top, finally conquering his acrophobia. Judy confesses that Gavin paid her to impersonate a "possessed" Madeleine. Judy begs Scottie to forgive her because she loves him. He embraces Judy, but a shadowy figure — actually a nun investigating the noise — rises from the tower's trapdoor, startling her. Judy suddenly lunges backward and accidentally falls to her death. Scottie, bereaved once again but cured of his fear of heights, stands on the ledge while the nun rings the mission bell.

Dressed as the demigod Siegfried, Elmer Fudd sings "Be vewy qwiet, I'm hunting wabbits" in recitative, before he finds rabbit tracks and arrives at Bugs Bunny's hole. Elmer jams his spear into Bugs' hole while singing "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!" to the tune of ''Ride of the Valkyries''. Bugs sticks his head out of another rabbit hole and taunts Elmer about his spear and magic helmet. This prompts a display of Elmer-as-Siegfried's "mighty powers", which scares Bugs. Bugs flees and the chase begins.

Elmer stops in his tracks at the sight of the beautiful Valkyrie Brünnhilde (Bugs in disguise). "Siegfried" and "Brünnhilde" exchange endearments and perform a short ballet (based on the Venusberg ballet in ''Tannhäuser''). Bugs' true identity is exposed when his headdress falls off, enraging Elmer. Bugs discards his disguise and the chase begins anew. Elmer's rage causes a storm to brew, tearing apart the mountains where Bugs has fled. Upon seeing Bugs' intact yet seemingly lifeless body as a drop of rain from a flower lands on the rabbit, Elmer regrets his wrath and tearfully carries the rabbit off. Bugs breaks the fourth wall and raises his head to face the audience while remarking, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A ''happy'' ending?"

Richard Walton, a district attorney, is presented with an obscenity case: A medical practitioner, Dr. Homer, has been arrested for distributing 'indecent' birth control literature. On the stand, Dr. Homer makes a strong case for legalizing contraception. He recounts three incidents from his medical practice, each shown in a brief flashback: children are exposed to violent abuse in a family riddled with alcoholism; an impoverished family is unable to provide adequate medical care for their sick children; and a single mother, abandoned by her male lover, commits suicide with her young infant.

Meanwhile, Richard's wife, Edith, has been keeping a secret from him for many years: she has been seeing a doctor, one Herman Malfit, who performs abortions so that her busy social life will not be interrupted by the inconvenience of pregnancy. She suggests it as an option for her friend Mrs. William Carlo, who is with child. Mrs. Carlo has the abortion.

The Waltons receive two new guests in their house almost simultaneously: Edith Walton's ne'er-do-well younger brother, and their maid's young daughter, Lillian. Smitten by the brother's advances, the maid's daughter is seduced and soon finds herself pregnant. She is taken to Dr. Malfit and then abandoned by the boy after the operation goes wrong. Making her way back to the Walton mansion, she collapses and dies from the botched abortion.

Following Malfit's arrest and trial, Richard Walton examines the doctor's ledgers and realized that his wife and many of her friends are listed as having received 'personal services.' He returns home, furious, to find them lunching at his home. He banishes his wife's friends, saying 'I should bring you to trial for manslaughter!' and confronts Edith with the cry, 'where are my children?' She is overcome with remorse. As the years pass, the couple must contend with a lonely, childless life, full of longing for the family they might have had.

The film, celebrating Donald Duck's 10th anniversary, consists of seven segments, each connected by a common theme. In the film, it is Donald Duck's birthday (namely Friday the 13th), and he receives three presents from friends in Latin America. The first present is a film projector, which shows him a documentary about birds called "Aves Raras." The first segment of the documentary tells the story of Pablo, a penguin seeking the warm weather of Equatorial South America. The next segment details some of the odd birds of Latin America. During this part documentary, he learns about the ''Aracuan'' Bird, who received his name because of his eccentric song. The documentary then shifts to the perspective of a man narrating a story from his childhood, where he discovers and befriends a donkey with the wings of a condor in Uruguay.

The next present is a book given to Donald by José. This book tells of Bahia (spelled "Baía" in the film), which is one of Brazil's 26 states. José shrinks them both down so that they can enter the book. Donald and José meet up with several of the locals, who dance a lively samba, and Donald ends up pining for one girl Yaya, the cookie seller, but fails and gets jealous of another man. After the journey, Donald and José leave the book.

Upon returning, Donald realizes that he is too small to open his third present. José shows Donald how to use "black magic" to return himself to the proper size. After opening the present, he meets Panchito, a native of Mexico. The trio take the name "The Three Caballeros" and have a short celebration. Panchito then presents Donald's next present, a ''piñata''. Panchito tells Donald of the tradition behind the piñata. José and Panchito then blindfold Donald, and have him attempt to break open the piñata, eventually revealing many surprises. The celebration draws to a close when Donald is fired away by firecrackers in the shape of a ferocious toy bull (with which the firecrackers are lit by José with his cigar).

Throughout the film, the ''Aracuan Bird'' appears at random moments. He usually taunts everyone with his madcap antics, sometimes stealing José's cigar and trying to make José jealous. His most famous gag is when he re-routes a train that Donald and José are riding on by drawing new tracks, causing the train to disassemble.

The film consists of seven segments:

''The Cold-Blooded Penguin''

This segment is narrated by Sterling Holloway, reproducing images of the penguins of in Antarctica. In the segment, a penguin named Pablo is so fed up with the freezing conditions of the South Pole that he decides to leave his home for warmer climates, navigating the long coast of Chile, passing by Lima (the capital of Peru) and Quito (the capital of Ecuador) before landing on the Galápagos Islands.

''The Flying Gauchito''

This segment, with adult narration provided by Fred Shields, involves the adventures of a little boy from Uruguay and a winged donkey, who goes by the name of Burrito (which is Spanish for "little donkey").

''Baía''

This segment involves a pop-up book trip through the Brazilian state of Bahia (spelled Baía in the film), as Donald and José meet up with some of the locals who dance a samba and Donald pining for one of the women, portrayed by singer Aurora Miranda.

''Las Posadas''

This is the story of a group of Mexican children who celebrated Christmas by re-enacting the journey of Mary, the mother of Jesus and Saint Joseph searching for room at the inn. "''Posada''" meant "inn", or "shelter", and their parents told them "no ''posada''" at each house until they came to one where they were offered shelter in a stable. This leads to festivities including the breaking of the piñata, which in turn leads to Donald Duck trying to break his ''own'' piñata as well.

''Mexico: Pátzcuaro, Veracruz and Acapulco''

Panchito gives Donald and José a tour of Mexico City and the country of Mexico on a flying sarape, or magic carpet. Several Mexican dances and songs are learned here. A key point to what happens later is that Donald is pining for some more ladies again, tries to hound down every single one he sees, and gain return affections, but once more he fails every time and ends up kissing José while blindfolded.

''You Belong to My Heart'' and ''Donald's Surreal Reverie''

The skies of Mexico City result in Donald falling in love with singer Dora Luz. The lyrics in the song itself play parts in the scenarios as to what is happening as well. Then several imagined kisses lead to Donald going into the "Love is a drug" scene. Donald constantly envisions sugar rush colors, flowers, and Panchito and José popping in at the worst moments, making chaos. The scene changes after Donald manages to dance with Carmen Molina from the state of Oaxaca, from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The two dance and sing the song "La Zandunga". Carmen begins by singing the song, with Donald "quacking" out the rest of the chorus with her. The "drunkenness" slows down for a second after Donald multiplied himself while dancing, but speeds up again when Carmen reappears dressed in a Charro's outfit and uses a horsewhip as a conductor's baton to make cacti appear in many different forms while dancing to "Jesusita en Chihuahua", a trademark song of the Mexican Revolution. This scene is notable for providing the masterful combination of live-action and cartoon animation, as well as animation among the cacti.

The scene is interrupted when Panchito and José suddenly spice things up for the finale of the movie, and Donald ends up battling the same toy bull with wheels on its legs the day before from earlier. The catch is that it is now loaded with fireworks and other explosives, following with a fireworks finale with the words "The End" exploding from the fireworks, first in Spanish (Fin), in the colors of the flag of Mexico, then the second in Portuguese (Fim), in the colors of the flag of Brazil, and finally in English, in the colors of the flag of the United States (The End).

In 1913 Texas, Pike Bishop, the leader of a gang of aging outlaws, is seeking retirement after one final score: the robbery of a railroad payroll office containing a cache of silver. The gang is ambushed by Pike's former partner, Deke Thornton, who is leading a posse of bounty hunters hired by corrupt railroad agent Pat Harrigan. The bloody shootout that results kills more than half of the gang. Pike uses a serendipitous temperance union parade to shield their getaway, and many citizens are killed in the crossfire.

Pike rides off with the only survivors: his close friend Dutch Engstrom, brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch, and the inexperienced Angel (A fifth man is mercy-killed by Pike after being blinded by buckshot). They are dismayed when the loot from the robbery turns out to be nothing more than worthless steel washers planted by Harrigan. Needing money, the group heads for Mexico accompanied by the cantankerous Freddie Sykes. Crossing the Rio Grande, they take refuge that night in the rural village where Angel was born. The village elder warns them about General Mapache, a vicious Huertista officer in the Mexican Federal Army, who has been stealing food and animals from local villages to support his campaign against the forces of Pancho Villa.

Pike's gang visits the general at his headquarters in the town of Agua Verde, hoping to find a paying job. A jealous Angel spots Teresa, his former lover, in Mapache's arms and shoots her dead, angering the general and nearly getting them killed before Pike defuses the situation and offers their services. Mapache tasks the gang to steal a weapons shipment from a U.S. Army train so that Mapache can resupply his army's dwindling stocks of ammunition and appease Commander Mohr, his German military adviser, who wishes to obtain samples of American armaments. The reward will be a cache of gold coins.

Angel gives up his share of the gold to Pike in return for sending one crate of rifles and ammunition to a band of peasant rebels opposed to Mapache. The holdup goes largely as planned until Thornton's posse turns up on the train the gang has robbed. The posse chases them to the Mexican border; the robbers blow up a trestle bridge spanning the Rio Grande as they try to cross, dumping the entire posse into the river. The bounty hunters, despite being tired and exhausted, quickly resume their pursuit at Thornton's urging.

Pike, anticipating that Mapache might double-cross him, hides the goods and has his men sell them to Mapache in separate amounts. However, Mapache learns from Teresa's mother that Angel stole some of the weapons and reveals this as Angel and Dutch deliver the last of the weapons. Angel desperately tries to escape, only to be captured, beaten, and dragged through town on a rope tied to the back of Mapache's car. Mapache lets Dutch go after he states that Angel is a thief who deserves to be punished, and Dutch then tells Pike and the others what happened.

Sykes is wounded by Thornton's posse while securing spare horses. When Dutch criticizes Thornton for working with the railroad, Pike defends him, stating that he (Thornton) "gave his word" to the railroad and must see it through. Dutch refutes this, angrily declaring "That ain't what counts, it's who you give it to". Pike and the gang bury most of the gold and return to Agua Verde, where the townspeople and soldiers are drunkenly celebrating the weapons sale. Mapache refuses to sell Angel back to the gang, and after a period of reflection while visiting a brothel, Pike and the others arm themselves and decide to take their friend back by force.

Mapache initially agrees to release Angel, only to cut his throat at the last second. The gang instantly opens fire, and the general is gunned down. As the nearby soldiers are paralyzed with shock over the death of their commander, Pike calmly takes aim at Mohr and kills him, too. This results in a violent, bloody gunfight, during which Pike, Dutch, the remaining gang members, Mohr's aide, every member of Mapache's staff, and most of the assembled troops are killed.

Thornton finally catches up and finds that his quarry is already dead. However, he finds a loaded revolver on Pike's belt, taking it as a sign that the days of men like him are over. Feeling outdated and tired, Thorton allows the remaining posse members to greedily strip Pike and his men of their possessions before taking them back to Texas for the bounty, while he stays behind. After some time passes, Sykes arrives with the elder from Angel's village and a band of rebels, indicating that they caught up with the bounty hunters, avenged the gang's deaths, and buried them properly. Sykes invites Thornton to join the coming revolution against the Mexican government. Thornton smiles and rides off with them.

In lieu of a theme song and opening of the movie, Tashlin instead laid traditional opening credits over faux television commercials for products that failed to deliver what they promised.

The film opens on a writer, Rockwell P. Hunter, who is low on the ladder at the La Salle advertising agency. With the agency set to lose its biggest account Stay-Put Lipstick he hatches an idea to get the perfect model and spokeswoman for Stay-Put's new line of lipstick, the famous actress with the "oh-so-kissable lips", Rita Marlowe.

For Rita to endorse the lipstick, however, Rock has to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her real boyfriend, Bobo Branigansky, the star of ''The Jungle Man'' TV show, jealous. Bobo leaks the news of Rita's new romance in a TV interview and Rock is suddenly famous as her "Lover Doll". Rock's boss decides to leverage his employee's newfound fame, but when Rock gets Rita to agree on a television spectacular sponsored by Stay-Put, Rock becomes the advertising firm's highest-regarded employee. Rita, meanwhile, is miserable; she thinks she is falling in love with Rock, but her one real true love is the man who discovered her, George Schmidlap. Not being able to find Schmidlap, she pursues Rock, though her Secretary "Vi" warns her that she is playing a dangerous game. (Ironically, Joan Blondell, who plays Mansfield's frumpy, middle-aged, all-business secretary, was herself a major movie sex symbol some 30 years before, and whose sexuality was an early target of the Hays Code).

Rock soon finds fame to be a double-edged sword, getting him what he wants, but with a price to be paid for that success. Women are crazy about him, and he has no peace of mind. Ultimately, he moves up the ladder at work, becoming company president, only to find it is not what he really wanted. Rock confesses to his angry fiancée Jenny that he finds himself at the top of the heap without any meaning and she takes him back.

As Rita opens her television spectacular for Stay-Put Lipstick, she is surprised by the appearance of the show's "surprise" guest star of (and the one true love of her life), George Schmidlap.

Freed from the strain of advertising, Rock and Jenny retire to the country to tend a chicken farm, announcing that he has found the real "living end".

An impoverished young woman named Letty Mason (Lillian Gish) travels west by train from Virginia to live at her cousin Beverly's isolated ranch in Sweetwater, Texas. On the way, she is bothered by the constantly blowing wind. Fellow passenger and cattle buyer Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love) makes her acquaintance and tells her the wind usually drives women crazy.

Upon arrival, she is picked up by Beverly's closest neighbors, Lige Hightower (Lars Hanson) and the older, balding Sourdough (William Orlamond), who live 15 miles from her cousin. Wirt assures her he will drop by occasionally to see how she is doing.

After endless miles in sand and wind, they arrive at the ranch. Beverly (Edward Earle) is delighted to see her, but his jealous wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming) gives her a cold reception, despite Letty saying she and Beverly (who was raised by Letty's mother) are like brother and sister. Cora is further angered when her children seem to like Letty better.

At a party, Sourdough tells Lige that he intends proposing to Letty. Lige explains he was planning to do the same. After Wirt drops by, a cyclone interrupts the festivities. Most of the guests seek shelter in the basement, where Wirt declares his love for Letty and offers to take her away from the dismal place. After the cyclone passes, Lige and Sourdough talk to Letty in private. When they flip a coin to see who will ask for her hand in marriage (Lige wins), Letty thinks it is just a joke.

Afterward, Cora demands that Letty leave the ranch. Because she has neither money nor a place to go, she decides to go away with Wirt, but then Wirt reveals that he wants her for a mistress, informing her that he already has a wife. She goes back to Cora, who tells her to choose from her two other suitors. She marries Lige.

When Lige takes her home, he kisses Letty for the first time, but her lack of enthusiasm is unmistakable. Worse for the drink, he becomes more forceful, and she tells him she hates him. He promises he will never touch her, and will try to make enough money to send her back to Virginia. In the meantime, Letty works around the house, but is bothered by the ever-present wind.

One day, Lige is invited to a meeting of the cattlemen, who must do something to avoid starvation. Letty, terrified of being left alone with the wind, begs to go with him, and he agrees. After she cannot control her horse in the fierce wind, he has her get on behind him on his horse. When she falls off, Lige tells Sourdough to take her home.

When the cattlemen return, they bring an unwanted guest, an injured Wirt. After he recovers, Lige insists he participate in a roundup of wild horses to raise money for the cattlemen. Wirt goes along, but later sneaks away and returns to Letty. Out of her mind with fear as she endures the house shaking from the worst wind storm yet, Letty faints soon after Wirt's arrival. He picks her up and carries her to the bed.The original novel is explicit that Wirt rapes Letty at this point; the film subtly depicts this with a sequence of shots showing a fully-clothed Letty the next morning with her back to the camera, a close-up of Wirt's revolver and holster on the table next to her (implying that he took them off earlier), and a shot of Wirt adjusting his own clothing, strongly implying the rape.

The next morning, Wirt tries to persuade Letty to go away with him, but she coldly rejects him. He insists, noting Lige will kill them both if they remain. As Wirt becomes more aggressive, Letty picks up Wirt's revolver from the table to defend herself. Confident that Letty will not fire, Wirt grabs the gun and it goes off, killing him. At first startled by Wirt's death, Letty looks confusedly at him and at the gun in her hand; she then decides to bury him outside.

After she is done, she goes back inside the cabin. The wind blows into an even greater fury, and Letty stares with mounting fear through a window as the wind gradually uncovers Wirt's body, terrifying her. Letty runs away from the window, but then sees two hands clasped around the cabin's door trying to force it open; Letty hysterically believes it is Wirt returned from the dead, and falls prone with terror, her face hidden, as someone enters. The hands turn her over, and Letty stares upward blank with madness. However, it is actually Lige, who has returned. After a few moments, Letty returns to sanity and recognizes Lige; she is so glad to see him, she frantically kisses her husband. She then confesses she killed and buried Wirt. When Lige looks outside, however, the corpse is nowhere to be seen. He tells Letty that the wind can remove traces when a killing is justified. He has enough money to send her away, but Letty declares that she loves him, that she no longer wants to leave, and that she is no longer afraid of the wind or anything else.

The film opens with Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer), a young African-American woman, visiting her cousin Alma in the North. Landry is waiting for the return of Conrad as they plan to marry. Alma also loves Conrad. Larry, Alma's step brother, attempts to woo Sylvia but is rebuffed. Larry kills a professional gambler after cheating during a game of poker. Alma arranges for Sylvia to be caught in a seemingly compromising situation by Conrad when he returns. Conrad begins to strangle Sylvia but is stopped by Alma. Conrad leaves for Brazil. Sylvia returns to the South.

Sylvia meets Rev. Jacobs, a minister who runs a rural school for black children called Piney Woods School. The school is overcrowded, and Rev. Jacobs cannot continue on the small amount offered to blacks for education by the state. With the school facing closure, Sylvia volunteers to return to the North to try to raise $5,000.

Sylvia's purse is stolen in Boston. A man named Dr. Vivian chases after the thief and recovers the purse. After running into the street to save a child from being run over, Sylvia is hit by the car herself. As she recovers in the hospital, she meets the owner of the car - Elena Warwick, a wealthy philanthropist. Learning of Sylvia's mission, Elena decides to give her the needed money. When her Southern friend Mrs. Stratton tries to discourage her, Warwick increases her donation to $50,000. This amount will save the school, and Sylvia returns to the South.

Rev. Jacobs asks for Sylvia's hand in marriage, but Sylvia, now in love with Dr. Vivian, refuses. Larry, on the run from the police, runs into Sylvia and attempts blackmail with secrets of Sylvia's past. Instead of stealing from the school on Larry's behalf, Sylvia runs away in the night and heads north.

Later, Dr. Vivian searches for Sylvia. Larry, who has run out of money and returned to Alma, is fatally shot during an attempted bank robbery. Dr. Vivian by chance ends up treating Larry and meets Alma. Alma tells Dr. Vivian about Sylvia's past: these flashback scenes are portrayed in the film. Sylvia was adopted and raised by a poor black family, the Landrys, who managed to provide her with an education.

During her youth, the senior Landry was wrongfully accused of the murder of an unpopular but wealthy white landlord, Gridlestone. A white mob attacked the Landry family, lynching the parents and hunting down their son, who escaped after nearly being shot. The mob also lynched Efrem, a servant of Gridlestone, despite Efrem collaborating with them. Sylvia escaped after being chased and attacked by Gridlestone's brother, who overpowered her and was close to raping her. Noticing a scar on her breast, Gridlestone's brother realized that Sylvia was in fact his mixed-race daughter, born of his marriage to a local black woman. He had paid for her education.

After hearing about her life, Dr. Vivian meets with Sylvia; he encourages her to love her country and take pride in the contributions of African Americans. He professes his love for her, and the film ends with their marriage.

Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) and Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) are journalists for the (fictional) ''New York Chronicle''. Tess, the daughter of a former ambassador, is a highly educated, well-travelled political affairs columnist who speaks several languages fluently. Sam is a knowledgeable and well-informed sports writer. Their difficulties are presented as stemming from differences of class, experience and temperament, as well as from gender.

After Tess suggests on the radio that baseball be abolished for the duration of the war, Sam leaps to the sport's defense. Their editor summons them to his office: he will not stand for an intramural feud at his paper. Sam invites Tess to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. She is unfamiliar with the rules of the sport—and Sam has some difficulty explaining them. Tess invites Sam to her apartment later that night. What he thought would be a date is actually a cocktail party where all the guests are discussing the world situation in foreign languages. He leaves. She sends him champagne to apologize and asks him to take her to the airport so he can kiss her goodbye. On the drive back to town, Sam hits it off with Ellen Whitcomb (Fay Bainter), Tess's aunt, who is a world-famous feminist. She advises him to "marry the girl."

Sam has his mind on a personable wedding, but it quickly escalates into a production. A justice of the peace in South Carolina is arranged by Gerald, Tess's ultra-competent secretary (Dan Tobin), to fit her schedule and that of her illustrious senator father (Minor Watson). Their wedding night is disrupted by the arrival of a Yugoslavian statesman who has just escaped from the Nazis, and a stream of European disciples. Helpless, Sam calls some of his own friends, including a loud-mouthed boxer whose acute girlfriend quickly realizes the situation, and helps corral the crowd out of the newlyweds' bedroom.

Conflicts large and small arise over Tess's priorities and Sam's place in her life, beginning with her decision to have Sam move into her apartment instead of them choosing a place together. Her business continually comes before her personal life, with Sam largely reduced to the role of an aide. Sensing her husband is unhappy, Tess floats the idea of having a child, which Sam is very warm to until Tess reveals that she has already agreed to adopt a young Greek refugee named Chris, who speaks no English. Sam is very upset, but hides his anger from the child. Before the couple can discuss the issue, they are interrupted by the news that Tess has been named "America's Outstanding Woman of the Year".

Tess plans to leave Chris by himself while they go to the award gala, while Sam, already not keen on the gala, states his refusal to leave the boy alone. While Tess is at her gala, Sam returns the child to the orphanage; Chris is thrilled to see his friends again. Tess returns home with a following of photographers and discovers that Sam and Chris are gone. She attempts to reclaim Chris, but he refuses, preferring to stay with his friends. The next day, Tess receives a telegram from her father, telling the couple to come to his home in Connecticut. Sam declines to join, and opines that their marriage has neither been "perfect or a marriage." Tess comes home to learn that her aunt and father are finally to be married that night. The ceremony has all the reverence and grace that was lacking in the Craigs' wedding; Tess is moved to tears. She drives through the night and arrives at Sam's new Riverside apartment.

Allowed in by a super, Tess decides to prepare Sam breakfast while he sleeps in. Having never performed the duties of a housewife, she is clueless in the kitchen, and begins to brew a catastrophe. Sam is awakened by the clatter. As the recipe culminates in culinary disaster, Tess confesses to Sam of her recent wedding experience, and proclaims her newfound inspiration to serve only as his wife. Sam asks Tess to walk back her overbearing dedication, and to assume the role of "Tess Harding Craig" rather than just "Tess Harding" or "Mrs. Sam Craig". She wholeheartedly agrees. Gerald appears with a champagne bottle, announcing that Tess is expected to launch a battleship. Sam takes Gerald outside and returns with the broken bottle, announcing that he has just "launched Gerald".

Mabel Longhetti, a Los Angeles housewife and mother, sends her three children to spend the night with her mother-in-law but is extremely hesitant to do so. She is a heavy drinker and exhibits strange behavior. That night, she meets a man at a bar and spends the night with him. She wakes up the next morning seemingly confused and briefly argues with him before he leaves. Her construction foreman husband, Nick, argues with his crew over bringing them to his house, saying he is ashamed of his 'crazy' wife. He succumbs to their cajoling and brings them over without being able to call Mabel beforehand. She makes everyone spaghetti, which Nick seems strangely critical of. The meal is superficially pleasant, then sours once Nick snaps at Mabel for flirting and dancing with the men.

Mabel's strange mannerisms and increasingly odd behavior continue to be a source of concern for Nick. She hosts a birthday party, but one of the child's parents becomes disturbed by her behavior and is reluctant to leave his children alone with her, asking if she's been drinking. When Nick comes home, he gets into a fistfight with the child's father, who then leaves with his children. Nick also angrily slaps Mabel in front of the children. He brings a doctor to evaluate her mental health. Mabel grows increasingly angry and suspicious and Nick fights off the doctor when he attempts to sedate her. Convinced she has become a threat to herself and others, the doctor institutionalizes her.

Nick returns to work and is annoyed by the workers' interest in Mabel's situation. He gets into an altercation with a worker named Eddie, who falls down a hill and is severely injured. He picks up the children from school in the middle of the day to go to the beach and allows them to sip his beer, proving himself to be an equally unsuitable parental figure.

Six months later, Nick plans a large surprise welcome home party for Mabel's return from the institution. However, his mother points out that this may be overwhelming for her. Nick overreacts by sending off all of the non-family guests with screams and shouts. When Mabel arrives, she is apprehensive and quiet, in great contrast to her former outgoing and eccentric personality. Nick tries to make her feel comfortable, but to no avail. The evening degenerates in yet another emotional and psychologically taxing event for Mabel. She reveals she underwent electroshock therapy in the mental hospital and becomes increasingly distraught.

After the guests leave, Mabel has a breakdown and cuts herself. When she stands on a sofa and refuses to come down, Nick slaps her and causes her to fall. She appears to recover somewhat and puts the kids to bed while they express their love for her. Nick and Mabel prepare their bed together as the credits roll.

In the early days of World War II, Cohan comes out of retirement to star as President Roosevelt in the Rodgers and Hart musical ''I'd Rather Be Right.'' On the first night, he is summoned to meet the president at the White House, who presents him with a Congressional Gold Medal (though the Cohan character on screen incorrectly identifies the award as the Congressional Medal of Honor). Cohan is overcome and chats with Roosevelt, recalling his early days on the stage. The film flashes back to his supposed birth on July 4, whilst his father is performing on the vaudeville stage.

Cohan and his sister join the family act as soon as they can learn to dance, and soon The Four Cohans are performing successfully. But George gets too cocky as he grows up and is blacklisted by theatrical producers for being troublesome. He leaves the act and hawks his songs unsuccessfully around to producers. In partnership with Sam Harris, another struggling writer, he finally interests a producer and they are on the road to success. He also marries Mary, a young singer/dancer.

As his star ascends, he persuades his now struggling parents to join his act, eventually vesting some of his valuable theatrical properties in their name.

Cohan retires, but returns to the stage several times, culminating in the role of the U.S. president. As he leaves the White House, after receiving the Congressional Gold Medal from the president, he descends a set of stairs while performing a tap dance (which Cagney thought up before the scene was filmed and undertook without rehearsal). Outside, he joins a military parade, where the soldiers are singing "Over There", and, at first, he isn't singing. Not knowing that Cohan is the song's composer, one of them asks if he knows the words. Cohan's response is a smile before joining in to sing too.

The story is a ''shōnen'' comedy that takes place in the Kanagawa Prefecture, and centers on Keitarō Urashima and his attempts to fulfill a childhood promise that he made with a girl to enter the University of Tokyo together. However, he has forgotten the name of the girl he made the promise to and hopes to be accepted into the university in order to find her. Having failed the entrance exam twice and with his parents no longer willing to support him, he goes to stay at his grandmother's hotel, only to find out that it has been converted into a female-only apartment. The tenants are about to kick him out when his aunt appears and announces that his grandmother has given him the title to the apartments. Much to their dismay Keitarō becomes the new manager of the family-owned girls' dorm Hinata House and must now balance his new responsibilities in addition to studying for the university entrance exam.

At Hinata House, Keitarō meets Naru Narusegawa, who is also studying to enter the university. Naru ranks first in the whole of Japan on the practice exams, and Keitarō convinces her to help him study. As the two of them grow closer through their studies, and after Keitarō accidentally reads a small section of Naru's diary, he becomes increasingly convinced that Naru may be the girl with whom he made the promise. On the second day of the university exam, Keitarō asks Naru about the promise and is stunned when she tells him he is mistaken. Despite their studying, and Naru's mock exam results, they both fail the exams. The pair then have an argument and independently run off to Kyoto to clear their heads. While on their trip they settle their differences and meet Mutsumi Otohime, who lives in Okinawa and is also studying for the university exams.

After returning from Kyoto, Keitarō and Naru decide to retake the exams. After a while, Mutsumi moves to Tokyo, and the three begin to study together. During this period, Naru becomes convinced that Mutsumi is Keitarō's promised girl, but Mutsumi states that she made a childhood promise with Naru, not Keitarō. During the next round of university exams, Keitarō believes he has failed them once again and runs away before finding out his results. After learning of this, Naru chases after him without checking her exam results either, and they are followed by the rest of the residents of Hinata House who announce that Keitarō and Naru both passed the exams along with Mutsumi. Unfortunately for him, Keitarō has an accident at the University of Tokyo opening ceremony and is unable to attend classes for three months. After recovering from his injuries, Keitarō decides to study overseas with Noriyasu Seta. As Keitarō is about to leave, Naru finally confesses her feelings to him at the airport and decides to wait for him to return.

When Keitarō returns, he and Naru finally begin to express their feelings for each other. After they deal with new obstacles, Grandma Hina returns to Hinata House and reveals Naru is the girl of Keitarō's promise. Three years later, a wedding ceremony (with a new girl, Ema Maeda, presented) is held at Hinata House for Naru and Keitarō as they finally fulfill their childhood promise to each other.

Tony Wendice, a retired English tennis player, is married to wealthy socialite Margot, who has been having an affair with American crime-fiction writer Mark Halliday. Unbeknownst to them, Tony has discovered their affair and is planning to have Margot killed so he can inherit her fortune.

Tony is aware that Charles Swann, an old acquaintance from Cambridge University, has become a small-time criminal. Tony arranges a meeting with Swann on a pretext, and tells him of Margot's affair. Six months previously, Tony had stolen Margot's handbag, which contained a love letter from Mark, and anonymously blackmailed her. After tricking Swann into leaving his fingerprints on the letter, Tony blackmails him—Swann can either accept £1,000 to kill Margot, or be turned in as Margot's blackmailer. Swann agrees to the murder and Tony explains his plan: Tony will accompany Mark to a party, leaving Margot at home. He will hide Margot's latchkey under the foyer carpet and Swann will use it to sneak into the flat and hide. Tony will telephone from the party and Swann will kill Margot when she answers the call. Swann will leave signs of a burglary gone wrong and replace the key under the foyer carpet when he leaves.

The following night, while Margot is in bed, Swann enters the flat and waits. Tony calls and, when Margot comes to the phone, Swann tries to strangle her with his scarf, but she stabs him with scissors and kills him. When Margot grabs the phone and pleads for help, Tony tells her not to speak to anyone. Tony returns to the flat, calls the police, sends Margot to bed, and moves what he thinks is her latchkey from Swann's pocket into her handbag. Before the police arrive, Tony attempts to frame Margot by planting Mark's letter on Swann and destroying Swann's scarf.

The following day, Tony persuades Margot to hide the fact that he told her not to call the police. Chief Inspector Hubbard arrives and questions the Wendices and Margot makes several conflicting statements. When Hubbard says the evidence indicates that Swann entered through the front door, Tony claims that Swann must have been responsible for stealing Margot's handbag, and made a copy of her key. As Tony intends, Hubbard does not believe the story and arrests Margot after concluding that she killed Swann for blackmailing her. Margot is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

Months later, on the day before Margot's scheduled execution, Mark visits Tony, saying he has devised a story for him to tell the police to save Margot. Mark's "story" is very close to what actually happened: that Tony paid Swann to kill Margot. Hubbard arrives unexpectedly, and Mark hides in the bedroom. Hubbard asks Tony about large sums of cash he has been spending around town, tricks Tony into revealing that his latchkey is in his raincoat, and inquires about Tony's attaché case. Tony claims to have misplaced the case, but Mark, overhearing the conversation, finds it on the bed, full of banknotes. Deducing that the money was Tony's intended payoff to Swann, Mark confronts Tony and explains his theory to Hubbard. Tony "confesses" that the cash was Margot's blackmail payment to Swann, which he had concealed to protect her. Hubbard appears to accept Tony's explanation, and Mark leaves angrily. Hubbard discreetly swaps his own raincoat with Tony's. As soon as Tony leaves, Hubbard uses Tony's key to re-enter the flat, followed by Mark. Hubbard had already discovered that the key in Margot's handbag was Swann's own latchkey and deduced that Swann had put the Wendices' key back in its hiding-place after unlocking the door. Now, correctly suspecting Tony of having conspired with Swann, Hubbard had developed an elaborate ruse to trap him.

Plainclothes police officers bring Margot from prison to the flat. She tries unsuccessfully to unlock the door with the key in her handbag, then enters through the garden, proving to Hubbard that she is unaware of the hidden key and is therefore innocent. Hubbard has Margot's handbag returned to the police station, where Tony retrieves it after discovering that he has no key. The key from Margot's bag does not work, so he uses the hidden key to open the door, demonstrating his guilt and exonerating Margot. With his escape routes blocked by Hubbard and another policeman, Tony calmly makes himself a drink and congratulates Hubbard.

The play begins before the palace at Thebes, with Dionysus telling the story of his birth and his reasons for visiting the city. Dionysus explains he is the son of a mortal woman, Semele, and a god, Zeus. Some in Thebes, he notes, don't believe this story. In fact, Semele's sisters—Autonoe, Agave, and Ino—claim it is a lie intended to cover up the fact that Semele became pregnant by some mortal. Dionysus reveals that he has driven the women of the city mad, including his three aunts, and has led them into the mountains to observe his ritual festivities. He has disguised himself as a mortal for the time being, but he plans to vindicate his mother by appearing before all of Thebes as a god, the son of Zeus, and establishing his permanent cult of followers.

Dionysus exits to the mountains, and the chorus (composed of the titular Bacchae) enters. They perform a choral ode in praise of Dionysus. Then Tiresias, the blind and elderly seer, appears. He calls for Cadmus, the founder and former king of Thebes. The two old men start out to join the revelry in the mountains when Cadmus’ petulant young grandson Pentheus, the current king, enters. Disgusted to find the two old men in festival dress, he scolds them and orders his soldiers to arrest anyone engaging in Dionysian worship, including the mysterious "foreigner" who has introduced this worship. Pentheus intends to have him stoned to death.

The guards soon return with Dionysus himself in tow. Pentheus questions him, both skeptical of and fascinated by the Dionysian rites. Dionysus's answers are cryptic. Infuriated, Pentheus has Dionysus taken away and chained to an angry bull in the palace stable. But the god now shows his power. He breaks free and razes the palace with an earthquake and fire. Dionysus and Pentheus are once again at odds when a herdsman arrives from the top of Mount Cithaeron, where he had been herding his grazing cattle. He reports that he found women on the mountain behaving strangely: wandering the forest, suckling animals, twining snakes in their hair, and performing miraculous feats. The herdsmen and the shepherds made a plan to capture one particular celebrant, Pentheus' mother. But when they jumped out of hiding to grab her, the Bacchae became frenzied and pursued the men. The men escaped, but their cattle were not so fortunate, as the women fell upon the animals, ripping them to shreds with their bare hands. The women carried on, plundering two villages that were further down the mountain, stealing bronze, iron and even babies. When villagers attempted to fight back, the women drove them off using only their ceremonial staffs of fennel. They then returned to the mountain top and washed up, as snakes licked them clean.

Dionysus, still in disguise, persuades Pentheus to forgo his plan to defeat and massacre the women with an armed force. He says it would be better first to spy on them, while disguised as a female Maenad to avoid detection. Dressing Pentheus in this fashion, giving him a thyrsus and fawn skins, Dionysus leads him out of the house. At this point, Pentheus seems already crazed by the god's power, as he thinks he sees two suns in the sky, and believes he now has the strength to rip up mountains with his bare hands. He has also begun to see through Dionysus' mortal disguise, perceiving horns coming out of the god's head. They exit to Cithaeron.

A messenger arrives to report that once the party reached Mount Cithaeron, Pentheus wanted to climb an evergreen tree to get a better view and the stranger used divine power to bend down the tall tree and place the king in its highest branches. Then Dionysus, revealing himself, called out to his followers and pointed out the man in the tree. This drove the Maenads wild. Led by Agave, his mother, they forced the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, ripped off his limbs and his head, and tore his body into pieces.

After the messenger has relayed this news, Agave arrives, carrying her son's bloodied head. In her god-maddened state, she believes it is the head of a mountain lion. She proudly displays it to her father, Cadmus, and is confused when he does not delight in her trophy, but is horrified by it. Agave then calls out for Pentheus to come marvel at her feat, and nail the head above her door so she can show it to all of Thebes. But now the madness begins to wane, and Cadmus forces her to recognize that she has destroyed her own son. As the play ends, the corpse of Pentheus is reassembled as well as is possible, and the royal family is devastated and destroyed. Agave and her sisters are sent into exile, and Dionysus decrees that Cadmus and his wife Harmonia will be turned into snakes and leads a barbarian horde to plunder the cities of Hellas.

Athamas the Minyan, a founder of Halos in Thessaly but also king of the city of Orchomenus in Boeotia (a region of southeastern Greece), took the goddess Nephele as his first wife. They had two children, the boy Phrixus (whose name means "curly," as in the texture of the ram's fleece) and the girl Helle. Later Athamas became enamored of and married Ino, the daughter of Cadmus. When Nephele left in anger, drought came upon the land.

Ino was jealous of her stepchildren and plotted their deaths; in some versions, she persuaded Athamas that sacrificing Phrixus was the only way to end the drought. Nephele, or her spirit, appeared to the children with a winged ram whose fleece was of gold. The ram had been sired by Poseidon in his primitive ram-form upon Theophane, a nymph and the granddaughter of Helios, the sun-god. According to Hyginus, Poseidon carried Theophane to an island where he made her into a ewe so that he could have his way with her among the flocks. There Theophane's other suitors could not distinguish the ram-god and his consort.

Nephele's children escaped on the yellow ram over the sea, but Helle fell off and drowned in the strait now named after her, the Hellespont. The ram spoke to Phrixus, encouraging him, and took the boy safely to Colchis (modern-day Georgia), on the easternmost shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea. There the ram was sacrificed to gods. In essence, this act returned the ram to the god Poseidon, and the ram became the constellation Aries.

Phrixus settled in the house of Aeetes, son of Helios the sun god. He hung the Golden Fleece preserved from the ram on an oak in a grove sacred to Ares, the god of war and one of the Twelve Olympians. The fleece was guarded by a never-sleeping dragon with teeth that could become soldiers when planted in the ground. The dragon was at the foot of the tree on which the fleece was placed.

In some versions of the story, Jason attempts to put the guard serpent to sleep. The snake is coiled around a column at the base of which is a ram and on top of which is a bird.

Act I

In Oklahoma Territory, in 1906, cowboy Curly McLain looks forward to a beautiful day as he visits farm girl Laurey Williams's yard ("Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'"). He and Laurey tease each other, while her Aunt Eller looks on. There will be a box social dance that night, which includes an auction of lunch baskets prepared by the local women to raise funds for a schoolhouse. Each man who wins a basket will eat lunch with the lady who prepared it. Curly asks Laurey to go with him, but she refuses, feeling that he has waited too long. To persuade her, he says he will take her in the finest carriage money can buy ("The Surrey with the Fringe on Top"), but she teases him about it until he says he made it up to get back at her. She flounces off, not realizing that he really has rented such a surrey.

The lonely, disturbed farmhand Jud Fry has become obsessed with Laurey and asks her to the dance. She accepts to spite Curly, although she is afraid of Jud. Meanwhile, cowboy Will Parker returns from a trip to modern Kansas City, and shows off his souvenirs ("Kansas City"). He won $50 ($ today) at the fair, which, according to his girlfriend Ado Annie's father, Andrew Carnes, is the amount he needs to marry Ado Annie. Unfortunately, he spent all the money on gifts for her and one for her father: a Little Wonder (a metal tube used for looking at pictures, but with a hidden blade inside). He is unaware of its deadly secret. Later, Ado Annie confesses to Laurey that while Will was away, she has spent a lot of time with Ali Hakim, a Persian peddler. Laurey says she'll have to choose between them, but Ado Annie insists she loves them both ("I Cain't Say No"). Laurey and her friends prepare for the social, while Gertie Cummings flirts with Curly. Laurey notices and tells her friends that she doesn't really care about Curly ("Many a New Day").

Andrew Carnes sees Annie with Ali Hakim; he forces Hakim at gunpoint to agree to marry her. Hakim and the other men lament the unfairness of the situation ("It's a Scandal! It's a Outrage!"). Curly discovers that Laurey is going to the box social with Jud and tries to convince her to go with him instead. Afraid to tell Jud she won't go with him, Laurey protests that she does not love Curly ("People Will Say We're in Love"). Hurt by her refusal, Curly goes to the smokehouse where Jud lives to talk with him. Curly jokingly suggests that since Jud does not feel appreciated, he could hang himself, and everyone would realize how much they care about him ("Pore Jud Is Daid"). Their talk turns into an ominous confrontation about Laurey. After Curly leaves, Jud's resolve to win Laurey becomes even stronger, and he vows to make her his bride ("Lonely Room").

Confused by her feelings for Curly and her fear of Jud, Laurey purchases a "magic potion" (laudanum) from Ali Hakim, which the unscrupulous peddler guarantees will reveal her true love. She muses on leaving her dreams of love behind and joining the man she loves ("Out of My Dreams"). Soon asleep under the influence of the opiate, in an extended ballet sequence, Laurey first dreams of marriage with Curly. Her dream takes a nightmarish turn when Jud appears and kills Curly; she cannot escape him, confused by her desires ("Dream Ballet"). Awakening, she realizes that Curly is the right man for her, but it is too late to change her mind about going to the dance with Jud, who arrives, and they leave for the box social.

Act II

At the social, during a square dance ("The Farmer and the Cowman"), the rivalry between the local farmers and cowboys over fences and water rights leads to fighting, which Aunt Eller ends by firing a gun to silence everyone. Laurey is upset when she sees Curly at the dance with Gertie. To rid himself of Ado Annie, Ali Hakim buys Will's souvenirs from Kansas City for $50. Jud also contributes to this by purchasing Will's Little Wonder, knowing of the blade concealed within it. The auction starts and Will bids $50 on Ado Annie's basket, not realizing that without the $50, he would not have the money to pay her father. Desperate to be rid of Ado Annie, the peddler bids $51 to get the basket so that Will can approach Andrew Carnes with the $50 and claim Ado Annie as his bride. The auction becomes much more serious when Laurey's basket comes up for auction. Jud has saved all his money so he can win Laurey's basket. Various men bid, trying to protect Laurey, but Jud outbids them all. Curly and Jud engage in a ferocious bidding war, and Curly sells his saddle, his horse, and even his gun to raise money. Curly outbids Jud and wins the basket. Jud discreetly tries to kill Curly with the Little Wonder, but his plan is foiled when Aunt Eller (knowing what is happening) loudly asks Curly for a dance. Later that night, Will and Annie work out their differences, as she reluctantly agrees not to flirt with other men ("All Er Nuthin'").

Jud confronts Laurey about his feelings for her. When she admits that she does not return them, he threatens her. She then fires him as her farmhand, demanding that he get off her property. Jud furiously threatens Laurey before he departs; she bursts into tears and calls for Curly. She tells him that she has fired Jud and is frightened by what Jud might do now. Curly reassures her and proposes to her, and she accepts ("People Will Say We're In Love" (reprise)). He realizes that he must now become a farmer. Ali Hakim decides to leave the territory and bids Ado Annie goodbye, telling her Will is the man she should marry.

Three weeks later, Laurey and Curly are married as everyone celebrates the territory's impending statehood ("Oklahoma"). Ali Hakim returns with Gertie, whom he has recently married after being threatened by her father with a shotgun. A drunken Jud reappears, kisses Laurey and punches Curly, and they begin a fistfight. Jud attacks Curly with a knife, and Curly dodges, causing Jud to fall on his own knife. Jud soon dies. The wedding guests hold a makeshift trial for Curly, at Aunt Eller's urging. The judge, Andrew Carnes, declares the verdict: "not guilty!" Curly and Laurey depart on their honeymoon in the surrey with the fringe on top ("Finale Ultimo").

The movie follows a surgeon whose growing obsession with a woman leads him to hold her captive in his home after she suffers a car accident and to amputate her limbs to keep her captive.

Nick Cavanaugh is a lonely Atlanta surgeon obsessed with Helena, with whom he had one intimate experience, but she disdains him. After she suffers a high-grade tibial fracture in a hit-and-run motor vehicle collision in front of his home, Nick kidnaps Helena and surreptitiously treats her in his home, amputating both her legs above the knee. Later, after she tries to choke him, Nick amputates her arms above the elbow.

Though Helena is the victim of Nick's kidnapping and mutilation, she dominates the dialogue with constant ridicule of his shortcomings. But this was all a dream: Helena awakes in the hospital with all her limbs intact.

The film is a fictionalized telling of the story of Edna Gladney, an early advocate for the rights of "illegitimate" children in Texas.

Edna Kahly (Greer Garson) and her adopted sister Charlotte (Marsha Hunt) are both to be married. However, when Charlotte's mother-in-law-to-be discovers that Charlotte was a foundling, she declares the wedding must not occur, and Charlotte kills herself from shame. Meanwhile, Edna falls for Sam Gladney, a brash cashier at a bank, and eventually marries him and moves with him to his home state of Texas.

Sam Gladney has a flour mill in Sherman, Texas, and at first, the couple has an idyllic life, though after a difficult delivery Sam is told Edna must have no more children. Several years later, their son dies, and Sam's effort to ease the pain she still endures by trying to get her to adopt a foundling fails. However, the little girl's story touches Edna's heart, and she starts a day care center for the children of working women.

Sam's business fails, and they must auction off all their possessions. The local women take over the day care center, and Sam and Edna move to Fort Worth, Texas, where he runs a mill. Edna starts a home for orphans and extramarital children, and works hard to find them appropriate homes, matching parents to child by interests and inclinations. Sam becomes ill and dies. When a young woman comes to try to donate a large sum of money, Edna worms the young woman's story out of her, and discovers she is in a similar situation as poor Charlotte. After insisting the girl's fiancé won't care that her parents weren't married, she decides to campaign to have the word "illegitimate" removed from Texas birth certificates.

After succeeding in her quest, Edna faces one more trial—the little crippled boy Tony she raised from an infant and nursed back to health, finds a new home at last. She is reluctant to let him go, but as she takes in two new foundlings, brought to her door by a policeman, she at last realizes it is for the best.

On May 11, 1941, boxer and amateur pilot Joe Pendleton, affectionately known as "the Flying Pug", flies his small aircraft to his next fight in New York City, but crashes when a control cable severs. His soul is retrieved by 7013, an officious angel who assumed that Joe could not have survived. Joe's manager, Max "Pop" Corkle, has his body cremated. In the afterlife, the records show his death was a mistake; he was supposed to live for 50 more years. The angel's superior, Mr. Jordan, confirms this, but since there is no more body, Joe will have to take over a newly dead corpse. Jordan explains that a body is just something that is worn, like an overcoat; inside, Joe will still be himself. Joe insists that it be someone in good physical shape, because he wants to continue his boxing career.

After Joe turns down several "candidates", Jordan takes him to see the body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker and investor named Bruce Farnsworth, who has just been drugged and drowned in a bathtub by his wife Julia and his secretary, Tony Abbott. Joe is reluctant to take over a life so unlike his previous one, but when he sees the murderous pair mockingly berating Bette Logan, whose father's name has been misused by Farnsworth to sell worthless securities,[https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/26737 Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) > Synopsis, catalog.afi.com] Retrieved 13 May 2018 he changes his mind and agrees to take over Farnsworth's body.

As Farnsworth, Joe repays all the investors and has Bette's father exonerated. He sends for Corkle and convinces him that he is Joe (by playing his saxophone just as badly as he did in his previous incarnation). With Farnsworth's money to smooth the way, Corkle trains him and arranges a bout to decide who will next fight the current heavyweight champion, but Jordan returns to warn Joe that, while he is destined to be the champion, it cannot happen that way. Joe has just enough time to tell Bette, with whom he has fallen in love, that if a stranger (especially if he is a boxer) approaches her, to give him a chance. Then he is shot by Tony. While Joe returns to a ghostly existence, Farnsworth's body is hidden, with everyone believing Farnsworth has simply disappeared. Corkle hires a private investigator to find him.

Accompanied by Jordan, Joe goes to retrieve his lucky saxophone he left on Farnsworth's piano and finds the police conducting a group interrogation. Corkle, talking to himself, wanders the room looking for Joe or Jordan. Corkle has explained about Joe, Mr. Jordan and the body-switching, to the police detective (Donald MacBride) who thinks he is a nut. Joe manages to mentally nudge Corkle into turning on the radio to hear the championship fight and hears that Murdock has collapsed from a slight grazing punch. Jordan reveals that the boxer was shot by gamblers because he refused to throw the fight. Joe takes over Murdock's body and wins the title. Back at the mansion, Corkle hears one of the radio announcers mention a saxophone hanging by the ringside and seeing the saxophone gone from the room, realizes Joe has assumed Murdock's body.

Corkle races down to the dressing room. There, Joe passes along information from Jordan that Farnsworth's body is in a refrigerator in the basement of the mansion. Corkle tells the detective, who promptly has Julia and Tony arrested. As Murdock, Joe fires his old, crooked manager and hires Corkle. Jordan reveals to Joe that this is his destiny; he can be Murdock and live his life.

Healing the gunshot wound and at the same time removing Joe's memory of his past life, Jordan hangs around for a bit longer until Bette arrives. She wanted to see Corkle, but runs into Murdock instead. The pair feel they have met before. The two go off together, while Jordan smiles and says "So long, champ."

The story opens with Georges Iscovescu recounting his story to a Hollywood film director at Paramount in an effort to earn some quick cash. Georges is a Romanian-born gigolo who has arrived in a Mexican border town seeking entry to the US. He has to endure a waiting period of up to eight years in order to obtain a quota number, living with other hopeful immigrants in the Esperanza Hotel. After six months he is broke and unhappy. When he runs into his former dancing partner, Anita Dixon, she explains how she quickly obtained US citizenship by marrying an American, who she then, just as quickly, divorced.

Georges resolves on the same plan. He soon targets visiting school teacher Miss Emmy Brown who is in Mexico on a day trip with her class of about fifteen young boys. Georges manages to extend the time necessary to repair her broken-down automobile. Emmy and her pupils sleep in the lobby of the full-up Esperanza Hotel. This provides Georges the opportunity to quickly and intensively woo Emmy in the early morning hours; she awakens to him sitting nearby and gazing at her lovingly. By claiming she is the exact image of the lost love of his life, his seemingly intense ardor toward a stranger is plausible, and they marry later that same day. However, Georges must wait some weeks before entering the US, and Emmy returns home with the boys.

A few days later, Emmy unexpectedly returns, complicating Georges' plans. Immigration inspector Hammock also appears, hunting for con artists such as Georges, and necessitating Georges' and an unwitting Emmy's departure. He drives all night, arriving at dawn in a small village. They participate in a festival of traditional blessings for newlyweds, an event that Emmy assumes has been Georges' destination all along. Georges had not planned on consummating the marriage, believing that he could return her to her small town essentially unchanged by the marriage, and fakes a shoulder injury. However, as the trip continues, he is surprised and increasingly enchanted by Emmy. When they stop at the seaside, Emmy bathes in the cool green water and Georges is unable to resist making love to her.

However, this jeopardizes Anita's plan for her and Georges to meet in New York and work together, to which he had agreed. Anita has long been in love with Georges, and on their return, brutally informs Emmy of the entire scheme reciting the inscription on Emmy's wedding ring, which Georges' said was his mother's. Hammock then asks Emmy to verify the legitimacy of her marriage; she does not turn him in, partially blaming her own naiveté, but nevertheless leaves him. Returning to the US, she drives distractedly, in anguish at Georges' betrayal. When a black lace veil Georges had bought her is blown into her face, she is seriously injured in a car accident.

When Georges learns of this, he immediately crosses the border, jeopardizing his visa to go to her. On hearing his voice, she awakens; seeing him, her misery is relieved and her breathing and heartbeat normalize as he sits with her for hours. However, Hammock is still on his tail, and, when Georges sees police arriving, he takes off. He heads to Paramount to try to sell his story to director Dwight Saxon, in order to get the money for Emmy's care. Hammock catches up with him and returns him to Mexico.

Some weeks later, Hammock returns to the border town. Anita has a new sugar daddy. Georges has unsurprisingly not heard from Emmy, and believes the worst, sitting dejectedly on a bench writing notes in the sand. Hammock joins him, and tells Georges that he didn't report the illegal entry – Georges' visa has been approved. Georges looks up to see Emmy, in a beautiful hat, happily waving to him in the sun from across the border. He crosses, and they depart.

In Stratford, Ontario, in 1904, William Spence (Fredric March), a medical student on the verge of becoming a doctor, receives "The Call" while passing a Methodist church one Sunday. His bride-to-be, Hope Morris (Martha Scott), accepts his decision to enter the ministry with a whole heart despite the disappointment of her prominent and affluent parents.

Will "dives right in," but, with no vacancies in Canada, is posted as a circuit minister to a small town in rural Iowa, beginning a life for them of frequent moves around the district, dingy parsonages, and scraping a living from poor boxes and performing weddings. Hope yearns for a decent parsonage and a sense of permanence for their children, but uncomplainingly provides them a good life and a supportive home for Will.

For his part, Will understands his own nature and laughs at his own foibles, bending where he can in good conscience. He often enters situations in anger or to instruct but leaves humbled and renewed in spirit. While Will sincerely lives by and teaches by example (which includes his family) the tenets of the Methodist ''Discipline'', he also learns from his congregations to be flexible and change with the times.

When their third child, a boy, is born, Hope and Will cannot agree on a name and he remains unbaptized for three months. Hope wants to name the baby William Spence Jr., but Will does not like the idea of his son going without a middle name as he did. He wants the boy to have and be called in "the good old Canadian custom" by the middle name of Frazer. Will seems to give in to Hope but the following Sunday baptizes him William Frazer Spence. Hope serenely accepts the change.

Oldest son Hartzell (named for Will's guiding bishop) has a hard time coping with the idea that a minister's son should be an example to the other boys. Will explains that "a pastor's family walks a tightrope, balancing with one foot on earth and one foot already in Heaven." After learning that Hartzell has been sneaking into the movies, a pastime seemingly forbidden by the ''Discipline'', Will takes him to the theater to point out why the film is bad for him. They see a western but rather than finding it sinful, Will is impressed by its moral. The following Sunday he preaches a sermon advising his congregation that young people may have something to teach their elders.

In the 1920s, the family is assigned to a church in Denver, Colorado, that, despite having many well-heeled members, is old, uncomfortable and decrepit. In a time of economic prosperity for the country, the Spences cope with possibly their most dilapidated parsonage yet. Will has come to appreciate his wife's serenity with life and resolves to provide her a decent parsonage by building a new church.

His plans at first are thwarted by power struggles among several snobbish members of the church. He loses one wealthy patron, Mrs. Sandow (Beulah Bondi), to the Baptists when he refuses to stop ministering to her chauffeur (Harry Davenport), and another, influential banker Preston Thurston (Gene Lockhart), after organizing a children's choir to replace the off-key church choir, run for years by Mrs. Thurston (Laura Hope Crews), her family and social circle. Soon after, Hartzell (Frankie Thomas) is expelled from school because of a gossip campaign falsely accusing him of making a young girl pregnant and forcing her family to move to San Francisco.

A deeply discouraged Will investigates a job offer in California that offers the beautiful church and parsonage he and Hope have always dreamed of but discovers that he cannot surrender in his struggles with the Thurstons. He seeks out the girl's family and learns that there is no truth to any part of the rumor. Returning to Denver, Will confronts Mrs. Thurston and her circle, who started the rumors to punish Will, and suggests that if they don't contribute substantially to the building of the new church, he will call them out in his sermons.

A repentant Mrs. Sandow begs to return to the church and Will inveigles from her the stained glass window, new Skinner organ, and carillon that as luxuries are being cut from the plans to finance a recreation center for the church. A year later, their dream church and parsonage finished, Will accepts the challenge of returning to Iowa to aid a small church in trouble, confident that he leaves behind a revitalized church when its members, including all those with whom he locked horns, gather spontaneously on a weekday morning to sing "The Church's One Foundation" as he plays it on the new carillon.

Before America's entry into World War I, Alvin York is a poor, young farmer in rural Tennessee, living with his widowed mother, sister, and younger brother. Alvin's leisure time is spent fighting and getting drunk with friends. Alvin's goal is to purchase a piece of farmland, fertile "bottomland". Alvin works hard to acquire the price for the land, and is given an extension by the owner. Alvin's sharpshooting skills enable him to raise the money needed, but the owner reneges, making Alvin angry and bitter. En route to seek revenge, Alvin and his mule are struck by lightning. The incident prompts Alvin's conversion to Christianity.

When the U.S. enters World War I, Alvin seeks exemption as a conscientious objector, which is denied. Alvin is torn between fighting for his country and the biblical prohibition against killing. His sympathetic commanding officer gives him leave to go home and come to a decision. Alvin reconciles his moral conflict after reading the biblical injunction to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

During the Meuse–Argonne offensive, York's qualms vanish when he sees his friends and comrades being killed as they assault a strong German position. With his superiors dead or incapacitated, he takes charge. He infiltrates the German lines by himself and finds a position that lets him enfilade the main German defensive trench. He kills so many German soldiers that they eventually surrender to him en masse. One of the prisoners of war treacherously grenades Alvin's good friend, "Pusher" Ross, and is gunned down by York. He and the handful of survivors from his unit lead their many captives behind their lines, but have a hard time finding anyone to take the Germans off their hands. The officer who finally does is astonished to learn that so few men captured so many of the enemy.

York is decorated and hailed as a national hero, but desires to return home. He rejects commercial offers that would make him wealthy, explaining that he could not take money for doing his duty. York returns home to marry his fiancée, Gracie. To his surprise, the state has purchased the bottomland farm and built a house for Gracie and him.

In the small midwestern town of Kings Row, in 1890, five children know and play with each other: Parris Mitchell, a polite, clever little boy who lives with his grandmother; pretty blonde Cassandra Tower, daughter of the secretive Dr. Alexander Tower and a mother that is seen only through the upstairs window; the orphaned but wealthy and fun-loving Drake McHugh who is best friends with Parris; Louise Gordon, daughter of the town physician Dr. Henry Gordon; and the tomboy Randy Monaghan, from the "wrong side of the tracks", whose father, Tom, is a railroad worker.

Parris is both friends with and drawn to Cassandra, whom the other children avoid because her family is "strange". They play together regularly. The boys are best friends, and Randy plays with the boys sometimes as well. When Dr. Tower takes Cassie out of school, and she is confined at home, Parris does not see her for many years.

He finally meets her again when she opens the door for him to begin his medical studies under Dr. Tower's tutelage. However, she is very hesitant and says almost nothing. The next morning, Parris' best friend, Drake, says that he intends to marry Louise, who is in love with him as well, despite the disapproval of her father Dr. Gordon. Louise, however, refuses to defy her parents and will not marry him. As Parris continues his studies with Dr. Tower, Parris and Cassie begin a secret romance, seeing each other at Tower's house. But he and Dr. Tower have a good relationship as well. Dr. Tower has interested Parris in psychiatry, which he intends to study in Vienna. Parris' grandmother becomes ill from cancer and dies as he is about to go overseas to Vienna for medical school. Parris wants to marry Cassie after he returns from his training. One night Cassie comes desperately to him, begging him to take her with him to Vienna. When Parris hesitates, she runs away again, back home.

The next morning, Drake learns that Dr. Tower has poisoned Cassie and shot himself, and has left his entire estate to Parris. Drake tells Parris and gives him Dr. Tower's notebook, which showed that he killed Cassie because he believed he saw early signs that she might go insane like her mother, and he wanted to prevent Parris from ruining his life by marrying her, just as Tower's life had been ruined by marrying Cassie's mother.

While Parris is in Vienna, Drake's trust fund is stolen by a dishonest bank official. Drake is forced to work locally for the railroad, and his legs are injured in an accident when tiles fall on him. Dr. Gordon amputates both of his legs. Drake, who had been courting Randy before the accident, now marries her but is now embittered by the loss of his legs and refuses to leave his bed. Parris exchanges letters with Randy and he tells her how she might best support Drake emotionally. They decide to start a business with Parris' financial help, building houses for working families. Parris returns from Vienna to Kings Row to support Drake. But, when Parris suggests they move into one of the homes they've built, away from the railroad tracks and sounds of the trains that plague Drake, he becomes hysterical and makes Randy swear to never make him leave the room.

Parris decides to remain there at Kings Row when he learns that Dr. Gordon has died, leaving the town with no doctor. Louise reveals that her father amputated Drake's legs unnecessarily, because he hated Drake and thought it was his duty to punish wickedness. Parris at first wishes to withhold the truth from Drake, fearing it will destroy his fragile recovery. He considers confining Louise to a mental institution, even though she is not insane, to prevent the truth from being revealed to Drake and other victims of her father.

When out walking, he sees a woman named Elise sitting where Cassie used to sit, dressed similarly. She has moved into his childhood home, and he becomes close to her and her father. Parris discusses the problem regarding Louise with Elise. She persuades him to treat Drake like any other patient, rather than his best friend. Parris tells Drake what happened. Drake reacts with laughter and defiance, wondering if Dr. Gordon thought he lived in his legs. He summons a renewed will to live instead of the deep clinical depression Parris had feared. Parris is now free to marry Elise, having helped his old friend return to a productive life.

In June 1940, Howard goes to France, near the border with Switzerland, to sulk after his offer to serve in the Second World War is turned down by every government department in London because he is too old. (It is later revealed that his son, an RAF pilot, was shot down and killed two months earlier.) When Germany invades France, he is determined to go home. Mrs. Cavanaugh decides to accompany her husband, a League of Nations official, to his post in Geneva, but fearing that the Germans will invade Switzerland next, she asks Howard to take her two young children, Ronnie and Sheila, to her sister in Plymouth. Howard reluctantly agrees, as he does not like children, especially Ronnie, who annoys him by contradicting his claim that Rochester is an American state.

They take the train from St. Claude, but have to debark at Joigny. When they board a bus to Chartres, Ronnie (without Howard's knowledge) brings along the French girl Rose (at her aunt's request) to take to her father in London, much to Howard's annoyance. As they near Chartres, German airplanes attack the stream of refugees on the road. They start walking. When they stop for the night, Howard discovers they have acquired a young boy named Pierre. He was a fellow bus passenger, but his parents were killed in the aerial attack.

They reach Chartres, just before the Germans seize the city. When Howard seeks help from his acquaintance Nicole Rougeron, he finds he now has five charges, the newest addition being Willem, a Dutch boy. Nicole takes them away just before the Germans, tipped off that there is an Englishman there, search the Rougeron home. They board a train to the Brittany coast. On the way, Nicole reveals to Howard that she spent three blissful days with his son.

In Landerneau, Nicole appeals to her uncle Aristide; he owns fishing boats. Initially suspicious, he finds a man, Focquet, willing to take them to England. However, on their way through the German-occupied town, Sheila gets into a fight with Rose and speaks English in the hearing of a German soldier. They are all captured at the boat and taken to Major Diessen.

Diessen is certain Howard is working for British Army intelligence, using the children as a cover. He has Howard watch the execution of a spy. Howard offers to confess to anything Diessen wants if he will release the others. Finally, Diessen makes him a totally unexpected private proposal. He will release everyone, including Howard, if he will take another child with him, his seven-year-old niece. Her father, Diessen's younger brother, was killed in Belgium, and the Nazis have discovered that his wife was Jewish. The woman has been dealt with, but Diessen wants to save the child by having her taken to his older brother, a naturalized American citizen living in ... Rochester. Just in case, Diessen will keep an eye on Nicole, who refuses to leave France. Howard counters by threatening to reveal Diessen's dealings with him if Nicole is harmed.

Later, safely home, Howard is asked at his club if he "had much difficulty getting back?" He replies, "No ... not too much."

Lou Gehrig is a young Columbia University student whose old-fashioned mother wants him to study hard and become an engineer, but the young man has a gift for baseball. A sportswriter befriends Gehrig and persuades a scout to come see him play. When his mother gets sick, Gehrig signs with the team he has always revered, the New York Yankees to pay for the hospital bills. With the help of his father, he endeavors to keep his career change a secret from his mother.

Gehrig works his way up through the minor leagues and joins the Yankees. His hero, Babe Ruth, is at first condescending and dismissive of the rookie, but his strong, consistent play wins over Ruth and the rest of the team. Gehrig is unknowingly included by his teammates in playing pranks on Ruth on the team train.

During a game at Comiskey Park, Gehrig trips over a stack of bats and is teased by a spectator, Eleanor (the daughter of the ballpark hot dog magnate), who laughingly calls him "tanglefoot". Later, they are properly introduced, leading to a relationship, and then an engagement. Gehrig's mother, who still has not accepted the fact that her son will not be an engineer, does not take this news well; Gehrig finally stands up to her, and marries Eleanor.

The Yankees become the most dominant team in baseball, and Gehrig becomes a fan favorite. His father and fully converted mother attend games and cheer for him. In a re-creation of a famous (and possibly apocryphal) story, Gehrig visits a crippled boy named Billy in a hospital. He promises to hit two home runs in a single World Series game in the boy's honor—then fulfills his promise.

Gehrig is now the "Iron Horse", a national hero at the peak of his career with multitudes of fans, many loyal friends, and an adoring wife. Then he begins to notice, with growing alarm, that his strength is slowly ebbing away. Though he continues to play, and extends his consecutive-game streak to a seemingly insurmountable record, his physical condition continues its inexorable decline. One day, in Detroit, he tells Yankees manager Joe McCarthy that he has become a detriment to the team and benches himself. After an examination, a doctor gives him the awful news: Gehrig has a rare, incurable disease, and only a short time to live.

A short time later, at Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium, an older Billy finds Gehrig and shows him that he has made a full recovery, inspired by his hero's example and the two-homer fulfilled promise. Then, as Eleanor weeps softly in the stands, Gehrig addresses the fans: "People all say that I've had a bad break. But today ... today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."

In England in November 1918, "John Smith" is a British officer who was gassed in the trenches during the First World War. Having lost his memory, and apparently with no means of identification, he is confined to an asylum as an unidentified inmate. A couple visits him, only to see that he is not their missing son, which disappoints him as much as them. On the day the war ends, the gatekeepers abandon their posts to join the celebration in the nearby Midlands town of Melbridge, and Smith wanders out of the asylum.

In town, he is befriended by a singer with the stage name Paula Ridgeway. She guesses he is from the asylum, but as he seems harmless, she arranges for him to join her traveling theatrical group. After an incident that threatens to bring unwanted attention, Paula takes Smith to a secluded country village in Devon, where they stay at an inn run by Mrs. Deventer. As time passes, they fall in love and happily marry, renting a small cottage and eventually having a son.

"Smithy", as Paula calls him, discovers he has some literary talent. Paula remains home with their newborn son while Smithy goes to Liverpool for a job interview with a newspaper. He is struck by a taxi, and when he regains consciousness, his past memory is restored, but his life with Paula is now forgotten. His true identity is Charles Rainier, the son of a wealthy businessman. None of his meager possessions, including a key, provide any clue about where he has been. Charles returns home on the day of his father's funeral. Kitty, the stepdaughter of one of Charles' siblings, becomes infatuated with her "uncle". Charles wants to return to college, but the mismanaged family business needs him, and he puts off his own desires to safeguard the jobs of his many employees and restore the family fortune. After a few years, a newspaper touts him as the "Industrial Prince of England".

Meanwhile, Paula has been searching frantically for her Smithy. Their son died as an infant, and she now works as a secretary. One day, she sees Charles' picture and story in a magazine. Paula gets hired as his executive assistant under her real name, Margaret Hanson, hoping that her presence will jog his memory. Dr. Jonathan Benet, an employee at the asylum from which Charles escaped, has become her confidant and admirer. He warns her that revealing her identity would only cause Charles to resent her. As Kitty grows up, she sends Charles love letters, and they become engaged. However, a hymn that Kitty is considering for their upcoming wedding triggers a vague memory in Charles. Kitty, realizing that Charles still loves someone else, sadly breaks off the engagement.

Margaret joins Charles in Liverpool, where he is trying one last time to piece together his lost years. They recover his suitcase from a hotel, but he recognizes nothing. Charles is approached to stand for Parliament. After his election, in which Margaret provides invaluable assistance, he feels the need for a wife in his new role. He proposes to her, more as a business proposition than a romantic one, and she accepts. They become an ideal couple, at least to all outward appearances, with Margaret a perfect society hostess. In a moment of reflection, they discuss his lost past, and she tells him of her own lost love, without revealing that it is Charles. He hopes their life together can fill the void they both feel.

After three years of marriage, Margaret still has no success in triggering her husband's memories. To cope with her frustration, she decides to take an extended solo vacation abroad. Before her liner sails, she revisits the village where she and Smithy lived. When Charles sees her off at the train station, he is summoned to mediate a strike at the Melbridge Cable Works. After the successful negotiation, he walks through the town, and the surroundings and celebrations begin to unlock his memories, leading him to the nearby village and the cottage he and Paula shared. Hesitantly, he tries the old key he kept, and finds that it unlocks the door. Margaret, about to leave for her boat, makes a casual remark to the innkeeper about her predecessor, Mrs. Deventer. The innkeeper tells her that a gentleman just that morning had inquired about Mrs. Deventer, and had mentioned that he used to rent a cottage near a church. Margaret hurries to the cottage and finds Charles standing at the front door. She tentatively calls out "Smithy?" Charles turns to see her behind him, and his face slowly lights up with recognition. As he rushes to embrace her, he calls her Paula, his memories finally returning.

Mill worker and political activist Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) is accused of arson and murder, setting fire to a woolen mill, killing the mill foreman, Clyde Bracken. In the middle of the trial, Dilg escapes from jail and seeks shelter in a remote cottage owned by former schoolmate Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur), on whom he has had a crush for years. Shelley, now a schoolteacher, has rented the unoccupied cottage for the summer to distinguished law professor Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman), who plans to use this secluded location to write a book. Both Lightcap and Dilg arrive within minutes of each other, so Shelley decides to hide Dilg in the attic.

When Dilg is spotted by Lightcap, Shelley passes him off as her gardener, Joseph. A visitor suddenly arrives, Senator Boyd. The senator informs Lightcap that he is about to be nominated to the Supreme Court by the president. Meanwhile, Lightcap and Dilg enjoy having spirited discussions about the law, Lightcap arguing from an academic viewpoint, with Dilg subscribing to a more practical approach. As a result of their spirited debates, they become good friends, but also romantic rivals, as Lightcap falls in love with Nora.

As a result of prodding by Shelley and Dilg's lawyer, Lightcap becomes suspicious of mill owner Andrew Holmes, foreman Clyde Bracken and Regina Bush. In spite of his initial reluctance, Lightcap starts to investigate the charges against Dilg. As a ruse, he romances Bush, the girlfriend of the supposed murder victim and discovers that foreman Bracken is still alive and hiding in Boston. Shelley, Lightcap and Dilg go to Boston and find him. They bring him back to Lochester and get him to admit his guilt and that of the mill owner for setting the fire.

While the three argue about whether to call the police, Bracken catches them unawares, knocks them unconscious and escapes. Dilg is held for trial while the town's anger at him is stoked into a riotous mob. Lightcap takes a gun from the cottage and seeks out the foreman, forcing him at gunpoint to go to the courthouse just as the mob is about to break in to lynch Dilg.

Firing the revolver to draw attention, Lightcap announces that the supposedly dead foreman is now present. He then gives an impassioned speech to the mob about the importance of the law, both in principle and in practice. In due course, the foreman and owner of the mill are indicted and Dilg is set free.

Soon afterwards Lightcap is appointed to the Supreme Court. Shelley visits him in his chambers and he tells her that his dream of 20 years has been realized. With more happiness than a man could want, he says the only thing left is to see his friends likewise happy, and suggests that Shelley should marry Dilg.

While both Dilg and Shelley are attending court at the first seating of Lightcap as an Associate Justice, Dilg interprets an affectionate look shared between Lightcap and Shelley as a sign that she has chosen to marry Lightcap, and leaves the courtroom abruptly. Shelley follows him, and Dilg eventually realises that she has chosen him.

A map is shown with a voiceover giving a brief history of the United States military on Wake Island to November 1941. U.S. Marine Corps Major Geoffrey Caton departs Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii aboard the Pan American Clipper to take over command on Wake Island. A military contractor, Mr. McClosky, is also going there. The two clash during the flight.

Upon arrival, Caton inspects the island and identifies Privates Randall and Doyle as troublemakers. He has them dig a large slit trench by hand. McClosky has a construction contract for large trenches and living quarters, and drives his crew to complete the work on time. There are numerous conflicts between the military and the civilians, including practicing for air raids.

The next day is Sunday, December 7, 1941. Randall prepares to board the Clipper, as he is leaving the service. Then news arrives about the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. The island goes on alert. Randall is unsure what to do. He is sent to a bomb shelter with the civilians as enemy planes approach. The Americans have only four fighters in the air, holding eight in reserve, against 24 Japanese bombers. Marine fighters shoot down several Japanese planes, but the bombers inflict heavy damage. Following the raid, Caton tells Randall he is no longer a civilian. McClosky decides to stay and dig trenches and other shelters with his heavy equipment. That night, Caton informs pilot Lieutenant Bruce Cameron that his wife was killed at Pearl Harbor.

The next day, enemy ships approach. The Marines camouflage their equipment. Caton orders his men into shelters and to hold their fire while the Japanese bombard the island. The Japanese signal the Americans to surrender. Caton does not answer. He waits until the enemy ships have closed to 4700 yards before returning fire, repelling the landing attempt and sinking several ships.

Cameron, on a reconnaissance flight, spots a Japanese heavy cruiser which can hit the island while remaining out of range of the defenders' weapons. He states he can take out that ship if his fighter is stripped down and carries only 15 gallons of fuel and a double load of bombs. Caton approves the mission. After successfully bombing the ship, Cameron is wounded by a Japanese fighter. He manages to land his airplane safely before dying.

Japanese planes bomb the island repeatedly.

Caton asks Captain Lewis to board a U.S. Navy patrol plane that is coming in, since he could provide intelligence to the U.S. Navy Department in Honolulu. Lewis refuses, but Caton orders him to go and file his official report.

Later, Caton is informed that the largest-caliber ammunition is running out, so he has smaller guns spread around, and repositions his available men. Japanese planes approach in large numbers, causing major damage and inflicting numerous casualties. Only one pilot is left, Captain Patrick. When his plane is damaged, he bails out, but is killed while parachuting down.

The Japanese again signal for surrender. Caton replies, "Come and get us." Eventually, Caton orders all posts to act independently. Communications fail. Caton orders the last man out of his command post with a written message, as McClosky walks in, asking for a weapon. They make their way to an abandoned machine-gun position. Caton mans the gun. The Japanese land and overrun the American positions. The main characters are all killed in action. Made in 1942, at the beginning of American entry into World War II, shortly after the battle itself, the film ends with a voiceover stating that "This is not the end."

The novel graphically describes the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. It is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance.

Jordan is an American, formerly a professor of Spanish language at the University of Montana. He had lived in prewar Spain, and fights as an irregular soldier for the Republic against Francisco Franco's fascist forces. An experienced dynamiter, he is ordered by a Soviet general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local anti-fascist guerrillas to prevent enemy troops from responding to an upcoming offensive. On his mission, Jordan meets the rebel Anselmo, the "old man", who brings him to the hidden guerrilla camp in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains between Madrid and Segovia. Anselmo initially acts as an intermediary between Jordan and the other guerrilla fighters. They include Agustín, Primitivo, Fernando, brothers Andrés and Eladio, and Rafael, often referred to pejoratively as "the gypsy".

In the camp, Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life has been shattered by her parents' execution and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both the unwillingness of the guerrilla leader Pablo to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band and Jordan's own new-found lust for life, which arises from his love for María. Pablo's wife, the strong-willed Pilar, with the support of the other guerrillas, displaces Pablo as the group leader and pledges the allegiance of the guerrillas to Jordan's mission.

When another band of anti-fascist guerrillas, led by El Sordo, is surrounded and killed during a raid they conducted in support of Jordan's mission, Pablo steals the dynamite detonators and exploder, hoping to prevent the demolition and to avoid fascist reprisals. Although he disposes of the detonators and exploder by throwing them down a gorge into the river, Pablo regrets abandoning his comrades and returns to assist in the operation.

The enemy, apprised of the coming offensive, has prepared to ambush it in force and it seems unlikely that the blown bridge will do much to prevent a rout. However, Jordan understands that he must still demolish the bridge unless he receives explicit orders to the contrary. Lacking the detonation equipment stolen by Pablo, Jordan devises an alternative method: exploding the dynamite by using hand grenades with wires attached so that their pins can be pulled from a distance. The improvised plan is considerably more dangerous as the guerrillas must be nearer to the explosion. While Pilar, Pablo, and other guerrillas attack the posts at the two ends of the bridge, Jordan and Anselmo plant and detonate the dynamite, costing Anselmo his life when he is hit by a piece of shrapnel. While escaping, Jordan is maimed when a tank shoots his horse out from under him. Knowing that his wound is so severe that it is highly unlikely that he will survive and that he would slow the others down, he bids farewell to María and ensures her escape to safety with the surviving guerrillas. He assures her repeatedly that they are now one – where she goes, he will be too. (This captures the theme of John Donne's poem – the source of the title – of the connectedness of humans.) He refuses Agustín's offer to shoot him and lies waiting in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and delay the pursuit of his comrades before he dies. The narrative ends with Jordan waiting for the perfect opportunity to launch his ambush, if he does not go unconscious (or die) first.

An aged Henry Van Cleve enters the opulent reception area of "where innumerable people had told him so often to go", to be personally greeted by "His Excellency". Henry petitions to be admitted (fully aware of the kind of life he has led), but some doubt exists as to his qualifications. To prove his worthiness (or rather unworthiness), he begins to tell the story of his dissolute life.

Born in Manhattan on October 25, 1872, Henry is the spoiled only child of stuffy, naive, wealthy parents Randolph and Bertha. His paternal grandmother is also doting and naive, although his down-to-earth grandfather Hugo Van Cleve, a self-made millionaire, understands Henry quite well. Henry grows up to be an idle young man with a taste for attractive showgirls. One day, Henry overhears a beautiful woman lying to her mother on a public telephone. Intrigued, he follows her into a Brentano's bookstore and pretends to be an employee to get to know her better. Despite learning that she is engaged to marry, he begins making advances, finally confessing he does not work there, whereupon she hastily departs.

Later, his obnoxious cousin Albert introduces the family to his fiancée, Martha, and her feuding parents, the Strables. Henry is shocked to find that his mystery woman and Martha are one and the same. It turns out that Albert was the first suitor of whom both her parents approved. Fearful of spending the rest of her life as a spinster in Kansas City, Martha agreed to marry him. Henry convinces her to elope with him instead. Though everyone except Grandpa Van Cleve is scandalized, eventually they are received back into the family.

Henry and Martha enjoy a happy marriage and become the proud parents of a boy. On the eve of their tenth anniversary, however, Martha finds out about what appears to be Henry's continuing dalliances with other women and goes back to her parents. Henry and Grandpa follow her there. Sneaking into the Strable house, Henry corrects the misunderstanding, begs her forgiveness, and talks her into "eloping" a second time, much to Grandpa's delight.

Fifteen years later, Henry meets chorus girl Peggy Nash in her dressing room shortly before her performance. What seems to be an attempt at courtship is soon revealed as an attempt by Henry to turn her away from his son, Jack, who has been dating her. When Peggy reveals her knowledge of his true identity, Henry buys her off, instead, for $25,000 (equivalent to about $ in ). Jack later reveals he was glad to have got rid of her so easily.

Martha passes away shortly after their 25th anniversary. Henry resumes an active social life much to the amusement of his son. On October 26, 1942, the day after his 70th birthday, Henry dies under the care of a beautiful nurse, her coming having been portended in a dream. After hearing Henry's story, His Excellency denies him entry and suggests he try the "other place", where Martha and his grandfather are waiting for him, hinting that there may be "a small room vacant in the annex".

Homer Macauley is a 14-year-old boy growing up fatherless in the San Joaquin Valley of California during World War II. His oldest brother, Marcus, is off fighting the war, and Homer feels he needs to be the man of the family. To make money, he takes an evening job as a telegraph boy, meaning sometimes he has to deliver the news to a family that a son has died in the War. Yet Homer keeps up his normal life, going to school, to church, and to the movies. He is encouraged by his home environment and his loving family, including a very young brother and a mother who plays the harp. His roots and an almost instinctive sense of right and wrong keep him honest and hopeful. The novel's optimistic tone came, at least in part, from starting as a screen-treatment for MGM's Louis B. Mayer.

The film opens with the narration: "This is the story of a ship". In 1941, HMS ''Torrin'' engages German transports in a night-time action during the Battle of Crete. But at dawn, the destroyer comes under attack from German bombers. A critical hit forces the crew to abandon ship as it rapidly capsizes. Some of the officers and ratings manage to find a Carley float while being intermittently strafed by passing German planes.

In flashback, the ship's story is told using their memories. The first person to reveal his thoughts is Captain Kinross, who recalls the summer of 1939 when the ''Torrin'' is being rushed into commission as the possibility of war becomes a near certainty.

The ship spends a quiet Christmas in the north of Scotland during the Phoney War. But in 1940, the ''Torrin'' fights its first engagement during the Battle of Narvik. During the action, the ship is struck by a torpedo. The damaged ''Torrin'' is towed back to port, all the time being harried by dive bombers.

Safely back in harbour, Captain Kinross tells the assembled ship's company that during the battle nearly all the crew performed as he would expect; however, one man did not. But he surprises everyone when he says that he let him off with a caution as he feels that, as captain, he failed to make him understand his duty.

Returning to the present, the float survivors watch the capsized ''Torrin'' take on water and slowly sink. The raft is again strafed by German planes and some men are killed and wounded. Shorty Blake recalls in flashback how he met his wife-to-be, Freda, on a train while on leave. She is related to the ''Torrin'' s affable Chief Petty Officer Hardy. When both men return to sea, Freda moves in with Hardy's wife and mother-in-law.

The ''Torrin'' participates in the Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (portrayed in the film by the 5th Battalion of the Coldstream Guards). Blake gets a letter to say that Freda has given birth to his son during the Plymouth Blitz but that Hardy's wife and mother-in-law were killed. He has to tell Hardy, who is writing a letter home, the bitter news.

The survivors on the life raft watch the ''Torrin'' finally sink. Captain Kinross leads a final "three cheers" for the ''Torrin''. A British destroyer soon begins rescuing the men. Captain Kinross talks to the survivors and collects addresses from the dying.

Telegrams are sent to the crew's loved ones. Kinross addresses the ship's survivors in a military depot in Alexandria in Egypt. He tells them that although they lost their ship and many friends, who now "lie together in fifteen hundred fathoms", he notes that these losses should inspire them to fight even harder in the battles to come. Captain Kinross then shakes hands with all the ratings as they leave the depot. When the last man goes, the emotionally tired captain silently acknowledges his surviving officers before walking away.

An epilogue concludes: bigger and stronger ships are being launched to avenge the ''Torrin''; Britain is an island nation with a proud, indefatigable people; Captain Kinross is now in command of a battleship. Its massive main guns fire against the enemy.

Marie Sklodowska is a poor, idealistic student living in Paris and studying at the Sorbonne. She neglects her health and one day faints during class. Her tutor, Prof. Perot is sympathetic and, finding that she has no friends or family in Paris, invites her to a ''soirée'' his wife is throwing for a "few friends" (primarily professors and their wives). Among the many guests is physicist Pierre Curie, an extremely shy and absentminded man completely devoted to his work. He allows Marie to share his lab and finds that she is a gifted scientist. Appalled that she plans on returning to Poland to teach after graduation, rather than devoting her life to further study, he takes her to visit his family in their country home. Marie and Pierre both tend to concentrate on science to the extent that they don't realize until the last minute they have fallen in love. Even when Pierre asks Marie to be his wife, he does so in terms of reason, logic and chemistry.

Fascinated by a demonstration she saw as an undergraduate, of a pitchblende rock that seems to generate enough energy to take small photographs, Marie decides to make the rock's energy the subject of her doctoral study. The measurements she takes don't seem to add up, and she decides there must be a third radioactive element in the rock in addition to the two she knows are in it. In the midst of discussing this, she discloses offhandedly to Pierre's family that she is pregnant.

The physics department at the Sorbonne refuses to fund their research without more proof of the element's existence, but allows them to use a dilapidated old shed across the courtyard from the physics building. In spite of its disadvantages, they import eight tons of pitchblende ore and cook it down to look for the element they call radium. In spite of inability to separate out pure radium, they know something is definitely there, as Marie's hands are being burned. They hit on a tedious method of crystallization to arrive at pure radium.

Now world-famous, they go on vacation to rest after all the press conferences and the Nobel Prize. They're granted a new laboratory by the university; before its dedication Marie shows off her new dress, inspiring Pierre to go get her a set of earrings to go with it. Walking home in the rain, he absentmindedly crosses the street in front of a delivery wagon and is run down and killed. Marie almost loses her mind, but after the concerned Prof. Perot counsels her, she rallies when she remembers Pierre's words that if one of them is gone, the other must go on working just the same. Finally, Marie gives a speech at the 25th anniversary celebration of the discovery of radium, expressing her belief that science is the path to a better world.

Retired millionaire Benjamin Dingle arrives in Washington, D.C. as an adviser on the housing shortage and finds that his hotel suite will not be available for two days. He sees an ad for a roommate and talks the reluctant young woman, Connie Milligan, into letting him sublet half of her apartment. Then Dingle runs into Sergeant Joe Carter, who has no place to stay while he waits to be shipped overseas. Dingle generously rents him half of his half.

When Connie finds out about the new arrangement, she orders them both to leave, but she is forced to relent because she has already spent the men's rent. Joe and Connie are attracted to each other, though she is engaged to bureaucrat Charles J. Pendergast. Connie's mother married for love, not security, and Connie is determined not to repeat her mistake. Dingle happens to meet Pendergast at a business luncheon and does not like what he sees. He decides that Joe would be a better match for his landlady.

One day, Dingle goes too far, reading aloud to Joe from Connie's private diary, including her thoughts about Joe. When she finds out, she demands they both leave the next day. Dingle takes full blame for the incident. Connie allows Joe to remain in the apartment as he has only a few days before being shipped out to Africa. Joe asks Connie to go to dinner with him. She is reluctant to do so, but decides to go if Pendergast does not call for her by 8:00 that evening. At 8:00, she and Joe are ready to leave, but her nosy teenage neighbor seeks her advice and delays her until Pendergast arrives. Joe spies on the two of them from the window. When the young neighbor asks what he is doing, Joe flippantly tells him he is a Japanese spy.

Dingle calls Joe to meet him for dinner. There, Dingle bumps into the couple (Pendergast and Connie) and pretends he is meeting Connie for the first time, forcing Joe to do the same. Dingle engages Pendergast in talk about his work, eventually maneuvering him up to his hotel room so that Connie and Joe can be alone together.

Joe takes Connie home. The two talk about their romantic pasts and even kiss. From their separate rooms, Joe confesses that he loves her. She tells him she feels the same way, but refuses to marry him, as they will soon be forced apart when he leaves for Africa. Their talk is interrupted by the arrival of the FBI, who have been called to investigate Joe for spying, thanks to the young neighbor. Joe and Connie are taken to FBI headquarters. They identify Dingle as a fellow apartment occupant who can testify that they are only roommates. Dingle arrives, bringing Pendergast as a character witness. It comes out during questioning that Joe and Connie live at the same address. When they ask Mr. Dingle to tell Pendergast that their living arrangement is purely innocent, he denies knowing them.

Outside the station, Dingle says he lied to protect his reputation. Taking a taxi home, they discuss what to do to avoid a scandal. Connie grows angry when Pendergast thinks only of himself. When another passenger in the shared cab turns out to be a reporter, Pendergast runs after him to try to stop him from writing about the cohabiting situation. Dingle assures Connie that if she marries Joe, the crisis will be averted, and they can get a quick annulment afterwards. The couple follow his advice and wed after flying to South Carolina, where a license can be more quickly obtained than in DC. Returning home, Connie allows Joe to spend his final night in her apartment. As Dingle had foreseen, Connie's attraction to Joe overcomes her prudence; the intimacy is facilitated by the fact that the wall separating Connie's and Joe's bedrooms has vanished, presumably thanks to Dingle. Outside, Dingle puts up a card on the apartment door, showing that it belongs to Sgt. and Mrs. Carter.

It is February 11, 1858. Fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous lives in poverty with her family in Lourdes. At her Catholic school, Sister Vauzou shames Bernadette for falling behind in her studies because of her asthma.

Later that afternoon, while fetching firewood with her sister Marie and friend Jeanne, Bernadette is left behind in the Massabielle grotto. Distracted by a strange breeze and a change in the light, Bernadette investigates and sees a beautiful lady. They pray the rosary together. Her friends promise to keep what they saw a secret, but Marie tells their mother when they return home. Neighbor Croisine and her husband appear with food to share their gratitude for Bernadette's mother Louise caring for their sick baby and for Soubirous' new job.

When the story spreads all over Lourdes, Bernadette's aunt Bernarde tells Bernadette's parents to stand up for their daughter and go with her to the grotto. Others follow. “All France will be laughing at us,” the mayor says to the Imperial Prosecutor. Abbé Dominique Peyramale refuses to get involved. Bernadette faces threatening interrogation by Dutour and Jacomet, but confounds them with her simplicity.

Bernadette brings a message for the dean: Chapels are to be built, and processions are to come to Massabielle. He asks the lady for a “little miracle”: Make the wild rosebush bloom, in February. No roses appear, but the lady tells Bernadette to wash at a nonexistent spring. Bernadette digs a hole in the ground and smears her face. The crowd disperses, but Antoine and Bouriette call them back; water pours from the hole.

Croisine's child dies. She runs with him to the spring, saying “Take him Lord or give him back to me.” The baby cries—and moves. Dr. Dozous cannot explain the undeniable physical transformation. Suffering people flock to Lourdes.

On Bernadette’s last visit to the grotto, the lady finally identifies herself as "The Immaculate Conception." Bernadette does not understand. Others are stunned. Peyramale warns her that she is playing with fire.

The grotto is fenced off, ostensibly to test the water. Dutour tries to have Bernadette committed, but Peyramale declares it will be “over his dead body.” He takes her to the convent, where Sister Vauzou accuses her of deception.

Peyramale asks the Bishop of Tarbes for an episcopal commission to decide if Bernadette is a fraud, insane, or “the rarest of mortal beings.” The Bishop declares that unless the Emperor orders the grotto to be opened, there will be no investigation. When the Emperor’s infant son is cured of a cold by water from Lourdes, the Empress demands the grotto be reopened.

Four years later, Peyramale persuades Bernadadette to join the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. As novice Marie Bernarde, she works hard at the convent, where Sister Vauzou is mistress of novices. Years later, Vauzou accuses Sister Marie Bernarde of limping to get attention. Vauzou reveals that she is consumed by doubt. She cannot believe that someone who has never suffered would be chosen when she has spent her life suffering in God's service. Bernadette agrees that she has not suffered, then pauses and raises the skirt of her habit. Vauzou is horrified at the vast tumor revealed (not shown). The doctor diagnoses tuberculosis of the bone; the condition causes unspeakable pain, yet Bernadette never mentioned it. Vauzou prays for forgiveness and vows to serve Bernadette for the rest of her life.

Despite the severity of her illness, Bernadette insists that “the spring is not for me.” The bishop wants one final confirmation from her lips. “I did see her,” she cries.

In Lourdes, Dutour, dying of throat cancer, walks with thousands of pilgrims to the shrine and kneels, saying, “Pray for me, Bernadette.”

Bernadette sends for Peyramale. Her voice failing, she confesses she is afraid that she has not suffered enough. She calls to the lady, afraid that she will never see her again. The lady appears, smiling, her arms open. Bernadette whispers, “I love you, I love you. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me,” and dies. "You are now in Heaven and on Earth. Your life begins, O Bernadette,” Peyramale says. Bells are heard, and the film ends with a clip of the interior of what appears to be St. Peter's Basilica.

In 1940, German-born engineer Kurt Muller, his American wife Sara, and their children Joshua, Babette, and Bodo cross the Mexican border into the United States to visit Sara's brother David Farrelly and their mother Fanny in Washington, D.C. For the past 17 years, the Muller family has lived in Europe, where Kurt responded to the rise of Nazism by engaging in anti-Fascist activities. Sara tells her family they are seeking peaceful sanctuary on American soil, but their quest is threatened by the presence of house guest Teck de Brancovis, an opportunistic Romanian count who has been conspiring with the German Embassy. Teck, married to the younger Marthe, tries to force her to learn more about the Mullers. She and David are attracted to each other and she finds her husband's politics horrendous.

Teck searches the Mullers' room and discovers a gun and money intended to finance underground operations in Germany. Shortly after, the Mullers learn that resistance worker Max Freidank has been arrested. Because Max once rescued Kurt from the Gestapo, Kurt plans to return to Germany to assist him and those arrested with him. Aware that Kurt will be in great danger if the Nazis discover he is returning to Germany, Teck demands $10,000 ($ today) to keep silent. After considerable bargaining, Kurt kills him, having concluded that Teck cannot be trusted. Realizing the dangers Kurt faces, Fanny and David agree to help him return.

Time passes, and when the Mullers fail to hear from Kurt, Joshua announces he plans to search for his father as soon as he turns 18. Although distraught by the possibility of losing her son as well as her husband, Sara resolves to be brave when the time comes for Joshua to leave.

In January 1943, Anne Hilton is an upper-middle-class housewife living in a Midwestern town near a military base with her two teenage daughters, Jane and Bridget "Brig". Anne's beloved husband Tim Hilton has volunteered for U.S. Army service in World War II. Anne has just returned from seeing her husband off to Camp Claiborne, and she and her daughters must adjust to Tim's absence and make other sacrifices for the war effort, including food rationing; planting a victory garden; giving up the services of their loyal maid Fidelia who nevertheless offers to continue working part-time for the Hiltons while foregoing wages; and taking in a boarder, the curmudgeonly retired Colonel Smollett. When the Hiltons travel by train in a failed attempt to see Tim one last time before he ships out, they encounter or travel with many other people whose lives have been affected by the war, and they end up not getting to see Tim because their train is delayed to allow a defense supply train to go through first. In contrast, the Hiltons' socialite neighbor Emily Hawkins complains about the inconveniences caused by the war and engages in unsupportive behaviors such as hoarding food and criticizing the Hiltons' efforts.

The Colonel has a strained relationship with his young grandson, Bill Smollett, because Bill failed out of West Point and is now serving in the U.S. Army as a mere corporal rather than an officer. An old friend of Anne and Tim's, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Tony Willett, also visits the Hiltons while awaiting his orders. Bill quickly falls for Jane, who has a crush on Tony, who in turn has long been attracted to Anne. However, after Tony leaves, Bill and Jane's relationship slowly develops and they fall in love. They become engaged, but Bill convinces Jane to wait until after the war to get married. Bill finally is sent overseas and Jane tearfully runs after his departing train to tell him goodbye. The Colonel, who under his gruff exterior really does care about his grandson, conveys his good wishes to Bill via Anne, but arrives too late to say goodbye in person.

Jane is determined to do more for the war effort and begins volunteering as a nurse's aide at the nearby military hospital, where returning veterans with physical and mental injuries are sent to recover. The family learns via telegram that Tim Hilton is missing in action in the Southwest Pacific. Shortly after Bill's departure, the Hiltons receive word that he was killed in action at Salerno. The Hiltons and the Colonel grieve together for Bill. Jane and Anne finally tell off Emily Hawkins after Emily suggests that it is unseemly for Jane to volunteer at the hospital, and Anne decides she herself must do more to help and trains as a welder for defense work at the shipyard.

Tony returns on leave and talks to Anne about his feelings for her, but she believes that he only keeps her as a romantic ideal because she is married to his friend Tim and therefore unattainable. Anne and Tony decide to leave things as they are and remain friends. On Christmas Eve, Fidelia places gifts under the tree that Tim had given her months earlier to leave for his family, and Anne is moved to tears. Anne then gets a cablegram by telephone informing her that Tim is safe and is coming home, and she and her daughters joyfully embrace.

In Aurora, Illinois, rock music fans Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar host a public-access television show, ''Wayne's World'', from Wayne's parents' basement; a broadcast of ''Wayne's World'' catches the attention of television producer Benjamin Kane. While out cruising with friends in Garth's car, the Mirthmobile, Wayne stops to admire a 1964 Fender Stratocaster in a shop window. They later go to a nightclub, where they avoid Wayne's troubled ex-girlfriend Stacy while Wayne falls for Cassandra Wong, vocalist and bassist of the band Crucial Taunt, and impresses her with his Cantonese.

Benjamin meets with Wayne and Garth to convince them to sell him the rights to the show for $5,000 each. Later, Wayne returns to the music store and purchases the Stratocaster with the money. Benjamin attempts to steal Cassandra from Wayne using his wealth and good looks, by distracting Wayne and Garth with all-access tickets to an Alice Cooper concert in Milwaukee while offering to produce a music video for Crucial Taunt. At the concert, Wayne and Garth make the acquaintance of a bodyguard to music producer Frankie Sharp, head of Sharp Records.

While filming the revamped ''Wayne's World'' under Benjamin's oversight, Wayne and Garth find it difficult to adjust to the professional studio environment. Their contract obliges them to give a promotional interview to their sponsor, Noah Vanderhoff, who owns a franchise of amusement arcades. After Wayne ridicules Vanderhoff on the show, he is fired, leaving Garth to host the show on his own. This infuriates Garth and jeopardizes their friendship. Jealous of the attention Benjamin is giving Cassandra, Wayne attempts to prevent her from participating in the Crucial Taunt music video shoot, but she breaks up with him for his distrust.

Wayne and Garth reconcile and hatch a scheme to win Cassandra back by getting her a record deal. They plan to ensure that Frankie Sharp hears Crucial Taunt play. While Garth and their friends infiltrate a satellite station with the aid of Benjamin's assistant, Wayne goes to Cassandra's video shoot but embarrasses himself in an attempt to expose Benjamin's ulterior motive. Cassandra initially tells him to go home, but upon realizing that Benjamin is up to no good, she changes her mind and leaves for Aurora with Wayne, apologizing to her.

The ''Wayne's World'' crew hacks into Sharp's satellite television and broadcasts the Crucial Taunt performance from Wayne's basement, where Sharp and Benjamin converge. Unfortunately, Sharp declines to offer Crucial Taunt a record contract. As a result, Cassandra breaks up with Wayne permanently. She and Benjamin depart to a tropical resort. Stacy reveals that she is pregnant with Wayne's child. An electrical fire destroys Wayne's house and kills Garth.

Dissatisfied with this ending, Wayne and Garth turn to the film's audience and halt proceedings; they restart the scene in which Benjamin is unmasked as "Old Man Withers" in a ''Scooby-Doo'' parody ending. Still unsatisfied with this ending, they restart again with a "mega happy ending", in which Cassandra successfully signs a record contract and begins a relationship with Wayne. Garth begins a relationship with a waitress, while a reformed Benjamin learns that money and good looks do not necessarily bring happiness.

During the credits, Wayne and Garth say they hope the audience didn't think the movie sucked. The duo later predicts the credits will fade to black, which they do.

This Gothic story deals with two aging sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. A former child star of early vaudeville known as "Baby Jane", Jane was doted upon by her father due to her success on the stage while Blanche lived in her shadow, neglected. However, their roles were reversed after the death of their parents due to influenza, when both children moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. Blanche was favored by directors for her blonde hair and regal beauty, and finally decided to pursue a very successful film career. Blanche became a star, while Jane, whose attempts at making movies always resulted in failure, languished in her shadow. Blanche managed to keep her sister's career alive by having a clause in her contract stipulating that Jane have a role in every film in which Blanche appeared, but these were always minor parts that relegated Jane to the same neglect Blanche had suffered.

Years later, Jane, who still dresses as if she were 10 years old, and Blanche, disabled after a mysterious car accident, continue to live together in the same mansion in a declining neighborhood. Jane resents how her career has been all but forgotten compared to Blanche's (who became more famous than she ever was, and who is now being remembered because of a revival of her films on television), and hates having to cook, clean and care for her sister. Although stuck upstairs in her bedroom, Blanche has nevertheless managed to keep her good looks, while Jane's appearance is ravaged by years of alcoholism.

Blanche, whose only other contact with the outside world is the mansion's cleaning woman, Edna Stitt, and the telephone conversations she occasionally has with her doctor and attorney, realizes that Jane is becoming increasingly unstable. She calls her lawyer and tells him that she is planning to sell the house. Jane, who eavesdrops on her sister's calls, believes that Blanche intends to have her committed to a mental hospital. Blanche becomes aware of her sister's sinister mood swings and tries to explain her decision, but Jane simply ignores her. Soon, Jane begins to exhibit signs of insanity. She removes the phone from Blanche's room, while making her afraid to eat by serving Blanche's dead pet bird on a salad and, later, a large rat from the cellar. In a drunken daze, Jane also decides to resurrect her old Baby Jane stage act, reasoning that Fanny Brice had success with Baby Snooks. She hires a musical accompanist, Edwin Flagg, through a help wanted ad.

As reality topples crazily into eerie fantasy, Jane begins to abuse her sister with monstrous cruelty, while embezzling her money to buy liquor and finance her comeback. Edna becomes uneasy when she is unable to reach Blanche on the phone and Jane refuses to let her clean her sister's room. Opening the door to find Blanche tied to the bed with her mouth taped shut, she tries to help, but Jane sneaks up and kills Edna with a hammer. That night, Jane dumps the body. A day or two later, police officers come questioning Jane about Edna's disappearance. Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister, and heads for the location of some of her happiest childhood memories: the beach where she and her father used to practice her song and dance routine while crowds of onlookers watched. Jane plays in the sand, while Blanche lies weak and on the verge of death from starvation and abuse.

Realizing that she may be dying, Blanche reveals to Jane that it was actually she, not Jane, who was responsible for paralyzing her. After Jane humiliated Blanche at a party years earlier, her sister tried to run her over before Jane got out of the way. The car then slammed into a metal gate, snapping Blanche's spine. She managed to crawl out of the car to the gates, while Jane, frightened and drunk, hid inside the house, where she passed out. When the police arrived, they assumed that Jane had been driving. Blanche later realized that the event had driven her sister insane with guilt, but refused to allow her to seek psychiatric help for fear that Jane might recover enough to remember what really happened and would then leave her. Realizing that all the years of hatred and resentment between the sisters could have been avoided, Jane forgives Blanche.

Jane calls the police and tells them that her sister is very sick. Outside the phone booth, three officers recognize her and gently take Jane back to the beach. They start to question her and ask her where her sister is. At first, Jane vaguely tells them where to find Blanche, leading them down the beach. She then becomes confused and ignores their questions. Upon mentioning her name "Miss Hudson", Jane is taken back to her vaudeville days, and she begins to dance "very prettily", despite the police imploring her to tell them where Blanche is. The novel ends with Jane dancing, and does not reveal if Blanche survives or not.

In the 1830s, in the small Danish town of Odense, cobbler Hans Christian Andersen spends his day spinning fairy tales for the village children. One day, the stern schoolmaster implores the Burgomaster and councilmen to curtail the cobbler's habit of distracting the students with his storytelling. Hans finally returns to his shop, where his teenage assistant, the orphan Peter, begs him to stop causing trouble.

When the children do not arrive at school the next day, the schoolmaster deduces that Hans is again distracting his pupils. When the schoolmaster then demands that the Burgomaster and the councilmen choose between him and the cobbler, they decide that Hans must leave Odense. Peter tries to save his friend by suggesting they travel to Copenhagen.

After a sea voyage, Hans and Peter arrive at the city's harbor and find their way to the Great Square of Copenhagen. When Hans introduces himself to the crowd while standing on a statue of the king, police arrest him for defaming the image of their leader. Peter, who has sought refuge from the police by hiding by the back entrance of the Royal Theatre, overhears choreographer Niels demand that a company producer send for a cobbler and asks them to free his friend from jail.

Hans sees a lonely young girl outside his jail cell window and offers to introduce her to his companion. By drawing on his thumb, Hans creates a puppet he calls Thumbelina and brings a smile to the girl's face. Soon Hans is bailed out of jail by the theater company and taken to the theater, where he becomes entranced by the beauty and talent of a Royal Danish Ballet dress rehearsal. When Niels ridicules lead ballerina Doro's performance, she in turn complains that her shoes need adjusting.

Doro gives the slippers to Hans, who is immediately smitten with the ballerina. Peter learns that Niels and Doro are a happily married couple, despite their theatrical quarrels. Hans resists the idea and writes a love letter to Doro in the form of a fable called ''The Little Mermaid'', in which he tells her that she has chosen the wrong man. That night while Peter surreptitiously reads the letter, a gust of wind whisks it from his hands and carries it into the theater, where a stage doorman delivers it to Doro.

The next day, the entire ballet company sets off on their annual tour, leaving Hans bereft, but he soon finds comfort entertaining a new group of children with his stories. One day, Lars, a sad boy with a shaved head, remains behind after the other children tease him. Hans tells him the story of an ugly duckling who is ostracized by his peers until he becomes a handsome swan. When not with the children, Hans counts the days by making pair after pair of brightly colored satin slippers for his absent ballerina.

One day, Hans receives an invitation from the Gazette newspaper office, where Lars's father, the publisher, thanks Hans for helping his son overcome his difficulties and offers to publish ''The Ugly Duckling'' in the newspaper. Overjoyed by the news, Hans asks that his credit be changed from "Hans, the cobbler" to "Hans Christian Andersen" and runs down the street singing his full name with pride.

That evening, when the ballet company returns, Doro tells Hans that they have created a ballet based on his story ''The Little Mermaid'', which Hans believes is a sign of her love for him. The next evening, Peter warns Hans that Doro will humiliate him. Disappointed by his friend's attitude, Hans suggests that they part ways and leaves for the opening of the new ballet. When Hans tries to deliver Doro's slippers backstage, Niels locks the insistent writer in a closet to prevent him from disrupting the performers. While Hans listens to the music and dreams of his story, the performance opens on stage.

The morning after the ballet, Doro sends for Hans and discovers that he is in love with her and has misunderstood her relationship with Niels. Niels interrupts their conversation and insults Hans by offering to pay him for ''The Little Mermaid''. Hans refuses Niels's offer and claims that his writing was a fluke. Doro accepts the slippers Hans made for her and allows him to leave. On the road to Odense, Hans meets Peter and renews their friendship. Upon reaching town, Hans is greeted as a celebrity and regales the citizens, including the schoolmaster, with his now famous moral tales.

In Edwardian London, in the spring of 1910, George Banks returns home, at number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, to learn from his wife, Winifred, that Katie Nanna has left their service after their children, Jane and Michael, have run away, "For the fourth time this week," ("Life I Lead"). They are returned shortly after by Constable Jones, who reveals the children were chasing after a lost kite. The children ask their father to help them build a better kite, but he dismisses them. Taking it upon himself to hire a new nanny, Mr. Banks advertises for a stern, no-nonsense nanny. In contrast, Jane and Michael present their own advertisement for a kinder, sweeter nanny. ("Perfect Nanny") Winifred tries to keep the peace. Mr. Banks rips up the letter and throws the scraps in the fireplace, but a strong wind draws the fragments up through the chimney and into the air.

The next day, a number of elderly, sour-faced nannies wait outside the Banks' home for Ellen to show them all in, but a strong gust of wind blows them away. Jane and Michael then witness a young magical nanny descending from the sky using her umbrella. Presenting herself to Mr. Banks, Mary Poppins calmly produces the children's restored advertisement and agrees with its requests but promises the astonished banker she will be firm with his children. As Mr. Banks puzzles over the advertisement's return, Mary Poppins hires herself, and she convinces him it was originally his idea. She meets the children and helps them magically tidy their nursery by snapping her fingers, before heading out for a walk in the park ("Spoonful of Sugar").

Outside, they meet Mary's old friend, Bert, working as a street painter; Mary Poppins uses her magic to transport the group into one of his drawings. While the children ride on a carousel, Mary Poppins and Bert go on a leisurely stroll. Together, they sing ("Jolly Holiday"), and Bert flirts with Mary Poppins. After the duo meets up with the children, Mary Poppins enchants the carousel horses; Bert rescues a fox from a fox hunt; they take part in a horse race which Mary wins. Describing her victory, Mary Poppins uses a nonsense word ("Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"). The outing is ended when a thunderstorm dissolves Bert's drawings, returning the group to London.

The next day, the three meet Bert's odd Uncle Albert, who has floated up in the air because of his uncontrollable laughter and they join him for a tea party on the ceiling with lots of jokes ("I Love to Laugh"). Afterward, Mr. Banks becomes annoyed by the household's cheery atmosphere and threatens to fire Mary Poppins, but she persuades him to take the children to his workplace the next day. That evening, Mary sings to the children a hymn-like lullaby about the woman who sits on the steps of the St. Paul's Cathedral selling bird food ("Feed The Birds"). The next day at the bank, the children meet Mr. Dawes. Mr. Dawes aggressively urges Michael to invest his tuppence in the bank, ultimately snatching the coins from Michael ("Fidelity Fiduciary Bank"). Michael demands them back; other customers overhear the conflict, and they all begin demanding their own money back, causing a bank run.

Jane and Michael flee the bank, getting lost in the East End of London until they again meet up with Bert, now working as a chimney sweep, who escorts them home ("Chim Chim Cheree"). The three and Mary Poppins venture onto the rooftops, where they have a song-and-dance number with other chimney sweeps, which spills out into the Banks' home ("Step in Time") after their neighbor Admiral Boom shoots fireworks at them, mistaking them for robbers. Mr. and Mrs. Banks return to home to find Bert's friends dancing in their home and sends them away. Mr. Banks then gets a phone call from the bank requesting a meeting with him about what the children did. The children overhear the phone call and realize that their father is in trouble. Bert tells Mr. Banks that he needs to spend more time with his children before they grow up ("A Man Has Dreams"). Michael gives his father the tuppence in the hope to make amends.

Mr. Banks walks through London to the bank, where he is given a humiliating cashiering and is dismissed. Looking to the tuppence for words, he blurts out "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", tells Uncle Albert's "Wooden leg named Smith" joke the children told, and happily heads home. Mr. Dawes mulls over the joke and, finally understanding it, floats up into the air, laughing.

The next day, the wind changes, meaning Mary Poppins must leave. A happier Mr. Banks is found at home, having fixed his children's kite, and takes the family out to fly it. In the park, the Banks family meets Mr. Dawes' son, Mr. Dawes Jr., who reveals his father died laughing from the joke ("Let's Go Fly a Kite"). Mr. Dawes Jr. says he had never seen his father happier in his life and re-employs Mr. Banks as a junior partner. With her work done, Mary Poppins ends the movie by flying away, with Bert telling her from afar not to stay away too long.

The film is set in June 1905; the protagonists of the film are the members of the crew of the ''Potemkin'', a battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. Eisenstein divided the plot into five acts, each with its own title:

Act I: Men and Maggots

The scene begins with two sailors, Matyushenko and Vakulinchuk, discussing the need for the crew of the ''Potemkin'', anchored off the island of Tendra, to support the revolution then taking place within Russia. After their watch, they and other off-duty sailors are sleeping in their hammocks. As an officer inspects the quarters, he stumbles and takes out his aggression on a sleeping sailor. The ruckus causes Vakulinchuk to awake, and he gives a speech to the men as they come to. Vakulinchuk says, "Comrades! The time has come when we too must speak out. Why wait? All of Russia has risen! Are we to be the last?" The scene cuts to morning above deck, where sailors are remarking on the poor quality of the meat for the crew. The meat appears to be rotten and covered in worms, and the sailors say that "even a dog wouldn't eat this!" The ship's doctor, Smirnov, is called over to inspect the meat by the captain. Rather than worms, the doctor says that the insects are maggots, and they can be washed off before cooking. The sailors further complain about the poor quality of the rations, but the doctor declares the meat edible and ends the discussion. Senior officer Giliarovsky forces the sailors still looking over the rotten meat to leave the area, and the cook begins to prepare borscht although he too questions the quality of the meat. The crew refuses to eat the borscht, instead choosing bread and water, and canned goods. While cleaning dishes, one of the sailors sees an inscription on a plate which reads "give us this day our daily bread". After considering the meaning of this phrase, the sailor smashes the plate and the scene ends.

Act II: Drama on the Deck

All those who refuse the meat are judged guilty of insubordination and are brought to the fore-deck where they receive religious last rites. The sailors are obliged to kneel and a canvas cover is thrown over them as a firing squad marches onto the deck. The First Officer gives the order to fire, but in response to Vakulinchuk's pleas the sailors in the firing squad lower their rifles and the uprising begins. The sailors overwhelm the outnumbered officers and take control of the ship. The officers are thrown overboard, the ship's priest is dragged out of hiding, and finally the doctor is thrown into the ocean as 'food for the worms'. The mutiny is successful but Vakulinchuk, the charismatic leader of the rebels, is killed.

Act III: A Dead Man Calls Out

The ''Potemkin'' arrives at the port of Odessa. Vakulinchuk's body is taken ashore and displayed publicly by his companions in a tent with a sign on his chest that says "For a spoonful of borscht" (Изъ-за ложки борща). The citizens of Odessa, saddened yet empowered by Vakulinchuk's sacrifice, are soon whipped into a frenzy against the Tsar and his government by sympathizers. A man allied with the government tries to turn the citizens' fury against the Jews, but he is quickly shouted down and beaten by the people. The sailors gather to make a final farewell and praise Vakulinchuk as a hero. The people of Odessa welcome the sailors, but they attract the police as they mobilize against the government.

Act IV: The Odessa Steps

The citizenry of Odessa take to their ships and boats, sailing out to the ''Potemkin'' to show their support to the sailors and donate supplies, while a crowd of others gather at the Odessa steps to witness the happenings and cheer on the rebels. Suddenly a detachment of dismounted Cossacks form battle lines at the top of the steps and march toward a crowd of unarmed civilians including women and children, and begin firing and advancing with fixed bayonets. Every now and again, the soldiers halt to fire a volley into the crowd before continuing their impersonal, machine-like assault down the stairs, ignoring the people's pleas for humanity and understanding. Meanwhile, government cavalry attack the fleeing crowd at the bottom of the steps as well, cutting down many of those who survived the dismounted assault. Brief sequences show individuals among the people fleeing or falling, a baby carriage rolling down the steps, a woman shot in the face, broken glasses, and the high boots of the soldiers moving in unison.

In retaliation, the sailors of the ''Potemkin'' use the guns of the battleship to fire on the city opera house, where Tsarist military leaders are convening a meeting. Meanwhile, there is news that a squadron of loyal warships is coming to quell the revolt of the ''Potemkin''.

Act V: One Against All

The sailors of the ''Potemkin'' decide to take the battleship out from the port of Odessa to face the fleet of the Tsar. Just when battle seems inevitable, the sailors of the Tsarist squadron refuse to open fire, cheering and shouting to show solidarity with the mutineers and allowing the ''Potemkin'', flying the red flag, to pass between their ships.

SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, it targets the British secret service agent James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of the SMERSH agents Le Chiffre, Mr Big and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a "death warrant" is issued for him. His death is planned to precipitate a major sex scandal, which will run in the world press for months and leave his and his service's reputations in tatters. Bond's killer is to be the SMERSH executioner Donovan "Red" Grant, a British Army deserter and psychopath whose homicidal urges coincide with the full moon. Kronsteen, SMERSH's chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, the head of Operations and Executions, devise the operation. They instruct an attractive young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to falsely defect from her post in Istanbul and claim to have fallen in love with Bond after seeing a photograph of him. As an added lure for Bond, Romanova will provide the British with a Spektor, a Russian decoding device much coveted by MI6. She is not told the details of the plan.

The offer of defection is received by MI6 in London, ostensibly from Romanova, but is conditional that Bond collects her and the Spektor from Istanbul. MI6 is unsure of Romanova's motive, but the prize of the Spektor is too tempting to ignore; Bond's superior, M, orders him to go to Turkey. Once there, Bond forms a comradeship with Darko Kerim, head of the British service's station in Turkey. Bond meets Romanova and they plan their route out of Turkey with the Spektor. He and Kerim believe her story and the three board the Orient Express. Kerim quickly discovers three Russian MGB agents on board, travelling incognito. He uses bribes and trickery to have two of them taken off the train, but he is later found dead in his compartment with the body of the third MGB agent.

At Trieste a man introduces himself as Captain Nash, a fellow MI6 agent, and Bond presumes he has been sent by M as added protection for the rest of the trip. Romanova is suspicious of Nash, but Bond reassures her that the man is from his own service. After dinner, at which Nash has drugged Romanova, they rest. Nash later wakes Bond, holding him at gunpoint, and reveals himself as the killer Grant. Instead of killing Bond immediately, he describes SMERSH's plan. He is to shoot both of them, throw Romanova's body out the window, and plant a film of their love-making in her luggage; in addition, the Spektor is booby-trapped to explode when examined. As Grant talks, Bond places his metal cigarette case between the pages of a book he holds in front of him, positioning it in front of his heart to stop the bullet. After Grant fires, Bond collapses to the floor and, when Grant steps over him, he attacks and kills the assassin. Bond and Romanova escape.

Later, in Paris, after successfully delivering Romanova and the booby-trapped Spektor to his superiors, Bond meets Rosa Klebb. She is captured but manages to kick Bond with a poisoned blade concealed in her shoe; the story ends with Bond fighting for breath and falling to the floor.

The story follows a girl named Tenar, born on the Kargish island of Atuan. Born on the day that the high priestess of the Tombs of Atuan died, she is believed to be her reincarnation. Tenar is taken from her family when five years old and goes to the Tombs. Her name is taken from her in a ceremony, and she is referred to as "Arha", or the "eaten one", after being consecrated to the service of the "Nameless Ones" at the age of six with a ceremony involving a symbolic sacrifice. She moves into her own tiny house, and is given a eunuch servant, Manan, with whom she develops a bond of affection.

Arha's childhood and youth are lonely; her only friends are Manan and Penthe, a priestess her own age. She is trained in her duties by Thar and Kossil, the priestesses of the two other major deities. Thar tells her of the undertomb and the labyrinth beneath the Tombs, teaching her how to find her way around them. She tells of the treasure hidden within the labyrinth, which wizards from the archipelago have tried to steal. When Arha asks about the wizards, Thar tells her that they are unbelievers who can work magic. When she turns fourteen, Arha assumes all the responsibilities of her position, becoming the highest ranked priestess in the Tombs. She is required to order the death of prisoners sent to the Tombs by the God-King of the Kargad lands; she has them killed by starvation, an act which haunts her for a long time. After Thar dies of old age, Arha becomes increasingly isolated: although stern, Thar had been fair to her. Kossil despises Arha and sees the Nameless Ones as a threat to her power.

Arha's routine is disrupted by her discovery of the wizard Ged (the protagonist of ''A Wizard of Earthsea'') in the undertomb. She traps him in the labyrinth by slamming the door on him, and through a peephole sees him unsuccessfully attempt to open the door with a spell. Trapped in the labyrinth, Ged eventually collapses out of exhaustion, and Arha has him chained up while debating what to do with him. After questioning him, she learns that he has come to the Tombs for the long-lost half of the ring of Erreth-Akbe, a magical talisman broken centuries before, necessary for peace in Earthsea. The other half had come into his possession by pure chance, and a dragon later told him what it was. Arha is drawn to him as he tells her of the outside world, and keeps him prisoner in the tombs, bringing him food and water. However, Kossil learns of Ged's existence, forcing Arha to promise that Ged will be sacrificed to the Nameless Ones; however, she realizes that she cannot go through with it. She instructs Manan to dig a false grave underground, while she herself takes Ged to hide in the treasury of the Tombs.

Arha and Kossil have a public falling out, in which Kossil says that nobody believes in the Nameless Ones anymore. In response, Arha curses her in the name of the Nameless Ones. Realizing that Kossil will now be determined to kill her, she heads to the labyrinth and sees Kossil uncovering the false grave. Evading her, Arha goes to the treasury and confesses everything to Ged, who has found the other half of Erreth-Akbe's ring in the treasury. He tells Arha that she must either kill him or escape with him, and says that the Nameless Ones demand her service, but give nothing and create nothing in return. He tells her his true name, Ged, in return for the trust she has shown him. They escape together, though Manan, who has come looking for Arha, falls into a pit in the labyrinth and is killed when he attempts to attack Ged. The tombs begin to collapse in on themselves; Ged holds them off until they leave. Arha reverts to calling herself Tenar as she and Ged travel to the coast where his boat is hidden. While waiting for the tide, she feels an urge to kill Ged for destroying her life, but realizes while gazing at him that she has no anger left. Ged and Tenar sail to Havnor, where they are received in triumph.

Aziraphale, an angel (originally a guardian of the gates of Eden), and Crowley, a demon (originally the serpent who tempted Eve) have lived on Earth since its creation. Over the millennia, they have formed an odd friendship and taken a liking to humanity. One night, the forces of Hell deliver the infant Antichrist to Crowley, with instructions to swap him with the son of an American diplomat stationed in Britain. Crowley realizes this means that the Apocalypse is coming and persuades Aziraphale to help him postpone it. Together, they decide to influence the Antichrist's upbringing by posing as a nanny and a gardener so that he can never decide between Good and Evil.

However, due to several misunderstandings at the hospital, the real Antichrist is actually another boy, Adam Young, who grows up unnoticed in idyllic Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, together with his three close friends – Pepper, Wensleydale and Brian. As the foretold end of the world nears, Adam begins to unknowingly use his reality warping powers, changing the world to fit his vision of things ought to be, such as raising the lost continent of Atlantis after reading about it in a conspiracy theory magazine, summoning UFOs after talking to his friends about aliens, and having the Amazon rainforest reclaim land lost to urban development. In the meantime, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble: War (a war correspondent), Famine (a dietician and fast-food tycoon), Pollution (Pestilence having retired after the discovery of penicillin) and Death (a biker).

Aziraphale and Crowley realize their mistake and begin a frantic search for the Antichrist. Also looking for the boy is Anathema Device, a witch who is trying to prevent the Apocalypse as predicted by her ancestor, Agnes Nutter. Agnes' prophecies are perfectly accurate, but so cryptic and specific as to be nearly useless. Anathema is joined by Newton Pulsifer, sole recruit of the Witchfinder Army (and descendent of Thou-Shall-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer, the Witchfinder who burnt Agnes Nutter at the stake), who has been sent to investigate the strange phenomena around Tadfield by Sergeant Shadwell, the Army's only other member. Everyone, including Shadwell's medium neighbour, Madame Tracy, converge at Tadfield Military Base, where the Four Horsemen are starting a world-ending nuclear war by tampering with the computer systems.

Amid the increasing chaos, Adam is overcome with visions of greatness and attempts to split the world between his gang. When his friends react with horror at what he is becoming, Adam comes to his senses and decides to stop the Apocalypse. He and his friends make their way to the military base and defeat three of the Four Horsemen, with Death accepting defeat and vanishing. A furious Satan starts to ascend to Earth, but Adam, having heard that "his father is coming", twists reality so that his human adoptive father arrives instead, then modifies everyone's memories of recent events.

With Armageddon averted, Crowley and Aziraphale muse that this was God's plan all along and speculate that the real apocalyptic conflict will be between humanity and the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. Madame Tracy marries Sergeant Shadwell, effectively disbanding the Witchfinder Army. Anathema begins a relationship with Newton and receives a second book of Agnes' prophecies, but decides to burn it so as not to be bound by them. Finally, Adam uses his powers to evade his father's grounding and visit the circus with his friends.

Coraline Jones and her workaholic parents move into an old house that has been divided into flats. The other tenants include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr Bobo, initially referred to as "the crazy old man upstairs," who claims to be training a mouse circus. The flat beside Coraline's is unoccupied, and a small door that links them is revealed to be bricked up when opened.

Coraline goes to visit her new neighbours. Mr Bobo relays to her a message from his mice: "Don't go through the door." Coraline also has tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline's future after reading her tea leaves.

Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself. This time, she finds the brick wall behind the door is gone. In its place is a long hallway that leads to a flat identical to her own, except inhabited by the "Other Mother" and "Other Father," who have black buttons for eyes. The Other Mother is notably taller and thinner than her real mother. Her black hair seems to move by itself, her skin is paper-white, and her nails are long and red. Coraline finds the "Other World" more interesting than her own; the Other Mother cooks food that she actually enjoys, both of her Other Parents pay more attention to her, her toy box is filled with animate toys that can move and fly, the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible perform a never-ending act in their flat, and the Other Mr Bobo performs a mouse circus. She even finds that the stray black cat that wanders around the house in the real world can talk. The cat identifies itself as the same cat that lives in the real world and possesses the ability to traverse between the two dimensions. Although intentionally rude and unhelpful for the greater part of the conversation, it briefly praises her for bringing "protection," then vanishes.

After Coraline returns to the copy of her flat, the Other Mother offers Coraline the opportunity to stay in the Other World permanently, but in order to do so, Coraline must allow buttons to be sewn over her eyes. Coraline is horrified and returns through the door to her home. Upon her return, Coraline finds that her real parents are missing. They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing "Help Us" on the glass, from which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. She first calls the police, but they do not believe her. So Coraline, though frightened of returning, goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. In the garden, Coraline is prompted by the cat to challenge the Other Mother, as "Her kind of thing loves games and challenges." The Other Mother tries to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses and is locked within a small space behind a mirror as punishment.

In the small dark closet space, she meets three ghost children. Each had in the past let the Other Mother, whom they archaically refer to as the "beldam", sew buttons over their eyes. They tell Coraline how the Beldam eventually grew bored with them, leaving them to die and cast them aside, but they are trapped there because she has kept their souls. If the essences of their souls can be rescued from the Beldam, then they can pass on. The ghost children implore Coraline to escape and avoid their fate.

After the Beldam releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game: if she can find the essences of the ghost children's souls and her parents, then she, her parents, and the ghost children may go free. If she fails, she will finally accept the Beldam's offer. Coraline searches through the Other World and overcomes the Other Mother's obstacles by using her wits and Miss Spink's lucky adder stone (the protection the cat spoke of) to find the souls' essences. She also deduces that her parents are imprisoned in a snow globe on the mantelpiece. The ghost children warn her that even if Coraline succeeds, the Beldam will not let her go, so Coraline tricks the Other Mother by announcing that she knows where her parents are hidden: in the passageway between the dimensions. The Beldam cannot resist gloating by opening the door to show Coraline that her parents are not there. When the Beldam opens the door, Coraline throws the cat at her, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to the real world with the key, and the cat quickly follows. While escaping, Coraline forces the door shut on the Beldam's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline falls asleep on a chair. She is awoken by her parents who don't have any memory of what happened to them.

That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children at a picnic. The children are dressed in clothes from different periods and one seems to have wings. They warn her that her task is still not done: the Beldam will attempt to get her back and will try to get the key to unlock the door. Coraline goes to the old well in the woods to dispose of the key. She pretends to have a picnic, with the picnic blanket laid over the entrance to the well. The Beldam's severed hand attempts to seize the key, but steps on the blanket and falls into the well. Coraline returns to the house, greeting her neighbours, and gets ready for school the next day.

In 1916, the magician Roderick Burgess attempts to attain immortality by capturing the embodiment of Death. Mistakenly, he binds Death's brother Dream instead. Fearing retribution, Burgess keeps Dream imprisoned, which causes a worldwide epidemic of sleeping sickness. In 1988, after Burgess has died and his son Alex has been charged with watching Dream, Dream is able to escape. Dream punishes Alex by cursing him to experience an unending series of nightmares.

Dream (also known as Morpheus) is weakened after his captivity, and attempts to return to his realm. He is found by Gregory, a gargoyle belonging to Cain and Abel. Once they have nursed Dream back to health, Dream returns to his home and is shocked to see it has fallen into ruin. Lucien, the librarian, fills Dream in on the goings-on since his incarceration.

Dream begins a quest to recover his totems of power (a pouch of sand, a helm, and a ruby), which were dispersed following his capture. After retrieving the pouch from a former girlfriend of exorcist John Constantine, Dream travels to hell seeking his helm. While in Hell he stumbles upon his lover Nada (who knows Morpheus as "Lord Kai'ckul"), but states he has not forgiven her and shall not free her. He is guided by the demon Etrigan to Lucifer. Dream explains one of the demons in Hell has his Helm, and it is returned to him following a battle of wits which Dream wins. Lucifer is angered by this though and swears vengeance on Dream.

The ruby is in the possession of John Dee, a.k.a. Doctor Destiny, who was committed to Arkham Asylum by the Justice League of America. Dee escapes before going to a diner, where he distorts reality for those inside, using them as toys until they all ultimately murder each other or commit suicide. Dream arrives and attempts to take the ruby, only to be overpowered by Dee. Thinking it will kill Dream, Dee shatters the ruby, inadvertently returning its power to Dream. Considering Dee at least partially responsible for his victory, Dream shows mercy and returns Dee to Arkham.

Reflecting on his recent incarceration and feeling somewhat depressed that he may have forgotten his purpose, Dream is visited by his sister Death, who- after a brief argument- talks Dream out of his brief depression and persuades him to explore the world with her, as she does her job ferrying the dying to the afterlife. After visiting various dying people, including a skater who is hit by a car, an old Venetian poet who dies of old age and a new-born who suffers cot death, Dream is shown what he missed during his seven decades in prison, and finds solace and a new purpose.

As part of a manhood ritual, an old man in the desert tells a younger man an ancient story, detailing the tragic love between Dream and Queen Nada. Fearing the consequences of loving an immortal, Nada spurns Dream. In anger, Dream sends Nada to Hell, where she remains to the present day.

Meanwhile, Dream's androgynous sibling Desire calls upon their twin, Despair, to inform her there is a new dream vortex. The two of them allude to a scheme against Dream.

Dream reviews a census of his realm, and discovers four of his creations are missing. On Earth, Rose Walker and her mother Miranda meet Unity Kinkaid, a victim of the sleeping sickness that occurred while Dream was imprisoned. While Miranda stays in England with Unity, Rose goes in search of her younger brother, Jed. As she tries to track his whereabouts, Rose takes residence in a boarding house full of peculiar characters, including Chantal and Zelda, who always wear bridal garb and own a collection of stuffed spiders; Ken and Barbie, an extremely yuppie-ish couple; the eccentric Gilbert, a self-described "amateur knight errant"; and the landlord Hal, who performs at nightclubs in drag. At night, Rose dreams of her brother, whose new caretakers keep him locked in their basement while they enjoy the monetary benefits they receive for caring for him. Meanwhile, Brute and Glob, two creatures created by Dream, have taken residence in Jed's mind. Jed is freed when Dream collects Brute and Glob, but is himself captured by the Corinthian, an escaped nightmare. Dream speaks with Hob Gadling, whom Dream granted immortality in 1389. The two share a drink in the same tavern every hundred years.

In search of Jed, Rose and Gilbert stop at a hotel, where the Corinthian is attending a convention of serial killers. Gilbert recognizes the Corinthian, and tells Rose that if she is in danger she should call upon Dream, under his by-name of "Morpheus". When one of the serial killers attacks her, Rose summons him; whereupon Dream destroys the Corinthian and punishes the convention by revealing the pettiness of their crimes. Gilbert finds Jed and has him sent to a hospital; while Dream informs Rose she is a 'dream vortex', capable of uniting the imaginations of everyone she meets, and the world will be destroyed if he does not kill her. Gilbert, now identified as the fourth missing creation, offers his life in Rose's place; but is refused. Before Dream can kill Rose, Unity assumes the vortex in her stead, and seems to naturally die in the waking world, thus destroying the vortex; whereupon Dream frees Rose, who re-unites thereafter with Jed and Miranda. After months of thought, Dream confronts Desire, who admits to impregnating Unity in the hope that Dream would kill Rose, and thus occasion his own destruction, as the Endless are strictly forbidden from killing relations. Dream then warns Desire against plotting thus, and departs.

This collection begins with an Endless family meeting, wherein Desire taunts Morpheus about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, the African queen 'Nada' ("Nada" is "Nothing" in Spanish), whose story formed the prologue to the second collection, ''The Doll's House'', and Death angers him further by agreeing with Desire, whereupon Morpheus visits Hell to retrieve Nada. As he arrives, Lucifer expels all the demons and damned souls from Hell, abdicates as its ruler, and gives Morpheus the key to Hell's gates (this episode sets up the basis for the spin-off comic series ''Lucifer'' written by Mike Carey).

Word of Lucifer's abdication spreads to other immortals, who visit the Dreaming to bargain for it: Odin wishes to control Hell to avoid Ragnarök and travels to the Dreaming with Loki and Thor; Anubis, Bast, and Bes to offer information in exchange for the key to Hell; Susano-o-no-Mikoto, requests to add Hell to a new underworld controlled by his family; and Azazel arrives with Choronzon and Merkin, and demands the key in exchange for Nada and Choronzon. Order is personified as an empty cardboard box carried by a djinn-like being, while Chaos appears as a small girl in clown makeup; whereof Order offers to trade the dreams of the newly dead, while Chaos simply threatens Morpheus and gives him a toy balloon. The faerie Cluracan and his sister Nuala appeal to Morpheus to give control of Hell to no one, and Cluracan offers his sister in exchange. Duma and Remiel are set to observe the negotiations (Susano-o-no-Mikoto, Duma, and Remiel later become important characters in the spin-off series ''Lucifer'').

After private negotiations with single divinities that represent each group of gods, Dream gives Duma and Remiel the key; then Dream fights with Azazel, enters inside him and frees Nada, while trapping Azazel in Dream's realm. Later, Dream apologizes to Nada for what he has done to her, and she is reincarnated as a newborn human child, with permission to enter the Dreaming at will.

Between these deliberations is the story "In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education", from issue #25, which takes place at a traditional English boarding-school (and borrows elements from the boarding-school story genre) and is used to illustrate the consequences of Hell's closure. Although the two main characters in this tale, the ghosts of two school boys, never appear again in the Sandman series, they later appear as the Dead Boy Detectives in Gaiman's Vertigo crossover story ''The Children's Crusade'', and in a mini-series of the same name by Jill Thompson.

The collection presents two simultaneous endings: Dream discovers Loki absconding from his punishment, but decides not to reveal it, and also proposes the latter a negotiation to set him free (this has its sequel in the last collection of ''Sandman''). Meanwhile, Lucifer, without his wings, sits on an Australian beach, and grudgingly admires a sunset. In the epilogue, Duma and Remiel have become the new rulers of Hell, and initiate a new regimen of punishment meant to "redeem" the condemned (much to the latter's dismay).

A vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his 200-year-long life story to a reporter referred to simply as "the boy".

In 1791, Louis is a young indigo plantation owner living in Louisiana. Distraught by the death of his brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends time feeding off slaves while Louis, who finds it morally repugnant to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the vampires and instigate an uprising.

Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat kill the slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature, but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon.

Escaping to New Orleans, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden, five-year-old girl, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire "daughter" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name Claudia.

Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia. Claudia takes to killing easily, but she begins to realize over time she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a young girl.

Claudia blames Lestat for her state and, after 60 years of living with him, hatches a plot to kill Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames.

Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than mindless, animated corpses. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves, meeting the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven at the Théâtre des Vampires.

Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on terrified humans in mock plays before a live audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other.

Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia convinces Louis to turn a Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as a replacement companion for her. Louis, Madeleine, and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by Armand's coven.

Lestat arrives, having survived the fire in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun; a devastated Louis finds their ashen remains.

Louis returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground and killing all the vampires inside, leaving with Armand. Together, the two travel across Europe for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death, and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves.

Tired of the Old World, Louis returns to New Orleans in the early 20th century. Living as a loner, he feeds off any humans who cross his path, but lives in the shadows, never creating another companion for himself.

Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans in the 1920s, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality and of all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness.

The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Angry that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, attacking the boy and vanishing without a trace. The boy then leaves to track down Lestat in the hopes that he can give him immortality.

''Seven Against Thebes'' features little action; instead, the bulk of the play consists of rich dialogues between the citizens of Thebes and their king Eteocles regarding the threat of the hostile army before their gates. Dialogues show aspects of Eteocles' character. There is also a lengthy description of each of the seven captains that lead the Argive army against the seven gates of the city of Thebes as well as the devices on their respective shields. Eteocles, in turn, announces which Theban commanders he will send against each Argive attacker. Finally, the commander of the troops before the seventh gate is revealed to be Polynices, the brother of the king. Then Eteocles remembers and refers to the curse of their father Oedipus. Eteocles resolves to meet and fight his brother in person before the seventh gate and exits. Following a choral ode, a messenger enters, announcing that the attackers have been repelled but that Eteocles and Polynices have killed each other in battle. Their bodies are brought on stage, and the chorus mourns them.

Due to the popularity of Sophocles' play ''Antigone'', the ending of ''Seven Against Thebes'' was rewritten about fifty years after Aeschylus' death. While Aeschylus wrote his play to end with somber mourning for the dead brothers, it now contains an ending that serves as a lead-in of sorts to Sophocles' play: a messenger appears, announcing a prohibition against burying Polynices; his sister Antigone, however, announces her intention to defy this edict.

The seven attackers and defenders in the play are:

The central character of ''A Game of You'' is Barbie, introduced as a resident of the house where Rose Walker stayed during the events of ''The Doll's House'', wherein Barbie dreamt a vivid dream of herself as a princess of a fantasy realm. As ''A Game of You'' opens, Barbie who no longer dreams, but lives in an apartment block with her best friend Wanda, a transgender woman; the lesbian couple Hazel and Foxglove; the witch Thessaly; and a quiet man named George. Martin Tenbones, a character of Barbie's dreams in ''The Doll's House'', enters into the waking world to give her the Porpentine, a quartz amulet, but is slain by the police. Using the Porpentine, Barbie returns to her fantasy realm, known simply as the Land, where she is required to oppose the mysterious villain called the 'Cuckoo'. Upon return to the Land she is greeted by Wilkinson the shrew, Prinado the monkey, and Luz the dodo—her allies in the quest. In New York, George, recruited by the Cuckoo, releases a flock of birds to give nightmares to the other apartment residents. Immune to this, Thessaly kills George, and uses George's remains to divine the threat of the Cuckoo. Thessaly then summons the moon, which offers advice; on which Thessaly, Hazel, and Foxglove travel to the Land to assist Barbie, leaving Wanda with the unconscious Barbie and George's still-animated head.

Barbie has several adventures, which involve pursuit, loss of friends, and betrayal, and discovers that the Cuckoo resembles herself as a child, while the Land is identified as part of The Dreaming. The Cuckoo describes Barbie as "the perfect place to develop" and describes herself as "unable to fly", but intends to escape from the Land so that she can fly through the worlds and lay her own eggs in more young girls' minds. She therefore causes Barbie to break the Porpentine on a monolith called the Hierogram, which summons Morpheus and dissolves the Land. Morpheus absorbs its inhabitants and assures the Land's original owner, a woman named Alianora, that the Land has been home to many minds since her own time. Thessaly urges him to kill the Cuckoo, but Morpheus suggests that some action of Barbie's prevented the Cuckoo from leaving the Land, in connection to the events of ''The Doll's House''. Dream then grants Barbie a boon, for which she asks that she and her friends be returned to New York "safe and sound". The Cuckoo flies away, and Barbie and her friends learn that a storm, resulting from Thessaly's spell, has killed Wanda. At the funeral, Barbie finds that Wanda's conservative parents have cut off her long hair, and buried under her deadname, Alvin Mann. After the funeral, when the mourners have departed, Barbie uses Wanda's favorite lipstick to correct the name on the tombstone. She then dreams of Wanda and Death, who both wave her goodbye.

In November 1941, nine months after a German invasion led to the British surrender, Douglas Archer is a detective-superintendent of London's Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard who works on homicide crimes. His boss is SS ''Gruppenführer'' Fritz Kellermann, the German head of police forces in Britain. Having lost his wife, Jill, and his home during the German invasion, Archer lives with his son, "Douggie", at the home of Mrs Sheenan and her son, Bob. Archer's colleagues are Detective-Sergeant Harry Woods and his secretary and lover, Sylvia Manning.

Archer is called to investigate the murder of a well-dressed man at a flat above an antiques shop in Shepherd Market. Although the body has two gunshot wounds, Archer is puzzled by its condition, particularly by what appears to be sunburn on the arm. Archer also finds a prosthetic arm and a return ticket to Bringle Sands, where the Germans have an atomic research facility. Despite stolen identification identifying the man as Peter Thomas, Archer discovers that the man's true identity is William Spode, a British atomic physicist in the German atomic program and secretly involved with the British Resistance.

Since the case is linked to the German atomic program, Berlin dispatches SS ''Standartenführer'', Oskar Huth, who arrives to supervise the investigation. Archer soon finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between Huth and Kellerman that is complicated by interservice rivalry between the SS, German Army, Gestapo and Abwehr. Archer becomes romantically involved with an attractive American journalist, Barbara Barga, who is connected to the British Resistance leader Colonel George Mayhew. He also learns that his colleagues Woods and Sylvia are also members of the British resistance.

During the course of the investigation, Archer foils a plot by Spode's brother and Resistance member John Spode to kidnap his son as part of an attempt to blackmail him. Archer travels to the British prisoner-of-war camp that produced the prosthetic limbs and captures John, who signs a confession but claims that William's death was a suicide. John then commits suicide with cyanide provided by an Abwehr officer Captain Hesse, who is under orders from his superiors to prevent him from divulging the German Army's atomic program to the rival SS.

Archer accompanies Hesse to a meeting with Mayhew and an Abwehr general, where he learns that the British Resistance and the German Army are conspiring to liberate King George VI from SS custody out of mutual interests. The British Resistance plan to smuggle him to the United States to shore up Rear-Admiral Conolly's Free British government in exile. Meanwhile, the Abwehr and the German Army want to embarrass the SS and to recover William's stolen atomic research. Archer later learns that the research is stored on a piece of film hidden in the prosthetic limb found at the flat.

Later, the British resistance bomb a "German-Soviet Friendship Week ceremony" to repatriate Karl Marx's remains from Highgate Cemetery. In response, the Germans impose martial law and detain thousands of Londoners, including Woods and Manning. Woods is detained by the Gestapo, and Sylvia is killed during an escape attempt. Kellerman uses his connections to secure Woods's release but forces him to sign a statement compromising Archer.

Archer passes the atomic research film to Mayhew. Together, they travel to an English countryside, where they rendezvous with the American agent Daniel Barga, Barbara's husband. Barga and Mayhew negotiate a deal for the Americans to allow the King to enter the US in return for receiving the German atomic research. Huth arrives to arrest the group, but Mayhew makes an agreement with him and departs.

The following day, Archer and Woods receive the comatose George VI from their German Army co-conspirators. They attempt to evacuate him to Bringle Sands in an ambulance, but it breaks down. Archer and Woods turn to Barbara for help, only to find that she has been killed by the Gestapo. With Mayhew's help, Archer and Woods manage to take the King to Bringle Sands to meet with a landing party of US Marines, led by Major Dodgson. Despite their efforts, the group is ambushed by Huth's SS forces and the King, Barga and Dodgson are killed. However, the King's rescue is a diversion for a larger American force to attack the Bringle Sands atomic research facility. The Americans obtain the facility's atomic research, equipment and several scientists during the raid, which deals a major blow to the German atomic research program.

Following the loss of Bringle Sands, Kellerman frames Huth for conspiring with Mayhew to rescue the King and allowing the Americans to attack Bringle Sands. Mayhew is pardoned in return for testifying against Huth at his trial. Archer is exonerated of any wrongdoing because of Huth and Woods's intervention. Prior to Huth's execution, Archer meets with Huth, who reveals that Mayhew used the King's rescue attempt as a diversion for US forces to attack Bringle Sands. With the loss of Bringle Sands, Huth believes that the US will win the atomic bomb race. In addition, Huth reveals that Woods was Kellerman's informant, that Kellerman arranged Barbara's murder and that Mayhew struck a deal with Huth. Archer comes to realise that Mayhew killed Spode to prevent the Americans from gaining access to his atomic research. He also considers Mayhew as "playing God and writing the future history books". Rather than presenting the outside world with a pathetic and infirm exile King George, Mayhew deliberately arranged for the King to die a martyr's death alongside Americans, eventually bringing the US into war with Germany. Meanwhile, the 15-year-old Princess Elizabeth will be crowned in exile and travel to Washington, DC, to arouse sympathy for the British Resistance.

Gunner's Mate Second Class Joe Brady and Seaman First Class Clarence Doolittle are USN sailors who have a four-day leave in Hollywood. Joe has his heart set on spending time with his girl (the never seen) Lola. Clarence, the shy choir boy turned sailor, asks Joe to teach him how to get girls. Donald, a little boy who wants to join the navy, is found wandering around the boulevard by a cop, who takes him to the police station. Clarence and Joe end up being picked up by the cops to help convince Donald to go home. After the two sailors wait at home and entertain Donald, Donald's Aunt Susie arrives. Clarence is smitten with her from the beginning. Susan goes on to tell them that she has been trying to find work in music, and longs to perform with José Iturbi. Trying to make Susan impressed with Clarence, Joe tells her that Clarence is a personal friend of Iturbi, and that he has arranged an audition for Susan with him. That night, they go out to a cafe (on an MGM recreation of Olvera Street) where Clarence meets a girl from Brooklyn, and they hit it off. The next day, Joe visits Donald's school, and tells the kids the story of how he got his medal, and how he brought happiness to a lonesome king (played by Jerry the Mouse in an animated sequence), and joy to the forest animals of the kingdom.

Meanwhile, Clarence has been trying to get into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios to find Iturbi with no luck. After many failed attempts to speak to Iturbi (including a rehearsal at the Hollywood Bowl), all hope is lost for Joe and Clarence, who want to come clean with Susan and tell her there was no audition. On Clarence and Joe's last day of leave, Susan runs into Iturbi In the studio commissary who has no idea of the audition. Susan begins to call Joe, whom by now she has fallen in love with, to yell at him. Iturbi stops her and agrees to get her a screen test, which turns out to be very successful. The movie ends as Iturbi conducts the choir in singing "Anchors Aweigh", while Joe and Susan, and Clarence and the "Girl from Brooklyn," kiss.

The unconventional Father Charles "Chuck" O'Malley (Bing Crosby) is assigned to St. Mary's parish, which includes a run-down inner-city school building on the verge of being condemned. O'Malley is to recommend whether or not the school should be closed and the children sent to another school with modern facilities; but the sisters feel that God will provide for them.

They put their hopes in Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers), a businessman who has constructed a modern building next door to the school which they hope he will donate to them. Father O'Malley and the dedicated but stubborn Sister Superior, Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman), both wish to save the school, but their different views and methods often lead to disagreements. One such involves student Eddie (Dickie Tyler), who is being bullied by another. A more serious one regards the promotion of an eighth-grade student, Patsy (Joan Carroll) of Syracuse, New York, whom the parish has taken in while her mother attempts to get back on her feet.

Sister Benedict contracts tuberculosis and the physician recommends to Father O'Malley that she be transferred to a dry climate with non-parochial duties, but without telling her the reason. She assumes the transfer is because of her disagreements with O'Malley and struggles to understand the reasons for the path set out for her. Just before Sister Benedict departs, Father O'Malley reveals the true reason for her temporary transfer, and she then leaves happily, looking forward to her return.

Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) is a salesgirl at the department store John B. Merlin and Son in New York City. Hired as temporary help for the Christmas season, she receives her dismissal notice as the season comes to a close. On her way home, she sees a stranger leaving a baby on the steps of an orphanage. Fearing exposure to the cold will harm the baby, Polly fails to catch the mother and takes it inside. An attendant mistakenly believes that Polly is the baby's mother, and insists she keep it or be reported to the authorities.

David Merlin (David Niven), the playboy son of the store's owner J.B. Merlin (Charles Coburn), is sympathetic to the "unwed mother" and arranges for her to get her job back. Mrs. Weiss (Ferike Boros), Polly's landlady, offers to take care of the boy when Polly is at work. Unable to convince anyone that she is not the mother, and threatened by David with loss of her job if she doesn't assume that role, Polly gives up and starts raising the child.

David's involvement with Polly gradually turns into love, but he keeps the relationship a secret from his father, fearing his reaction. When he finds that New Year's Eve has arrived and he has no date, David turns to Polly. He orders clothes to be sent from the store and takes her to a party. Although David is falling for Polly, he does not relish the idea of a "ready-made family".

When J.B. learns about the child, he assumes that David is the father. His suspicions are reinforced when, in a bit of bad timing, Polly and David each produce a different man whom they claim is the father. To his son's surprise, J.B. is delighted (he had been impatiently waiting for David to settle down and provide him with a grandson). In the end, David decides that he is in love with Polly and baby John. He tells his father that he is the father of the child and plans to marry Polly, all the while believing Polly is the child's mother.

As an ambulance arrives for the body of Cecilia Lisbon, a group of anonymous adolescent neighborhood boys recalls the events leading up to her death.

The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in the suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s. The father, Ronald Lisbon, is a math teacher at the local high school. The mother is a strict homemaker. The family has five attractive blonde daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese.

Without warning, Cecilia attempts suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. However, she is found in time by a boy in the neighborhood who had snuck into the home and survives. A few weeks later, the Lisbons meet with Cecilia's psychologist who suggests that the girls need more social interaction and that the potential cause of Cecilia's suicide attempt was the suppression of her libidinal urges. The parents allow the girls to throw a chaperoned party at their house in hopes of cheering Cecilia up. However, Cecilia excuses herself from the party, which is happening in the basement, and goes upstairs and jumps out of her second-story bedroom window. Cecilia is impaled on the fence post below, and she dies almost immediately.

The Lisbon parents, particularly Mrs. Lisbon, begin to watch their four remaining daughters more closely, which only further isolates the family from their upscale community. Cecilia's death also heightens the air of mystery about the Lisbon sisters to the neighborhood boys, who long for more insight into the girls' lives.

When school begins in the fall, Lux begins a secret romance with the local heartthrob, Trip Fontaine. Trip negotiates with the overprotective Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to take Lux to the homecoming dance, on the condition that he finds dates for the other three sisters as well. After winning homecoming King and Queen, Trip persuades Lux to ditch their group to have sex on the school's football field. Afterward, Trip abandons Lux, who falls asleep and misses her curfew. Trip and Lux never speak again.

In response to this incident, Mrs. Lisbon withdraws the girls from school and keeps them home in what the boys can only describe as "maximum security isolation". Mr. Lisbon is also fired from his teaching job due to the family's tragic situation.

Through the winter, Lux is seen by the anonymous teen boys having sex on the roof of the Lisbon residence with unnamed and unknown men at night. The tight-knit community gossip and watch as the Lisbons' lives deteriorate, but no-one has the courage to intervene. After many months of strict confinement, the remaining four sisters reach out to the boys across the street by using light signals and sending anonymous notes. The boys decide to call the Lisbon girls and communicate by playing records over the telephone for the girls to share and express their feelings.

Finally, one night the girls send a message to the boys to come over at midnight, leading the boys to believe that they will help the girls escape their suburban prison. The teens meet Lux, who is all alone smoking a cigarette. She invites them inside and tells them to wait for her sisters while she goes to start the car. As the boys wait, they explore the house. In the Lisbon basement, the boys discover Bonnie hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling rafters. Horrified, the boys flee the home.

In the morning, the authorities come for the dead bodies, as the girls had apparently made a suicide pact: Bonnie hanged herself, Therese overdosed on sleeping pills, and Lux died of carbon monoxide poisoning after sealing herself inside the garage with the car running. Mary attempted suicide by putting her head in the gas oven but failed. Mary lives for another month but everyone writes her off as dead. She finally ends her life by taking an overdose of sleeping pills like Therese. The adults in the community go on as if nothing happened. Local newspaper writer Linda Perl notes that the suicides came exactly one year after Cecilia's first attempt and describes the girls as tragic creatures who were so cut off from life that death was not much of a change.

After the funerals, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon leave Grosse Pointe, never to return and eventually divorce. The Lisbon house is sold to a young couple from the Boston area. All the furniture and personal belongings of the Lisbons are thrown out or sold during a garage sale. The narrators scavenge through the trash to collect mementos they will forever save as keepsakes. 20-something years later, as middle-aged men with families, they lament the suicides as selfish acts from which they have secretly not been able to emotionally recover. The novel closes with the now-grown men confessing that they had loved the girls but that they will never know the true motives behind the suicides.

Told in first person narrative by Al Manheim, drama critic of ''The New York Record'', this is the tale of Sammy Glick, a young uneducated boy who rises from copyboy to the top of the screenwriting profession in 1930s Hollywood by backstabbing others.

Manheim recalls how he first met the 16-year-old Sammy Glick when Sammy was working as a copyboy at Manheim's newspaper. Both awed and disturbed by Sammy's aggressive personality, Manheim becomes Sammy's primary observer, mentor and, as Sammy asserts numerous times, best friend.

Tasked with taking Manheim's column down to the printing room, one day Glick rewrites Manheim's column, impressing the managing editor and gaining a column of his own. Later he steals a piece by an aspiring young writer, Julian Blumberg, sending it under his own name to the famous Hollywood talent agent Myron Selznick. Glick sells the piece, "Girl Steals Boy", for $10,000 and leaves the paper to go to work in Hollywood, leaving behind his girlfriend, Rosalie Goldbaum. When the film of ''Girl Steals Boy'' opens, Sammy is credited for "original screenplay" and Blumberg is not acknowledged.

Glick rises to the top in Hollywood over the succeeding years, paying Blumberg a small salary under the table to be his ghost writer. He even manages to have "his" stageplay, ''Live Wire'', performed at the Hollywood Playhouse. Although the script is actually a case of plagiarism, ''The Front Page'' in flimsy disguise, no one except Manheim seems to notice. Sammy's bluffing also includes talking about books he has never read.

Manheim, whose ambitions are much more modest, is both fascinated and disgusted by the figure of Sammy Glick, and Manheim carefully chronicles his rise. In Hollywood, Manheim is disheartened to learn that Catherine "Kit" Sargent, a novelist and screenwriter he greatly admires, has fallen for Sammy's charms. Although Manheim is quite open about his feelings for Kit, she makes it clear she prefers Sammy, especially in bed. When she met Sammy, she told Manheim, she had "this crazy desire to know what it felt like to have all that driving ambition and frenzy and violence inside me."

Manheim also describes the Hollywood system in detail, as a money machine oppressive to talented writers. The bosses prefer to have carte blanche when dealing with their writers, ranging from having them work on a week-to-week basis to giving them a seven-year contract. In the film industry, Manheim remarks at one point in the novel, it is the rule rather than the exception that "convictions are for sale," with people double-crossing each other whenever the slightest chance presents itself to them. Hollywood, he notices, regularly and efficiently turns out three products: moving pictures, ambition, and fear. Manheim becomes an eyewitness to the birth of what was to become the Writers Guild, an organization created to protect the interests of the screenwriters.

After one of the studio's periodic reshufflings, Manheim finds himself out of work and goes back to New York. There, still preoccupied with Sammy Glick's rise to stardom, he investigates Sammy's past. He comes to understand, at least to some degree, "the machinery that turns out Sammy Glicks" and "the anarchy of the poor". Manheim realizes that Sammy grew up in the "dog-eat-dog world" of New York's Lower East Side (Rivington Street), much like the more sophisticated dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood. The one connection between Sammy's childhood days and his present position seems to be Sheik, someone who went to school with Sammy and regularly beat him up. Now Sheik is working as Glick's personal servant (or quasi-slave)—possibly some kind of belated act of revenge on Sammy's part, or the "victim's triumph".

When Manheim returns to Hollywood he becomes one of Glick's writers. There he realizes that there is also a small minority of honorable men working in pictures, especially producer Sidney Fineman, Glick's boss. Manheim teams up with Kit Sargent to write several films for Glick, who has successfully switched to production and moved into a gigantic manor in Beverly Hills.

Fineman's position becomes compromised by a string of flops, and Manheim attempts to convince Harrington, a Wall Street banker representing the film company's financiers, that Fineman is still the right man for the job. This is the moment when Glick sees his chance to get rid of Fineman altogether and take his place. At a reception, Glick meets Laurette, Harrington's daughter; he immediately and genuinely falls in love with this "golden girl," discarding his girlfriend. He feels that he is about to kill two birds with one stone by uniting his personal ambition and his love life.

Fineman, only 56, dies soon after losing his job to Sammy—of a broken heart, it is rumoured. Sammy's wedding is described by Manheim as "a marriage-to-end-all-marriages" staged in the beautiful setting of Sammy's estate. Manheim and Kit Sargent, who have finally decided to get married, slip away early to be by themselves. Sammy discovers Laurette making love in the guest room to Carter Judd, an actor Sammy has just hired. Laurette is not repentant: She coldbloodedly admits that she considers their marriage to be purely a business affair.

Sammy calls Manheim and asks him to come over to his place immediately. Once there, Manheim for the first time witnesses a self-conscious, desperate, and suffering Sammy Glick who cannot stand being alone in his big house. In the end, Sammy orders Sheik to get him a prostitute, while Manheim drives home.

In 2021, society is driven by a virtual Internet, which has created a degenerate effect called "nerve attenuation syndrome" or NAS. Megacorporations control much of the world, intensifying the class hostility already created by NAS.

Johnny is a "mnemonic courier" who discreetly transports sensitive data for corporations in a storage device implanted in his brain at the cost of his childhood memories. His current job is for a group of scientists in Beijing. Johnny initially balks when he learns the data exceeds his memory capacity even with compression, but agrees given the large fee will be enough to cover the cost of the operation to remove the device. Johnny warns that he must have the data extracted within a few days or suffer psychological damage. The scientists encrypt the data with three random images from a television feed and start sending these images to the receiver in Newark, New Jersey, but they are attacked and killed by the Yakuza led by Shinji (Akiyama) before the images can be fully transmitted. Johnny escapes with a portion of the images, but is pursued by both the Yakuza as well as security forces for Pharmakom, one of the mega-corporations run by Takahashi (Kitano), both seeking the data he carries. Johnny starts witnessing brief images of a female projection of an artificial intelligence (AI) who attempts to aid Johnny, but he dismisses her.

In Newark, Johnny meets with his handler Ralfi (Kier) to explain the situation, but finds Ralfi is also working with the Yakuza and wants to kill Johnny to get the storage device. Johnny is rescued by Jane (Meyer), a cybernetically-enhanced bodyguard, and members of anti-establishment Lo-Teks and their leader J-Bone (Ice-T). Jane takes Johnny to a clinic run by Spider (Rollins), who had installed Jane's implants. Spider reveals he was intended to receive the Beijing scientists' data, which is the cure for NAS stolen from Pharmakom; Spider claims Pharmakom refuses to release the cure as they are profiting off the mitigation of NAS. Unfortunately, even with the portion of the encryption images Johnny took and what Spider had received is not sufficient to decrypt Johnny's mind, and Spider suggests that they see Jones at the Lo-Teks' base. Just then, Karl "The Street Preacher" (Lundgren), an assassin hired by Takahashi, attacks the clinic, killing Spider as Johnny and Jane escape.

The two reach the Lo-Tek base and learn from J-Bone that Jones is a dolphin once used by the Navy which can help decrypt the data in Johnny's mind. Just as they start the procedure, Shinji and the Yakuza, Takahashi and his security forces, and the Street Preacher all attack the base, but Johnny, Jane, J-Bone and the other Lo-Teks are able to defeat all three forces. Takahashi turns over a portion of the encryption key before he dies, but this still is not enough to fully decrypt the data, and J-Bone tells Johnny that he will need to hack his own mind with Jones' help. The second attempt starts, and aided by the female AI, Johnny is able to decrypt the data and at the same time recover his childhood memories. The AI is revealed to be the virtual version of Johnny's mother who was also the founder of Pharmakom, angered at the company holding back the cure. As J-Bone transmits the NAS cure information across the Internet, Johnny and Jane watch from afar as the Pharmakom headquarters goes up in flames from the public outcry.

Dr. Constance Petersen is a psychoanalyst at Green Manors, a therapeutic community mental hospital in Vermont. She is perceived by the other doctors as detached and emotionless. The director of the hospital, Dr. Murchison, is being forced into retirement shortly after returning from an absence due to nervous exhaustion. His replacement is Dr. Anthony Edwardes, who turns out to be surprisingly young. Petersen is immediately smitten with Edwardes.

They fall in love. One day, while they are kissing, however, Petersen notices that this Edwardes has a peculiar phobia about sets of parallel lines against a white background. She compares Edwardes' signature on a letter to her with an autographed copy of one of his books, realizing that they do not match and he is an impostor. He confides to her that he has killed the real Edwardes and taken his place. He suffers from amnesia and does not know who he really is: he appears to be suffering a Dissociative fugue. Petersen believes he is innocent and that he is suffering from a guilt complex. He disappears overnight, leaving a note for her. At the same time, it becomes public knowledge that the supposed Edwardes is an impostor, and that the real Edwardes is missing and may have been killed.

Petersen manages to track him down to a New York City hotel, where he is living under the pseudonym John Brown. Despite his insistence for her to leave, Petersen insists on psychoanalyzing him to break through his amnesia and uncover his former memories. Pursued by the police through Grand Central Terminal, the two travel by train to Rochester, New York, where they stay with Dr. Alexander Brulov, Petersen's former mentor.

The two doctors analyze a dream that Brown had. He is playing cards in a mysterious club when a scantily-clad woman resembling Petersen starts kissing everybody there. His card partner, an older man, is accused of cheating and threatened by the club's masked proprietor. The scene changes to the older man standing on the precipice of a sloped roof; he falls off, and the proprietor is found to be standing behind a chimney and dropping a wheel he held in his hands. Brown's dream concludes with him being chased down a hill by a great pair of wings.

Petersen and Brulov conclude that Brown's phobia of dark lines on white is based on ski tracks in the snow, the older man in his dream is the real Edwardes, and he met his demise in a skiing accident. They use the detail of the wings to deduce that it must have been the Gabriel Valley ski lodge. Brown and Petersen travel there, planning on recreating the circumstances of Edwardes' death, despite fears that Brown may impulsively kill again in the same situation if he really were Edwardes' murderer.

As they go down the slope, Brown remembers details of his former life: he has a guilt complex, rooted in a childhood accident where he killed his brother by knocking him onto a spiked fence. He also recalls that Edwardes fell off the cliff in front of them, and is able to stop himself and Petersen just in time. He recounts his memories to Petersen back in the ski lodge, most notably that his real name is John Ballantyne. The police arrive, reveal that they found Edwardes' body where Ballantyne claimed it would be, but with a bullet wound in his back. Ballantyne is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder.

A heartbroken Petersen returns to her position at the hospital, where Murchison is once again the director. Murchison lets slip that he knew Edwardes slightly and did not like him, contradicting his earlier statement that they had never met. This inspires Petersen to re-examine her notes of Ballantyne's dream: the masked proprietor represents Murchison, the wheel represents a revolver, and Murchison therefore murdered Edwardes and left the gun on the ski slope.

Petersen confronts Murchison in his office to prove her hunch; she relates Ballantyne's dream to Murchison, getting him to admit that the masked proprietor likely represents himself. She presents her accusation, and Murchison replies that she got every detail right but one: he still has the revolver, and draws it on her. Petersen reasons with Murchison as she walks out of his office to phone the police, pointing out that while he could plea insanity and get a lesser charge for Edwardes' murder, shooting her would guarantee his execution. She leaves the office, and Murchison turns the gun on himself.

The final scene shows Petersen and Ballantyne, now married, receiving well-wishes from Dr. Brulov before departing on their honeymoon at Grand Central Terminal.

(The action moves from a performance of the play, ''Henry V'', in 1600, transitioning to the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, then back to the play.)

A panorama of London in 1600 is shown and then the viewpoint travels to the Globe Theatre where the audience is being seated. The Chorus enters and implores the audience to use their imagination to visualise the setting of the play. Then is seen, up on a balcony, two clergymen, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely, discussing the current affairs of state. Henry then enters, and discusses with his nobles the state of France. A gift is delivered to Henry from the French Dauphin. The gift turns out to be tennis balls, a jibe at Henry's youth and inexperience. Offended, Henry sends the French ambassador away, and prepares to claim the French throne, a throne that he believes is rightfully his.

Then characters from Shakespeare's ''Henry IV'' plays, Corporal Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, are shown. These characters resolve to join Henry's army; however, before they do, Falstaff, another returning character, and one of the King's former mentors, dies. At this point, the action moves to Southampton and out of the Globe.

At Southampton, the fleet embarks, and lands in France, beginning a campaign that tears through France to Harfleur, to which Henry's forces lay siege. At the siege, Henry delivers his first rousing speech to his troops: "Once more... unto the breach! Dear friends, once more!" The troops charge on Harfleur, and take it as their own.

The troops then march to Agincourt, meeting the French forces. The night before the impending battle, Henry wanders around the camp in disguise, to find out what the men think of him. The next day, before the battle, Henry delivers his famous Saint Crispin's Day speech.

The action transitions from the Globe to the fields of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The English archers let forth a volley of arrows that cuts deeply into the French numbers. The French, weighed down by their heavy armour, are caught in the fresh mud of the field, and are bogged down, which gives the English troops ample opportunity to ride out and fight them on equal terms. The French Dauphin, seeing this disadvantage, watches as several bodyguards and noblemen including the Constable of France ride toward the English camp and kill all the boys and squires, prompting a tearful Fluellen to cry that "this is expressly against the law of arms". Henry is angered by this and rides out to meet the French Constable, whom he defeats in personal combat.

The battle is won. Henry comes to discuss peace and then woos the Princess Katherine. His success means that France is now under the control of England, as the French King, Charles VI, adopts Henry as his successor. In the final moments, the viewpoint returns to the Globe Theatre and the play, where the actors take their bows.

Maugham begins by characterising his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell's lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fiancée's uncle Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and an unrepentantly shallow yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the thirteenth-century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck.

Wounded and traumatised by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago and his fiancée Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to seek paid employment and instead will "loaf" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Sophie, Larry's childhood friend, settles into a happy marriage, only to later tragically lose her husband and baby in a car accident.

Larry moves to Paris and immerses himself in study and bohemian life. After two years of this "loafing", Isabel visits and Larry asks her to join his life of wandering and searching, living in Paris and traveling with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave the coal mine and travel together for a time before parting ways. Larry then meets a Benedictine monk named Father Ensheim in Bonn, Germany, while Father Ensheim is on leave from his monastery doing academic research. After spending several months with the Benedictines and being unable to reconcile their conception of God with his own, Larry takes a job on an ocean liner and finds himself in Bombay.

Larry has significant spiritual adventures in India and comes back to Paris. What he actually found in India and what he finally concluded are held back from the reader for a considerable time until, in a scene late in the book, Maugham discusses India and spirituality with Larry in a café long into the evening. He starts off the chapter by saying "I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of the story as I have to tell, since for most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. However, I should add that except for this conversation, I would perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book." Maugham then initiates the reader to Advaita philosophy and reveals how, through deep meditation and contact with Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi, disguised as Sri Ganesha in the novel, Larry goes on to realise God through the experience of samadhi—thus becoming a saint—and in the process gains liberation from the cycle of human suffering, birth, and death that the rest of the earthly mortals are subject to.

The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live in her uncle Elliott Templeton's grand Parisian house. Gray is often incapacitated with agonising migraines due to a general nervous collapse. Larry is able to help him using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Sophie has also drifted to the French capital, where her friends find her reduced to alcohol, opium, and promiscuity – empty and dangerous liaisons that seem to help her to bury her pain. Larry first sets out to save her and then decides to marry her, a plan which displeases Isabel, who is still in love with him.

Isabel tempts Sophie back into alcoholism with a bottle of "Pertsofka" and she disappears from Paris. Maugham deduces this after seeing Sophie in Toulon, where she has returned to smoking opium and promiscuity. He is drawn back into the tale when police interrogate him after Sophie has been found murdered with an inscribed book from him in her room, along with volumes by Baudelaire and Rimbaud.

Meanwhile, in Antibes, Elliott Templeton is on his deathbed. Despite the fact that he has throughout his life compulsively sought out aristocratic society, none of his titled friends come to see him, which makes him alternately morose and irate. But his outlook on death is somewhat positive: "I have always moved in the best society in Europe, and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven."

Isabel inherits his fortune, but genuinely grieves for her uncle. Maugham confronts her about Sophie, having figured out Isabel's role in Sophie's downfall. Isabel's only punishment will be that she will never get Larry, who has decided to return to the United States of America and live as a common working man. He is uninterested in the rich and glamorous world that Isabel will move in. Maugham ends his narrative by suggesting that all the characters got what they wanted in the end: "Elliott social eminence; Isabel an assured position...Sophie death; and Larry happiness."

Ezra "Penny" Baxter, once a Confederate soldier, and his wife Ora, are pioneer farmers near Lake George, Florida in 1878. Their son, Jody, a boy in his pre-teen years, is their only surviving child. Jody has a wonderful relationship with his warm and loving father. Ora, however, is still haunted by the deaths of the other children of the family she had lost over the years. She is very sombre and is afraid that Jody will end up dying if she shows her parental love to him. Jody finds her somewhat unloving and unreasonable.

With all of his siblings dead and buried, Jody longs for a pet to play with and care for. Penny is sympathetic and understanding, but Ora is disgusted and believes that a pet is nothing but trouble. One morning, Jody and his parents discover that their old enemy, a bear named Old Slewfoot, has returned and killed a calf and young pig from among their stock. They set out after the bear, accompanied by Penny's dogs Perk, Rip, and Julia. They catch up with the bear, but Old Slewfoot is able to escape after Perk flees from the bear fight in terror, Penny's gun backfires, and Julia is badly injured. Upset over his best hunting dog injured from the fight, his gun useless, and his new dog Perk useless as a hunting dog, Penny decides to trade in Perk for a new gun with his neighbors, the Forresters. Jody becomes acquainted with Fodderwing, who is the youngest of the Forresters and keeps a menagerie of pets, and the two become fast friends. Lem Forrester trades Penny a new shotgun in exchange for the mongrel Perk.

One day, as Penny and Jody are tracking down their missing hogs that had been stolen by the Forresters, a rattlesnake bites Penny before he kills it with his new gun. Penny kills a doe and uses its liver to draw out the venom. Jody asks to adopt the doe's orphaned fawn. Penny permits it but warns Jody that the fawn will have to be set free when it grows up.

When Jody goes to ask his only friend, Fodderwing, to name the fawn, Jody finds out that Fodderwing has just died. However, Buck Forrester tells Jody that Fodderwing had said that if he had a fawn he would name him Flag because of its white tail. Jody and his family attend Fodderwing's funeral, and at a generous request from the Forresters, Penny offers a eulogy about Fodderwing's kindness and wisdom with the wild animals and says that in the House of the Lord Fodderwing will be healed of his crippled body, walking around as easily as anyone else.

As the months pass, Jody and Flag are inseparable. One year later (now a "yearling"), Flag has grown up and become a nuisance to the household and farm; he eats newly-grown corn, destroys fences, and tramples on tobacco crops. After Penny is injured while trying to clear another field to make up for lost crops, Penny tells Jody that he and his mother have agreed that for Jody to keep Flag he must replant corn and build the fence around the field higher. Jody works hard and even receives help from Ora with the fence, but during the night, Flag manages to jump the new fence and destroys the new corn crop. Penny orders Jody to take the deer out into the woods and shoot it. Jody takes Flag out but does not have the heart to kill it. He orders the deer to go away and never return, but Flag comes back to their property and again devours the crop. Ora (whom Jody believes had always hated his pet) shoots Flag with a double-barreled shotgun, discharging one of the barrels but only wounding the deer. Penny orders Jody to put the deer out of its "torment". Rather than let his pet deer suffer an agonizing death, he follows his father's orders and kills Flag with the remaining shell.

The loss of Jody's beloved pet deer proves too much for him to handle: overwhelmed with anger and despair, he runs away from home. Three days later, he is rescued, unconscious and adrift on the river in a canoe, by a friendly boat captain and returns home. He and Penny quickly reconcile, but Ora is still out searching for him. Just before Jody goes to bed, Ora returns and sees that he is back. She becomes filled with happiness and emotion, knowing that her huge fear of losing her last child is now over. She happily runs into Jody's room and showers him with more affection than she has before. She is no longer afraid to show her maternal love to him.

Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven), troubled with funding the building of a new cathedral, prays for divine guidance. His plea is seemingly answered by a suave angel named Dudley (Cary Grant), who reveals his identity only to the clergyman.

However, Dudley's mission is not to help construct a cathedral, but to spiritually guide Henry and the people around him. Henry has become obsessed with raising funds, to the detriment of his family life. His relationships with wife Julia (Loretta Young) and their young daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes) are strained by his focus on the cathedral.

Everyone, except for Henry, is charmed by Dudley, even the non-religious Professor Wutheridge (Monty Woolley). Dudley persuades the wealthy parishioners, particularly widowed Agnes Hamilton (Gladys Cooper), to contribute needed funds, but not to build the cathedral. He coaxes Mrs. Hamilton to donate her money to feed and clothe the needy — much to Henry's chagrin. To save time, Dudley also redecorates the Broughams' Christmas tree in a few seconds, saves an old church by restoring interest in the boys' choir, and dictates to a typewriter to magically produce Henry's new sermon — without his knowledge.

When Dudley spends time cheering up Julia, though, an unexpected development occurs: he finds himself strongly attracted to her. Sensing this, Henry becomes jealous and anxious for his now unwelcome guest to finish and depart. He reveals Dudley's true identity to Professor Wutheridge, who urges him to stand up and fight for the woman he loves.

Dudley indicates a willingness to stay, but Julia, sensing what he means, tells him it is time for him to leave. Dudley tells the bishop it is rare for an angel to envy a mortal. When Henry wants to know why his cathedral plans were derailed, Dudley reminds the bishop he prayed for guidance, not a building.

With his mission completed and knowing that Julia loves her husband, Dudley leaves, promising never to return. All memory of him is erased, and later that Christmas Eve at midnight, Henry delivers the sermon he believes he has written. Dudley observes from the street, satisfied that his work is done.

Kris Kringle is indignant to find that the man assigned to play Santa in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is intoxicated. When he complains to event director Doris Walker, she persuades Kris to take his place. He does so well that he is hired to play Santa at Macy's New York City store on 34th Street.

Ignoring instructions from the toy department head, Mr. Shellhammer, to recommend overstocked items to undecided shoppers, Kris directs one woman to another store to fulfill her son's Christmas request. Impressed by Kris's honesty and helpfulness, she informs Shellhammer that she will now become a loyal Macy's customer.

Attorney Fred Gailey, Doris's neighbor, takes the young divorcée's daughter Susan to see Santa. Doris has raised her to not believe in fairy tales, but Susan is shaken after seeing Kris speak Dutch with a girl who does not know English. Doris asks Kringle to tell Susan that he is not Santa, but he insists that he is.

Worried, Doris decides to fire him, but Kris has generated so much positive publicity and goodwill that the store’s owner promises bonuses. To alleviate Doris's misgivings, Granville Sawyer is asked to administer a "psychological evaluation" and recommends Kris’ dismissal. Meanwhile Susan shows Kris a magazine photo of her dream house and tells him she wants it for Christmas; reluctantly he promises to do his best.

In the company cafeteria, young employee Alfred tells Kris that Sawyer convinced him that he is unstable simply because he is kind-hearted. Kris immediately goes to confront Sawyer, eventually striking him on the head with an umbrella. Sawyer exaggerates his pain to have Kris confined to Bellevue Hospital. Tricked into cooperating, and believing Doris to be in on the deception, Kris deliberately fails his examination and is recommended for permanent commitment. However, Fred persuades Kris not to give up.

At a hearing before Judge Henry X. Harper, District Attorney Thomas Mara gets Kris to assert that he is Santa Claus and rests his case, asking Harper to rule that Santa does not exist. In private, Harper's political adviser, Charlie Halloran, warns him that doing so would be disastrous for his upcoming reelection bid. Harper buys time by hearing further evidence.

Fred calls Macy as a witness and persuades him to admit that he does believe in Santa. On leaving the stand, Macy fires Sawyer. Next, Fred calls Mara's own young son, who testifies that his father told him that Santa was real. Mara has to concede the point, but goes on to demand that Fred prove that Kris is "the one and only" Santa Claus on the basis of some competent authority by the following day.

Meanwhile, Susan writes Kris a letter to cheer him up, which Doris also signs. When a New York Post Office mail sorter sees Susan's letter, which is addressed to Kris at the New York courthouse, he suggests delivering all of the dead letters addressed to Santa Claus to Kris. As court resumes, Fred is told of the delivery of mailbags to the courthouse; he argues that the Post Office—a branch of the U.S. federal government—has acknowledged that Kris is the one and only Santa Claus by delivering the letters. When the judge insists on seeing them, Fred has them dump bag after bag on Harper's desk. Half concealed behind them, Harper dismisses the case.

On Christmas morning, Susan loses faith in Kris when he admits he was not able to get her the house she wanted. However, after Kris offers Fred and Doris a route home that avoids traffic, Susan sees her dream house with a "For Sale" sign in front. Demanding that Fred stop the car, she joyfully runs into the house, exclaiming "Mr. Kringle IS Santa Claus!" Fred learns that Doris had encouraged Susan to have faith and suggests they purchase the house. He then boasts that he must be a great lawyer since he proved an eccentric old man was Santa. However, when he and Doris spot a cane in the house that looks just like Kris's, he is not so sure.

The film follows the overall story of the play, but cuts nearly half the dialogue and leaves out two major characters.

The action begins on the battlements of Elsinore where a sentry, Francisco (John Laurie), is relieved of his watch (and questioned if he has seen anything) by another sentry, Bernardo (Esmond Knight), who, with yet another sentry, Marcellus (Anthony Quayle), has twice previously seen the Ghost of King Hamlet. Marcellus then arrives with the skeptical Horatio (Norman Wooland), Prince Hamlet's friend. Suddenly, all three see the Ghost, and Horatio demands that the ghost speak. The ghost vanishes then, without a word.

Inside the Great Hall of the castle, the court is celebrating the marriage of Gertrude (Eileen Herlie) and King Claudius (Basil Sydney); old King Hamlet has died apparently of an accidental snakebite, and his wife, Gertrude, has, within a month of the tragedy, married the late King's brother. Prince Hamlet (Laurence Olivier) sits alone, refusing to join in the celebration, despite the protests of the new King. When the court has left the Great Hall, Hamlet fumes over the hasty marriage, muttering to himself the words "and yet, within a month!"

Soon, Horatio and the sentries enter telling Hamlet of the ghostly apparition of his father. Hamlet proceeds to investigate, and upon arriving on the battlements, sees the ghost. Noting that the ghost beckons him forward, Hamlet follows it up onto a tower, wherein it reveals its identity as the Ghost of Hamlet's father. He tells Hamlet that he was murdered, who did it, and how it was done. The audience then sees the murder re-enacted in a flashback as the ghost describes the deed – Claudius is seen pouring poison into the late King Hamlet's ear, thereby killing him. Hamlet does not at first accept this as the truth, and then prepares to feign madness, so as to test Claudius' conscience, without jumping to conclusions.

This feigned insanity attracts the attention of Polonius (Felix Aylmer) who is completely convinced that Hamlet has gone mad. Polonius pushes this point with the King, claiming that it is derived from Hamlet's love for Ophelia (Jean Simmons), Polonius's daughter. Claudius, however, is not fully convinced, and has Polonius set up a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet's "madness" is constant even in this exchange, and Claudius is convinced.

Hamlet then hires a group of wandering stage performers, requesting that they enact the play ''The Murder of Gonzago'' for the king. However, Hamlet makes a few alterations to the play, so as to make it mirror the circumstances of the late King's murder. Claudius, unable to endure the play, calls out for light, and retires to his room. Hamlet is now convinced of Claudius' treachery. He finds Claudius alone, and has ample opportunity to kill the villain. However, at this time, Claudius is praying, and Hamlet does not seek to send him to heaven, so, he waits, and bides his time.

He instead confronts Gertrude about the matter of his father's death and Claudius' treachery. During this confrontation, he hears a voice from the ''arras'', and, believing that it was Claudius eavesdropping, plunges his dagger into the curtains. On discovering that he has in fact, killed the eavesdropping Polonius instead, Hamlet is only mildly upset, and he continues to confront his mother. He then sees the ghostly apparition of his father, and proceeds to converse with it (the Ghost is uncredited in the film, but is apparently voiced by Olivier). Gertrude, who cannot see the ghost, becomes convinced that Hamlet is mad.

Hamlet is deported to England by Claudius, who has given orders for him to be killed once he reaches there. Fortunately, Hamlet's ship is attacked by pirates, and he is returned to Denmark. In his absence, however, Ophelia goes mad over Hamlet's rejection and the idea that her own sweetheart has killed her father, and she drowns, supposedly committing suicide. Laertes (Terence Morgan), Ophelia's brother, is driven to avenge her death, as well as his father's.

Claudius and Laertes learn of Hamlet's return and prepare to have him killed. However, they plan to make it look like an accident. Claudius orders Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a duel, wherein Laertes will be given a poisoned blade that will kill with a bare touch. In case Laertes is unable to hit Hamlet, Claudius also prepares a poisoned drink.

Hamlet meets Laertes' challenge and engages him in a duel. Hamlet wins the first two rounds, and Gertrude drinks from the cup, suspecting that it is poisoned. Whilst in-between bouts, Laertes rushes Hamlet and strikes him on the arm, fatally poisoning him. Hamlet, not knowing this, continues to duel. Hamlet eventually disarms Laertes and switches blades with him. Hamlet then strikes Laertes in the wrist, fatally wounding him. Gertrude then submits to the poison and dies, warning Hamlet not to drink from the cup. (Olivier thus makes Gertrude's death a virtual suicide to protect her son, while Shakespeare writes it as if it were purely accidental, with Gertrude having no idea that the cup is poisoned.)

Laertes, dying, confesses the whole plot to Hamlet, who flies at Claudius in a fit of rage, killing him, then dies. Horatio, horrified by all this, orders that Hamlet be given a decent funeral, and the young prince's body is taken away while the Danish court kneels and the cannons of Elsinore fire off a peal of ordnance in respect. (A few women can be seen weeping quietly in the background.)

Belinda MacDonald is a deaf-mute young woman living on Cape Breton Island on the east coast of Canada. Belinda is befriended by Dr. Robert Richardson, the new physician who recently moved to town. The doctor realizes that, although she cannot hear or speak, Belinda is very intelligent. She lives on a farm with her father, Black MacDonald, and her aunt, Aggie MacDonald. She wears plain work clothes, rarely goes into town, and only once to church. The family raises cattle and sheep and makes a small living grinding local wheat into flour at their small mill. Her father and aunt called Belinda "Dummy" and resent her because her mother died giving birth to her. Dr. Richardson teaches Belinda sign language and the signs for many common things and ideas. She learns to read. Over time, his affection for her grows. He buys her a pretty dress and encourages her father to take her to town and church.

Dr. Richardson's secretary, Stella, is attracted to him and tries to get his attention, but the doctor does not reciprocate her feelings. After Stella figures out that he is becoming attracted to Belinda, she starts to resent both of them.

One of the family's customers, Laughlin "Locky" McCormick, meets Belinda when he and a group of young people stop by the MacDonald farm to pick up their orders of flour and ground grain. Locky is dating Stella at the time. Stella notices Locky noticing Belinda, and warns Locky to "stay away from the dummy." Locky gets drunk at a dance, leaves the dance, and goes to the farm where Belinda is alone, and rapes her. This results in her pregnancy, which is diagnosed by another doctor to whom Dr. Richardson had brought her for audiology testing. Belinda gives birth at home to a healthy baby boy, whom she names Johnny. The people in town begin to shun the MacDonald family and Dr. Richardson, as they gossip that he must be Johnny's father. Dr. Richardson tells Black that he is willing to marry Belinda in order to quiet town gossip. Black rejects this idea, as he believes that Dr. Richardson does not truly love Belinda, but merely pities her. Boycotted by locals, the doctor leaves the small community and takes a position in a Toronto hospital. He writes Belinda suggesting he will return for her and Johnny.

Locky goes to the MacDonald farm under the pretense of purchasing ground barley, but really wants to get a look at baby Johnny. When Black sees him, he orders Locky to leave. Locky inadvertently boasts about the infant son, saying, "spittin' image of his father," revealing to Black that he is the father of the child. Black follows Locky and threatens to expose him to the town. They have a fight on a seaside cliff and Locky throws Black off the cliff into the sea, killing him. Town gossip calls it an accident and does not suspect Locky. They celebrate his wedding to Stella.

Belinda and her aunt Aggie try to operate the farm but they are struggling to pay the bills and keep the farm running. Farmers boycott their flour mill. The town, at the urging of Locky, has a meeting and declares Belinda unfit to care for the child and award him to Locky and Stella. They come to take Johnny. Belinda first makes Stella realize that she is a smart and competent mother. She also makes it clear that she will never give up her baby. Stella retreats and tells Locky that the mother should keep Johnny. Locky demands the baby, telling his wife that it is his son. When he goes to retrieve the boy, he pushes Belinda aside. Before Locky can unlock the upstairs door, Belinda kills him with a shotgun. Belinda is arrested and goes on trial for murder. At the trial, Dr. Richardson testifies that she was protecting her property and family. The court dismisses this as the doctor's love for her, and is ready to sentence Belinda to execution, but finally Stella blurts out that her husband Locky had confessed the truth about the rape to her on the day he was killed. Belinda is set free, and she, Johnny, Dr. Richardson and Aggie leave together.

Virginia Cunningham is an apparently schizophrenic patient at a mental hospital called the Juniper Hill State Hospital. She hears voices and seems so out of touch with reality that she does not recognize her husband Robert.

Dr. Kik works with her, and flashbacks show how Virginia and Robert met a few years earlier in Chicago. He worked for a publisher who rejected her writing, and they bumped into each other again in the cafeteria. Occasionally she continued to drop by the cafeteria so they got to know each other.

Despite their blossoming romance, Virginia abruptly leaves town without explanation. Robert moves to New York and bumps into her again at the Philharmonic. After she provides a flimsy excuse for her absence and departure, they pick up where they left off, though she remains evasive and avoids his desire for marriage. Eventually, Virginia brings up the possibility of marriage. They marry on May 7, but Virginia acts erratically again. She cannot sleep and loses touch with reality, as she feels it is November and snaps when Robert corrects her. The rest of the film follows her therapy. Dr. Kik puts her through electro-shock treatment and "narcosynthesis". Dr. Kik wants to get to the "causes of her unconscious rejection." The film includes many flashbacks, including her earlier failed engagement to Gordon as well as childhood issues. The film shows her progress and what happens to her along the way.

The mental hospital is organized on a system of wards, with the best functioning patients assigned to the wards with the lowest numbers, which have better furnishings and more relaxed rules for patient behavior. Virginia moves to the lowest level (One), where she is treated well by a young nurse but is picked on by Nurse Davis, the only truly abusive nurse in the hospital. Davis is jealous of Dr. Kik's interest in Virginia, which she sees as excessive. Nurse Davis goads Virginia into an outburst which results in Virginia being straitjacketed and expelled from Level One into the "snake pit", where patients considered beyond help are simply placed together in a large padded cell and abandoned. Dr. Kik, learning of this, has Virginia returned to Level One, but away from Nurse Davis's care.

Despite this setback, Dr. Kik's care continues to improve Virginia's mental state. Over time, Virginia gains insight and self-understanding, and is able to leave the hospital.

The film depicts the bureaucratic regimentation of the institution, the staff (some unkind and aloof, some kind and empathetic), and relationships between patients, from which Virginia learns as much as she does in therapy.

The story is set in 1997, nine years after the game's production. The plot follows Zak (full name Francis Zachary McKracken), a writer for the ''National Inquisitor'', a tabloid newspaper (the name is a thinly veiled allusion to the ''National Enquirer''); Annie Larris, a freelance scientist; along with Melissa China and Leslie Bennett, two Yale University coed students, in their attempt to prevent the nefarious alien Caponians (who have taken over "The Phone Company", an amalgamation of various telecommunication companies around the world) from slowly reducing the intelligence of everybody on Earth by emitting a 60 Hz "hum" from their "Mind Bending Machine". The Skolarians, another ancient alien race, have left a defense mechanism hanging around to repulse the Caponians (the "Skolarian Device"), which needs reassembly and start-up. Unfortunately, the parts are spread all over Earth and Mars.

On his birthday, Bobbin is summoned by the Elders in order to determine his fate. He arrives at the Sanctuary in time to witness the Elders punish Hetchel with the "Transcendence" draft for educating Bobbin, but Hetchel reverts to a swan's egg, which puzzles and frightens the Elders. As they contemplate this turn of events a swan comes down from the sky and crashes through a window in the Sanctuary. She casts the "Transcendence" draft on the Elders, as well as the rest of the villagers, transforming all the Weavers except Bobbin into swans who leave through a rift in the sky. Bobbin, who is left all alone, finds Elder Atropos' distaff, and uses it to free Hetchel from her egg.

Hetchel, who is now a cygnet, tells Bobbin that the swan who visits him every year on his birthday came to save the Weavers from the Third Shadow that is about to cover the world. Bobbin then moves on to find the flock. On his way, he meets other guilds and has several adventures. Eventually, he encounters a Cleric, Bishop Mandible, who is after the Scrying Sphere of the Glassmakers, the swords of the Blacksmiths, and the products of the Shepherds. Mandible claims the Weaver's distaff to rule the world with an army of the undead, thus fulfilling the prophecies. By playing the draft of "Opening" on a nearby graveyard, he tears the fabric of the universe apart and allows an entity called "Chaos" to enter. Chaos kills Mandible and summons an army of undead to destroy the earth. Bobbin reclaims the distaff from the dead Bishop and heals many of the tears in the pattern, along the way helping many of his previous acquaintances, who were hurt or killed by Chaos's army. Finally, he battles Chaos, who is striving to take control of the great Loom on his native island. The battle ends as Chaos kills his stepmother using the draft of "Unmaking." It is hinted, however, that it is still possible to save Hetchel, as "one feather still remained intact."

Bobbin then destroys the great Loom using the same draft. He is joined by his mother and the other Weavers and is told that one half of the world will be ruled by Chaos while the Weavers will stay in the other half, and that with time, they may gain enough power to challenge Chaos again. Bobbin casts "Transcendence" upon himself, and with the aid of his mother and the other villagers in their swan forms, he flies away, carrying the ripple across the world. His friends watch the flock of the swans fly away; it remains unclear whether Bobbin has left them in Chaos' realm or has saved them.

Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, are two comic book characters created by Steve Purcell, who act as private detectives and vigilantes. ''Sam & Max Hit the Road'' follows the pair on a case that takes them from their office in New York City across the United States. The game starts in a similar way to many of the comic stories, with Sam and Max receiving a telephone call from an unseen and unheard Commissioner, who tells them to go to a nearby carnival. At the carnival, they are told by the owners that their star attraction, a frozen bigfoot called Bruno, has been set free, and fled, taking their second attraction, Trixie the Giraffe-Necked Girl. Sam and Max set off to find Bruno and Trixie and bring them back. As the duo investigate the carnival, they learn that Bruno and Trixie are in love and that Trixie freed Bruno. The Freelance Police leave the carnival to pursue leads at various tourist traps throughout the country, such as The World's Largest Ball of Twine, a vortex controlled by giant subterranean magnets, and bungee jumping facilities at Mount Rushmore.

The pair learn that two other bigfoots used as tourist attractions in other parts of the country have been freed by Bruno, and that Bruno has been captured by Liverpudlian country western singer Conroy Bumpus, a cruel animal abuser who wishes to use Bruno in his performances. Sam and Max travel to Bumpus' home and rescue Bruno and Trixie, but Bruno then departs with Trixie to join a bigfoot gathering at an inn in Nevada. Following them, Sam and Max disguise themselves as a bigfoot to enter the party. Eventually the party is gatecrashed by Conroy Bumpus and his henchman Lee Harvey, who hope to capture the bigfoots. However, Sam manages to fool Bumpus and Harvey into donning their bigfoot disguise, and Max locks them in the inn's kitchen freezer.

Chief Vanuatu, leader of the bigfoots, in recognition of the pair's actions, makes the Freelance Police members of the bigfoot tribe and tells them of a spell that will make the world safe for bigfoots again, preventing their capture by humans. However, the chief requires help deciphering the spell's four ingredients, and asks for Sam and Max's help. Eventually, they discover that the ingredients are a vegetable resembling John Muir, hair restoration tonic, the tooth of a dinosaur, and a vortex contained within a snow globe. Combined with a live bigfoot sacrifice—which Max substitutes for frozen bigfoot-clad Bumpus and Harvey—the ingredients cause large trees to spring into existence, destroying towns and cities and covering the bulk of the west United States in forest. Content that their work is done, Sam and Max take the frozen ice block containing Bumpus and Harvey to the carnival. Believing that Bruno has been returned to them, the owners give a large reward of skee ball tickets to the Freelance Police, who then spend the end credits shooting targets at a carnival stall with real firearms.

In mid-December 1944, Private Jim Layton and his buddy Private William J. Hooper are assigned to the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. As a newcomer, Layton receives a chilly welcome from his squad. Private First Class Holley returns to the company after recuperating from a wound.

Instead of going on leave in Paris, the squad is trucked back to the front because of a surprise German breakthrough in the Ardennes. They stop that night in Bastogne and are put up for the night in the apartment of a young woman, Denise, to whom Holley is attracted.

Jarvess later stands guard in the village, where he runs into some battle-weary soldiers making a "strategic withdrawal". The next morning, led by Platoon Sergeant Kinnie, the men are ordered to dig in on the outskirts of town. Just as they are nearly done, they are sent elsewhere and must dig in all over again.

Holley, Layton, and Kippton man a roadblock that night. German soldiers disguised as Americans infiltrate their position and later blow-up a nearby bridge. In the morning, Roderigues, a Latino from Los Angeles, is delighted by the novelty of snow from a heavy winter storm, but "Pop" Stazak, awaiting a "dependency discharge" that will send him home, is unimpressed. Layton goes to see Hooper, only to find he had been killed, and no one in his company had even known his name.

Kinnie informs the squad about the infiltration and dispatches a patrol comprising Holley, Roderigues, and Jarvess. Just before they start out, the platoon is shelled by German artillery, causing Bettis to panic and desert. Holley's patrol briefly skirmishes with the infiltrators. Roderigues is wounded by machine-gun fire from an enemy tank. Holley conceals him under a disabled jeep half-buried in snow, promising to return for him. Unfortunately, by the time Holley can return, Roderigues has died.

Wolowicz and a sick Standiferd are sent to a field hospital. Later, Doc informs the 2nd Squad that the hospital has been captured.

Holley is appointed the new squad leader and partnered with Layton, while Pop is paired with Hansan. Pop's discharge comes in, but they learn they are surrounded.

Moved repeatedly, the 3rd Platoon is attacked at dawn. When it appears, the platoon will be overrun, Hansan is wounded, Holley flees, and Layton follows Holley. Ashamed, Holley turns around and leads a flanking counterattack that stops the Germans.

After they get Hanson to an aid station, the squad runs into Bettis, who is doing K.P. duty. Holley finds Layton being entertained by Denise. Later, while on guard duty, they encounter some Germans who have come under a flag of truce to offer Brigadier General McAuliffe surrender terms; his famous reply - "Nuts!" - puzzles the Germans.

The squad is short of supplies, as bad weather has grounded the supply transport aircraft. Several men attend impromptu outdoor Christmas services held by a chaplain. (The chaplain had previously served as clergy at a Hanukkah ceremony, and when he asks a Jewish soldier how he did he responds, "Not bad for a beginner, padre.") That night, the Luftwaffe bombs Bastogne. Denise dies, and Bettis, slowed by his fear of returning to the lines, is killed by a collapsing house. The "walking wounded", including Hansan and a mess sergeant he befriends, are recalled for a last-ditch defense of the town.

As the platoon is down to its last few rounds of ammunition, the weather finally clears, allowing Allied fighter aircraft to attack the Germans and C-47 transports to drop supplies, enabling the 101st to hold. Afterward, Kinnie leads the platoon's survivors' rearward for a well-earned rest.

The last domestic motorcycle manufacturer in the country is Corley Motors, whose founder and CEO, the elderly Malcolm Corley (Hamilton Camp), is en route to a shareholders meeting at the Corley factory, accompanied by his vice president, Adrian Ripburger (Mark Hamill). Malcolm suspects that Ripburger is scheming to take over the company, and is suspicious of Ripburger's plan to recruit a biker gang to ride with them to the meeting. Malcolm's limousine is overtaken by one such gang, the Polecats, and he is immediately impressed with them. Catching up to them at a biker bar, he quickly befriends their leader, Ben (Roy Conrad). Ripburger offers to hire the Polecats to escort Malcolm to the meeting, but when Ben declines, he is knocked out by Ripburger's flunkies, Bolus (Jack Angel) and Nestor (Maurice LaMarche).

Ben awakens to learn that the Polecats have been duped into escorting Malcolm, and that an ambush is planned for them further up the road. He tries to catch up, but his motorcycle has been sabotaged, resulting in a fiery crash. He is rescued by young photographer Miranda (Pat Musick) and taken to the town of Melonweed, where he is treated by a mechanic named Maureen (Kath Soucie). Maureen describes how her father taught her about motorcycles, and repairs Ben's bike after he retrieves necessary parts, adding a booster to it as well. Ben catches up to the Polecats at a rest area, but is too late: Ripburger murders Malcolm and frames the Polecats for the crime. Miranda manages to catch the murder on film, but her camera is snatched by Bolus. Before dying, Malcolm tells Ben of Ripburger's plan to take over Corley Motors and produce minivans instead of motorcycles. He reveals that Maureen is secretly his illegitimate daughter and begs Ben to convince her to take over the company. Bolus tries to kill Maureen, but she gets the drop on him and escapes with the film from Miranda's camera.

With the Polecats jailed for Malcolm's murder, Ben is a fugitive. Miranda tells him about her film, and Ben convinces semi-trailer truck driver Emmet to sneak him and his motorcycle past a police roadblock and to an abandoned mink farm where Maureen is hiding. He is stranded there when Emmet steals his motorcycle's fuel line and Maureen steals his booster fuel. Emmet's truck is blown up by a biker gang called the Cavefish, destroying the bridge over Poyahoga Gorge, which Ben needs to cross. Having replaced his fuel line and gotten advice from the Polecats' former leader, Father Torque (Hamilton Camp), Ben outwits Nestor and Bolus and does battle with members of rival biker gangs in order to acquire hover equipment, booster fuel, and a ramp, with which he is able to jump his motorcycle over the gorge.

Ben locates Maureen, who is a member of rival biker gang the Vultures, at the Vulture's hideout, a large cargo aircraft. Maureen believes Ben killed her father and is about to have him executed, but Ben reveals personal information that Malcolm shared with him and convinces her to develop Miranda's film, which shows that Ripburger was the murderer. Ben suggests exposing Ripburger at the shareholders meeting, but Ripburger has postponed the meeting until he is sure Ben and Maureen are dead. The Vultures come up with a plan to fake Ben and Maureen's deaths by entering them in a demolition derby under false identities that will be obvious to Ripburger. Their cars are rigged to explode, but Ben is protected by a fireproof suit and Maureen's car ejects her safely out of the stadium. The plan works and results in the deaths of Bolus and Nestor, while the Vultures recover the winner's prize: a special motorcycle built by Malcolm and Maureen that contains a hidden pass code to Malcolm's safe, in which Ben finds Malcolm's recorded will and testament. Ben exposes Ripburger during the shareholders meeting by projecting Miranda's photos of the murder and playing Malcolm's will, in which he leaves leadership of Corley Motors to Maureen and exposes Ripburger as a sham.

Ripburger flees in a semi-trailer truck, but as Ben and Maureen ride away he reappears and rams them. The Vultures arrive driving their flightless cargo plane, which scoops up the truck along with Ben, Maureen, and Ben's bike. The plane and truck wind up hanging precariously over the edge of Poyahoga Gorge, and Ripburger falls to his death. Maureen and the Vultures flee the plane while Ben makes it out at the last second by jumping his bike out the back cargo door just as the truck explodes and it and the plane fall into the gorge. Members of the biker gangs attend Malcolm's funeral, at which Father Torque delivers a eulogy. Maureen takes over Corley Motors, and Ben rides away into the sunset.

Just as they are about to take a group of underprivileged children on a riverboat ride and picnic, Deborah Bishop, Rita Phipps, and Lora Mae Hollingsway receive a message from Addie Ross informing them that she has run off with one of their husbands. However, she leaves them in suspense as to which one. All three marriages are shown in flashback to be strained.

Deborah grew up on a farm. Her first experience with the outside world came when she joined the Navy WAVES during World War II, where she met her future husband, upper-class Brad. When they return to civilian life, Deborah is ill at ease in Brad's social circle. Adding to her insecurity, she learns that everyone expected Brad to marry Addie, whom all three husbands consider practically a goddess.

However, she is comforted by Brad's friend Rita, a career woman who writes stories for sappy radio soap operas. Her husband George, a schoolteacher, feels somewhat emasculated since she earns much more money, but refuses to leave his teaching job, which he thinks is important despite the low pay. He is also disappointed that his wife constantly gives in to the demands of her boss, Mrs. Manleigh. Rita's flashback recalls a dinner party she gave for Mrs. Manleigh. She forgot that her husband's birthday was that night, and only remembered when a birthday present, a rare Brahms recording, arrived from Addie Ross.

Lora Mae grew up poor, not just on the "wrong side of the tracks," but literally next to the railroad tracks where passing trains shake the family home periodically. She sets her sights on her older, divorced employer, Porter, the wealthy owner of a statewide chain of department stores. Her mother, Ruby Finney, is unsure what to think of her daughter's ambition, but Ruby's friend (and the Phippses' servant) Sadie approves. Matters come to a head when Lora Mae sees a picture of Addie on the piano in Porter's home. She tells him she wants her picture on a piano: her own piano in her own home. When Porter refuses to marry her, Lora Mae breaks off their romance. However, he loves her too much, and finally gives in and proposes (albeit unromantically), skipping a New Year's party at Addie's house to do so.

When the women return from the picnic, Rita is overjoyed to find her husband at home. They work out their issues and she vows not to let herself be pushed around by Mrs. Manleigh.

Porter is late coming home, causing Lora Mae to think he has gone off with Addie, though Ruby insists that Porter loves her and would never leave. When Porter suddenly arrives and hears about his wife's suspicions, he accuses her of being happy at the thought of having grounds to divorce him and receive a large monetary settlement.

Deborah's houseman gives her a message stating that Brad will not be coming home that night. A heartbroken Deborah goes alone to the local club with the other two couples.

When Porter complains about his wife dancing with another man, Deborah tells him he has no idea how much Lora Mae really loves him, but Porter is certain Lora Mae only sees him as a "cash register." Unable to take it anymore, Deborah gets up to leave, announcing that Brad has run off with Addie. Porter stops her, confessing it was he who started to run away with Addie, but then explains that he changed his mind. As Deborah leaves to find Brad and reconcile with him, Porter then tells Lora Mae that, with his admission in front of witnesses, she can divorce him and get what she wants. To his shock, Lora Mae claims she did not hear a word he said. Finally convinced of her love, Porter asks her to dance.

The voice of Addie Ross bids all a good night. In the film, she is shown only twice and from behind.

A radio telescope detects the approach of a large asteroid on a collision course with Earth; authorities dub it "Attila" after the ancient conqueror Attila the Hun. Scientists determine explosives planted on the surface of the asteroid may divert it into a stable orbit around Earth. A five-person expedition uses the Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' to rendezvous with the asteroid and plant the charges. The crew consists of Commander Boston Low (voiced by Robert Patrick); Dr. Ludger Brink (Steven Blum), a German archaeologist and geologist; Maggie Robbins (Mari Weiss), a linguistics expert and reporter; pilot Ken Borden (David Lodge); and NASA technician Cora Miles (Leilani Jones), who is also running for Congress.

Low, Brink, and Robbins spacewalk to the asteroid and set the charges. While they are successful in altering the orbit of Attila, they find the inside of the asteroid appears hollow, and proceed to explore. When they enter a central chamber, they are trapped as the asteroid transforms into a dodecahedron pod and rapidly accelerates away into deep space. When the three recover and can exit the pod, they find themselves on an alien planet, on a central island surrounded by five smaller, spire-shaped islands; in the game's novelization, they name the planet Cocytus. It shows signs of former intelligent life, but as they explore, they find no evidence of any sentient creatures that remain, and the one advanced complex they are in shows signs of long-term deterioration. They encounter a strange form of spirit-like energy that guides them to a particular patch of ground, which they find to be soft and consistent with an opening that has been buried by time. Shortly after Brink begins digging, the ground gives way beneath him, opening a cavern into a subterranean structure. Robbins and Low find Brink dead at the bottom of the rubble.

Robbins insists they explore the structure separately and the two part ways, keeping in contact with their communicators. In what appears to be a museum, Low discovers a pair of crystals containing a glowing green liquid. After seeing a demonstration in the museum of similar crystals being used in what looks like a resurrection ceremony, Low tries one on Brink, bringing him back to life. They search for a means to return to Earth, using Brink's and Robbins' talents for xenoarchaeology to decipher alien text and images.

As the trio continue to explore, they find Brink has become addicted to the crystals and started hoarding them for himself, leading to conflict within the group. Low discovers a pyramid that houses a preserved alien, whom he is able to reanimate by use of the life crystals. Through Robbins, the alien explains that his species had become obsessed with eternal life and had decided to travel to a new universe, Spacetime Six, from the current one, which they call Spacetime Four. The alien chose to remain behind to warn others about the crystals and the dangers of transcending to Spacetime Six. However, the rest of the species have been unable to find a way to return to Spacetime Four, and only they would be able to provide the humans with a spacecraft to return to Earth.

Low offers to travel to Spacetime Six to show the aliens how to return, but this requires them to repower the portal that was used. They are able to retrieve two life crystals from a machine that generates them, but Low and Brink fight over the crystals, and Brink falls to his death. During the process of opening the portal, Robbins is killed. The player has the option of reviving Robbins with a life crystal after the portal is opened; however, if they do, she immediately jumps to her death, with no crystals left to revive her a second time. With no other options, Low uses the portal to meet the rest of the aliens in Spacetime Six; with the portal open, the aliens can perceive the route home and return to Cocytus. They restore Brink and Robbins to life and cure Brink of his addiction to the crystals, though this leaves him as an elderly man. If Low left Robbins dead, she is happy to see him, but if Low revived her, she is angry and scorns him. As promised, the aliens reconstruct a spacecraft for the humans, and representatives of the species join the humans as they return to Earth.

An uncouth, corrupt rich junk dealer, Harry Brock, brings his showgirl mistress Billie Dawn with him to Washington, D.C. When Billie's ignorance becomes a liability to Brock's business dealings, he hires a journalist, Paul Verrall, to educate his girlfriend. In the process of learning, Billie Dawn realizes how corrupt Harry is and begins interfering with his plans to bribe a Congressman into passing legislation that would allow Brock's business to make more money.

Following the wedding of his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), Stanley T. Banks (Spencer Tracy), a successful suburban lawyer, recalls the day, three months earlier, when he first learned of Kay's engagement to Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). At the family dinner table, Kay's casual announcement that she is in love with Buckley and has accepted his proposal makes Stanley feel uneasy, but he soon comes to realize that his daughter has grown up and the wedding is inevitable. While Ellie (Joan Bennett), Kay's mother, immediately begins making preparations for the wedding, Stanley lies awake at night, fearing the worst for his daughter.

Stanley's misgivings about the marriage eventually make Ellie anxious, and she insists that Kay introduce them to Buckley's parents. Kay calls the tradition "old-fashioned rigamarole," but arranges the meeting nevertheless. Before the introduction, Stanley has a private conversation with Buckley, and is pleased to learn that the young man is the head of a small company and that he is capable of providing a comfortable life for Kay. The Bankses' first meeting with Doris and Herbert, Buckley's parents, gets off to an awkward start, and goes from bad to worse when Stanley drinks too much and falls asleep in the wealthy Dunstans' living room.

Following Kay and Buckley's engagement party, Stanley, who misses the entire party because he is in the kitchen mixing drinks, realizes that his plans for a small wedding have been swept aside and he will be expected to pay for an extravagant wedding "with all the trimmings." As costs for the June event spiral out of control, Stanley calculates that he can afford to accommodate no more than one hundred-and-fifty guests. The task of paring down the guest list proves too difficult, however, and Stanley reluctantly consents to a 250-person reception. To save costs, Stanley suggests to Kay that she and Buckley elope. Kay is at first shocked by the suggestion, then reconsiders, supports the idea, and conveys that to her mother. Ellie strongly disapproves of eloping, which causes Stanley to express his disapproval too, making it appear the idea was originally Kay's.

The plans for a lavish wedding continue until the day that Buckley tells Kay that he wants to take her on a fishing trip in Nova Scotia for their honeymoon. Kay reacts to the announcement with shock and calls off the wedding, but she and Buckley soon reconcile, and the two families begin their wedding rehearsals. On the day of the wedding, chaos reigns at the Banks home as final preparations are made for the reception. The wedding ceremony brings both joy and sorrow to Stanley, as he realizes that his daughter is now a woman and no longer his child. During the reception, Stanley tries to find Kay so he can kiss the bride but only manages to see her leaving on her honeymoon. Ellie and Stanley survey the mess in their home and concur that the entire affair was a great success. Kay calls and tells her father she loves him and thanks her parents for everything they have done for her.

A youth named Guybrush Threepwood arrives on the fictional Mêlée Island™, with the desire to become a pirate. He seeks out the island's pirate leaders, who set him three trials that must be completed to become a pirate: winning a sword duel against Carla, the island's resident swordmaster, finding a buried treasure, and stealing a valuable idol from the governor's mansion. These quests take Guybrush throughout the island, where he hears of stories of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, who apparently died in an expedition to the mysterious Monkey Island™, an act that was meant to win the love of the governor Elaine Marley. Guybrush meets several characters of interest, including a local voodoo priestess, Stan the Used Boat Salesman, Carla the Sword Master, a prisoner named Otis, and Meathook, whose hands have been replaced by hooks.

Guybrush also encounters the governor and is instantly smitten, and she soon reciprocates. However, as he completes the tasks set for him, the island is raided by LeChuck and his undead crew, who abduct Elaine and then retreat to their secret hideout on Monkey Island™. Guybrush takes it upon himself to rescue her, buying a ship and hiring Carla, Otis, and Meathook as crew before setting sail for the fabled island. When Guybrush reaches Monkey Island™, he discovers a village of cannibals in a dispute with Herman Toothrot, a ragged castaway marooned there. He settles their quarrel, and then recovers a magical "voodoo root" from LeChuck's ship for the cannibals, who provide him with a seltzer bottle of "voodoo root elixir" that can destroy ghosts.

When Guybrush returns to LeChuck's ship with the elixir, he learns that LeChuck has returned to Mêlée Island™ to marry Elaine at the church. He promptly returns to Mêlée Island™ and gatecrashes the wedding, only to ruin Elaine's own plan for escape; in the process he loses the elixir. Now confronted with a furious LeChuck, Guybrush is savagely beaten by the ghost pirate in a fight ranging across the island. The fight eventually arrives at the island's ship emporium, where Guybrush finds a bottle of root beer. Substituting the beverage for the lost elixir, he sprays LeChuck, destroying the ghost pirate. With LeChuck defeated, Guybrush and Elaine enjoy a romantic moment, watching fireworks caused by LeChuck exploding.

Following the events of ''Monkey Island 2'', Guybrush Threepwood has regained his adult form and escaped from the zombie pirate LeChuck's "Carnival of the Damned". Drifting to Plunder Island, he finds his love interest Elaine Marley under siege by LeChuck. Guybrush is captured and encounters Wally, the diminutive cartographer from the previous game. His actions in escaping cause LeChuck to drop a "voodoo cannonball" which explodes, seemingly obliterating the villain. Guybrush proposes to Elaine using a diamond ring he found in LeChuck's treasure hold, but Wally reveals that it carries a curse. Elaine is transformed into a gold statue and soon stolen by pirates. Guybrush receives guidance from the Voodoo Lady, who assisted him in his prior adventures. She tells him that to save Elaine, he must replace the ring with a non-cursed one of greater value which can be found on Blood Island.

Through actions involving a chicken restaurant, a barber shop, a theater performance, caber tossing, a banjo duel, ventriloquism, and an exclusive beach club, Guybrush recovers Elaine, obtains a map to Blood Island, commandeers a ship, and assembles a crew of three singing barber pirates. However, the map is soon stolen by the vain Captain Rottingham. By engaging in sea battles with other pirates, Guybrush acquires treasure to upgrade his ship's cannons, and learns enough barbs and retorts to defeat Rottingham in rhyming insult swordfighting. Guybrush's ship is caught in a storm and crashes on Blood Island. Meanwhile, LeChuck returns as a fiery demon still bent on eliminating Guybrush and forcing Elaine to become his bride.

On Blood Island, Guybrush encounters the cannibals from Monkey Island, now volcano-worshipping vegetarians. He also finds Stan, a salesman from the previous games, who sets up an insurance business. Guybrush's quests on the island involve a hotel, nacho cheese, a hangover cure, tofu, crypts, a talking skull named Murray, a broken lighthouse, and a makeshift compass. He meets the ghost of a debutante who was seduced by LeChuck, who stole the diamond from her heirloom engagement ring and sold it to smugglers on nearby Skull Island. Guybrush acquires her engagement band by reuniting her with another lost love, and cheats at poker to win the diamond from the smugglers. Putting the two together, he places the ring on Elaine's finger and breaks the curse, restoring her to normal. However, Guybrush and Elaine are swiftly captured by LeChuck's minions and taken to his Carnival of the Damned on Monkey Island.

LeChuck reveals that Big Whoop, the treasure Guybrush sought in the prior game, is actually a portal to hell which turns those who pass through it into immortal undead. When Elaine first spurned him, LeChuck set out to impress her by finding the secret of Monkey Island. His ship was caught in a typhoon, and he was marooned on Blood Island until a ship captained by Elaine's grandfather arrived. Learning that Captain Marley and his crew had a map to Big Whoop, Lechuck stole the debutante's diamond, sold it to the smugglers, bought a ship, and beat them to its location on Monkey Island, where he passed through the portal and gained supernatural powers. Marley and his crew divided up the map to keep anyone else from finding Big Whoop. LeChuck arranged the crew members' deaths, and sent Marley and his ship into a whirlpool. Dinky Island, where the map pieces led Guybrush, is an atoll off the coast of Monkey Island, connected to it by underground tunnels. LeChuck built the Big Whoop Carnival to lure sailors onto a roller coaster which carries them into a river of lava, turning them into his skeletal army.

LeChuck transforms Guybrush into a child, but he manages to break the spell and board the roller coaster. Jumping off at dioramas depicting scenes from the previous games, Guybrush improvises an explosive and sets off an avalanche, burying LeChuck under the theme park. Guybrush and Elaine marry and set sail for their honeymoon.

The game is divided into four acts, each taking place on November 2 (the Day of the Dead) in four consecutive years. Manuel "Manny" Calavera is a travel agent at the Department of Death in the city of El Marrow, forced into his job to work off a debt "to the powers that be". Manny is frustrated with being assigned clients that must take the four-year journey due to their poor living choices and is threatened to be fired by his boss, Don Copal, if he does not come up with better clients. Manny steals a client, Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, from his successful co-worker Domino Hurley. The Department computers assign Meche to the four-year journey even though Manny believes she should have a guaranteed spot on the "Number Nine" luxury express train due to her pureness of heart in her life. After setting Meche on her way, Manny investigates further and finds that Domino and Don have been rigging the system to deny many clients Double N tickets, hoarding them for the boss of the criminal underworld, Hector LeMans. LeMans then sells the tickets at an exorbitant price to those that can afford it. Manny recognizes that he cannot stop Hector at present and instead, with the help of his driver and speed demon Glottis, he tries to find Meche on her journey in the nearby Petrified Forest. During the trip, Manny encounters Salvador "Sal" Limones, the leader of the small underground organization the Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), who is aware of Hector's plans and recruits Manny to help. Manny arrives at the small port city of Rubacava and finds that he has beaten Meche there, and waits for her to arrive.

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A year passes, and the city of Rubacava has grown. Manny now runs his own nightclub off a converted automat near the edge of the Forest. Manny learns from Olivia Ofrenda, the owner of the beatnik Blue Casket nightclub, that Don has been sprouted for letting the scandal be known and that Meche was recently seen with Domino leaving the port.

Manny gives chase and a year later tracks them to a coral mining plant on the Edge of the World. Domino has been holding Meche there as a trap to lure Manny. All of Domino's clients who had their tickets stolen are also being held there and used as slave labor, both to make a profit with the coral mining and as a way to keep Hector's scandal quiet. Domino tries to convince Manny to take over his position in the plant seeing as he has no alternative and can spend the rest of eternity with Meche but he refuses. After rescuing Meche, Manny defeats Domino by causing him to fall into a rock crusher. Manny, along with Meche, Glottis and all the souls being held at the plant then escape from the Edge of the World.

The three travel for another year until they reach the terminus for the Number Nine train before the Ninth Underworld. Unfortunately, the Gate Keeper to the Ninth Underworld won't let the souls progress without their tickets, mistakenly believing they have sold them, and it's further revealed that a wicked soul that has either not paid off their debt or tried to cheat the Gate Keeper with a fake or stolen Double N Ticket to gain entrance to the Ninth Underworld will cause the express train to transform into the hell train (which sends all souls onboard to hell). Meanwhile, Glottis has fallen deathly ill. Manny learns from demons stationed at the terminus that the only way to revive Glottis is to travel at high speeds to restore Glottis' purpose for being summoned. Manny and the others devise a makeshift fuel source to create a "rocket" train cart, quickly taking Manny and Meche back to Rubacava and saving Glottis' life. The three return to El Marrow, now found to be fully in Hector's control and renamed as Nuevo Marrow. Manny regroups with Sal and his expanded LSA and with the help of Olivia, who volunteered to join the gang earlier in Rubacava, and is able to learn about Hector's current activities. Further investigation reveals that Hector not only has been hoarding the Number Nine tickets, but has created counterfeit versions that he has sold to others while keeping the real tickets for himself in a desperate attempt to balance out his sinful life and get out of the Land of the Dead. Manny tries to confront Hector but is lured into another trap by Olivia, who is revealed to be Hector's girlfriend, who has also captured Sal, and is taken to Hector's greenhouse to be sprouted. Manny is able to defeat Hector after Sal sacrifices himself to prevent Olivia from interfering. Manny and Meche are able to find the real Double N tickets, including the one that Meche should have received. Manny makes sure the rest of the tickets are given to their rightful owners; in turn, he is granted his own ticket for his good deeds. Together, Manny and Meche board the Number Nine for their happy journey to the Ninth Underworld while Glottis who can't join them waves tearfully goodbye.

Joe Burdette, the spoiled younger brother of wealthy land baron Nathan Burdette, taunts town drunk Dude by tossing money into a spittoon. The sheriff, John T. Chance, stops Dude from reaching into the spittoon, prompting Dude to lash out and knock Chance unconscious. Joe starts to beat Dude for fun, shooting and killing an unarmed bystander who attempts to stop him. Chance recovers, follows Joe into Nathan's personal saloon, and, with help from a penitent Dude, overcomes Nathan's men and arrests Joe for murder.

Chance's friend Pat Wheeler attempts to enter town with a wagon train of supplies and dynamite, but has to force his way through Nathan Burdette's men. Chance reveals that he, Dude (who used to be a deputy before he became a drunk), and his old crippled deputy Stumpy are all that stand between Nathan's small army and Joe, whom they wish to free. Chance notices young gunslinger Colorado Ryan in Wheeler's wagon train, but Colorado promises he doesn't want to start any trouble.

That night, Carlos Robante, the owner of the local hotel, warns Chance that Wheeler is trying to recruit fighters. Chance tries to stop Wheeler, not wanting anyone to get hurt on his account. Wheeler asks if Colorado could help, but Colorado declines, feeling that it's not his fight. Chance then notices a rigged card game at the hotel. Recognizing one of the players as a wanted woman, "Feathers", the widow of a cheating gambler, he confronts her. However, Colorado reveals that another player is the cheater.

Out in the street, Wheeler is gunned down. Chance and Dude pursue the killer into Nathan's saloon, and Chance allows Dude to prove himself and confront the killer, earning the respect of Nathan's men. Colorado and the rest of Wheeler's men are forced to stay in town to await a court order releasing Wheeler's possessions, and the wagons are left behind the Burdette warehouse. After Feathers secretly stays up all night with a shotgun to guard Chance, an irritated Chance orders Feathers to leave town for her safety. She refuses, and the two begin to bond.

Nathan himself rides into town. Stumpy, having old grudges against Nathan for taking his land, threatens to shoot Joe if any trouble starts around the jail. In response, Nathan has his saloon musicians repeatedly play "El Degüello", "The Cutthroat Song". Colorado realizes the song means Nathan will show no mercy, and warns Chance.

Chance gives Dude back his old guns and some clothes and a black hat he left behind when he became a drunkard, and Dude gets a shave, trying to start afresh. Unfortunately, Stumpy doesn't recognize Dude when he returns, and shoots at him, shattering Dude's nerves. The next day, Dude is still shaky and finds himself ambushed by Burdette's men, who threaten to kill him unless Chance lets Joe go. Colorado and Feathers distract the men long enough for Chance to get his rifle, and he and Colorado shoot down the men and free Dude. Dude thinks about quitting and letting Colorado take his place, but when he hears "El Degüello" being played, he resolves to see the thing through to the end.

Dude and Chance return to the hotel so Dude can take a bath, but Burdette's men capture Carlos' wife Consuelo and use her to lure Chance into a trap. Dude tells Chance to take the men to the jail, under pretext that Stumpy would let Joe out. However, Stumpy opens fire, as Dude secretly predicted. In the chaos, some men drag Dude off to Nathan, who demands a trade Dude for Joe. Chance agrees, but brings Colorado as backup. Dude and Joe brawl during the trade, and a firefight ensues. Stumpy throws some sticks of dynamite from the wagons into the warehouse where Burdette and his men are holed up, and Chance detonates them with his rifle, abruptly ending the fight.

With both Burdettes and their few surviving gunmen in jail, Chance is able to finally spend some time with Feathers and admit his feelings for her. Colorado volunteers to guard the jail, allowing Stumpy and Dude to enjoy a night out in the town.

After bringing peace to the Mushroom World in ''Super Mario Bros. 3'', the brothers Mario and Luigi decide to go on vacation with Princess Toadstool to a place called Dinosaur Land, a prehistoric-themed world swarming with dinosaurs and other enemies. While resting on the beach, Princess Toadstool is captured by Bowser. When Mario and Luigi wake up, they try to find her and, after hours of searching, come across a giant egg in the forest. It suddenly hatches and out of it comes a young dinosaur named Yoshi, who tells them his dinosaur friends have also been imprisoned in eggs by evil Koopalings. Mario and Luigi soon realise it must be the evil King Bowser and his Koopalings. Mario, Luigi and Yoshi set out to save Toadstool and Yoshi's dinosaur friends, traversing through Dinosaur Land for Bowser and his Koopalings. To aid him, Yoshi gives Mario a cape as they begin their journey. Mario and Luigi continue to follow Bowser, defeating the Koopalings in the process, and save Yoshi's Yoshi friends. They eventually arrive at Bowser's Castle, where they fight him in a final battle. They send Bowser flying into the sky and save Princess Toadstool, restoring peace to Dinosaur Land.

Luigi has been notified about winning a mansion in a contest he did not enter. He informs Mario and they agree to meet up outside the mansion that evening. Luigi follows a map to the mansion, which is located in a dark forest, and finds it more sinister looking than the supplied photo. With Mario nowhere to be found, Luigi enters the mansion alone. He encounters a ghost, which attacks him, but is unexpectedly saved by a scientist who unsuccessfully tries to suck up the ghost with a vacuum cleaner. The duo evacuate as more ghosts appear and the scientist introduces himself as Professor Elvin Gadd, or E. Gadd for short. He explains the mansion is supernatural in origin and only appeared a few days prior. E. Gadd tells Luigi that he saw Mario heading towards the mansion, but has not seen him since. Upon learning that Mario is Luigi's brother, E. Gadd entrusts Luigi with his ghost-hunting equipment, including the Poltergust 3000 vacuum cleaner and Game Boy Horror communication device, and Luigi re-enters the mansion to look for Mario.

As Luigi explores the mansion, he discovers that it was built by King Boo to shelter the now-freed special ghosts that E. Gadd had previously captured and turned into paintings with a large machine dubbed the "Ghost Potrificationizer"; King Boo subsequently created the false contest to lure the Mario Bros. into a trap in retaliation for the boos they defeated in the past. After recapturing many ghosts and working his way through the mansion, Luigi confronts King Boo, who has turned Mario into a painting. King Boo pulls Luigi into the painting for their final battle, using a suit-like replica of Bowser to combat him. Luigi defeats King Boo and escapes from the painting. King Boo is later turned into a painting along with the recaptured ghosts, while Luigi uses the Ghost Portrificationizer's reverse function to restore Mario to normal. After the mansion (revealed to be an illusion) disappears, E. Gadd uses the treasure Luigi collected on his adventure to build him a new non-haunted house in its place. Its size depends on how much treasure the player gathered during the game.

Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party.

Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of "Sheba's Breasts") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of José Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to "give him a companion". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal.

They soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves "white men from the stars"—sorcerer-gods—and are required to give regular proof of their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity.

They are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by ordering regular witch hunts and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all of Quatermain's skill to save his life.

Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse to claim that they will black out the moon as proof of Ignosi's claim. (In early editions, this was a solar eclipse; Haggard changed it after realising that his description of a solar eclipse was not realistic). The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a duel.

The Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the living rock and full of gold, diamonds, and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's vast stone door. However, a brief scuffle with a beautiful Kukuana woman named Foulata—who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries sustained in the battle—causes Gagool to be crushed under the stone door, though not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich.

The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live comfortable lives.

During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. The change is made more dangerous by the language's seductive enhancement of other abilities. This is discovered by the beautiful starship captain, linguist, poet, and telepath Rydra Wong. She is recruited by her government to discover how the enemy is infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites. Initially Babel-17 is thought to be a code used by enemy agents. Rydra realizes it is a language in and of itself, and furthermore that she has a traitor on the ship. Rydra later finds that she herself is becoming the traitor as she learns more about Babel-17. She is rescued, however, by her dedicated crew, who figure out the danger and neutralize its effects.

The novel deals with several issues related to the peculiarities of language, how conditions of life shape the formation of words and meaning, and how words themselves can shape the actions of people.

The planet Pao is a quiet backwater with a large, homogeneous, stolid population ruled by an absolute monarch: the Panarch. Pao's cultural homogeneity contributes to making it vulnerable to external military and economic pressures. The current Panarch attempts to hire an offworld scientist, Lord Palafox from the Breakness Institute on the planet Breakness, as a consultant in order to reform Pao. Before the deal can be concluded, however, the Panarch is assassinated by his brother Bustamonte, using mind-control over the Panarch's own son, Beran Panasper, to do so. Lord Palafox saves Beran Panasper and takes him to Breakness as a possible bargaining chip in his dealings with Pao.

Somewhat later, the predatory Brumbo Clan from the planet Batmarsh raids the virtually defenseless Pao with impunity, and the Panarch Bustamonte is forced to pay heavy tribute. To rid himself of the Brumbos, he seeks the aid of Palafox, who has a plan to create warrior, technical and mercantile castes on Pao using customized languages (named Valiant, Technicant and Cogitant) and other means to shape the mindsets of each caste, isolating them from each other and the general populace of Pao. To achieve this, each caste gets a special training area where it is completely segregated from any outside influence; the necessary land is confiscated from families, some of which have held it for countless generations — which creates some disaffection in the conservative Paonese population and earns Bustamonte the name of a tyrant.

In order to return with them to Pao incognito, Beran Panasper infiltrates a corps of interpreters being trained on Breakness. Mostly to amuse themselves, some of the young people create a language they call "Pastiche", mixing words and grammatical forms, seemingly at random, from the three newly created languages and from the original Paonese language. Palafox looks upon this development with indulgence, failing to realize the tremendous long-term significance.

Beran returns to Pao under the name Ercolo Paraio and works for a few years as a translator at several locations. Once Beran Panasper reveals to the masses that he is still alive, his uncle Bustamonte's popular support melts virtually overnight and Panasper claims the title of Panarch that is rightfully his. The Brumbo Clan is repulsed by the warrior caste. For a few years, the castes of Pao are highly successful in their respective endeavors and the planet experiences a short golden age. However, Panasper is upset about the divisions in the populace of Pao caused by the Palafox program; the three new castes speak of the rest of the Paonese as "they" rather than "we" and regard them with contempt.

Beran attempts to return the planet to its previous state by re-integrating the castes into the general populace. Palafox opposes this move and is killed, but the warrior caste stages a coup and takes command of Pao. Panasper convinces them that they cannot rule the planet alone, since they share no common language with the rest of the population and cannot rely on the cooperation of the other segments of the people of Pao, and they allow him to keep his office.

One interpretation of the end of the novel is that Beran Panasper is only in nominal charge of the planet, on the sufferance of the warrior caste, and that it is uncertain what will become of him and his plans of re-uniting the populace of Pao. Another way of seeing the ending is that Beran has outfoxed the warriors by getting them to agree to his decree that "every child of Pao, of whatever caste, must learn Pastiche even in preference to the language of his father". In the end, Beran looks ahead twenty years, to a future when all inhabitants of Pao will be Pastiche-speakers — i.e., will speak a language which mixes some attributes and mindsets appropriate to peasant cultivators, proud warriors, skilled technicians and smart merchants — which will presumably shape a highly fluid and socially mobile society, composed of versatile and multi-skilled individuals.

Marseille and Chateau d'If

On the day in 1815 when Napoleon escapes the Island of Elba, Edmond Dantès brings the ship ''Pharaon'' into dock at Marseille. His captain, Leclère, had died during the passage; the ship's owner, Morrel, will make Dantès the next captain. On his deathbed, Leclère charged Dantès to deliver a package to General Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris.

Dantès' colleague Danglars is jealous of Dantès' rapid promotion and, as the two men are at odds, fearful for his own employment should Dantès ascend. On the eve of Dantès' wedding to his Catalan fiancée Mercédès, Danglars meets at a cabaret with Fernand Mondego, Mercédès' cousin and a rival for her affections, and the two hatch a plot to anonymously denounce Dantès, falsely accusing him of being a Bonapartist traitor. Danglars and Mondego set a trap for Dantès. Dantès' neighbour, Caderousse, is present at the meeting; he too is jealous of Dantès, although he objects to the plot, but becomes too intoxicated with wine to prevent it.

The following day at the wedding breakfast, Dantès is arrested, and the cowardly Caderousse stays silent, fearing being also accused of Bonapartism. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father, Noirtier, a Bonapartist, knowing it would destroy his own political career. To silence Dantès, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment and resists all appeals by Morrel to release him, during the Hundred Days and once the king Louis XVIII is restored to rule France.

After six years of solitary imprisonment in the Château d'If, Dantès is on the verge of suicide when he meets the Abbé Faria ("The Mad Priest"), a middle-aged Italian prisoner who had dug an escape tunnel that exited in Dantès' cell. Faria reveals he is a priest and scholar with excellent memory, creativity and impressive knowledge. Faria had been unfairly imprisoned back in 1807 after participating in political upheavals concerning the unification of Italy and then taken to the Château d'If in 1811. Faria says "(...) I dreamed of the very plan Napoleon tried to realise in 1811". At the time, Napoleon planned to set up a kingdom covering the whole Italian peninsula, notwithstanding, of course, opposition from the neighbouring kingdoms. The so-called ''Risorgimento Italiano'' did not begin in earnest until at least 1848, and reached fulfillment until 1871.

Over the next eight years, Faria educates Dantès in languages, history, culture, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, and science. Knowing himself to be close to death from catalepsy, Faria tells Dantès the location of a treasure on the Island of Monte Cristo, an inheritance from his work for the last of the Spada family, which, according to Faria himself, is estimated to be worth "Two Millions of Roman crowns [actually, écus, but it might as well refer to either soldi or denarii]; nearly thirteen millions of our money (francs)". During the course of his imprisonment, Faria tells the story of the treasure: In April 1498, Cardinal Cesare Spada ordered the fortune hidden in the Island of Monte Cristo in order to prevent it from being seized by the then Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia. Cardinal Spada suspected he was going to be murdered (as the cardinals before him had been) and informed his nephew and only heir that the total of his fortune was hidden there and belonged to him through an invisible ink letter. Cardinal Spada's attempt failed, however, as neither Spada's nephew nor his descendants were able to decipher the note. When the Cardinal and his nephew attend a lunch presided over by the Pope, both die after drinking poisoned wine, leaving the treasure abandoned.

Faria, who solved the mystery shortly after the death of the last living descendant of the Spada family, was on his way to retrieve the treasure but was captured by the Italian authorities, leaving him the only person who knew the secret.

On 28 February 1829, exactly 14 years after Edmond's imprisonment, Faria succumbs to catalepsy after his third attack. He became partly paralysed during the second, in which Dantés revived him by supplying him with a liquor. Taking advantage of the distraction of the jailers, Dantès, after failing to revive Faria, decides to take his body to his jail and takes his place in the burial sack, armed with a knife that Faria made. When he is thrown into the sea, Dantès cuts through the sack and swims to a nearby island, the Island of Tiboulen, where he is rescued by a Genoese smuggling ship that passes Monte Cristo called ''Jeune-Amélie'' (Young Amelia), whose crew allow Dantès to join them. After a few months (April–May 1829), during which time Dantès transforms his appearance and gets stable work aboard ship, he decides to seek out the treasure. Seizing an opportunity, Dantès and the crew disembark, with the excuse of hunting goats ("kids"). To stay on the island (to find his hidden treasure), Dantès simulates an accident and pretends he has broken some of his ribs. Six days later, the ship returns and he boards, carrying a few carefully hidden diamonds with him.

In port, Dantès sells some of the diamonds in order to purchase a yacht, sails to Monte Cristo for the rest of the treasure, and returns to Marseille in search of information which may lead to his vengeance. He later purchases the Island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan government.

Travelling as the Abbé Busoni, Dantès meets Caderousse, now married and living in poverty, who regrets not intervening in Dantès' arrest. Caderousse informs Dantès that Mercédès had resigned herself, after eighteen months of vain expectations concerning Dantès' return from prison, to marrying Fernand, with whom she has a son, Albert.

Caderousse names Danglars and Mondego as the men who betrayed him, and also that his father has died of self-inflicted starvation. After Dantès' disappearance, both Danglars and Mondego had become successful beyond expectation; Danglars, after having been appointed as a cashier in a Spanish Bank—for which Mr. Morrel had recommended him—enters into the world of speculation, amassing a multi-million franc fortune and marrying Mr. de Salvieux's daughter, Madame de Norgonne, a wealthy widow.

Mondego pursues a successful military career, especially after the restoration period, serving in the Battle of Ligny. After his service in the French Army, he eventually gains the favour of the restored Bourbon monarchy and ascends with rapidity in the Armée, becoming captain in 1823. He then travels to several campaigns both in Spain and in Greece, ascending to colonel and then lieutenant-colonel in 1829. Mondego and his wife finally remain in Spain due to his duties.

After relating the story, Dantès rewards Caderousse a diamond worth—allegedly—50,000 francs that can be either a chance to redeem himself or a trap that will lead to his ruin.

Learning that his old employer Morrel faces bankruptcy, Dantès, posing as a clerk of Thomson and French, buys Morrel's debts and gives Morrel three months to fulfil his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way to repay his debts, Morrel is about to commit suicide when he learns that his debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his lost ships has returned with a full cargo, secretly rebuilt and laden by Dantès.

Revenge

After travelling in the East to continue his education (and to plot his revenge), Dantès reappears nine years later, in 1838, as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo, a title he has purchased. His three targets are Mondego (now Count de Morcerf and husband of Mercédès); Danglars (now a baron and a banker); and Villefort (now ''procureur du roi'', or prosecutor for the king).

In Rome, at Carnival time, Dantès arranges for Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the son of Mercédès and Mondego, to be captured by the bandit Luigi Vampa. Dantès "rescues" the boy, who shows his gratitude by agreeing to introduce the Count into Parisian society. In Paris, Dantès dazzles Danglars with his wealth, persuading him to extend him a credit of six million francs. By manipulating the bond market, Dantès then quickly destroys a large portion of Danglars' fortune. The rest of it rapidly disappears through mysterious bankruptcies, suspensions of payment, and more bad luck in the Stock Exchange.

On 21 May 1838, during Dantès' first visit to Paris after a long while (though his alter-ego feigns he has never been there), he decides to stay at Albert's residence (next to his parents, the count and countess of Moncerf). He meets Mercédès for the first time in 23 years, without her knowing his real identity. After spending the time in the Moncerfs' residence, Dantès meets up with a notary in the Champs Elysées to settle up the purchase of a private home located in Auteuil. Having paid the sum of 55,000 francs and after receiving the deed of the property and the keys, they both proceed to the residence. Upon arriving, after having become acquainted with the concierge and then exploring the house, Dantès' servant, a Corsican called Bertuccio, becomes nervous and uncomfortable. Dantès inquires after the reason for his uneasiness, threatening him unless he explains.

Bertuccio reveals he had an older brother who had raised him since they became orphans. Shortly after Bertuccio's brother married, he was ambushed and killed (possibly by radical royalists for being a Bonapartist) in 1815, shortly after Bonaparte's fall after the Hundred Days), in Nîmes, where Villefort ruled. His brother's death left him and his brother's widow, Assunta, without a living, which forces Bertuccio to take up smuggling. In July 1815 Bertuccio encounters Villefort, demanding he intervene and prosecute the killers, but he refuses to do so, stating that "Well, he was smitten with the sword, and he perished by the sword (...) It is a misfortune, and the government owes nothing to your family". Feeling cheated and deceived, Bertuccio warns Villefort "(...) protect yourself as well as you can, for the next time we meet your last hour has come". Concerned about his safety, Villefort asks to be transferred, eventually ending up in Versailles.

Bertuccio spends three months tracking Villefort to Auteuil, eventually finding him in late September 1815, the day when Madame Danglars, then a widow, delivered their illegitimate child in the house that the Count has now purchased from the father-in-law of Villefort, the Marquis de Saint-Meran. To cover up the affair, Villefort told Madame Danglars that the infant was stillborn, smothered the child and attempted to bury him in a box with a piece of linen cloth—which revealed his noble precedence—(inscribed with the letters "H" and "N", later revealed as indicating '''H'''ermine of '''N'''orgonne) in the garden. During the secret burial, Bertuccio stabs Villefort in the breast, which leaves him on the verge of death. Bertuccio unearths the child and resuscitates him after escaping from the residence. Unable to keep the child, given his current financial situation, he decides to leave the child at an asylum located in Paris. During the succeeding months, increased smuggling trade improves both Bertuccio and Assunta's fortunes.

Villefort later reveals that, after having been left in an agonizing state, he managed to creep back to the main house and reached the ladder where Madame Danglars—who had just gone through childbirth—found and rescued him. After being assisted by the delivery nurse—to whom Villefort and Danglars lied, attributing the wound to a duel—Villefort travelled to Versailles to recover from his wound. After three months of recovery, Villefort is ordered to the South to take upon his affairs, and, after travelling through the Central Paris, Chalons, the Rhone, Arles and Marseilles, at the end of six months (c. March–April 1816), Villefort heals definitely. Sometime later (on Villefort's account, November 1816), Villefort goes back to the Auteuil house in search of the corpse, for he was haunted by the feeling that the baby—as he was unable to find the box—may have survived and, if so, then Bertuccio (whom he doesn't know anything about, except for the fact that he was a Corsican) had kidnapped the baby after stabbing him.

Villefort tracked the baby to the same asylum where Bertuccio left him, but when arriving he was told that a woman (Assunta) in possession of half of the linen cloth had taken the baby away. According to Villefort, his agents lost track of her shortly after she left Chalons. Despite spending more than twenty years on that quest, by the time Villefort confessed the truth to Madame Danglars, his search had proven—at least, until then—completely unfruitful.

After the assassination attempt of Villefort, Bertuccio and Assunta travel back to Rogliano, Corsica, where Bertuccio returns to smuggling. Assunta tracks down the baby's location following the address stated in the linen cloth Bertuccio retrieved from the burial box and takes him home (he gave half of the cloth to Assunta). Assunta then decides to bring up the child, giving him the name "Benedetto" (meaning ''blessed'' in Italian).

Benedetto, however, begins to engage in criminal activities from an early age, partly caused by Assunta's tolerant treatment of him, and takes up a life of crime by age 11. One day, after being refused money by Assunta, Benedetto and two comrades torture Assunta by exposing her feet close to the brazier, which causes her to burst into flames. Despite screaming in agony and trying to escape, she dies from her wounds.

At the same time, on 3 June 1829, during a journey to the Gulf of Lyon for business affairs, Bertuccio's ship is surrounded—due to increased surveillance—and he is forced to escape by swimming through the Rhône, finally reaching Beaucaire. There, on the road from Beaucaire to Bellegarde, he decides to make a stop at Caderousse's lodging to shelter. However, seeing that he had visitors inside, prefers to hide outside of the house, crossing the fence and hiding in a shed parallel to the inn.

Inside, Bertuccio sees Caderousse negotiating and discussing with a Parisian jeweller, M. Joannes, for the sale of the diamond bestowed by Dantès during his visit as the Abbé Busoni. The jeweller offers Caderousse a sum of 40, and then 45,000 francs for the diamond, but Carderouse demands to be paid the sum estimated by the Abbé (50,000 francs), which the jeweller rejects, not only telling him that he will not buy it for that price, but also threatening to report him to the authorities if he refuses to sell it to him at the price he requested, for the story of its acquisition sounds highly unlikely. Finally, Carderousse accepts the offer and receives 15,000 in gold and the remaining 30,000 in banknotes.

When the jeweller is about to depart, Caderousse and his wife ask him to remain with the promise of supper and lodging for the night, an offer that the jeweller is finally forced to accept after a storm prevents him from returning to his home. After the Caderousses, Joannes and Bertuccio go to sleep, Caderousse, fueled by the impulse of greed, kills his wife and M. Joannes, then flees in the middle of the night with both the diamond and the 45,000 francs.

Bertuccio enters the house to view the crime scene but is discovered by the port authorities, who arrest him for the murders. After three months in jail, Bertuccio reveals the truth to the Abbé Busoni, who confirms his story. Shortly before 8 September, the day of his trial, Caderousse is captured in a neighbouring country and repatriated to France, where he confesses, which leads to Bertuccio's release from jail. Since his older brother and sister-in-law are now dead, Bertuccio has no family in Corsica, so he takes Abbé Busoni's advice to work for the Count.

Benedetto is sentenced to the galleys with Caderousse. After Benedetto and Caderousse are freed by Dantès, using the alias "Lord Wilmore," the Count induces Benedetto to take the identity of "Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti" and introduces him into Parisian society. Andrea ingratiates himself to Danglars, who betroths his daughter Eugénie to Andrea, not knowing they are half-siblings, after cancelling her engagement to Albert. Meanwhile, Caderousse blackmails Andrea, threatening to reveal his past if he does not share his newfound wealth. Cornered by "Abbé Busoni" while attempting to rob the Count's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance. Dantès forces him to write a letter to Danglars exposing Cavalcanti as an impostor and allowing Caderousse to leave the house. The moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed by Andrea. Caderousse dictates a deathbed statement identifying his killer, and the Count reveals his true identity to Caderousse moments before he dies.

Wanting information on how Albert's father made his fortune in Greece years earlier, Danglars researches the events, and the information is published in a French newspaper while Albert and the Count are in Normandy. Albert's friend Beauchamps sends the news article to Albert, who returns to Paris. His father has been tried in a court of the French aristocrats and is found guilty based on the testimony of Haydée, who reads the newspapers.

On an occasion at the Count's house, Albert meets Haydeé, who tells him the story of how she became a slave. After escaping from their palace, Ali Pasha of Janina, his wife, Vasiliki, his daughter, Haydeé, their servant Selim, and a troop of 20 soldiers escort Pasha's family to a fortress. His servants take the whole of Pasha's fortune stacked in 60,000 pouches—allegedly worth 25,000,000 francs in gold—and 200 barrels containing 30,000 pounds of powder to be set ready so, in case of not being pardoned by Sultan Mahmud II, they would, according to Pasha's own wishes, kill themselves in a murder-suicide.

After hiding for some time, four boats reach Pasha's refuge. Pasha, who is cheated by Fernand, is received among cries of joy. Selim, who guarded the Pasha's fortune and his wife and daughter, is also deceived and persuaded to turn off the flame in his torch. After obeying this, Selim is seized and stabbed to death by four French soldiers. Ali, who resists being killed, exchanging gunfire with the Frenchmen, but is captured and murdered. After Ali's death, Fernand sold Ali's wife Vasiliki and his 4-year-old daughter Haydée into slavery, thus earning his fortune. While Vasiliki died thereafter, Dantès purchased Haydée seven years later when she was 13 years old.

After going to a trial, Fernand has a defence against the newspaper's story but no defence against Haydée's testimony. He rides away from the court in his disgrace. Albert blames the Count for his father's downfall, as Danglars says that the Count encouraged him to do the research on the father of the man engaged to his daughter. Albert challenges him to a duel. Mercédès, having already recognized Monte Cristo as Dantès, goes to the Count, now back in Paris, and begs him to spare her son. During this interview, she learns the truth of the arrest and imprisonment of Dantès but still convinces the Count not to kill her son. Realizing that Edmond Dantès now intends to let Albert kill him, she reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to the Count.

Albert and Mercédès disown Fernand and leave his house. Fernand then confronts the Count of Monte Cristo, who reveals his identity as Edmond Dantès; returning home in time to see his wife and son leave, Fernand shoots himself. Albert and Mercédès renounce their titles and wealth and depart to begin new lives, starting in Marseille, at the house where Dantès and his father once lived. Dantès told them of the 3,000 francs he had buried there, to start life once he married, before all his misfortunes. Albert enlists as a soldier.

Valentine, Villefort's daughter by his first wife, stands to inherit the fortune of her grandfather Noirtier and of her mother's parents, the Saint-Mérans, while Villefort's second wife Héloïse seeks the fortune for her son Édouard. The Count is aware of Héloïse's intentions and introduces her to the techniques of poison. Héloïse fatally poisons the Saint-Mérans, so that Valentine inherits their fortune. Valentine is briefly disinherited by Noirtier in an attempt to prevent Valentine's impending marriage with Franz d'Épinay, whom she does not love; however, the marriage is cancelled when d'Épinay learns from Noirtier that his father, who he believed was assassinated by Bonapartists, was killed by Noirtier in a duel.

After a failed attempt on Noirtier's life, which leaves Noirtier's servant Barrois dead, Héloïse targets Valentine so that Édouard, his other grandchild, will get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-Mérans and Barrois. On learning that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine, the Count saves her by making it appear as though Héloïse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine is dead. Villefort learns from Noirtier that Héloïse is the real murderer and confronts her, giving her the choice of public execution or committing suicide.

Fleeing after Caderousse's letter exposes him and frees Danglars’ daughter from any marriage, Andrea is arrested and returned to Paris. Eugènie Danglars flees as well with her girlfriend. Villefort prosecutes Andrea. Bertuccio visits Andrea who is in prison awaiting trial, to tell him the truth about his father. At his trial, Andrea reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive. Villefort admits his guilt and flees the court. He rushes home to stop his wife's suicide but is too late; she has poisoned her son as well. The Count confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity as Dantès, which drives Villefort insane. Dantès tries but fails to resuscitate Édouard, causing him to question if he has gone too far.

Parallelly, the Count begins to manipulate the bond market. In Orléans, he visits a telegraph tower, in whose entrance he finds a 55-year-old man, who is fond of horticulture. After a brief acquaintance, the man, a public employee with a low-paying job. Up in the tower, the Count persuades him to allow him to manipulate the message, by bribing the telegrapher with 25,000 francs. The telegram sent to the Ministry of Interior states that the pretender to the throne King of Spain exiled at Bourges in 1830, Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, had returned to Barcelona acclaimed by popular opinion. This implied political instability, which would in turn impact negatively on the demand of Spanish bonds in which Danglars—according to his wife—had invested six million francs. However, after the news of the pretender's return was proved false, Danglars ends up losing 700,000 francs, and then, another 8–900,000 after a man called Jacopo Manfredi—secretly a Count's acquittance—mysteriously goes bankrupt—for Danglars always considered him creditworthy and "(...) he paid like a prince"—and fails to answer to his obligations.

Eventually, through further manipulation of the bond market, Danglars is left with a destroyed reputation and 5,000,000 francs he has been holding in deposit for hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. He abandoned his wife, whom he blames for his losses in stock investments. She is also abandoned by her partner in investing, whom she hoped to marry. Danglars flees to Italy with the Count's receipt for the cash he requested from the banker Danglars, and 50,000 francs. While leaving Rome, he is kidnapped by the Count's agent Luigi Vampa, a bandit, and is imprisoned. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food—100,000 francs for a fowl and 25,000 for a bottle of water, for instance—and nearly starved to death, Danglars signs away his ill-gotten gains to survive. Dantès anonymously returns the money to the hospitals, as Danglars had given their cash to the Count. Danglars finally repents his crimes, and a softened Dantès forgives him and allows him to leave with his freedom and 50,000 francs.

Resolution and return to the Orient

Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dantès reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy years earlier; he then tells Maximilien to reconsider his suicide, and Maximilien is saved.

On the Island of Monte Cristo, Dantès presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace in reviewing his vengeance and deciding he cannot play God, Dantès leaves the newly reunited couple part of his fortune on the island and departs for the East to find comfort and begin a new life with Haydée, who has declared her love for him. The reader is left with a final thought: "''l'humaine sagesse était tout entière dans ces deux mots: attendre et espérer!''" ("all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope'").

While researching for his upcoming book, the narrator travels to Ilium, New York, the hometown of the late Felix Hoenikker, a co-creator of the atomic bomb and Nobel laureate physicist, to interview Hoenikker's children, coworkers, and other acquaintances. There, he learns of a substance called ''ice-nine'', created for military use by Hoenikker and now likely in the possession of his three adult children. ''Ice-nine'' is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and acts as a seed crystal upon contact with ordinary liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly freeze and transform into more ''ice-nine''. Among several odd unfoldings in Ilium, the narrator meets Hoenniker's younger son, a dwarf named Newt, who recounts that his father was doing nothing more than playing the string game "cat's cradle" when the first bomb was dropped.

Eventually, a magazine assignment takes the narrator to the (fictional) Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, one of the poorest countries on Earth. On the plane ride, the narrator is surprised to see Newt and also meets the newly appointed US ambassador to San Lorenzo, who provides a comprehensive guidebook on San Lorenzo's unusual culture and history. The guidebook describes a locally influential semi-parody religious movement called Bokononism, which combines irreverent, nihilistic, and cynical observations about life and God's will; an emphasis on coincidences and serendipity; and both thoughtful and humorous sayings and rituals into a holy text called ''The Books of Bokonon''. Bokonon, the religion's founder, was a former leader of the island who created Bokononism as part of a utopian project to give people purpose and community in the face of the island's unsolvable poverty and squalor. As a deliberate attempt to give Bokononism an alluring sense of forbidden glamor and hope, the religion is nominally outlawed, which forced Bokonon to live in "hiding" in the jungle. The current dictator, "Papa" Monzano, threatens all Bokononists with impalement on a large hook. Intrigued by Bokononism, the narrator later deduces the strange reality that nearly all residents of San Lorenzo, even including "Papa" Monzano himself, practice it in secret, and punishment by the hook is, in actuality, quite rare.

On San Lorenzo, the plane passengers are greeted by "Papa" Monzano; his beautiful adopted daughter Mona, whom the narrator intensely lusts after; and a crowd of some five thousand San Lorenzans. Monzano is ill from cancer and wants his successor to be Frank Hoenikker: Monzano's personal bodyguard and, coincidentally, Felix Hoenikker's other son. However, Frank, uncomfortable with leading, confronts the narrator in private and somewhat randomly offers him the presidency. Startled at first, the narrator grudgingly accepts after he is promised the beautiful Mona for his bride. Newt reiterates the idea of the cat's cradle, implying that the game, with its invisible cat, is an appropriate symbol for nonsense and the meaninglessness of life. Soon after, the bedridden "Papa" Monzano commits suicide by swallowing ''ice-nine'', whereupon his corpse instantly turns into solid ''ice-nine''. Frank Hoenikker admits that he once gave Monzano a fragment of ''ice-nine'', and the Hoenikkers explain that when they were young their father would give them hints about the existence of ''ice-nine'' while experimenting with it in the kitchen. After their father's death, they gathered chunks of the substance into thermos flasks and have kept them ever since.

Festivities for the narrator's presidential inauguration begin, but during an air show performed by San Lorenzo's fighter planes, one of the planes malfunctions and crashes into the seaside palace, causing Monzano's still-frozen body to fall into the sea. Instantly, all the water in the world's seas, rivers, and groundwater transforms into solid ''ice-nine''. The freezing of the world's oceans immediately causes violent tornadoes to ravage the Earth, but the narrator manages to escape with Mona to a secret bunker beneath the palace. When the initial storms subside after several days, they emerge. Exploring the island for survivors, they discover a mass grave where all the surviving San Lorenzans committed suicide by touching ''ice-nine'' from the landscape to their mouths on the facetious advice of Bokonon, who has left a note of explanation. Displaying a mix of grief for her people and resigned amusement, Mona promptly follows suit and dies.

The horrified narrator is discovered by a few other survivors, including Newt and Frank Hoenikker, and he lives with them in a cave for several months, during which time he writes the contents of the book. Driving through the barren wasteland one day, he spots Bokonon himself, who is contemplating what the last words of ''The Books of Bokonon'' should be. Bokonon states that if he were younger, he would place a book about human stupidity on the peak of San Lorenzo's highest mountain, swallow ''ice-nine'', and die while thumbing his nose at God.

In 1838, in the fictional German town of Wisborg, Thomas Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer, estate agent Herr Knock, to visit a new client named Count Orlok who plans to buy a house across from Hutter's own home. While embarking on his journey, Hutter stops at an inn where the locals become frightened by the mere mention of Orlok's name.

Hutter rides on a coach to a castle, where he is welcomed by Count Orlok. When Hutter is eating dinner and accidentally cuts his thumb, Orlok tries to suck the blood out, but his repulsed guest pulls his hand away. Hutter wakes up the morning after to find fresh punctures on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes. That night, Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house and notices a photo of Hutter's wife, Ellen, remarking that she has a "lovely neck." Reading a book about vampires that he took from the local inn, Hutter starts to suspect that Orlok is a vampire. He cowers in his room as midnight approaches, with no way to bar the door. The door opens by itself and Orlok enters, and Hutter hides under the bed covers and falls unconscious. Meanwhile, his wife awakens from her sleep, and in a trance walks onto her balcony's railing, which gets his friend Harding's attention. When the doctor arrives, she shouts Hutter's name, apparently able to see Orlok in his castle threatening her unconscious husband.

The next day, Hutter explores the castle, only to retreat back into his room after he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant in the crypt. Hours later, Orlok piles up coffins on a coach and climbs into the last one before the coach departs, and Hutter rushes home after learning this. The coffins are taken aboard a schooner, where all of the ship's sailors and captain die and Orlok takes control. When the ship arrives in Wisborg, Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, and moves into the house he purchased.

Many deaths in the town follow after Orlok's arrival, which the town's doctors blame on an unspecified plague. Ellen reads the book Hutter found, which claims that a vampire can be defeated if a pure-hearted woman distracts the vampire with her beauty. She opens her window to invite Orlok in, but faints. Hutter revives her, and she sends him to fetch Professor Bulwer, a physician. After he leaves, Orlok enters and drinks her blood, but starts as the sun rises, causing Orlok to vanish in a puff of smoke by the sunlight. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband.

The last scene shows Count Orlok's destroyed castle in the Carpathian Mountains, symbolizing the end of his bloody reign of terror.

Season 1 (1998)

Carrie Bradshaw lives in Manhattan and writes a column called "Sex and the City". At a birthday party for Miranda, Carrie and her friends talk about having sex "like men", meaning without emotional attachment. She puts the theory to test and sleeps with a man who had previously broken her heart many times. Only this time she treats him like he had treated her and discovers that he seemed quite eager to see her again the next time they meet. Carrie discusses her relationships candidly with her best friend Standford Blatch who is gay and perpetually looking for love.

Carrie has many chance encounters with a handsome businessman whom Samantha refers to as "Mr. Big". They begin to date, but Carrie is dismayed to find out he is still seeing other people. Although he eventually agrees to exclusivity, he doesn't introduce Carrie to his mother and won't refer to her as "the one", so rather than going on a planned vacation with him, Carrie breaks it off.

Carrie sets up Miranda with her friend Skipper. Miranda and he date on and off; he is more laid back while Miranda is more forceful. After they break up, Miranda sees him with another woman and feels compelled to resume their relationship, but they again break up when he wants exclusivity and she does not.

Charlotte dates a marriage-minded man but they clash over china patterns. She declines to have anal sex with another boyfriend and also consents to pose nude for a famous painter.

Samantha sleeps with an artist who likes to videotape his encounters, with Charlotte's doorman, with a married couple, and with others. When she meets James, who seems utterly perfect for her, she's heartbroken to discover that he has an extremely small penis.

Season 2 (1999)

Carrie dates a baseball player while on the rebound but breaks it off when she realizes she's not over Big. She then dates a sell-out filmmaker, a shoplifter, and a nice guy she scares away by snooping, and then takes up with Big again. She at first keeps this from her friends. Her and Big's relationship is rocky, and when he announces that he might have to move to Paris for a year but doesn't overtly invite Carrie to come with him, they break up a second time. Carrie then tries without success to convert a friend-with-benefits to something more, dates a writer with a great family but who is always "early" in bed, and then a recovering alcoholic who uses Carrie to replace his old addiction. She then runs into Big, returned from Paris, and his new 20-something fiancée, Natasha (played by Bridget Moynahan).

Miranda dates a dirty talker, fakes it with an ophthalmologist, and tries to adjust to a guy who likes to watch porn during sex. By the time she meets Steve, the bartender, she's unwilling to believe he is as nice as he seems. They start dating but the differences in their schedules and their finances lead to a breakup. She winds up back in bed with Steve, but not before dating a guy who wants to get caught, a Peeping Tom in the next building, and a divorced dad.

Charlotte encounters a legendary purveyor of cunnilingus, a handy actor next door, a widower on the make, a man who undergoes adult circumcision, a famous actor, a too-effeminate pastry chef, a shoe salesman with a foot fetish, and a 20-something guy who gives her crabs.

Despite a brief attempt at couples therapy, Samantha breaks up with James. She then sleeps with a litigator, a salsa dancer, her personal trainer, a sports fan who can only rally when his team does well, and Charlotte's brother. She then meets a man whose penis is too big even for her.

The end of season two also marks the end of characters' talking directly to the camera.

Season 3 (2000)

Carrie starts off dating a politician, followed by a bisexual man. Big marries Natasha, and Carrie meets Aidan, a furniture maker. They have a virtually flaw-free relationship until Carrie and Big begin an affair. When Natasha catches Carrie in Natasha and Big's apartment, Carrie and Big's affair ends as do eventually both Big's marriage and Carrie's relationship with Aidan.

Miranda and Steve move in together. He tells Miranda he'd like them to have a baby, but a puppy purchase instead alerts Miranda to the fact that they're very different when it comes to maturity. Steve moves out and Miranda makes partner at her law firm. She also goes on to date a phone sex guy, a fake ER doctor, a guy who doesn't swallow his food, and a police detective.

Charlotte, looking for a husband, dates an investment banker with an anger management problem, a photographer who gets her into menswear, a bad kisser, and a climax name caller. She then meets Trey MacDougal; despite an awkward "proposal", the discovery of his low libido and inability to perform sexually the night before their marriage, and conflict with his domineering mother, the two marry. They begin their marriage with a sexless honeymoon, and as sex remains an ongoing problem in their relationship, the two eventually separate.

Samantha sleeps with a firefighter, a short man, her assistant, a black guy with a disapproving sister, a recreational Viagra user, a guy who tastes bad, Trey's Scottish cousin, a dildo model, and a college-aged virgin. She also has a menopause scare, gets tested for HIV, and buys a new apartment in the Meatpacking District, where she has to make peace with the transgender women on her street.

After Carrie's break-ups with Big and Aidan, she dates a guy who still lives at home, teaches a class at the Learning Annex on how to meet men, gets mugged, and tries to apologize to Natasha. She and Big also make an attempt at being friends.

Season 4 (2001–02)

After a chance meeting with Aidan at the opening of a bar he co-owns, Carrie convinces him to restart their relationship. He moves into her apartment after purchasing it when her building goes co-op and then proposes. Despite her misgivings, Carrie accepts the proposal and then eventually realizes she's not ready for marriage. Despite discussing her concerns and initially agreeing to give her more time, Aidan soon pressures Carrie for marriage. She realizes this is because he does not trust her, given her past affair with Big. They break up and he moves out, and Carrie purchases her apartment after Charlotte lends her the down payment in the form of the engagement ring she received from Trey. At the end of Season Four, Carrie discovers that Big has sold his apartment and is moving to Napa, California.

Charlotte and Trey are living apart but continuing to have marital relations; they eventually reconcile and Charlotte moves back into their shared apartment. They decide to try for a baby but realize Charlotte is reproductively challenged; after fertility treatments and discussing adoption, their marriage breaks apart under the strain and they decide to divorce.

Miranda supports Steve through testicular cancer and surgery. Later, when he feels emasculated by the surgery, they have sex and Miranda gets pregnant. She initially considers an abortion, which is particularly distressing to Charlotte, as she deals with her struggles to get pregnant, but Miranda decides to keep the baby.

Samantha flirts with a priest, has nude photos taken of herself, tries to have a relationship with a lesbian, and sleeps with a baby talker, a wrestling coach, and a farmer. She then lands a big PR account with resolutely single hotel magnate Richard Wright. They begin a relationship that starts out as purely sexual but becomes something more to both of them, and they attempt monogamy. However, she eventually catches him cheating, and they break up.

Season 5 (2002)

Carrie spends time by herself in Season Five; she fears this means she will be fired from writing her sex column, but instead a publisher wants to turn the columns into a book. A book tour lands her in San Francisco, where she reunites briefly with Big. In New York, she meets Jack Berger, a fellow author with whom she feels sparks, but who is attached.

Samantha tries again with Richard but finds herself constantly paranoid. On a trip to Atlantic City with Richard and the girls, she cannot overcome her lack of trust in him and breaks it off for good.

Miranda is now mother to son Brady and finds it difficult to work, date, and carry on her previous lifestyle. Steve is supportive, and she falls into bed with him one afternoon, making her question her feelings for him.

Charlotte has a run-in with her former mother-in-law over the legalities of the apartment she shared with Trey, and she hires Harry Goldenblatt as her divorce attorney. Despite his physical shortcomings she finds herself attracted to him, and they begin a sexual relationship. She soon finds that she is developing real feelings for him. Harry, however, reveals that he must marry within his Jewish faith, causing Charlotte to actually consider conversion.

Season 6 (2003–04)

Carrie begins dating Jack Berger, who is termed her best 'mental match' of all her relationships. However, his struggles as an author and her success with her upcoming book cause too much conflict between them, and they break up. Big returns to New York for angioplasty, and Carrie realizes she still has feelings for him; she also realizes he still cannot fully commit. After he returns to Napa, she meets Aleksandr, a famous Russian artist. Aleksandr seems to be attentive to her in a way that Big never was, and he asks her to come to Paris with him. She does, briefly, but realizes how inattentive he is when working, and she breaks it off with him just as Big arrives in Paris, looking for her, ready to finally commit to her being "the one".

Charlotte decides that life with Harry, who accepts her fertility issues, would be worth converting to Judaism. After this process, she presses Harry to "set the date" in an insulting way and he breaks it off with her. However, they run into each other at a mixer and, after her tearful apology, rekindle their relationship and eventually marry. After fertility treatments fail, they decide to adopt, and eventually learn they have been approved to adopt a child from China.

Once Miranda realizes she's still in love with Steve, he begins a serious relationship with someone else (Debbie), and so she does the same with Robert (played by Blair Underwood). However, at their son Brady's first birthday party, they reveal their feelings for each other and renew their relationship. Miranda proposes to Steve and they marry in a community park. Needing more room for their growing family, she consents to moving to Brooklyn, where they buy a brownstone. After Steve's mother Mary (played by Anne Meara) is revealed to have suffered a stroke and subsequent memory loss, she moves in with the couple.

Samantha begins a relationship with a much younger waiter, Jerry Jerrod, who turns out to be a struggling actor. She uses her PR skills to help his career, even changing his name to Smith Jerrod. Despite trying to keep their relationship as casual as her others, she develops true feelings for him. Smith supports her after she is diagnosed with breast cancer, shaving his own head in sympathy after catching her shaving her head when chemotherapy makes her hair fall out. He also insists on waiting for her when her treatment diminishes her sex drive. When he flies home from his movie shoot just to tell her that he loves her, she replies, "You have meant more to me than any man I've ever known."

The season and the series concludes with the four girlfriends reunited in New York City, and with Carrie receiving a phone call from Big (which finally reveals his first name, John), telling her that his Napa house is up for sale and he is headed back to New York. Carrie's final voiceover states: "The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you ''you'' love, well, that's just fabulous."

The book details the everyday life of its narrator, Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s Britain. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred is a part-time voluntary worker who occupies herself by attending and helping at the local church. Mildred's life grows more exciting with the arrival of new neighbours, anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky – with whom Mildred fancies herself in love. Through the Napiers, she meets another anthropologist, Everard Bone, and it is with him that Mildred will eventually form a relationship. A subplot revolves around the activities of the local vicar, Julian Malory, who becomes engaged to a glamorous clergyman's widow, Allegra Gray. Allegra proceeds to ease out Julian's sister and housekeeper, Winifred, a close friend of Mildred's. Eventually matters come to a head and Allegra leaves the vicarage after a quarrel. In the meantime, Helena, who has been on the verge of leaving Rocky for Everard, accepts that Everard does not care for her and leaves the neighbourhood, along with Rocky.

The novel concludes with Mildred unsure of her future, but having agreed to carry out indexing tasks for Everard Bone. Other Pym novels portray Everard and Mildred as a married couple, usually unseen.

As with most of Pym's books, the plot is less important than the precise drawing of the comic characters (such as Everard's elderly mother who is obsessed with the suppression of woodworm) and situations.

Garion and friends go after Ctuchik, the evil Angarak sorcerer who has the Orb.