Winslow Lowry is a no-good, indebted gambler and the nephew of elderly, infirm millionaire Albert Dennison. Winslow seeks to speed up his uncle's demise by hiring three of the most inept orderlies he can possibly find. The trio (played by The Fat Boys Markie, Buffy and Kool) only mean well, however, and their good-natured antics actually help re-energize the ailing Albert. In the end the trio and Albert learn about Winslow's scheme and try to stop him.

Alex (Mitchell Anderson)  is caught in a web of distrust between his brother, his best friend, a beautiful stranger and the renewed dreams of the slaughter of his family. still has bad dreams about his parents, slain on Christmas Eve by a hunter wearing an animal mask.

In 1992, twenty Ivy League football players visit Japan, to play an exhibition match against Japanese college kids. On this trip, Princeton University's contribution to that all-star-Ivy team, John Malcolm, encountered a Princeton alum, Dean Carney (also a pseudonym). Carney was an executive in Kidder Peabody's Tokyo office, and he suggested Malcolm contact him about a job if his pro football career did not pan out.

When it did not, and following a job search on Wall Street, Malcolm contacted Carney in 1993. Malcolm then became one of KP's two Osaka-based traders. This lasted until April 1994, when KP discovered a $350 million "accounting glitch," and assigned responsibility for the glitch to one of its managing directors, Joseph Jett. KP (and its corporate parent, General Electric) made sweeping cutbacks in their trading operations as a result. Both Carney and Malcolm—neither of whom had anything to do with Jett's accounting trickery—were out of jobs, and they went their separate ways.

Malcolm took a position with a venerable English bank, Barings. He was again to work out of Osaka, but this time his orders were coming from Singapore, where Barings' star trader, Nick Leeson, held court. Leeson, though, was making huge unauthorized trades during this period. In January 1995 he made an enormous bet on a rise in the key Japanese stock exchange index, known as the Nikkei (large enough so that if he won, he would recover all his losses). However, the huge bet went against him, due to the Kobe earthquake (January 17) and its devastating effects on Japan's economy. After a brief period as a fugitive, Leeson was captured and did prison time. Meanwhile, Barings suffered historic loses from the gamble, and later went into receivership.

For the second time in eight months, a superior's malfeasance had cost Malcolm a job. He called Carney for help. Carney, meanwhile, had founded a hedge fund, and Malcolm was soon trading for it, primarily index arbitrage. In 1994, the Hong Kong government created a tracker fund for the Hang Seng (the Hong Kong equivalent of the Dow Jones or the Nikkei; see Tracker Fund of Hong Kong). In 1995, after Malcolm was settled into his Tokyo job, a company named Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCC) merged with Hong Kong Telecom, and under the terms of the tracker funds' charter, its managers had to buy $225 million worth of PCC stock. This was widely known, and so several traders were "front running" this deal, i.e. buying PCC stock ahead of the fund's expected purchases.

Malcolm, though, discovered that the tracker fund was not going to buy the PCC stock through the exchanges at all. It made a private off-exchange deal with PCC's founder Richard Li. This meant that, when the day of the expected fund purchases arrived and no purchases took place, there'd be a strong downward pressure on the stock price. Accordingly, on Malcolm's suggestion, Carney's hedge fund took a "short" position on $100 million of PCC stock. In the event, the tracking fund did not make the expected purchases, and the price dropped dramatically—Malcolm covered the short position, winning his firm more than twenty million dollars. This one deal made Malcolm a star, known to expat western traders throughout east Asia as their "hot young gunslinger."

The ending of the book turns on another, quite similar, but even larger deal involving the addition to the Nikkei index of several high-tech firms. This is the deal that justifies the book—Malcolm made Carney's firm five hundred million dollars in cash out of the restructuring of the Nikkei. Disillusioned, Malcolm then leaves Carney's employ and heads for semi-retirement in Bermuda, where he still does light trading.

Other elements which Mezrich intertwines into the narrative with the main characters include the sex industry in Japan and the role of the Yakuza in Japanese society and finance.

Hank Canfield (Noah Beery), leader of a gang of horse thieves, attempts to steal a wild racehorse called El Diablo. The crooks bungle the job, but in making their escape, they kill a Ranger named Elliott Norton (Lane Chandler). The ranger's older brother Bob (Harry Carey) sets out to bring his brother's killers to justice, not realizing the apparently respectable Canfield is the guilty party. A young mute orphan referred to as the Wild Boy (Frankie Darro) is the only one in town who knows who the killer is, and Bob Norton attempts to communicate with the child to draw the secret out of him. Meanwhile, the horse thieves make further attempts to kidnap the prized racehorse.

At Medfield College, science buff Dexter Riley and his friends, including Richard Schuyler and Debbie Dawson, eavesdrop via a hidden walkie-talkie on a board meeting led by Dean Eugene Higgins, discussing the small college's continuing precarious finances. Later that afternoon, Professor Lufkin shows Higgins around the science laboratory where Dexter is working on an experiment with invisibility and another student, Druffle, explores the flight of bumblebees. That night, during a powerful thunderstorm, the laboratory is struck by lightning, resulting in the destruction of Dexter’s work. The next day, as Dexter examines his burnt equipment with dismay, Higgins meets with A.J. Arno, a recently released prisoner, who had also purchased Medfield's mortgage. When Dexter accidentally drops one half of his glasses into a container of his experimental formula, it appears as if the substance destroys them, but upon closer examination, Dexter realizes the frames are merely partially invisible. After several tests, Dexter places his fingers in the liquid and they disappear. Schuyler and Debbie arrive and are horrified to see Dexter with a partial hand, but Dexter insists Schuyler test the substance as well - admitting only afterward that he does not yet have an antidote and it adheres firmly to all surfaces tested - but just as quickly learn that it is water-soluble and rinses away cleanly.

Just then, Higgins brings Arno to visit the laboratory, stunning the students, as only two years earlier, Dexter was instrumental in exposing Arno's crooked gambling scheme. Dexter and the others notice that Arno is more concerned with the campus architecture than Higgins' speech. Curious about Arno's behavior, Dexter convinces Schuyler to use the invisibility formula to sneak into Arno's office that night. Despite several mishaps, the boys get inside Arno's office where Dexter finds a letter detailing that gambling is legal on the Medfield College lands due to a 1912 statute - and Schuyler finds a model of the college renovated into a gambling town.

The next day Dexter shows the photos and papers to Lufkin and Higgins. Convinced that Druffle's bumblebee study would draw attention and investments to Medfield, Higgins reacts angrily when Dexter assures him that his invisibility formula could win the top prize money in the upcoming Forsythe science contest. Not having admitted to anyone that Medfield has been dropped from the contest for being too insignificant, Higgins contacts the contest's sponsor, millionaire Timothy Forsythe, and agrees to meet over a game of golf, despite his inability to play. Upon learning of Higgins' plan and suspecting it must be connected with raising money for the college, Dexter urges Schuyler to volunteer to serve as Higgins' caddy while, hidden by the invisibility formula, he will take control of Higgins' golf ball. At the golf club, Forsythe and the state university dean, Collingsgood, are amazed by Higgins' quirky golfing abilities, which include numerous hole-in-one-shots, as is Arno who is also at the club.

After the game, Forsythe agrees to reinstate Medfield into the competition. Meanwhile, Arno accidentally sees Dexter becoming visible in the club showers and grows suspicious. When the local television news covers Higgins' extraordinary golf game, he is invited to join an exclusive tournament in nearby Ocean City. Convinced that he will win enough money to pay the college's mortgage, Higgins brashly accepts and that afternoon departs with Schuyler. Learning of the tournament too late, Dexter misses the plane and is forced to watch the competition on television where Higgins' game against two professionals is a disaster. Arno and his henchmen also watch the tournament and ponder Higgins' odd inconsistency. Upon returning to the college, Higgins tells Lufkin that Druffle's bumblebee experiment is the school's last chance. Both men are stunned when Druffle appears swathed in bandages after being attacked by the bumblebees, to which he is allergic. Hoping to assuage the crestfallen Higgins, Lufkin suggests that they give Dexter's unproven formula a chance and the dean reluctantly agrees.

That evening, Arno’s henchman Cookie, disguised as a janitor, sneaks into the campus laboratory where he witnesses Dexter and Schuyler using the invisibility spray and reports to Arno, who orders him to return and steal it. The following day, Forsythe and members of his committee arrive on campus to judge the best science experiment at the college. Unaware that their spray bottle has been replaced by Cookie, Dexter and Schuyler make their presentation and are stunned when it has no effect. Forsythe and Higgins depart as Dexter remains confused until he chats with Charlie the janitor. Learning that there is no night janitor, Dexter realizes that Cookie likely stole the formula. Concluding that Arno must be behind the theft, Dexter plants a walkie-talkie in his office.

A couple of days later, Schuyler overhears Arno plotting with Cookie to rob the Medfield Bank by making themselves and the money invisible. Certain that if he could retrieve the formula before the Forsythe Award announcement that night he could still win the contest, Dexter sends Schuyler to the police and goes to inform the bank's president, Wilfred Sampson. When both the police and Sampson dismiss the boys' story about invisibility, Dexter and his friends gather outside of the bank. When an invisible Arno and Cookie knock out the guards and take the money, Dexter unsuccessfully tries to use a fire hydrant to hose the men down as they exit the bank. Sampson contacts the police, who join the college students in a wild chase of the car driven by the invisible robbers.

After a long police chase, Dexter forces Arno's car into a swimming pool where it, the money, and the men become visible. Arno and his henchmen are arrested. Dexter and the others dash to the presentation of the Forsythe Award and plead for one more opportunity to demonstrate their invention. Frustrated by Dexter's determination, Higgins intervenes just as Dexter sprays Schuyler, and, again, there is no result. Realizing the dip in the pool has diluted the formula, Dexter tries to explain to Forsythe. Just when Higgins tells everyone for the last time that invisibility does not exist, the top half of him becomes invisible, thus shocking the group and winning the top prize to save Medfield for another year.

The game takes place in and around Neo Tokyo after a new Great Depression of 2010 (future at the time of the game's release) and after Mount Fuji erupts in a catastrophic manner in the year 2020. While Tokyo survives and the people managed to repair the areas destroyed by the volcano, it became infested with motorcycle gangs. An all-female gang known as the Bishin dominates with the help of their leader, Ryoko.

Koji (コージ), a 20-year-old former professional boxer, and Lisa (リサ), a 16-year-old who used to be a high-ranking Bishin member but left, are attacked and one of them is kidnapped while the other sets out to take down the gang and rescue his or her partner using Koji's Cobra 429 car. They go through a desert (boss: Lidera), forest (boss: Roller and Dozer), volcano (boss: Lei-Fan), super-highway (boss: Miki & Aki), construction area (boss: Miyabi), bayside highway (boss: Flare), and the streets of Neo-Tokyo (boss: Ryoko).

''Strength and Honour'' tells the story of an Irish-American boxer, Sean Kelleher (Michael Madsen), who accidentally kills his friend in the ring and promises his wife that he will never box again. However, years later, when he discovers that his only son is dying of the same hereditary heart disorder which has taken his wife, he is forced to break his promise to raise the substantial funds needed for the surgery that could save his son’s life.

The draft has been reinstated, and on the night before being shipped off to war, Robbie and his friends share one last night together. The only problem is, that the big secret his best friend Jon and his ex-girlfriend Jen have been keeping from him is revealed by their other friend, Moose. With only hours remaining, they must resolve their differences before Robbie leaves them, what may be for good.

The film begins with a sexologist in his office, talking about the history of sex.

Izabela (Eva Ras), an ethnic Hungarian switchboard operator, meets and falls in love with a Sandžak Muslim sanitation inspector named Ahmed (Slobodan Aligrudić), who soon moves into her apartment and has a bathtub installed. The film then cuts away to a police investigation of the death of a young woman by drowning. Ahmed goes away on business for a month. During his absence, Izabela finally gives in to a persistently amorous postman.

When Ahmed returns, he finds Izabela different, less loving. (She has found out she is pregnant.) He gets very drunk, and when Isabella chases after him to keep him from harm, he threatens to commit suicide by jumping into an underground vat of water. However, Ahmed ends up accidentally pushing Izabela in instead, killing her. He goes into hiding, but is arrested by the police for murder. The film concludes with a scene of Ahmed and Izabela walking down a staircase.

The circle begins with Tommy Reilly, a onetime wannabe writer who became the producer of a weekly television entertainment news show by design rather than choice, and has stayed with it for the money rather than any professional satisfaction. Dumped by his live-in girlfriend without warning, he temporarily moves in with colleague Carpo, an aging Lothario ready to offer unlimited — and sometimes useless — romantic advice.

At a video store, Tommy meets grammar school teacher Maria Tedesko. The two flirt, meet for coffee and begin to date. Maria, recently divorced, finds it difficult to commit to a new relationship and stops taking Tommy's calls. When she discovers she's pregnant, she attempts to reconnect with him, but at the last moment opts to lie and tell him she's leaving town and chooses to raise the child on her own.

Maria's ex-husband, who longs to reconcile with her, is Benjamin Bazler, an apartment house doorman and aspiring songwriter whose obsession is 1960s/1970s rock music. He shares his dream of becoming a full-time musician with Iowa transplant Ashley, an NYU student working as a coffee shop waitress to support herself.

Ashley is involved in an affair with considerably older married dentist Griffin Ritso. Although he professes to love his mistress, the once divorced Griffin shies away from leaving his wife Annie Matthews for fear of being a two-time loser at matrimony. Eventually, Griffin's inability to commit to their relationship causes Ashley to dump him and reject his advances to get her back as she becomes involved in a relationship with Benjamin.

Real estate broker Annie is unhappy with her marriage but too moral to consider having an affair. She finds herself confiding in and flirting with one of her house-hunting clients — Tommy Reilly. Thus the circle is complete. She finally leaves Griffin.

The narrative segments are intermingled with documentary-like interviews in which of the characters address the camera with their thoughts about sex, love, and relationships.

In 2007, Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) is a Bostonian volcanologist whose 13-year-old nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), is supposed to spend ten days with him. Trevor learns at work that his brother's lab is being shut down because of a lack of funding. Trevor has forgotten that Sean is coming until he receives several messages from Sean's mother. When Sean's mother drops him off, she leaves Trevor with a box of items that belonged to Max, Trevor's brother and Sean's father, who disappeared 10 years before, in July 1997. Sean suddenly takes interest in what Trevor has to say after he tells him about his father, whom he never really had a chance to know. In the box, Trevor discovers the novel ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' by Jules Verne. Inside the book Trevor finds notes written by his late brother. Trevor goes to his laboratory to find out more about the notes. There he realizes that he must go to Iceland to investigate for himself.

He intends to send Sean back to his mother, but relents at Sean's protest and brings Sean to Iceland with him. They start by looking for another volcanologist. When they get to that scientist's institution, they meet his daughter Hannah (Anita Briem), who informs them he is dead. She also tells them that both her father and Max believed that Jules Verne's books were factual accounts. However she offers to help them climb up to the instrument that has suddenly started sending data again. While hiking the mountain a lightning storm forces the three into a cave. The cave entrance collapses, trapping them, so they have no alternative but to go deeper in the cave, which turns out to be an abandoned mine.

Trevor, Sean, and Hannah investigate farther into the mine until they fall into a deep hole, taking them to the "Center of the Earth". They all continue until they discover a cave-dwelling that Max lived in. Trevor and Sean find Max's old journal. Hannah and Trevor discover Max's dead body and bury him. Trevor reads a message from Max's journal that was written on Sean's 3rd birthday (8.14.97). Trevor continues to read Max's journal until he realizes from his notes that Max died because of dehydration and they must quickly leave, as the temperature is steadily rising.

Trevor figures that they must find a geyser that can send them to the surface, which they can find in a lava tube on the other side of the world. They must do this in 48 hours or all of the water to create the geyser will be gone. They also figure that they must get out before the temperature rises past 135 degrees. They begin by crossing the underground ocean, and then the two adults become separated from Sean. Sean's guide is now a little bird who has been present since the trio entered the center, and it takes him towards the river. However, he encounters a ''Giganotosaurus'', and Trevor - who desperately is searching for him - saves him. When they arrive at the geyser it is all dried up, having already taken place, and, to make things worse, molten hot magma is rising below them in a lava tube, endangering their lives. Trevor quickly discovers that there is a new water chamber behind a wall of magnesium.

Trevor uses a flare to ignite the magnesium in the wall and causes a geyser to shoot them through Mount Vesuvius in Italy. When they destroy the home of an Italian man, Sean gives him a diamond that he had found earlier. Trevor sees that he has many more in his backpack, and he uses them to fund his brother's laboratory. Throughout the adventure, Hannah and Trevor gradually become so attached to each other that they kiss. On the final day of Sean's visit with Trevor (and now Hannah), he is leaving their new home, which was purchased with some of the diamonds Sean took from the cave, and Trevor hands Sean a book titled "Atlantis", suggesting they could maybe hang out at Sean's during Christmas break.

Fatty and Buster play automobile mechanics and firemen at a garage in a fire station. Mollie Malone plays the boss' daughter who is constantly pestered by a stranger named Jim (McCoy) who wishes to make her his girlfriend, though she turns him down after the flowers he brings her end up accidentally soaked in motor oil thanks to Fatty and Buster. Livid, Jim raises the alarm in the fire station to make Fatty and Buster think there is a fire and forcing them to rush across town. However, Jim accidentally starts a real fire while trying to exit the station and Fatty and Buster immediately return to put out the fire and rescue Mollie who is trapped inside. They attach the fire hose to a hydrant, but the hose has a leak, forcing Fatty to sit on it. After a streetcar runs over the hose, Fatty, Buster and several of the townspeople rescue Mollie using a life net but she bounces up into the telephone wires. Fatty and Buster eventually get Mollie down but become trapped themselves; luckily Mollie moves a car beneath them just before they fall and all three ride off together.

At one point Keaton stands in front of a huge poster for Sir Harry Lauder: The World's Greatest Entertainer, and here he dons a kilt and emulates a sword dance.

The people of Earth have developed atomic power. As such, they are recorded by Naron the Rigellian, the long-lived Keeper of the galactic records, as having achieved maturity. But when the keeper learns that they have not yet penetrated space and that they test their atomic weapons on their own planetary surface, he strikes them from the record, commenting that Earth people are 'Silly Asses'.

Alex Gregor (Chaney) is a performing mentalist known as "Gregor the Great". One night on stage, placing his own fiancée into a hypnotic trance, he is ridiculed by a skeptical member of the audience (Hohl), who claims it is all done with mirrors. Simultaneously, the show is aired to a radio audience. The man, clearly plastered, starts accusing Alex of being a fake. Alex reacts by hypnotizing the man, ending up accidentally killing him. Even though the medical examiner concludes that the drunken man died from a heart attack, Alex is riddled with guilt and confesses to have murdered the man. Ashamed of what he has done, he breaks off the engagement to his girlfriend and assistant, Maura Daniel (Ankers).

George Keene (Milburn Stone), who is Alex's manager, arranges for him to work for an old friend, Mme Valerie Monet (Tala Birell). She is the owner of a wax museum and Alex is hired as a lecturer. Valerie's niece, Nina Coudreau (Elena Verdugo), is also working at the museum, and they are both very excited to have a man with Alex's gifts working with them. There is also a disturbed former plastic surgeon Rudi Poldan (Martin Kosleck), on the payroll, working as a sculptor. This odd physician becomes jealous of the attention given to Alex. Maura reappears and attempts to woo Gregor back.

Jealousy spreads, infecting Valerie, who falsely accuses Alex of making advances to Nina, her niece. Arguments ensue, ending with Valerie fainting and Alex leaving in anger. Following a night's sleep, Alex returns to find that Valerie has disappeared. Police Inspector Brant (Douglass Dumbrille) suspects that Valerie has been murdered, believing Alex to be the last person to have seen Valerie alive.

All are unaware that Rudi has found Valerie in a coma and hidden her away among his unfinished wax sculptures. Nina suspects Alex of scheming with the crazy surgeon to be rid of Valerie. What they don't know is that Rudi has planned to get Alex committed as mentally ill, and the mastermind of this ingenious plan is none other than Alex's manager, George. The reason is to gain control over Alex's property. Rudi manages to make Nina fall into a coma and hides her body in the same manner as was done with Valerie.

Rudi shows George where he has placed the bodies of the two women. They discover that Valerie is dead. Now guilty of murder, George becomes frantic, wanting to get rid of both of the bodies, even though Nina is still alive.

Alex decides the only person he can trust is Maura, who agrees to help. Alex places Maura in a trance and she implicates both George and Rudi (using the psychic abilities granted to her by the trance, as demonstrated in the opening scene of the film). Trying to escape, George is captured by Brant, who has heard Maura's every word. Alex and Maura go to the museum cellar to free Nina and encounter Rudi. In the ensuing struggle with Gregor, Rudi falls backward into the furnace to his death.

The story ends with Alex and Maura married and on their way to their honeymoon, together with Nina, their new ward. Brant visits and asks Alex for help with a case, as a medical consultant. Alex answers: "Oh, Inspector, I thought you knew. It's all done with mirrors."

An animal trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns from his latest safari with a horde of animals for his employer John Whipple (Lloyd Corrigan), owner of the Whipple Circus. Among them is Cheela (Ray Corrigan), a gorilla with remarkably human characteristics. Mason relates that she is the most affectionate jungle animal he has ever encountered. Mason's fiancée Beth Colman (Evelyn Ankers) is present at the dock for his return. She tells him of the recent health problems encountered by her sister Dorothy (Martha MacVicar). Beth reflects on taking her sibling to see Dr. Sigmund Walters (John Carradine), an endocrinologist of some standing. Dorothy is staying at Walters’ Crestview Sanatorium for treatment. Fred and Beth arrive at the winter quarters, and Dr. Walters pays a visit. He is extremely interested in Cheela, and inquires about purchasing her. Whipple tells him that she is not for sale. Upon returning to his lab, Walters finds that his latest experiment has resulted in the lab animal's death. He becomes convinced he needs larger animals that possess the "will to live". Walters enlists the aid of a disgruntled former circus employee to steal Cheela. After the ape is loaded onto his truck, the scientist callously pushes the man into the gorilla's grasp and stolidly watches as the beast wrings his neck.

Back at his lab, Walters and his assistant Miss Strand (Fay Helm) transplant glandular material from Dorothy into Cheela. There was discussion by Miss Strand that Walters has previously grafted the glands of different animals like placing a guinea pig's glands into a rabbit and a frog's glands into a mouse. To the horror of the nurse, the ape transforms into human form (Acquanetta). Telling the doctor that she cannot allow him to continue, Miss Strand informs him that at best he will have "a human form, with animal instincts". Dr. Walters reaches the conclusion that he will need to place a human brain into his creation to successfully complete his experiment. He sacrifices Miss Strand for this purpose. The brain transplant is a success, and the result is a sultry and exotic young woman who remembers nothing of her previous existence. Walters names her Paula Dupree, and takes his creation to the winter quarters for her first public outing. While watching Mason practice his animal act, an accident occurs. Paula rushes into the cage and saves him from the ferocious felines, who display an unnatural fear of her and retreat from her presence. Mason is dumbfounded and offers the girl a job in his act.

After the final dress rehearsal, Paula becomes jealous of Mason's fiancée. She goes to her dressing room and while having a tantrum, begins converting to animal form. Later that night, she climbs through Beth's window planning to kill her, but attacks and brutally murders another woman instead. The beast returns to Walters, and the doctor realizes that another operation is necessary to return her to human form. He can continue to use Dorothy for the glandular material, but will need yet another subject to replace Paula's damaged cerebrum.

Beth receives a frantic telephone call from her sister who expresses her fear of Dr. Walters and the forthcoming operation. Arriving at the Sanatorium to aid her sister, Beth is pegged by the good doctor as the next brain donor for Cheela. However, she proves resourceful in a pinch, releasing the ape from its cage. Cheela does Walters in and departs the lab, leaving Beth and Dorothy unharmed. Performing his animal act solo, Mason finds himself trapped inside the cage with his unruly subjects. A powerful storm interrupts the performance and the beasts attack the trainer. Cheela comes to his rescue once again and carries him to safety, but a nearby police officer mistakes her intentions and kills Cheela.

After listening to one of his favorite radio programs, Porky Pig receives a grand prize from the station. Out of the gift box pops Daffy Duck, who insists on living in Porky's house. After numerous attempts to throw Daffy out of the house, Daffy devises a plan to stay. He tells Porky that he has a split personality (á la ''The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde''). When people treat him with kindness, he becomes sweet and cuddly, whereas when treated badly, he turns into a hideous monster, which he does by messing his hair up and putting in fangs. Getting the idea, Porky promises to be nice to Daffy who then begins to treat him like a servant. Porky then intends to call the authorities about Daffy without him knowing, only to be outsmarted by Daffy who impersonates the phone. Daffy puts up his monster guise on and chases Porky around the house. When Porky realizes he's been had (after coming out scared from a closet with a skeleton in it, presumably put in there by Daffy), he decides to outsmart this psychotic duck and get him out of the house by dressing up as a monster. When Daffy sees the monster ("Sufferin' catfish, I never realized I was THAT hideous. I'M NOT!"), he becomes so scared, he falls apart (literally) and runs out of the house screaming (putting himself back in the gift box in the process). When Porky accidentally sees himself in the mirror in his monster costume (which he stated that only a craven little coward would be scared of), he scares himself so much that he jumps onto a chandelier ("So I'm a craven little coward").

A man and his pregnant wife, played by Dana Anderson, live in a trailer park. The wife discovers that the husband has been spending time with their young neighbor. The young neighbor is played by Yeardley Smith, who is best known as the voice of Lisa Simpson.

Gordon Hocheiser has had some success as a lawyer working as a criminal defense attorney in New York City. However, he still cares for and lives with his mother, a rude, possibly senile 87-year-old widow, who is ruining her son's love life. He resents her so much that he tries to scare her to death by donning a gorilla suit and attacking her in bed, only to end up being hit hard in the groin by her. Nevertheless, she seems unaware of his intentions and refers to him as a "good boy." Despite his deep resentment for his mother and his desire to be rid of her, Gordon had made a deathbed promise to his father not to place her in a rest home, which causes him severe anguish. She continuously asks, "Where's Poppa?" His repeated response is, "Still dead."

He is desperate to hire a nurse for help but, since his mother has already had conflicts with many of them, no one will agree take the job. Gordon finally locates Louise, a young and beautiful nurse whose patients have a peculiar habit of dying in her care. Instantly smitten with her, he hires Louise to be his mother's companion, despite her notable lack of any qualifications. Thrilled about his budding love, he immediately becomes frightened that his mother will sabotage it and, when he invites Louise over to his apartment on the Upper West Side, he tries to lock his mother away in her room.

After a disastrous first meeting between Louise and his mother, a frustrated Gordon calls his brother Sidney and threatens to kill his mother if he doesn't immediately take her off his hands. Worried that Gordon will actually carry through with his threats, Sidney, who lives with his family on the Upper East Side, ignores the protests of his wife and runs in the middle of the night across Central Park, where he has a history of repeatedly being mugged. As expected, his muggers again confront him and steal his clothes.

When a naked Sidney arrives at Gordon's apartment, Louise has already left so, after agreeing to help the next time he needs him, Sidney borrows the gorilla costume and wears it home. Soon after, Louise returns and, realizing that this may be his last chance with her, Gordon calls Sidney's apartment to come back to help. On his way back across the park, however, a gorilla-suit wearing Sidney runs again into his muggers and they force him to assault a woman in the park, who turns out to be an undercover male police officer. Back at his apartment, Gordon's mother humiliates him in front of Louise at dinner, pulling down his pants and biting his buttocks. This causes Louise to flee into a cab, leaving Gordon on the street with his pants still around his ankles.

A despondent Gordon visits Sidney in jail, who, to both of their surprise, gets off free. The next day, Gordon returns to work, but, tired and unfocused, he represents a client in court with utter incompetence. During this trial, Louise appears at the back of the courtroom and Gordon leaves abruptly to meet her. At the end of his rope, with Louise unable to stand his mother one minute more and threatening to leave Gordon, he returns to his apartment, picks up his mother, packs her luggage, and tells her that they're going to meet Poppa. Gordon drives with his mother and Louise to a series of rest homes, some of which take terrible care of their residents but none of which currently have room. After eventually finding one that will take his mother, Gordon drops her off at the entrance and presents a random elderly stranger as Poppa. Finally free of his mother, Gordon and Louise then drive away joyously.

Teen Elvis Moreau cares for his father Charlie and runs their funeral home. Charlie has been mentally handicapped for years, so Elvis took over operating the home. However, he doesn't have his embalming license, so Charlie officially performs the services. Elvis keeps photos of the finished corpses in a scrapbook.

Nearby, Anabelle Leigh is a pageant girl, living with her mother Geneva and alcoholic stepfather Jimmy. She has bulimia and Jimmy likely sexually abuses her. Geneva put her into beauty pageants very young, hoping they could have financial independence from men.

Moments after qualifying for the nationals, Anabelle's heart stops on stage. Sent to the Moreaus' Funeral Home, Elvis begins working on her. Entranced, he kisses her and he accidentally captures it on camera. A gust of wind bursts open the window, as he shuts it, Anabelle suddenly gasps awake. Shocked, he calls the police and wakes Charlie, reminding him he was working on Anabelle.

Anabelle is returned to Geneva and Jimmy very changed. She neither has an eating disorder nor is she interested in pageants, but Geneva still pressures her to continue.

Due to having constant flashbacks to when she woke up, Anabelle goes to at the Moreaus' to learn more about that night. Elvis turns her away, fearing she will find out he does the embalming. That night, she sneaks back by bike, to lay on the table to relive that night. Elvis confronts her, thinking somebody broke in, then Charlie comes in. Elvis reminds him to say he was the one working with Anabelle. Walking her out, she asks to stay until the dawn to bike home. She obviously does not want to go, so he lets her stay.

Anabelle and Elvis slowly become friends. She begins painting the house and he joins her. One morning, Elvis shows her the headline stating she's missing. Annoyed, she claims Geneva knows she ran away. Elvis fears the police may find her there, but she doesn't.

When Anabelle notices the field next to the house is empty, Elvis says nothing can grow there. She insists he help her buy seeds, keeping it a secret, saying it's "a miracle". While Anabelle's in the field, the police come by, looking for her. She's indifferent, as she's there willingly.

Anabelle and Elvis continue to bond. One night, on a walk they end up on the bridge where his mother committed suicide. After her death, Charlie started going on very long walks. On one of them he was disabled by a hit in the head with a beer bottle. Elvis doesn't believe in miracles as a result. Anabelle kissing him triggers another flashback and she pulls away.

Police return to the house, so when Anabelle and Elvis arrive Charlie is distraught. They know she was staying there, but he said she left. Anabelle decides to visit a far off friend, and Charlie tells Elvis to go with her. Initially not wanting to leave him alone, he is convinced, and they leave.

When Elvis and Anabelle finally reach their destination, she confesses she doesn't really have a friend here. Instead, they live on the beach for a few weeks, and they become intimate.

Police report to Geneva and Jimmy, when she asks them to search the house they can't as Anabelle ran away and wasn't kidnapped. So she goes to the Moreaus' herself to snoop around. Finding Anabelle's clothes and the photo of Elvis kissing her in the mortuary trash, she calls the police.

On the drive home, Elvis and Anabelle stop at a gas station, and both see newspapers with the photo and headlines accusing Elvis of necrophilia. Recognizing them, the cashier calls the police. Before Elvis can explain it to her, he is arrested.

Anabelle is returned to Geneva and Jimmy. In jail, Elvis tells the police the truth. A few days later, she visits him in jail. They argue and Elvis tells her what really happened. Shocked, not understanding how after that Elvis doesn't believe in miracles, she leaves.

Returning home, Elvis finds Charlie dead outside. With no will to live, he decides to hang himself. Just before, a gust of wind blows the house doors open, showing him Anabelle's miracle: a sunflower field. He barely saves himself, then runs outside to many reporters.

Meanwhile, Anabelle is also setting up her own suicide. Nudging a running TV towards her bath, right before she can electrocute herself, she sees Elvis painting "I love you Anabelle" on his house on TV.

Elvis walks into the sunflower field, laying down to look up at the flowers and the sky. Anabelle comes, and they look up at the sky together.

Two dumb blondes, Dee Twiddle and Dawn St. Dom, meet each other for the first time at their first lesson in flight school and they like each other right away due to their numerous similarities. Dee is a professional dancer who has breast implants and a gassy pet turtle named Virgil. Dawn is a former secretary who has tried to be a dancer. After meeting with each other in flight school, Dawn takes off the machine, believing that Dee is the teacher, but she also believed that Dawn was her teacher. Once they realized it’s both their first lesson, the girls panic and the plane crashes on a golf course, but both blondes survive the accident without injuries. The blondes quickly become best friends and they notice that they have been next-door neighbors for nearly a year.

Dee decides to help Dawn get a dancing gig at the Beaver Patch Lounge. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Italian Mafia decides to whack Lou Rimoli, a former mafia member and current informant, who is running the Beaver Patch Lounge. Rimoli is being protected by two agents. The Godfather of the mob sends two female assassins, Cat and Kit to whack Rimoli. The assassins succeed. However, Rimoli is murdered right before Dee and Dawn's audition. The Mobsters, Leo and Swan were supposed to monitor what was happening, after seeing Dee and Dawn run from the club, they mistake the blondes for being the infamous assassins Cat and Kit.

Believing that Dee and Dawn are assassins, Leo and Swan offer them $250,000 to "take out" Hang Wong, the head of the Triads in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Dee and Dawn agree, but they think that they have to take Wong on a date. Federal agents discover the plan to kill Wong and follow the blonde duo also thinking they are Cat and Kit. The Godfather sends Leo and Swan to follow the girls to make sure Wong gets whacked. Once the blonde duo arrive in Niagara Falls, they settle at a casino hotel and resort, which Mr. Wong owns. Cat and Kit also arrive there and find out that Dee and Dawn are pretending to be them and have been the hired assassins. They plan to get revenge because Dee and Dawn stole their reputation for whacking Rimoli and are pretending to be them to kill Wong.

While Dawn is winning money at the casino, Dee meets Mr. Wong during his meeting with Leo and Swan. Dee tells Wong that Leo and Swan hired her to show him a good time. Federal agents spot Dee with Wong in the casino, and chase them. Wong decides to kidnap Dee and takes her to his yacht. Meanwhile, they are chased by the federal agents, Dawn, Cat and Kit. The federal agents and police take everyone into custody.

Back at the casino, the police arrest Kit and Cat, and also Wong for kidnapping Dee. Dawn and Dee kiss despite that Dawn finally finds her dream man (who had joined her in the boat chase), and with the millions of dollars Dawn won at the casino, Dee and Dawn establish Dee and Dawn's Famous Turtle Sanctuary in the countryside where they only have one turtle but promise to have more soon.

An amnesiac Takua awakens on the beaches of Ta-Wahi where he encounters Maku, a villager from Ga-Koro. He learns the village has been attacked by a Rahi and offers to help. In Ga-Koro, he finds all of the villagers and Turaga Nokama trapped in a submerged hut; he returns the hut to the surface by re-activating a pump. The Rahi returns to attack but is defeated by Gali, the Toa of water.

After visiting his home village of Ta-Koro, Takua ventures to Po-Koro to inform Huki, a friend of Maku, that she is safe. When he arrives, he finds the village has been struck by a mysterious disease and that Huki, one of the star players of the island's popular sport of Koli, is gravely ill. Takua finds a popular new type of Koli ball, the Comet ball, and takes one to Turaga Onewa, who discovers they are infected and are the source of the disease. Takua steals a key from a Comet ball merchant and heads to the quarry, where he uncovers a cave with a large pile of infected Comet balls guarded by a Rahi. Aided by Pohatu, the Toa of stone, he collapses the cave. They return to the village to find the merchant has fled and the villagers are recovering. In Ga-Koro, Nokama assigns Takua the role of Chronicler, tasking him with providing a record of the island's major events.

In Onu-Koro, the mining of light-bearing lightstones has stopped due to a lava break. Using a lava surfboard, Takua crosses the break and activates a pump that disperses the lava, allowing the miners to resume and complete a tunnel to Le-Wahi. In Le-Koro, Takua finds the village mostly deserted. Two villagers, Kongu and Tamaru, explain that the entire village has been abducted by Rahi. Kongu and Takua fly to the Rahi hive, where the population has been forced into labor and that Toa Lewa, the Toa of air, has been placed under the control of Makuta by an infected mask. Onua, the Toa of earth, arrives and battles Lewa. Onua removes the infected mask from Lewa, allowing everyone to escape the hive. The villagers celebrate their liberation, and Lewa receives a golden mask.

Takua visits Ko-Koro to speak to Turaga Nuju, but is told he cannot do so until his interpreter Matoro returns. In the snow drifts, Matoro is attacked by a Rahi but is saved by Kopaka, the Toa of ice. After meeting with Nuju, who warns him that the villages will be defenseless as the Toa face Makuta directly, Takua travels to the other villages, each of which offers one villager to accompany him. The company sets out to Kini-Nui, where the underground lair of Makuta lies. The Toa task them with protecting the temple in order to prevent Rahi from entering the temple as they face Makuta. Gali creates a mental link between herself and Takua, allowing him to witness the events within the temple.

As the company repels multiple waves of Rahi, the six Toa merge into two Toa Kaita are confronted by Manas crabs. The company is nearly overwhelmed by the Rahi while the Toa Kaita are seemingly outmatched by the Manas. However, the military forces of the other villages arrive to reinforce the company and the Toa Kaita defeat the Manas by deactivating their control towers. The Toa Kaita are forcibly unmerged by Makuta; before their mental link breaks, Gali urges Takua to find a way into Makuta's lair.

Using a gateway in Onu-Koro, Takua enters Makuta's lair. The Toa confront Makuta, who first appears in the form of a corrupted villager before transforming into a swirling vortex. The Toa each unsuccessfully attempt to fight Makuta individually; after working together and combining their powers, Makuta is defeated and the Toa are teleported away. Takua attempts to flee and encounters a hive; insectoid beings emerge from it. Takua escapes to the beach, where he finds Vakama, who declares him as one of the great heroes of Mata Nui. The two return to Ta-Koro to celebrate.

The film tells of Juan Desouza (Julio Chávez), a lawyer in his late 40s, who's happily married and his wife is expecting a child.

On a one-day business trip to the country-side, Desouza embarks on an unintended journey. When he reaches his destination Desouza discovers that the man traveling next to him is not sleeping but dead.

Secretly, he assumes the dead man's identity and invents a profession for himself. He finds a place to stay in the village where the man used to live and contemplates not returning.

Juan Desouza undertakes an adventure into nature, into the rediscovery of his tastes and his basic instincts. He tries to grasp the idea that the life dealt out for him, and which he chose to live, is not the only one possible.

He eventually goes back home, stronger from the spiritual experience.

Flashbacks

Locke is suffering from depression and becomes a recluse. He goes to a government building and finds out he needs to give unwanted information from him in order to keep getting paid his disability insurance. Later on, in his apartment, he is visited by a young man named Peter Talbot (Patrick J. Adams). Peter reveals Locke's father, con man Anthony Cooper (Kevin Tighe), is trying under the false name "Adam Seward" to marry Peter's mother. Locke later goes to a florist shop where his father goes with Peter's mother. Knowing Cooper only wants to marry the woman to take her money, Locke confronts him and warns Cooper to call off the wedding and end it or he will tell the woman the truth. Cooper reluctantly agrees.

Later, Locke is approached by two detectives, who tell him Peter is dead. Assuming Peter's death was staged by Cooper, Locke goes to Cooper's condo and confronts him, but Cooper denies any involvement. He says Peter's mother was devastated and called off the wedding, and assures Locke that he can call Peter's mother himself if he wants proof. Locke picks up the phone to call her when Cooper suddenly charges him and shoves him through the window. Locke plummets eight stories to the ground, but survives (shown how in a later episode).

As Locke lies in a hospital bed, the two detectives inform him that his father has fled to Mexico and has now disappeared. They leave as a physiotherapist lifts Locke out of bed and places him in his wheelchair for the first time. Locke breaks into tears at not being able to move his legs.

On the Island

Outside the Others' compound, Locke, Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) are shocked to see Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) interacting familiarly with the Others, and Kate insists that the Others have done something to him.

As Rousseau slips away, they sneak into the compound. Kate enters Jack's house and despite her insistence that she will not leave without him, he refuses to go. The door bursts open and two armed Others apprehend her, bringing along a struggling Sayid.

Meanwhile, Locke enters the house of Ben Linus (Michael Emerson). Locke wakes Ben and threatens him, demanding he reveal the location of the submarine. They are interrupted — first by Ben's teenage daughter Alex (Tania Raymonde), whom Locke grabs and hides with in the closet, and then by Tom (M. C. Gainey) and an unseen Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), who tells Ben that they captured Kate and Sayid trying to rescue Jack. Ben tells Tom to separate the two and interrogate them, and instructs Richard to bring him "the man from Tallahassee." After the two leave, Locke asks Alex to get Sayid's pack, and Ben concludes he is doing so to destroy the Others' submarine.

Jack visits the imprisoned Kate to tell her that he made a deal with the Others to let him go home. Alex gets Sayid's pack from him. As she leads Locke to the submarine — not knowing her mother is watching her from the bushes — Alex tells Locke that Ben is manipulating him, because he manipulates everyone. After Jack confronts Ben, demanding his friends be released after he leaves the island, Jack and Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) are escorted to the dock. They run into Locke as he is walking back up the dock. Jack asks what he's doing there; Locke simply replies "I'm sorry" as the submarine explodes behind him.

Later, Locke is locked in a room in the DHARMA barracks. Ben and Richard open the door, and Locke reveals that he knows Ben wanted him to blow up the sub. Ben reveals that he wanted to find a way to keep Jack from leaving the island, but did not know how to; Locke had solved this problem. Ben and Richard lead Locke down a hallway, and Ben tells him that, for whatever reason, Locke is "in communion" with the island, and that makes him "very, very important." Ben then takes Locke to a room where Cooper is being held captive.

Martin Chadwick is a middle-aged (born 1956) advertising executive whose job is downsized and he is forced to work at home, only having contact with one colleague, Gemma, via a webcam. Meanwhile, the Civil Service career of his wife Julie stagnates and his two twenty-something daughters, Chloe and Lucy refuse to leave home. Martin's elderly mother appears lost in another world. Martin and Julie's best friends are Duncan Amis, an author, and his wife Sarah who is a television actress. Martin and Julie try new jobs and therapy in order to cope with their life.

Truman Gates, a former US Army Airborne Ranger raised in Appalachia, migrates to Chicago to become a police officer. Married to Jessie, who is pregnant, he has made the transition from hillbilly to respectable lawman.

When the coal mine closes, Truman persuades his younger brother Gerald to get work in Chicago. Unfortunately, soon after landing a job as a truck driver, his vehicle is hijacked by mobsters and Gerald is killed by Joey Rosellini, the nephew of mob boss Papa John Isabella.

Truman returns to Kentucky for the funeral. His surviving brother, Briar Gates insists on a traditional mountain blood feud, but Truman begs them to let Gerald's murder be dealt with above the law. Briar finds Truman's reluctance to be disgraceful. So, determined to deal with the murderers himself, Briar searches for his kid brother's killer in Chicago.

Meanwhile, Truman tries to solve the crime before Briar can take revenge. Approaching John Isabella, he explains the mountain code. He suggests Gerald's murderer surrenders peacefully to save them both a lot of trouble. John, however, refuses on general principle, and Truman is left to continue his investigation.

After arriving in town, Briar gets a room at a flop house. He gives the front desk clerk his cousin's number back home, asking him to call it if he doesn't return by morning.

Briar immediately goes looking for information on the man who killed Gerald, shooting up a local mob hangout in the process. Truman arrives a little later, Joey, embarrassed by the attack, says he is not pressing charges against Briar, intending to "handle things" himself. When Papa John says things are getting out of hand, Joey dismisses the threat, saying that the Gates family, "plow rocks for a living." John responds, "That's what they said about 'our' people back in Sicily."

Working together for a time, Briar and Truman discover who the hijackers were from a witness. Truman pressures Lawrence, the son of Papa John, to turn state's evidence against Joey. When Lawrence goes to Joey for help, he betrays him. Lawrence's body is found, having been tortured, with Briar's shotgun at the scene.

Joey goes to Papa John who, devastated, sanctions a hit on the supposed culprit. Before he can, Briar breaks into Rosellini's trucking company and engages in a gunfight with Joey's crew and kills two of them before Joey shoots Briar twice. Fatally wounded, Briar dies in Truman's arms.

When the flop house desk clerk hears about the deaths at the Trucking Company on the news, he calls the number Briar gave him.

Even though both Truman and the police know that the evidence against Briar was planted, and that Briar's death was an ambush, there is no proof. Truman resigns from the police force to go after the Rosellini mob himself. As the Gates family gathers together and travels to Chicago to begin a war against the Outfit, Truman goes on the offensive and throws one of Joey's guys through the window of a restaurant. When Joey comes out, he finds "You forgot one," painted on Joey's car, and he vows to kill Truman without Papa John's permission.

Truman lures the Rosellini crew to a darkened cemetery, where an extended battle ensues, including the arrival of the Gates clan (and their hound dogs and rattlesnakes). In the end, Truman has Joey pinned on the ground with a knife to his throat only to be stopped when Papa John arrives with members of the Gates family held at gunpoint. He orders Truman to drop the knife and move out of the way. Having learned the truth about Lawrence's murder, to Joey's horror, he points the gun not at Truman, but at him. The Don tells Joey, "This is for killing my son," and he fatally shoots Joey.

The Gates and Isabella families call a truce. Back at the police station, Truman finds Jessie and tells her, "You're my family."

Grisna Smirnov Vittorio De Sica courts Elena Silvana Pampanini with almost fatal results.

Jane Victoria Stuart, called Victoria by her family, lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Her grandmother is very strict and is jealous of anything that her daughter Robin (Jane's mother) loves. Jane does not like having to live with her grandmother and wishes she and her mother could escape, though she knows her mother will never have enough backbone to stand up to her grandmother and leave. Jane believes her father to be dead, but is eventually told he is alive and living far away on Prince Edward Island, her birthplace. Jane's only friend is Josephine Turner, Jody for short, an orphan who lives and works as a servant at the boardinghouse next door. Jane also likes to cook, but her grandmother will not allow her to practice. Jane's grandmother despises anything she considers 'common', including Jane herself.

One day, a letter from her estranged father arrives, asking that Jane stay with him for the summer on the Island. Jane is very reluctant about going, but one of her uncles says that it would be best if she went. Upon arriving at the island, Jane meets her Aunt Irene (her father's sister) and takes an instant dislike to her. The next morning, she meets her father for the first time and loves him from the start. The two buy a little house on Lantern Hill and Jane takes on the role of housekeeper. Jane soon becomes friends with all the neighbours, such as the Snowbeam family and the Jimmy Johns (so named to distinguish them from a James Garland and a John Garland who also live on the Island). Jane also gains self-possession and, upon her return to Toronto, is much less affected by her sour, disapproving grandmother.

Jane eagerly counts down the months until she can return to the Island the following summer and be reunited with her father and friends. Upon returning, she has many adventures, including finding a lion that had escaped from a circus and fearlessly locking it up in a barn. When Jody writes to say that she is about to be sent to an orphanage, Jane talks to the Titus ladies, a pair of sisters who want to adopt a child. Initially they say no, but after some consideration, they decide to adopt Jody. Upon her return to Toronto, Jane tells her the good news and Jody soon leaves for the Island, promising to see Jane in the summer. In the meantime, Jane finds out why her parents have separated. She discovers that her grandmother was against her parents' relationship from the start; when her mother returned home for a visit during a rough time in her parents' marriage, her grandmother convinced her to stay, then burned the letter Jane's father sent asking her to return home.

One day, Jane receives a letter from Aunt Irene saying that Jane's father is going to Boston, probably to get a divorce from her mother, and it is likely he will remarry. Jane is shocked by the news and sets out alone to see her father on the Island, over a thousand miles away. She uses her pocket-money to buy a train ticket, endures a sleepless journey of two days, then walks three miles from the station in the cold and wet to the house on Lantern Hill. Her father, astonished, assures her that he is not going to get a divorce or remarry; he is going to Boston to meet with publishers about a book of his that has been accepted. Jane then catches pneumonia and her father sends a telegram to her mother. Robin, ignoring her mother's command of staying in Toronto, goes to the island to be with Jane. Jane's father falls in love with her mother all over again on first sight, and when Jane awakens, her parents have reconciled. As the book ends, Jane is happily making plans for her reunited family who will spend half the year in Toronto and half on Lantern Hill.

Jaime, a middle aged Argentine man who has lost his job, is pressured by his wife to sell the apartment he maintains for his mother, who is 82, in order to keep their lifestyle intact. Jaime, over several conversations with his mother, tries to convince her to move in with them, so he can sell it. She knows that she wouldn’t be happy living with him, his wife, his two teenagers and his wife’s mother, so she resists. She eventually tells him that part of the reason that she doesn’t want to give up the apartment is that she has a boyfriend, who is 79, and whom she met when she discovered that he was eating the food she left out for the neighborhood cats. Talking with his mother and remembering the past helps him get in touch with his values of his youth. He decides to divorce his wife and to let her keep everything except the apartment.

Cast

• China Zorrilla ... Mamá
• Eduardo Blanco ... Jaime
• Ulises Dumont ... Gregorio
• Silvina Bosco ... Dorita
• Floria Bloise ... Lucrecia
• Nicolás Condito ... Chico
• Tito Mendoza ... Enfermero

Producers

• Pascual Condito .... producer
• Luisa Matienzo .... producer
• Santiago Carlos Oves.... producer
• Carlos Piwowarski .... associate producer
• Jorge Piwowarski .... associate producer
• Mónica Roza .... executive producer/producer

Youngster Frank Courtney discovers that he has inherited control of a Los Angeles shipping line. The current president, Norman Bryan, does not want to lose his position and conspires to have the boy killed. Rin Tin Tin Jr., the Wonder Dog, protects the boy from Bryan's murderous plots throughout the serial's running time.

At an air show, ace flyers Fred Cromwell (Bob Steele) and his partner, Bill "Jelly Bean" Cook (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) perform aerial feats that prove they are the greatest aviators around. A dam being built by Stephen Gray (Lafe McKee), the owner of a construction firm, comes under attack from the mysterious pilot, the "Black Ace", and his "Mystery Squadron" of pilots. With Gray facing financial ruin, he asks Henry Davis (Jack Mulhall), the dam's foreman and ex-stunt pilot to hire Fred and Bill.

The identity of the Black Ace is so secret that it is even concealed from his own men in the Mystery Squadron. Fred and his partner, Bill seek to unmask the Black Ace and stop his attacks on Gray's power dam. The Mystery Squadron is headquartered in a secret cave near the dam.

A rich gold mine is threatened by the dam's construction and a number of individuals behave suspiciously, including Lafe Johnson (Purnell Pratt), a rival contractor, Martin (Edward Peil, Sr.), the hotel owner, Collins (J. Carrol Naish), a construction employee for Gray and Dr. Flint (Robert Frazer). When the Mystery Squadron strikes again, Fred finds Davis tied up in his car. Davis explains he has been held captive by the raiders.

Fred and Bill finally confront Davis with evidence that he is the Black Ace. Davis panics and takes off in his aircraft only to be shot down by Fred and his partner.

Graham Holt is a single man, who wants to adopt a son. James Lennards is a disturbed child brought up in foster care. Graham Holt's emotional development has been smothered by his uncaring parents. James has been shifted from foster home to group home throughout his short life. Due to the nature of his past he has a hard time coping anger. He only has a vague memory of his mother from when he was aged 3, but he has a vivid and romantic image of his father, who in fact is constantly in and out of prison. Throughout the movie James has flashbacks of his past about his father and his mother which cause him to act out, from self-mutilation to destruction of property.

As Graham goes through the extended vetting process to be an adoptive parent, he has to attend classes and meet regularly with social workers. Graham and James meet and the embarrassed silences demonstrate Graham's nervousness and James's fears of the situation. When James is shown the room that would be his if the adoption goes through, he moves towards Graham and places his arms around Graham's waist, and Graham then hugs him briefly. Showing affection for the first time in his young life. James also makes friends in this time with some of the local children racing with a bicycle.

When Graham tries to explain how a relationship should work, he explains it should be a partnership, but he never mentions love. Graham has to visit key people in James' past; one of them, Lynn, a foster mother, who was one of the few females James ever got along with, was disappointed that James would not stop in to see her. She explained to Graham about James constantly running away and she finding him almost naked, hiding in holes and covered in dirt. On the ride home, Graham asks James why he liked Lynn. James answers first by scratching frenetically his legs with his hand, then by trying to jump from the car, all the while telling Graham that Lynn is not a proper woman, eventually forcing Graham to stop the car as James tries to jump out.

James convinces Graham that tenting is fun so they do it and have a happy experience. James tests Graham by finding a stick and giving himself an injury on his forehead, and requesting him to kiss the injury. He tells Graham, while remembering a similar experience with his birth father, that the kiss has to be a long one to make it feel better. Graham does it so and James shows again affection for Graham. Later that night on the camp Jamie slips into the sleeping bag with Graham.

After a few weekends together, Graham takes James to meet Graham's father's brother, Uncle Turpin. Turpin teases James and finally makes him smile. He asks Graham if he has ever apologized to his father; he always hated Graham's mother, since she would never let the father have a moment of peace. Graham objects to this saying there was love between his parents, but Turpin is adamant (In the original novel, besides, Turpin insinuates that Graham's father was in fact a closeted homosexual who had been in love with a comrade in arms during the War). Turpin also asks Graham if he is sure about wanting to adopt, and Graham insist he is.

While their relationship develops with its ups and downs, nothing shakes Graham's belief that between them, they could change each other. As a new school season is starting, Graham is allowed to foster James while the final adoption can take place so James not have to change schools during the process.

Near the end, James's father unexpectedly shows up and, after revealing he is dying, he asks Graham to allow him to stay nearby secretly for the last few months he is expected to live, just to be able to see James without James knowing he is there. Graham disagrees: he thinks James should know all the truth. The reunion with James's father goes badly, and once again the pains of the past take over and James tries to escape the pain in the only way he knows how. Graham invites James' father to move in with them, and he and James care for him as he lives his last few months. In the end Graham says to Jamie, "I won't be second best, we must be father and son." James flips a sign over at a gas station from open to closed, more a symbol of his past is over and his new life is beginning, and he hurries to place his hand in Graham's.

The story starts with a girl named Yuniko trying to steal an award because it was held by actor Akira Nanae. The actor who would receive it, Ryu Eba, finds out about her stealing it and tells her that she must steal it from him again. Then they start to fall in love. She continues to steal Akira's things, and she finds a tape of a conversation between her parents that states she has a brother named Ryu. They then travel to America and attend acting school in Los Angeles. She meets another Ryu, Ryu Gilliams. He says that his parents were Nanae's friends, and that they were told to marry. They star in the school play, and are successful. They find out Ryu Eba isn't her brother, and they end up as successful actors. At the end, Kamui and Cinnamon have babies, and Yuniko and Ryu have a baby as well. The last page ends in a cliffhanger, however, as they attend an award ceremony and it is never shown whether Ryu or Yuniko get the award.

Marvin's Maze is a maze game where the player fight against Robonoids while trying to clear the maze of dots. There are two ways to finish each rack: eating up all the dots, or destroying a certain number of Robonoids (listed at the bottom of the screen). Two ways to destroy the Robonoids: shoot them, or remove the ground from under them at certain points of the maze (the 'Trick').

Anna is an ambitious young archaeologist who desperately needs the kudos of an important find, but her work is ruined when the authorities suddenly shut down the old hospital in which she is working. Plague spores contaminate its medieval foundations. Anna is convinced that this ancient plague site holds an even darker secret. In her research she has stumbled on a murderous pattern of unexplained child deaths. This is a very cold case; the children disappeared in 1665, the year of the Great Plague. The 'suits' at her museum don't buy her theories and they give the approval for the hospital's imminent demolition. That night Anna risks everything, and breaks back into the hospital to prove her suspicions.

Reaching for a mysterious ancient artifact, she slips and falls. Meanwhile, Nick's 21st birthday celebrations are culminating in chaos. He just wanted a good night out with girlfriend Joolz, best mate Steve, and Steve's younger brother, Clive. But a little innocent joy-riding goes badly wrong. After a fatal hit-and-run the teenagers hide out in the hospital and their fates become intertwined with Anna's. With luckless synchronicity, two worlds collide and the ancient force that has snared the young people starts to play out its cruel game. Anna has unwittingly resurrected the malevolent spirit of a hideous medieval plague doctor, and one by one they will all encounter his evil reincarnation - their fates mirroring the cruel deaths of his victims 350 years ago. History is repeating itself.

Anna works against the clock to unlock the secrets of the murderous plague doctor. In a twisted version of Alice Through The Looking Glass, the young people find themselves fighting for their lives - and souls - in a long-forgotten medieval underworld. The only way out is for Anna to confront the plague doctor. Can she destroy him, and stop his evil spreading like a plague epidemic, into today's world? A shocking mystery that began centuries ago needs solving but even Anna cannot see that she herself is the final piece of the puzzle. Time is her enemy and death is only the beginning.

''Warfare Incorporated'' is set in a future ruled by super corporations engaged in no-holds-barred competition for the resources of the galaxy. The game focuses on two specific corporations (ACME and OMNI), who are fighting over the newly discovered planet Icarus, which holds a great wealth of galaxite, a rare and valuable mineral needed for teleportation. Players take the role of Andy Whitmore, a junior executive at the underdog ACME Exploration Corporation, who discovered Icarus. The player must attempt to work their way up the corporate ladder by mining the planet and finding missing security specialist Gordon Fox. Over the course of the game, ACME discovers mysterious alien technologies, such as a machine that can duplicate objects, as well as a new enemy for humanity.

John Sheldon is falsely accused by Frank Nolan of killing Lou Salters. Nolan steals Sheldon's horse Rex while Sheldon is in jail, with plans to ride him in a big race. Sheldon's friend Alice and her comedic sidekick Henry rescue the horse with the aid of Rin Tin Tin Jr., and Alice rides him in the race instead. The winnings from the race are used to pay for Sheldon's legal defense.

Ken Williams (Ken Maynard) is determined to discover the identity of a mysterious killer who preys upon railroads and transportation companies like the ones owned by Jane Corwin (Verna Hillie). Her railroad worker father (Lafe McKee) was the first victim of the murderous fiend known as the Rattler, who is especially difficult to catch because he makes himself appear as other people with a collection of masks, or he effects a strange disguise with eyeglasses, a fake nose, and a crepe-hair mustache. The Rattler — also known as "the Menace of the Mountain" — attempts to control the mountain and its hidden gold from his secret cave filled with strange electronic gadgets.

Zaroff (Charles Middleton), a rancher and oil company owner, wants to drive the Ravenhead Indians off their reservation so that he can mine the rare element X-94, a super explosive, found there and sell it to the highest bidder. Texas Ranger Tom Morgan tries to stop him and save the tribe.

When the United States Marine Corps starts building a landing strip on ''Halfway Island'' in the Pacific Ocean, they interfere with the secret hideout of the masked mystery villain, The Tiger Shark, who begins to sabotage their efforts. Sergeant Schiller is abducted by the villain after developing a gyrocompass that could pinpoint his location. Corporal Lawrence and Sergeant McGowan attempt to rescue him and stop the Tiger Shark for good.

Gentleman thief A.J. Raffles finds himself caught up in murder following the theft of a ruby.

In the oil fields of the Middle East, the Mysterons (voiced by Donald Gray) sabotage the drilling on Rig 15 by opening a safety valve, releasing a jet of oil that quickly ignites and turns the rig into an inferno. The nearby Bensheba oil refinery is the only source of fuel for the vehicles used by the Spectrum Organisation. When the Mysterons cryptically threaten to "immobilise" the whole organisation, Colonel White (voiced by Donald Gray) fears that they intend to disrupt this fuel supply and dispatches Captains Scarlet and Blue (voiced by Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop) to investigate the unfolding disaster at Rig 15.

On arrival, Scarlet and Blue learn from rig controller Kinley and his assistant, Hansen, that explosives expert Jason Smith has been brought in to "blow out" the fire by detonating an explosive charge at its centre. Unknown to the Spectrum officers and rig personnel, Captain Black (voiced by Donald Gray) has been observing the blaze from a distance. During the planting of the charge, he uses the Mysterons' powers to hypnotise Smith. The charge detonates and extinguishes the fire, but Smith is killed in the explosion and replaced with a double under Mysteron control.

That night, Black orders the reconstructed Smith to leave in his truck and use his explosives to destroy the Bensheba refinery. The following morning, the body of the original Smith is discovered and Scarlet and Blue realise that he has been taken over by the Mysterons. Scarlet requisitions a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle and chases Smith down the highway leading to Bensheba, managing to force him off the road before they reach the refinery. As Smith's truck crashes into a sand dune and explodes, Scarlet's SPV collides with a set of oil tanks, fatally injuring Scarlet. The captain's soon-to-revive body is flown back to Spectrum Cloudbase.

Jack Reacher gets off a Greyhound bus in the town of Margrave, Georgia, because he remembers his brother mentioning that a blues musician named Blind Blake had died there. Much to his surprise, shortly after his arrival, he is arrested in a local diner for murder on the orders of the sheriff, Morrison, who falsely claims he saw Reacher leave the scene.

While in custody, Reacher meets Finlay, the chief of detectives, and Roscoe, a female officer who believes him to be innocent. Reacher persuades Finlay to call a number on a piece of paper found in the dead man's shoe; the number leads them to Paul Hubble, a retired banker who instantly confesses to the murder. Before Reacher can be released, he and Hubble are transferred to a state prison in Warburton, where Reacher manages to thwart an attempt on their lives by the Aryan Brotherhood. Suspecting that the deputy warden set them up, Reacher joins Finlay's investigation, while Hubble is presumed dead after vanishing from his house in the middle of the day.

Reacher learns that the murdered man is his brother, Joe, who was running an investigation into a counterfeiting ring operated by the Kliner family under the protection of Morrison, several dirty cops, and the corrupt mayor, Grover Teale. A second body, belonging to truck driver Sherman Stoller, is found, and Morrison and his wife are brutally murdered shortly thereafter. Roscoe theorizes that the Kliners are using Margrave as a distribution hub for their counterfeit money, but this is eventually disproven when Reacher searches one of their trucks and finds it empty. He then realizes that the opposite is true: the Kliners have been hoarding the money in response to a Coast Guard operation cutting off their supply of bills from Venezuela, and plan to resume distribution once the operation is shut down as a cost-saving measure.

Sending Hubble's family into hiding to protect them from Kliner, Reacher kills Kliner’s son and several other associates after luring them into an ambush. He then informs Finlay of the secret behind Kliner's operation, which his brother had been trying to prove: to obtain the special paper required to make undetectable forgeries, the criminals had employed Hubble to collect hundreds of thousands of used $1 bills and send them to ports in Florida through Stoller and other drivers, whereupon they would be bleached in Venezuela to remove the ink and then used to make forged $100 bills. However, when they return to Margrave, they are taken captive by Kliner, Teale, and Finlay's FBI contact Picard, who reveals that he has been keeping track of their progress, and has Roscoe and Hubble's family in his custody. Kliner reveals that Hubble isn't dead, but in hiding, and threatens to kill his hostages unless Reacher finds him.

En route, Reacher stages a distraction and kills Picard's escorts, before apparently shooting him dead. He then locates Hubble in a nearby motel, and brings him back to Margrave. Finding the criminals gone, they spring Finlay from captivity in the police station and set it on fire, before locating the hostages at Kliner's warehouse. Reacher kills a dirty cop named Baker, shoots Teale and Kliner, and sets fire to the rest of their money. A wounded Picard shows up and beats Reacher down, but Finlay distracts him long enough for Reacher to kill him. The group then escapes as the warehouse explodes, and Reacher ends up spending the night with Roscoe. Realizing that his actions will attract a lot of unwanted attention from the authorities, Reacher decides to leave Georgia. Roscoe gives him one last gift: a picture of his brother retrieved from one of Kliner's victims.

On a trip to Turin to analyse the Shroud of Turin, journalist Decker Hawthorne and Professor Harry Goodman discover human dermal cells remaining. After the trip, Goodman takes some samples back to his laboratory, in the United States, and discovers that they are still alive. He then invites Decker to show him his discoveries. Once Decker arrives, Goodman explains several of his theories about the cells, and has engineered a strain of "C Cells" which are incredibly resilient to damage and disease. Goodman is actively searching for ways these C Cells could be implemented to insert into one's body to cure disease, due to their strange properties and signs of immortality. Then the professor proposes to Decker the idea of cloning the cells, but Decker does not support this idea.

Some years pass and Decker visits Professor Goodman with one of his two daughters. While Hawthorne and Goodman talk for some time, Decker's daughter meets and interacts with the Goodmans' adopted son, Christopher. On the way back home, Decker deduces Christopher's origin. He immediately returns to Goodman's home and confronts him about Christopher being the Clone of Jesus Christ. Goodman explains that Christopher is like any usual boy, but that he shows a high degree of intelligence and has never suffered from disease of any kind. He convinces Decker not to do a story or Christopher's life will be ruined. Before leaving, Decker assumes out loud that Goodman named the child "Christopher" because of Jesus Christ, of whom he was cloned; but the professor rapidly corrects him, claiming that he named him in name of Christopher Columbus, since he believed that the child would usher the world into a new era.

Several years later, Decker visits Israel on business and stays with old friends, Joshua and Ilyana Rosen. There he learns much about the historical place and its notable culture. During his visit, Decker receives an anonymous phone call saying that "Dogs will cry, but their tears will find no place to land" following the shootings of several Palestinians by Israeli troops in a riot. He immediately calls the police and they tell him that the call must have come from Muslim terrorists, making a threat of some kind of massacre or attack against the Jews (to which the callers referred to as "the dogs"), but they remain uncertain about where they plan to attack. Decker realizes that the terrorists who called him were referring to The Wailing Wall when they said that the Jews tears would have "no place to land". He rushes to the historical site, just in time to watch it blow up entirely. He saves a young boy from being killed by the blast. In retaliation for the destruction of The Western Wall, Israel destroys the Dome of the Rock and retakes the Temple Mount.

Decker later goes to check on the boy, but he is kidnapped by terrorists, along with his companion journalist and long-time friend and confidant, Tom Donafin. They are held captive in an unknown building in Lebanon. He and Tom remain imprisoned for three years. Decker and Tom escape, after one day Decker had a dream of Christopher Goodman, who leads him to the exit. In the dream his captors are dispatched and lie throughout the building. Decker reminds the Dream Christopher that Tom was also held prisoner, and Christopher absent-mindedly shows Decker where he is. Upon waking Decker discovers that his door is unlocked and his captors were dispatched in the same fashion as in his dream, and Tom was right where Christopher had shown him. Decker and Tom then make their escape into the countryside where they are rescued by United Nations troops under none other than the Secretary General, Jon Hansen, with whom Decker forms an instant friendship and bond. They are housed temporarily in Israel, which is under attack by Russians, until it is safe for them to fly home. Transport is arranged for them to get out of the besieged city, however a dogfight in progress causes Tom and Decker to exit the car to document the duel and Tom tries to get pictures. The car, the driver and Tom are hit by a blast from one of the fighter planes. Decker survives, and Tom is assumed dead. It is revealed that Tom, however, does not die. He is stricken blind, however, from the explosion and from flying glass. Decker is informed that Tom's body was never found and he is presumed dead.

Decker is finally reunited with his family, and they return to the United States while Decker recovers from captivity. During his recovery period, there is a worldwide catastrophe that seemingly has no explanation. Millions of people wake up next to dead loved ones, and often whole families have died. This event is called "The Disaster" by most people, however sudden converts to Christianity begin to call it The Rapture. Decker's entire family, along with his friends abroad, The Rosens, perish in the tragedy. Some collateral damage is also suffered: people driving cars suddenly die and their cars careen out of control; some commercial airline pilots die and their planes crash; and other damage occurs. Decker buries his family, and then falls into a catatonic stupor as the weight of his loss consumes him. Later Christopher Goodman arrives at Decker's house explaining that his adoptive parents died in a plane crash piloted by a casualty of the Disaster. Decker shakes off his catatonia and invites Christopher to stay with him, and Christopher becomes his new family.

Jon Hansen offers Decker a position as his assistant at the United Nations, where Christopher encounters Robert Milner, a retired Secretary General who is heavily involved in occult practices, and recognizes Christopher as one who has been prophesied in New Age Councils to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity and enhanced consciousness for mankind. Alice Bernley (a thinly veiled reference to Alice Bailey - an actual noted Theosophist), a confidant of Milner's also sees and recognizes Christopher and they befriend him, and Milner assumes the role of mentor to Christopher, not only in politics, but in a worldwide New Age movement. Meanwhile, Jon Hansen has been working on an ambitious project to reorganize the United Nations to better handle operations, and in light of the recent Disaster (The Rapture), he has almost open reign to do what he sees necessary.

The UN is restructured with a central government led by the Secretary General, and ten Regional Divisions which include Oceania and Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, etc. Each of these regions is led by a Primary Regent who is backed up by an Alternate who serves as proxy when the Primary is absent. Israel is the only nation on earth that refuses to join the UN because Israel's regional partners are all Arab nations that would force them into an extremely unfavorable position of lacking representation within the UN. Meanwhile, Christian Fundamentalists, citing various prophecies in the Biblical Book of Revelation, identify Hansen as the Antichrist or "The Beast". This, however, quickly ends as Jon Hansen tragically dies when his helicopter crashes in Pakistan during a fact finding mission. The Office of Secretary General falls vacant and remains vacant. None of the Ten Regents believe there was anyone to be a suitable replacement for the extremely charismatic, popular and altruistic Hansen. A rotation schedule is established where each Primary Regent serves as Acting Secretary General for a month. It is deemed that this cycle will continue until a unanimous agreement can be made for Hansen's replacement. Unanimous consent is proven to be almost impossible.

Years pass, and Christopher has been elected as the European Alternate Regent. Under the tutelage of Milner and Bernley, Christopher has embraced his spiritual nature, and Decker has provided him with pragmatic and political guidance. Under machinations of Milner and with the cooperation of various groups such as Freemasons and the Knights Templar with the funding from an occult clearinghouse known as The Lucius Trust (a thinly veiled reference to The Lucis Trust), Christopher comes into possession of The Ark of the Covenant. He gives the Ark to Israel as a gift. and in exchange he wants Israel to sign a treaty with the UN. A seven-year treaty is signed promising Israel that they will not be impeded by their neighbors, and UN recognizes their right to exist. When it is proven that the Ark is authentic - proven as Alice Bernley dies from looking inside - Israel agrees, joins the United Nations, and The Ark is placed in the New Temple that was built on the Temple Mount (previously retaken by Israel after the destruction of The Wailing Wall).

Albert Faure (previously named Albert Moore in earlier printings), an extremely aggressive and deft manipulator - as well as the Primary Regent of Europe - sets in motion a plan that he hopes will gain him the position of Secretary General. Meanwhile, Christopher, following a Spirit guide sets off into the desert for guidance after a series of extremely unsettling dreams about God and an impending feeling of global doom. When Christopher's journey into the desert nears its completion (after 40 days and 40 nights), Milner leads Decker to the desert where he says they will encounter Christopher who will need their assistance.

Christopher's "vision quest" has revealed Faure's plan to him, and he intends to stop it. However, they learn that Christopher is too late, because Faure's plan has already culminated in several strategic assassinations, as well as the declaration and execution of the China-India-Pakistan war, a nuclear conflict that lasts a single day, yet ends with hundreds of millions of casualties. No clear winner was declared or recognized in this war; however, Faure uses the incident to catapult himself into a position of power, at which time he forces a vote for Secretary General. He expects unanimous consent due to bribery, force, blackmail and threats against the other Regents, and he is widely expected to win.

Just as the vote for Secretary General is under way, Christopher shows up at the United Nations and announces that Faure was responsible for the assassinations and is the single man who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions in the China-India-Pakistan war. Faure denies this, but Christopher insists, and commands Faure to confess. Seemingly under the power of Christopher Goodman, Faure does confess, and then immediately drops dead in front of everyone at the United Nations. It is concluded that Faure died under the weight of his own guilt, but Decker and Robert Milner realize that Christopher has extraordinary powers and he was beginning to exercise them.

While in Chicago, former military police officer Jack Reacher is helping a young woman with an injured leg with her dry cleaning when they're captured at gunpoint by three men and thrown into a car, then transferred into a van and driven cross country. On the way, Reacher learns the woman is an FBI agent named Holly Johnson, though she doesn't tell him she's the daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nor goddaughter of the President, having been accused of being the beneficiary of nepotism all her life.

Meanwhile, Holly's fellow agents search for her. Security footage leaves Reacher as the prime suspect, and his mentor, General Leon Garber, is brought in to help, though he insists Reacher would never do such a thing. The Chicago office where Holly worked take charge, with only agent in charge McGrath and two others, Milosevic and Brogan involved. At one point, they manage to put an APB out on the van, but get the wrong van due to a transfer of vehicles.

After Reacher fails to take advantage of an opportunity to escape during the night, Holly insists that he let her handle things. However, she ends up owing him when, during another stay, one of the kidnappers, Peter Bell, tries to rape her. Reacher breaks free of his restraints, kills Bell, hides his body, and re-restrains himself before the others become suspicious. Holly finally and reluctantly accepts his help after this.

Reacher and Holly finally arrive at their destination; a mountain community that's home to a radical military sect wishing to secede from the US. Holly, intended by leader Beau Borken to be used as leverage to make her father agree to his demands, is placed in an upstairs room of an abandoned county courthouse, whose walls are supposedly filled with dynamite. She meets Jackson, an FBI agent working undercover, who offers to help her escape, but she refuses to leave without Reacher.

Meanwhile, Reacher, after witnessing Borken execute Loder, the leader of the kidnappers, for multiple failures, is shown around the camp with the intent of sending him back to the States with information on the militia's credibility. However, word soon reaches Borken of Bell's murder, and Reacher is put on trial. Learning that he'll be executed, Holly escapes her room and convinces Borken to commute his sentence after he proves his worth in a shooting match.

During the punishment, Reacher and Holly are forced to bury the caught Jackson's corpse, and Reacher suspects something big is about to happen. Meanwhile, the FBI figures out where the militia is. When the President, fearing political fallout from a bloodbath, refuses to authorize an attack, McGrath and his men go rogue, setting up camp near the community. That night, Reacher sneaks out of his cabin and into an abandoned mine, where he finds trucks carrying missiles.

The next morning, as he returns to the camp, Reacher rescues McGrath, who was caught trying to break into the camp, proving his innocence. The two realize that Brogan and Milosevic are moles working for Borken for money. They stalk the camp to save Holly, killing Brogan in the process. Borken drags Holly out on national TV and tries to force her father to give in to his demands. With a sniper rifle stolen from the ammo cabin, Reacher shoots him dead. Milosevic takes Holly hostage, but Holly manages to kill him.

As the FBI round up the remaining militia members and demolish the camp, Reacher discovers that Holly's cabin isn't actually filled with dynamite and realizes that Borken sent Stevie, the last kidnapper in a truck filled with it to San Francisco, where he plans to detonate in the middle of a crowd celebrating the Fourth of July. Everyone gets in a helicopter and Reacher manages to shoot and destroy the truck on time. Learning that Holly and McGrath are in a relationship, Reacher sadly says goodbye to her and is left to hitchhike down a highway.

''Birth of an Age'' starts after ''In His Image''. The world is still grieving the loss caused by the China-India-Pakistan War. Christopher Goodman, the Alternate member of the United Nations Security Council for the European States assumes the Primary membership from Albert Moore who was responsible for the war. The United Nations sets out to provide aid to the survivors of the war. Two men, Saul Cohen and John the Apostle, leaders of a radical cult called the Koum Damar Patar (KDP), give prophecies of plagues. Only Christopher Goodman and his close advisors, Decker Hawthorne and Robert Milner acknowledge the prophecies. Plagues arrive and John and Cohen speaking prophecies about the plagues, quickly gain the world's attention. They become despised, being recognized as the harbingers of destruction, and they are blamed for the plagues.

Three asteroids are discovered, one of which is on a collision course with Earth. The UN launches a series of nuclear missiles at the asteroid in order to deflect or destroy the asteroid. The other two asteroids shift trajectories to a collision course with Earth. The first asteroid passes through Earth's atmosphere almost parallel to the ground, but close enough to cause incredible amounts of damage due to the force of the shock wave it makes, creating damage from Northern Alaska, in a southeastern curve through Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, Columbia and Brazil. Its entrance and exit to and from the atmosphere siphons off a huge amount of ozone, which allows the ultraviolet rays from the sun to destroy crops and causes worldwide famine. The second asteroid directly collides with Earth, striking in the Philippine Basin of the Pacific Ocean and causing seismic upheaval. The asteroid's explosion on the sea floor sent iron dust throughout the Pacific Ocean, which quickly turned red with rust.

The third asteroid is obliterated by the nuclear missiles launched by the UN. When the asteroid's dust reached earth, it contains a large amount of arsenic, which poisoned Earth's water supply creating a global outbreak of arsenic poisoning. Soon, locust-like creatures appear in massive swarms injecting people with a painful neurotoxin. After five months they die ''en masse''. Christopher Goodman, the clone of Christ, discovers that he had the power of healing and soothes people who had been stung by the locust. He healed hundreds of people, including several members of the UN Security Council, and their families, as well as Decker Hawthorne. Christopher's supernatural powers make him popular, and he is nominated to the vacant seat of the Secretary General. During his acceptance speech, Christopher Goodman is assassinated by Decker's old friend Tom Donafin.

After Goodman dies, a homicidal madness spreads amongst the people near the mouth of the Euphrates River. Entire families, villages, cities, and nations are filled with rampaging citizens bent on killing each other. The madness destroys the middle East, southern Russia, much of Asia, eastern Africa, and south eastern Europe. Three days after Christopher's assassination, at his funeral, Robert Milner approached the coffin and laid his hands on it. Christopher Goodman is resurrected, the reincarnation of Christ.

Christopher explains that as his body was dead, he gained the entire memory of Jesus Christ all the way up to the time of his death, and gained other knowledge as well. He explains that rather than being a god, Yahweh was the member of a species called Theatans. Four billion years ago, these Theatans were at the same evolutionary level as humans are now. Their evolutionary process had stagnated, until it was discovered that the next evolutionary step - the final step - was a voluntary step taken by the species as a whole. The people of Theata took this evolutionary step, and evolved into spiritual beings capable of wonders only dreamed of previously. Eventually, one Theatan discovered that there was one further evolutionary step, although it was a state that only a single being may achieve. This Theatan, named Yahweh, took this step, and became a Godhead.

Christopher continues to explain that humans are now on the brink of the evolutionary step into the spirit as the Theatans, however, Yahweh does not wish to relinquish his hold on humanity, believing that if they evolve into spirits, they will be on equal footing with him, and will no longer serve him. In order to stave off this evolutionary cooperation by humankind, Yahweh has stricken the earth with the plagues of asteroids, locust and madness, and he plans more and worse plagues as time goes on. Decker and Milner resolve to do anything they can to help Christopher rally humanity against Yahweh and issue in the New Age of Humankind.

Christopher, Milner and Decker travel to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, Israel. Cohen and John are located. With a swipe of his hand Christopher sends them both flying toward the Temple at great speed, killing them on impact with the temple wall. Decker remains outside to talk to the press as Christopher and Milner enter the Temple with the intention of desecrating the altar inside, to put a stop to the animal sacrifices that take place there. Also Christopher takes the contents of the Ark of the Covenant and throws them from the roof of the Temple as he proclaims that he is the Second Coming of Christ, the Jewish Messiah, and Muhammad al-Mahdi among other prophesied figures throughout most other religions, saying they're all one and the same.

As Christopher nears the conclusion of his address, light beings, presumably Theatans, surround the temple and flood the Temple Mount. Christopher leaps from the roof of the Temple, and is suspended in mid-air by the light beings and he proclaims that everyone should "Behold the Hosts of Heaven".

The book starts before the conclusion of ''Birth of an Age''. Christopher Goodman's address from the top of the Third Temple in Jerusalem is revisited, concluding with Christopher leaping from the top of the temple, and caught by the visible Spirit beings, whom Christopher identified as Theatans on the flight to Jerusalem with Decker Hawthorne and Robert Milner. Christopher is an extremely popular Secretary General of the United Nations, who was nominated following his supernatural healing of various members of the Security Council, and elected unanimously prior to his assassination, and subsequent resurrection.

Christopher reveals to the world that humanity is on the brink of its greatest evolutionary step, which people are now heralding as the New Age. However, given the nature of this evolutionary step - that of evolving into nearly omnipotent Spirit Beings - this step must be taken collectively by the entire species, rather than through natural selection of individual members of the human race. If any significant portion of the human population balks at taking this evolutionary step, the evolutionary process will be a failure, and humankind will lose the opportunity to evolve, and remain a stagnant species doomed for extinction. The greatest threat to humankind in taking this evolutionary step is represented by Fundamentalist Christians and various Jewish sects, including a group of 144,000 Jews which call themselves the Koum Damar Patar or KDP for short. These groups remained loyal to Yahweh, whom Christopher has identified as a power-hungry Theatan, intent on keeping humankind as they are, in order to prevent them from becoming his equal.

Christopher vows not to let this happen, and declares the New Age, starting with year 1. March 11, the day of Christopher's resurrection, is declared New Year's Day. Three days after Christopher's address at the Temple, the bodies of John and Saul Cohen are called into Heaven. This is captured on tape by the media, but is dismissed by Christopher as dramatics by Yahweh to frighten people away from their destinies. A life-size statue of Christopher is erected at the top of the Temple, and speakers are set to broadcast Christopher's Address to Humankind in a repeating loop.

Here, Christopher also begins a revitalization plan for healing the Middle East, which was decimated in a recent plague of mass psychosis that affected every man, woman, and child in the region, which now sits bereft of humanity. The first priority in fixing this region is to rebuild the city of Babylon in Iraq. This site is chosen as a symbol of defiance toward Yahweh, since that was where humankind was first attacked by Yahweh when he afflicted them with tongues when they were erecting the Tower of Babel. He also indicated that he planned to move the United Nations main headquarters there, relocating from the Secretariat Building in New York City.

Throughout the world, people start experiencing brief moments of supernatural power. These powers include the ability to control others' behavior, telepathy, precognition, rapid healing of fatal injuries, and very detailed memories of past lives. Most people's experiences are very brief, mostly linked to a single incident, however these episodes happen all over the world and begin to happen more frequently. Christopher attributes this phenomenon to the fact that people are inching ever closer to that evolutionary step which will bring humanity into its New Age. Christopher then reveals that he will help accelerate this process, by instituting a Eucharist. This Communion remains a closely guarded secret, only to be revealed when the time is right. The communion is said to give people immortality along with great power.

Decker meets with Christopher to discuss this communion, and points out that giving immortality and power to the Christian Fundamentalists, KDP and the other Jews set against Christopher will be counter-productive. He suggests that the best way to keep Christopher's enemies away from the communion is use their own prophecies against them. If a mark is required to receive communion, as well as a pledge by individuals to aid Christopher and all of humankind by working toward the New Age, then Christians, Jews and the KDP will avoid taking the mark, and lack the powers, and immortality to continue their subversive behavior against Humankind. Christopher decides to show Decker the Communion. As they walk, Christopher reminds Decker that Christopher's foster father, Harry Goodman, had developed so-called C-Cells after the discovery of Jesus's blood on the Shroud of Turin. He also reminds Decker of Robert Milner's advanced age, yet remarkable health, due to a blood transfusion with Christopher years before. Decker correctly concludes that the Communion must consist of the distribution of Christopher's blood among the population. Christopher confirms this, and indicates that for the last two years, scientists and technicians have been frantically cloning Christopher's blood, and putting it in medicinal capsules. They enter a huge warehouse that was stocked floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall with Christopher's blood.

The mark of communion was a depiction of the numerals 666, since Christopher's name added up to that value in the Hebrew alphabet, and the intent was to keep Christians and other religious fundamentalists away. As the day drew closer to opening up the clinics to the public, these clinics became the targets for Christian protesters. These protests grew more violent and when the doors were finally opened, the clinics became the targets of terrorist attacks, apparently by Fundamentalists trying to prevent people from taking the communion. Public clamor for the capture and punishment of these terrorists grew until Christopher was forced to take stronger actions. Capital punishment was extended to Christian terrorists, and their fundamentalist leaders. Other than zealots and terrorists, Christians mostly avoided the clinics.

Decker also avoided taking the mark. When confronted by Christopher, in his office in Babylon, Decker, now 72 years old, indicated that he didn't want to live forever. He still missed his family who died in The Disaster years before, and although he was in no hurry to die, he would welcome the rest when it came. Christopher pointed out that Decker, who had been writing speeches for Christopher, and had been promoting New Age principles and philosophies, must have forgotten that all that applied to him as well! His wife and daughters had reincarnated immediately after their deaths, and Decker would not be old and tired after the Communion, and he could go to them and reunite his family. Decker, very excited by this prospect, immediately headed out, and was on his way to the nearest clinic when he was abducted by the KDP.

The KDP took Decker to Petra, Jordan where he stayed in a one-room building. He was confronted by Scott Rosen, the son of Decker's late close friends Joshua and Ilana Rosen. Scott was revealed to be a member of the KDP and was instructed by God to attempt to convert him. After a violent outburst by Decker, which resulted in a shining black eye for Scott, Decker grew calm and attempted to not listen to Scott. Scott presented very convincing arguments about the existence of God, the accuracy of the Bible, and the messages it contained, and how Christopher was a huge liar and the personification of evil. Decker, unimpressed, said nothing and refused to react to anything Rosen said. Rosen presented Decker with a Bible which belonged to Decker's late wife, Elizabeth, complete with her handwriting and notes. After another session with Rosen, Decker continuing to refuse to give Rosen the satisfication of knowing that some of what he said got through, Rosen released Decker from captivity, promising him a ride to Israel after their observance of ''Shabbat''.

That evening, walking around Petra, Decker met Rhoda Donafin, the widow of Decker's closest friend Tom Donafin, as well as his sons, Tom, Jr., and Decker Donafin (this was the first Decker knew that Tom named one of his children after him, and it affected him greatly). Decker met several people around Petra, and realized that none of the people he met were anything like the overzealous, wild-eyed fundamentalists that he saw on TV, or read about in the papers. These people were caring, friendly and scared. When Rhoda indicated to Decker that they were to be attacked by Christopher and the armies of the world, even offering Decker a timeframe for when this was to occur. Decker promised that was not the case, and if it were, he would talk sense to Christopher, and maybe they could all become friends - or at the least allies - in the evolution of Humankind. Rhoda reacted with an amused dismissal of Decker's promise, however the two remained friendly even if they disagreed on this. Decker ate with the Donafins, and treated them to stories of their father when he and Decker used to share adventures and misadventures when they were younger.

After ''Shabbat'', Decker was provided a ride, as promised, to Israel, where he caught a plane back to his home in Maryland where he planned to rest for a few days. On his way home, he noticed that everyone bearing Christopher's mark was also bearing bandages that covered up painful sores and blisters. Decker decided to hold off on the Communion for a bit.

This first plague of sores caused outrage among Humankind who demanded that Christopher retaliate against Yahweh. The United Nations instituted penalties for sedition and collusion with Yahweh. Leaders of Fundamentalists groups were subject to capital punishment. The rationale was that although capital punishment was distasteful for many, removal of the opposing force was necessary to Humankind's evolutionary journey, and furthermore, individuals would be reincarnated free of their past prejudices and philosophies, and will join everyone else in the procession into the New Age.

During Decker's vacation, the next plague began with the transformation of all the oceans of the earth to blood. The world watched horrified as all aquatic life, and anyone in boats during the transition from water to blood were killed. After a couple of days people in coastal areas grew sick from the decay and stench of the rotting blood, and the surface of the oceans were scabbing over. People were outraged and grew extremely angry toward Yahweh whom Christopher pointed out was responsible for this plague. A week after the plague began, Robert Milner walked out to a bloody coastline and threw a charged quartz crystal that landed on the scab, liquefying it, and turning the liquid back into water. The water began to replace blood in a spreading radius, and after a day, all the oceans were once again water, although, they remained void of life.

The United Nations increased the penalties for sedition and collusion with Yahweh again, this time banning followers of Yahweh from engaging in commerce or owning property. It was made illegal to buy anything from or sell anything to anyone not bearing the mark of Communion. Properties owned by those not bearing the mark were confiscated by the government, and residents not bearing the mark, evicted. Capital punishment was extended toward anyone showing an active role in the subversive behavior against Humankind and the New Age. Decker, by virtue of his position within the United Nations, and by virtue of very few people knowing where he was, remained undisturbed in his home in Maryland. Policemen issuing eviction notices bypassed Decker's home believing that there's no way that Decker Hawthorne - THE Decker Hawthorne - would not have received the Communion, especially when record-keeping errors were not uncommon.

The week following Milner's cleansing of the oceans, all the bodies of fresh water turned to blood. Decker took stock of all the drinkable liquid in his house, and hoarded as much as possible. Decker watched on TV the various horrors that came from this plague. People dying of dehydration, people killing each other for groceries that had liquid (even cans of corn and peas were precious for the water inside), riots and looting. A week after the plague started, Robert Milner walked into a bloody river, and cut his own arm, mingling his own running blood with the blood of the water. The water turned clear and pure. Nearby observers made their exhausted way to the water to quench their thirst. Within a day all the fresh water of the world was cleansed.

In reaction to the anger to this plague, the United Nations again increased the penalties for sedition and collusion with Yahweh, this time extending capital punishment toward anyone refusing to take the mark. Rewards were offered for turning in those not bearing the mark.

Decker, who knew what was going on, read his wife's Bible to determine what would happen next. Decker called his property manager, Bert Tollinson, and had him reinforce a room in his house with insulation and air-conditioning units, and got lots of ice. He warned Bert that extreme heat was coming, and he should do the same for his home so his family wouldn't suffer. Bert took Decker's advice. By midweek the extreme heat was taking its toll. People died in the heat. In Antarctica settlements fell under the ice, and avalanches were common in mountainous regions. The power stations around Decker's home failed, and Decker eventually collapsed and was unable to move. Fortunately Decker's home had been so cold before and well insulated he managed to survive. After a week of the heatwave, Milner arrived in Machu Picchu and made a plea to the sun-god to relent. From where Milner stood, a cool breeze issued forth, and within a day, the heat was back to normal. With normal temperatures restored, Decker soon recovered.

The frequency of executions accelerated in retaliation to this latest plague. So-called "Execution Centers" were established to systematically murder those without a mark. As many as 20,000 people a day were killed in a single Execution Center. At first, only religious leaders and celebrities were televised during their executions. As the anger among humanity grew, so did their demand for televised executions, until some stations began to show executions 24 hours a day.

A week after the heat subsided, a dark murky substance engulfed the entire planet, with the exception of Petra and Christopher's office in Babylon. Everywhere else was consumed by the darkness. Anyone in contact with the darkness (which was almost everyone on the planet) experienced terrifying hallucinations and horrifying visions. Sufferers were incapacitated with fear. This plague only lasted 3 days. After this plague Decker discovered that Christopher's approval rating had dropped from 95% to 11% as a result of the plagues. Decker felt guilty because it was his job to deal with the media and he had been home the whole time rather than doing his job.

In a televised address later that week, Decker watched as Christopher promised that there would be no more plagues and that humankind would receive three signs that their step toward the New Age was nearly complete. Sores would disappear, and telepathic and telekinetic powers would be acquired by everyone who wore the mark, permanently. Finally, Christopher promised that the last remaining vestige of Yahweh's followers were trapped in Petra, and they would all be destroyed.

Decker, horrified, decided to return to Babylon and talk Christopher out of destroying Petra. Since Decker did not bear the mark, he had to get Bert Tollinson to arrange his passage to the United Nations building in Babylon. Decker arrived at Christopher's office and immediately began arguing for sparing the people of Petra. When Christopher refused to talk about the issue, Decker decided that everything that the Jews, Fundamentalists and the KDP had been saying about Christopher was true. Christopher finally showed his true self to Decker, admitting that he was the Antichrist and his only desire was to acquire as many believers that he could, and kill anyone who opposed him. Christopher elaborated that he took pleasure in "mak[ing] the Creator of the Universe weep".

Decker, defeated, realized he, too, was responsible for all Christopher's campaign of death and mayhem. He told Christopher that when he and Decker were both in hell, Decker would be the one on his knees thanking God for giving him what he deserved. At that point Christopher went into an insane fury and murdered Decker - but not before Decker apologized to Jesus for what he had done, and was forgiven, denying Christopher Decker's soul.

Shortly after, the plague of sores that afflicted anyone bearing Christopher's mark vanished. Followers also gained the strength, health and vitality of youth as well as the fantastic powers of telepathy and telekinesis that Christopher had promised them. All of Christopher's promises came true, and his popularity again surged. He planned for a march on Petra and invited every human on Earth to join him. They would use their new powers to tear down the city walls; killing the last non-believers and completing their transcendence.

The Jews within Petra finally joined with the Christians in Petra as one people, when they had been reluctant allies previously. Several rescue missions were sent into Babylon and Jerusalem to find any remaining Christians and transport them to Petra. Some of those bearing Christopher's Mark tried to gain forgiveness from God by amputating their hand, the only way to remove the mark completely. For those desperate enough to do so, the self-mutilation was justified by scripture: citing , "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off".

As the people of the world gathered in Tel Megiddo in the northern Jezreel Valley, Babylon was destroyed by an immense earthquake and vehicle-sized hail stones. Christopher placated those effected by promising to resurrect Babylon - along with everyone and everything that had been destroyed in it - once Petra had been razed. As Christopher issued the call to begin the invasion of Petra, Jesus Christ appeared on the top of a nearby mountain. Christopher met him there, and offered to allow Jesus to join mankind against the forces of Yahweh. For a moment all of Christopher's followers thought they may be watching an historic alliance being formed. Christopher's offer was met with silence. After this rejection Christopher began to brag to Jesus about how all these hundreds of millions of people rejected Jesus in favor of Christopher, boasting that "those you wanted as your bride have become my whores and sluts". The sudden realization of Christopher's cynicism lead to panic. Jesus forced Christopher and Robert Milner into a fiery chasm. Christopher's army collapsed upon itself and quickly decomposed as individuals vainly struggled to escape.

The epilogue features Decker's reunion with his wife and children, his brother Nate, and the Donafins, including Tom, as well as many friends and acquaintances from throughout his life. Decker also met Jesus Christ who told Decker that all was forgiven, and he was glad Decker had finally accepted Him, even if it was during Decker's final moments of life. Tom and Elizabeth explained to Decker what happened between his death and his resurrection. While Decker mourned those who had not been able to join them in this Kingdom, but mostly rejoiced that he had his wife and daughter's back.

Beba used to be a well-to-do socialite but Argentina's rising economic crisis between 1998 and 2002 has left her with almost nothing. She is then forced to sell beauty products door-to-door.

On the other hand, Dora came to Buenos Aires during her teenage years from the Chaco Province to work as a full-time maid at Beba's apartment. Since then she has slowly worked to build a house in one of the towns outside Buenos Aires. Dora, however, is unable to complete the construction of her house because Beba owes her six months pay. Dora, tired of listening to Beba's promises of payment, is now determined to resign. Beba asks her for more time to get the money together and Dora accepts. During this period Beba tries to use the confidence of Dora and discourages her from venturing into a new phase of her life.

Finally, Dora leaves the apartment to live with Miguel, her boyfriend, at her new home. Meanwhile, at Beba's apartment, the power and telephone services are cut due to lack of payment. Dora visits a lonely and disheveled Beba in her now unkempt home on her birthday. Much to Beba's disappointment, Dora must leave after only a short while, explaining that she is awaiting a call from an employment agency. Beba gives Dora her letter of recommendation.

When summer arrives Beba is forced to rent out her apartment and move to a smaller place. She goes in a moving truck to Dora's house, with the intention of giving her much of her furniture. Dora invites Beba to stay the night in her house. It is then clear that Beba will live with Dora in the latter's house.

Professional wrestling promoter Frank Bass (Ed Asner) has to deal with the pressures of running a professional wrestling promotion, facing the pressures of constantly finding new wrestlers to pull in the crowds, keeping the wrestlers he has under contract under control and especially dealing with the fact that the top man, the champion of "the League" Mike Bullard (Verne Gagne) is getting old and there is pressure to replace him with a younger wrestler. One such possible replacement is the latest challenger Billy Taylor (Billy Robinson). At one point, Bass meets with a number of other wrestling promoters (played by real life wrestling promoters from the National Wrestling Alliance, including Vincent J. McMahon) to possibly create a "Super Bowl of Wrestling". Facing pressure, Frank Bass decides to back Bullard as he faces the challenger Billy Taylor in the climax of the movie.

The novel is set during a ten-year interval, from 68 to 58 BC, which Julius Caesar spent mainly in Rome, climbing the political ladder and outmaneuvering his many enemies. It opens with Caesar returning early from his quaestorship in Spain, and closes with his epochal departure for the Gallic campaigns.

Some of the pivotal moments include Caesar's marriage to Pompeia; his curule aedileship; his narrow election as Pontifex Maximus in 63 BC; his praetorship in 62 BC; his divorce from Pompeia; his governorship of Further Spain; the first time he was hailed ''imperator'' on the field by his troops, the blocking of his triumphal parade by Marcus Porcius Cato; the creation of the First Triumvirate, which Caesar formed with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 60 BC; his betrothal of his daughter Julia to Pompey; his marriage to Calpurnia; and his first consulship, in 59 BC.

Reflecting the title, Caesar's divorce and remarriage come into play, as does his daughter's marriage, his lengthy affair with Servilia and his close relationship with his mother, Aurelia. However, most of the plot is concerned with the political struggles of Caesar's rise to power, his conflict with the conservative 'boni' faction, and his election to each post on the Roman ladder of government.

1st Episode

During the Allied invasion of Sicily, an American reconnaissance patrol makes its way to a Sicilian village at night. Only one of the Americans speaks Italian. Local Carmela (Carmela Sazio) agrees to guide them past a German minefield. They take shelter in the ruins of a seaside castle.

While the others take a look around, Joe (Robert Van Loon) is assigned to keep an eye on Carmela. Despite the language barrier, Joe starts to overcome her indifference. However, he is shot by a German sniper. Before the small German reconnaissance patrol reaches the castle, Carmela hides Joe in the basement. When the Germans send her for water, she sneaks back and checks on Joe, only to find him dead. She takes his rifle and starts shooting at the enemy. The Germans throw her off a cliff to her death and leave. When the Americans return, they find Joe's body and assume Carmela killed him.

2nd Episode

The Allies invade mainland Italy and capture the port of Naples. An orphaned street urchin named Pasquale (Alfonsino Pasca) happens upon Joe (Dots Johnson), an embittered, completely drunk African-American soldier. When Joe falls asleep, Pasquale takes his boots. The next day, Joe, a military policeman, nabs Pasquale in the act of stealing supplies from a truck. Joe demands his boots back, but when the boy takes him to where he lives, the sight of the squalor causes Joe to leave without them.

3rd Episode

Fred (Gar Moore) is a drunken American soldier in liberated Rome. A young woman, Francesca, takes him to her room, hoping to earn a little money through prostitution. He is not interested and tells her of his futile search for a young woman he met and fell in love with shortly after the liberation of the city, six months before. As he describes the woman, Francesca realizes that ''she'' is the woman; both of them have changed so much in the short time that has passed, they did not recognize each other. Francesca says she knows the woman. When Fred falls asleep, Francesca slips out, asking the building superintendent to give Fred a slip of paper with her address on it when he awakes and leaves. Fred assumes the address is that of a whorehouse, throws the piece of paper away and leaves the city with his unit. The next day, Francesca waits in vain for him.

4th Episode

The southern half of Florence is freed, but fierce fighting continues in the other half, across the Arno river, between Italian partisans and the Germans and their die-hard fascist allies. All the bridges except the Ponte Vecchio have been blown up, stalling the Allied advance. American nurse Harriet (Harriet Medin) is frantic to get across and be reunited with a painter.

She learns that he is now "Lupo", leader of the local partisans. She and partisan Massimo (Renzo Avanzo), a man desperate for news of his family, risk their lives and cross into the still-occupied city through the supposedly secret Vasari Corridor, which, when Rossellini filmed it, was still mostly empty of its art collection. While managing to get across to the other side, Harriet and Massimo find themselves in the middle of a war-torn Florence. After a fire fight against partisans by a German patrol, Harriet carries a wounded soldier to a doorway. She is devastated to learn that Lupo has been killed.

5th Episode

Three American military chaplains are welcomed to stay the night at a newly liberated Roman Catholic monastery. Captain Bill Martin (William Tubbs), who is the only one of the chaplains who speaks Italian, acts as interpreter. The monks are dismayed to learn from Martin that only he is a Catholic; his two colleagues are a Protestant and a Jew. When the guests and their hosts sit down to supper, Martin observes that the monks have nothing on their plates. He inquires and learns that the monks have decided to fast in the hope of gaining the favor of Heaven to convert the other two to their faith.

6th Episode

In December 1944, three members of the OSS are operating behind German lines with Italian partisans in the Po delta. They rescue two downed British airmen, but run out of ammunition in a battle with the enemy and are captured. The partisans are summarily executed the next day, as they are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. Two of the outraged prisoners of war are shot when they try to interfere.

''Dexter in the Dark'' original UK 2007 version. Dexter Morgan investigates a double homicide at the University of Miami campus, where two female students have been found burned and beheaded. Their heads are replaced by the ceramic heads of bulls. Something about this uncharacteristically frightens Dexter's "Dark Passenger" into silence, leaving him to solve the crime on his own. As a series of similar murders take place, members of a mysterious cult begin stalking Dexter, believing his Dark Passenger to be a threat to them.

Dexter soon begins to question the Dark Passenger, as he slowly realizes that it's a true entity unto itself, possibly an offspring of the ancient god Moloch. While attempting to dispatch a killer who had been stalking him, Dexter becomes frightened and is unable to go through with the deed. He soon realizes that the Dark Passenger had given him an unusual amount of confidence and an almost supernatural awareness of the world around him; now that it's gone, he feels vulnerable for the first time in his life. Dexter begins to develop sadness and anger, emotions that were once suppressed by the Dark Passenger. While missing the helpful clues and hints of the Dark Passenger, Dexter feeds off of his newfound emotions to find some balance in his life as well as solve the mystery unfolding around him.

Meanwhile, traumatized by their abusive biological father, Dexter's soon-to-be stepchildren Astor and Cody Bennett have developed homicidal tendencies similar to his own. Dexter intends to teach them the "Code of Harry", which his adoptive father used to help him hide his dark nature, blend in with normal people, and channel his sociopathic urges to rid society of killers who deserve to die. While Cody and Astor are eager to learn, Dexter informs them that they aren't ready yet, and still have years of training left before they'll be able to inflict any real human suffering.

The cult kidnaps Astor and Cody, thereby forcing Dexter to engage them head-on. However, the cult soon captures Dexter through a supernatural captivation of music. Though confined in a small storage closet, Dexter escapes and encounters an old man who's the current avatar of Moloch. Though Dexter is instantly humbled and frightened by Moloch, he continuously mocks the malignant spirit, which in turn entrances the trio and orders them to be sacrificed in a flaming pit. Dexter manages to snap out of his trance and opens fire on the cult members. Moloch takes Astor hostage and threatens to kill her, only for Cody to stab him in the back with his own ceremonial knife.

Dexter laments that, due to having killed at such an early age, Cody's journey will now be more difficult. Weeks pass, and Dexter is left alone to accept life without his Dark Passenger. At his wedding to Rita Bennett, Dexter falls into a state of depression as he thinks about how painful his life is going to be in its banality. Just then, the Dark Passenger returns, brought on by Dexter's immense suffering, and Dexter is made whole again in the final paragraphs of the novel.

The game takes place in the world of Arroya 10,000 years after the demon lord Xyphus was defeated, but not killed. His heart had been ripped out and magic amulets sprang from drops of his blood becoming the source of all magic in Arroya. The land became forbidden to human kind for monsters and dangerous creatures of all kinds inhabit Arroya. But a great leader, Das, has arisen and vows to bring civilization back to Arroya. This can only be accomplished by a small band of mercenary troops recruited from the races of humans, elves, and dwarves. As told in song only this band can destroy Xyphus, for as long as Xyphus lives, his minions shall roam and no peace will ever reign over the lands of Arroya.

While on patrol, Sharpe (Sean Bean) and his men rout some French soldiers who have raped and murdered the inhabitants of a Spanish village. Two are captured alive. Their commander, Brigadier General Loup (Oliver Cotton), attempts to bargain with Sharpe for the lives of his men, but Sharpe has them shot in front of him. Loup vows revenge as he departs.

Meanwhile, Wellington (Hugh Fraser) receives unwanted reinforcements from the King of Spain. His Most Catholic Majesty sends his personal bodyguard, the ''Real Compania Irlandesa'' (Royal Irish Company), composed of poorly trained men of Irish descent under the command of the inexperienced Lord Kiely (Jason Durr). Wellington doesn't trust them, not least because of reports in American newspapers that the British are committing atrocities against the Irish people. So he orders the unreliable men to garrison a fort near the French lines, where it will be easy for them to desert if they want to. He assigns Sharpe to train them and puts him under the command of former Wagonmaster-General Colonel Runciman (Ian McNeice).

Kiely's wife, Lady Kiely (Allie Byrne), and his mistress, guerrilla leader Doña Juanita (Siri Neal), both show up in camp. In the meantime, Sharpe has enough time to train the men and strengthen the fort's defences, so that when Loup finally attacks, he is repulsed. Afterwards, Sharpe proposes a quick surprise assault on Loup's headquarters, which is approved by Kiely, Runciman and Juanita.

When Kiely learns that his wife is pregnant, he sends her away, out of harm's way, but she is captured. Juanita reveals herself to be a French agent by giving Kiely a secret ultimatum from Loup. He is to let Sharpe and his men commit themselves to the attack, then abandon them in exchange for Lady Kiely's life.

It almost goes according to plan. Sharpe's men are trapped, though he himself manages to reach Kiely. When Kiely refuses to act, Sharpe fights him, only to be shot in the arm by Juanita. At that point, Kiely finally rebels. He kills Juanita and shows that she had distributed fake newspapers to undermine the Irishmen's loyalty. Together, he and Sharpe lead the attack against the French. Meanwhile, Harper, in temporary command of Sharpe's company, tricks the French by pretending to be dead. The British win the fight - although Harper is devastated by the death of his youngest rifleman, Perkins (Lyndon Davies), killed by a rebel in the Irish Company, who Harper, hungry for revenge, ultimately kills. As the battle draws to a close, Kiely is killed by Loup when he tries to free his pregnant wife. Loup is slain in turn by Sharpe.

Now a widow, Lady Kiely leaves the country and the surviving Chosen Men bury Perkins next to his lover Miranda, who Juanita had previously murdered. The riflemen salute Perkins and solemnly leave the grave. Sharpe takes one last look at Perkins' final resting place before moving on.

The series takes place in the fictional world of Misfit Land, populated by 'misfits', an eclectic group of characters notable for their unique traits that distinguish them from other members of their species. Kleo is a unicorn charged with aiding those who accidentally arrive in Misfit Land in returning to their home worlds.

Twin fawns Geno and Gurri learn the pleasures as well as downsides of nature and their forest home, as their mother Faline raises them to adulthood. Their father, Faline's cousin Bambi, watches over them and, at times, takes care of them while their mother is busy. During their lives, they interact with Lana and Boso, twin fawns of their Aunt Rolla.

One day, Gurri is attacked by a fox, but survives because a hunter shoots the fox at the last moment. She is then taken away by the hunter (known only as "he" by some of the animals; in the English translation, he is referred to as a gamekeeper, and the name has been changed to the "brown he" because of a brown coat he wears, but such detail is never mentioned in the German text) when she is brought to the "he's" place, she meets his dog, Hector and a European eagle-owl that He captured a while ago. The owl is kept in a cage, and he tells Gurri about the times when He uses him as a bait to attack crows and other birds of prey and shoots them. Then Bambi finds her, and he tells Gurri that he will come every night to teach her how to jump over the fence. But when "He" sees the tracks of Bambi in the corral, He sets Gurri free.

When she comes back, tensions between her family and Rolla's family start to rise. First, Rolla asks Gurri to tell her what had happened, but she doesn't want to talk because she thinks that she would not honor her miraculous salvation and Bambi's effort properly.

Then one day, Rolla gets attacked by a wolfdog, Nero. While trying to escape him, she accidentally lures the wolfdog to where Faline and the others are hiding. The wolfdog immediately turns his attention to Geno, and chases him instead. When Faline sees Geno disappear, she blames Rolla for "sacrificing" her son. After Bambi saves Geno from the wolfdog, Geno finds Rolla, and he is then reunited with his sister and mother. When they see Rolla, Gurri gives her a warm welcome, while Boso starts developing a grudge against them. He starts antagonizing Geno, claiming that his ordeal was greater. When Faline and her children leave, a feud between the two families is started.

When Geno starts to grow his antlers, he and Gurri discover two orphaned male fawns named Nello and Membo. Faline decides to adopt them as new friends for her children, so they can forget about their new enemies. When Geno gets older, he meets Lana again. Boso comes out and challenges Geno to a fight, but Geno refuses. Boso starts to call Geno a coward. Only at a third encounter, when Geno thinks no witnesses are around to see Boso humiliated, he fights Boso and defeats him; he offers a truce, but Boso instead turns away.

One day, Boso is shot by a boy hunter, but before the boy can kill him he escapes. He then runs into Bambi and Bambi has him use the same techniques that his father, the Old Prince told him to use when he got wounded. The boy later returns to the meadow and tries to kill a deer from a pack, thinking that Faline and Rolla are bucks. But right when he is about to shoot, Bambi jumps out and charges him down.

In the end, the two families end their feud and become friends again. At the end, Faline lets her children go their own paths. On the final page, she appears to the meadow with a newborn fawn, Ferto (this sequence, among others, is missing from the English edition).

The story follows an unnamed narrator who visits a mental institution in southern France (more accurately, a "''Maison de Santé''") known for a revolutionary new method of treating mental illnesses called the "system of soothing". A companion with whom he is travelling knows Monsieur Maillard, the originator of the system, and makes introductions before leaving the narrator. The narrator is shocked to learn that the "system of soothing" has recently been abandoned. He questions this, as he has heard of its success and popularity, but Maillard tells him to "believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see".

The narrator tours the grounds of the hospital and is invited to dinner, where he is joined by twenty-five to thirty other people and a large, lavish spread of food. The other guests are dressed somewhat oddly: though their clothes are well made, they do not seem to fit the people very well. Most of them are female and are "bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings, bracelets and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms shamefully bare". The table and the room are decorated with an excess of lit candles wherever it is possible to find a place for them. Dinner is also accompanied by musicians playing "fiddles, fifes, trombones and a drum", and though they seem to entertain all the others present, the narrator likens the music to horrible noises (at one point even mentioning the torture and execution device known as the brazen bull). The narrator says that there is much of the "bizarre" about everything at the dinner.

Conversation as they eat focuses on the patients they have been treating. They demonstrate for the narrator the strange behavior they have witnessed, including patients who thought themselves a teapot, a donkey, cheese, champagne, a frog, snuff tobacco, a pumpkin, and others. Maillard occasionally tries to calm them down, and the narrator seems very concerned by their behavior and passionate imitations.

He then learns that this staff has replaced the system of soothing with a much stricter system, which Maillard says is based on the work of a "Doctor Tarr" and a "Professor Fether". The narrator says he is not familiar with their work, to the astonishment of the others. It is finally explained why the previous system was abandoned: one "singular" incident, Maillard says, occurred when the patients, granted a large amount of liberty around the house, overthrew their doctors and nurses, usurped their positions, and locked them up as lunatics. These lunatics were led by a man who claimed to have invented a better method of treating mental illness, and who allowed no visitors except for "a very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to be afraid". The narrator asks how the hospital staff rebelled and returned things to order. Just then, loud noises are heard and the hospital staff breaks from their confines. It is revealed that the dinner guests are, in fact, the patients, who have just recently taken over. As part of their uprising, the inmates treated the staff to tarring and feathering. The keepers now put the real patients, including Monsieur Maillard (who had once been the superintendent before going mad himself), back in their cells, while the narrator admits that he has yet to find any of the works of Dr. "Tarr" and Professor "Fether".

The "system of soothing"

Monsieur Maillard's system avoids all punishments and does not confine its patients. They are granted a great deal of freedom and are not forced to wear hospital gowns, but instead are "permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary apparel of persons in right mind". The doctors have "humored" their patients by never contradicting their fantasies or hallucinations. For example, if a man thinks he is a chicken, doctors treat him as a chicken, giving him corn to eat. The system is apparently very popular. Monsieur Maillard says that all the "''Maisons de Santé''" in France have adopted it. The narrator remarks that after the patient revolt is crushed, the soothing system is reinstated at the asylum he has visited, though modified in certain ways that are intended to reform it.

Golden has revealed some things about the plotline in an interview with Slayerlit:

:"Once upon a time, all of the demonic and monstrous races, and the old gods, would choose ambassadors to send to the Dark Congress, which would take place under a general truce once every hundred years. The world is populated by demons from dark dimensions and many other supernatural beings and breeds, and they all have different attitudes toward humanity and the world. Some want to leave to return to their home dimensions, some to conquer this one; some want to live in peace with human beings, and others want to eat them."Mata, Shiai, "[http://www.slayerlit.us/interviews/interview6.htm CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN INTERVIEW 2] ", ''SlayerLit.us'' (2007).

The story takes place after the seventh season of ''Buffy''. The Congress has not met for 500 years, having failed to come to an agreement.

The story starts as Micaela, a Watcher, unknowingly releases the demon, Kandida, one of the leaders of the Dark Congress.

Then, we find Buffy, and Xander in Providence, Rhode Island, trekking to the location of the city's own Hellmouth. There, they meet Trabajo the Sand demon, from whom they nearly escape.

Meanwhile, in Greece, Willow is living happily with Kennedy, until she returns to their apartment to find Kennedy has cheated on her with a newbie Slayer. Completely broken-hearted, Willow immediately leaves and heads to Athens to clear her mind, there she meets a very ancient witch named Catherine, who promises Willow her heart's desire if she will be her apprentice. She gives Willow a very powerful scroll and her witch's familiar, a ginger cat. With a very ancient spell Willow is able to resurrect her former lover Tara Maclay, with whom the familiar shares a body. Willow and Tara have an emotional reunion.

Elsewhere, former Scooby, Oz, is approached by an elder werewolf, who tells him that he is needed in Providence.

Faith, who is now in San Francisco, finishes off vamps in the city, gets a message from a vamp who is a minion of an ancient vampiress named Harmann and decides to head back to New England, to Rhode Island, to meet up with Buffy. She arrives there and is attacked by The Gentlemen (of the Buffy Season 4 episode, "Hush"). She defeats them and remeets Xander, and has a sisterly reunion with "B".

Giles, in England, has heard of all of the supernatural activity centered on Providence and he and Micaela travel to Rhode Island. Willow decides to bring Tara to meet Buffy and Xander, and Oz also heeds the older wolf's orders and goes to Providence. The Scoobies have a very happy reunion, especially with the resurrection of Tara (of which both Buffy and Giles are highly skeptical).

They learn of the Dark Congress which is in session above the once active hellmouth in Providence, and the court of Demons want Buffy to be their arbiter. The Sand demon Trabajo is reunited with his lover, Kandida, but the two have a short reunion when Kandida's heart is ripped out. Trabajo is about to accuse a few of the members of the Congress and attack them, which would send the Congress in chaos and start an inevitable apocalypse. Buffy must keep that from happening by finding Kandida's killers and bringing them before the Council before Trabajo has a chance at them.

The suspects are; Haarmann, the ancient vampiress; Willow's new suspicious and very intimidating teacher, Catherine; and Malik a rogue "Champion" for The Powers that Be, and his group of warriors who will kill anything connected to demons, including demons who aren't harmful, and even Slayers.

Buffy is horrified and disgusted to be included. After all she is not a demon...is she? She knows so little about her powers that she can't say for certain where they truly spring from. How can she spend so much time wallowing in the darkness without becoming part of it? Can she possibly agree to a truce with all the horrors of the world, and allow them to come to Providence without any attempt to stop them? Does she have a choice?

Meanwhile, can Willow and Tara come to terms with their denial that Tara's resurrection is anything but unnatural?

'''Opening Title Graphic:'''
As the film begins a message appears and reminds the audience that approximately 30,000 people died during the Dirty War due to the military dictatorship's reign during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The story is then dedicated to the surviving children of the dictatorship's victims. Two such children, now adults, are the main characters. One, Daniela (Vera Fogwill), now has her degree in film and is having trouble finding work. She's hired by an older couple who are living in seclusion, to film Buenos Aires for them so they can see it again. So she goes out and documents the city. But her customers are upset, as they don't remember the Buenos Aires Daniela has filmed. She then shoots a reel of tourist-type shots in hopes of pleasing the couple. The other surviving child, Damián, played by Nicolás Pauls, works in a low-rent motel. He eventually discovers the truth about what his parents experienced during the dictatorship.

The story is largely episodic, blending together more than 6 different story lines.

The action focuses almost exclusively on Lula, a mature white woman, and Clay, a young black man, who both ride the subway in New York City. Clay's name is symbolic of the malleability of black identity and black manhood. It is also symbolic of integrationist and assimilationist ideologies within the contemporary Civil Rights Movement. Lula boards the train eating an apple, an allusion to the Biblical Eve. The characters engage in a long, flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride.

Lula sits down next to Clay. She accuses him of staring at her buttocks. She ignores his denials and uses stereotypes to correctly guess where he lives, where he is going, what Clay's friend, Warren, looks and talks like. Lula guesses that Clay tried to get his own sister to have sex with him when he was 10. Clay is shocked by her apparent knowledge of his past and says that she must be a friend of Warren.

Lula is glad that Clay is so easy to manipulate and puts her hand on his leg. She feeds him apples. She tells Clay to invite her out to the party he is going to. At this point, it is unclear whether Clay is really going to a party, but he tells her he really is. Lula vaguely alludes to having sex with Clay at her "apartment" after the "party". We don't know if these are real or conveniently made-up by Lula.

Clay is gladdened by Lula's apparent liking for him and maintains a hopeful attitude to having sex together. However, he does not push his hope onto her and waits for Lula to make the offer first.

Lula is angered by Clay's not falling for her manipulative tactics. She switches strategies and mocks Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She derides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies".

Clay, who does not respond initially, eventually grabs her and throws her down. Clay accuses Lula of knowing nothing but "luxury". He slaps her twice and tells her to leave him alone.

Clay launches into a monologue. Clay suggests that whites let black people dance "black" dances and make "black" music. He explains that these segregatory actions assuage black Americans' anger towards whites and distracts them from accessing the "white man's intellectual legacy". Clay states that if black people stopped trying to heal their pain through dance, music, civic participation, religion, or focusing on moving upwards in American society, and became coldly rational like white people, black people would just kill all the whites and be done with racism in America. Clay says that if he were to take Lula's words to heart, he should just kill all the white people he meets.

Although Clay says all this, he deeply rejects this plan of action. He states that he does not want to kill and that he prefers to be ignorant of the problem. He says he would rather choose to pretend to be ignorant of racism, not try to get rid of it by fighting with whites.

Once Clay makes his confession, Lula changes strategies again. Clay makes as if to leave, but Lula coolly, rationally, stabs him twice to the heart. She directs all the other passengers, blacks and whites, in the train car to throw his body out and get out at the next stop.

The play ends with Lula looking towards another young black man who has just boarded the now mostly empty train car. The elderly black train conductor steps into the compartment and tips Lula his hat.

The film opens with a handsome young prince traveling through the forest in winter with his men. In a forest glen, the prince finds Snow White lying in a glass coffin. The seven dwarfs arrive and tell the Prince of Snow White's story through flashback.

A courageous King and his fair Queen rule their kingdom well. One winter's day while sewing with her maids, the Queen accidentally pricks her finger with her needle, and a single drop of blood falls on the snow outside her windowsill. The King declares they will have a child with hair as black as ebony, cheeks as red as blood, and skin as white as snow. The Good Queen eventually gives birth to a daughter, whom she names Snow White, but dies shortly after her child is born.

Some years later, the king marries again. However, the new queen (Diana Rigg) is evil and vain and jealous of Snow White (Nicola Stapleton). When her magic mirror tells her that Snow White is now the fairest in the land, the Evil Queen orders a huntsman (Amnon Meskin) to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, and to bring back her liver as proof of her death. During a hunting trip, the huntsman succeeds in taking Snow White away from her father, but Snow White, realizing her stepmother's plan to destroy her, manages to escape into the forest where she finds a cottage belonging to seven kindly dwarves - Iddy, Biddy, Kiddy, Diddy, Fiddy, Giddy and Liddy - who allow her to stay with them. The King is heartbroken when he is told that Snow White had been eaten by wild animals, and later he is killed in battle.

Years later, Snow White (Sarah Patterson) grows into a beautiful young maiden. When the Evil Queen asks the magic mirror "who is the fairest one of all", she learns that Snow White is still alive. The Evil Queen attempts to kill Snow White three times. First, she disguises herself as a gypsy woman and laces up Snow White in a tight bodice, only for the dwarves to cut the lace with scissors. The second time, she disguises herself as a Japanese geisha selling combs and gives Snow White a comb poisoned with an oriental potion. Finding her collapsed on the floor, the dwarves remove the comb from her hair and destroy it. Finally, the Evil Queen disguises herself as an old peddler woman and offers Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White resists at first, but relents when the Evil Queen cuts the apple in half so they may share it. Snow White eats the poisoned half of the apple and collapses. The dwarves are unable to revive her, and place her inside a glass coffin.

The film returns to the present, where the dwarves allow the Prince to take Snow White to a proper resting place. When Snow White is being transported, the coffin accidentally falls off the wagon due to a tree falling down by a snowstorm, causing the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, and she awakens. The Prince is enchanted that Snow White magically revived herself and asks her to marry him, and she accepts.

Invitations to the wedding are sent throughout the land, and the Evil Queen receives one as well, leaving the magic mirror into concluding that the Prince's bride is the fairest in the land. Enraged, the Evil Queen smashes her mirror, which causes her to age rapidly. She rushes to the church in time to see that the bride is Snow White, and then disintegrates into ashes before heading back to the carriage. Snow White and the Prince are married and live happily ever after.

Karma, a young Tibetan woman from New York City comes to Dharamsala, the exile headquarters of the Dalai Lama in India, in search of her roots. She is making a documentary film about former political prisoners who have escaped from Tibet. One of her interviewees is the recently arrived Dhondup. He reveals to her that his dying mother had made him promise to deliver an old charm box to an exile Tibetan named Loga, and appeals to her for help in locating the man.

Their enquiries reveal that Loga, a former CIA-trained resistance fighter, has been missing for the past fifteen years and is presumed to be dead. But is he really dead? As they set out to unravel the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance, Karma finds herself unwittingly attracted to Dhondup even as she is sucked into the vortex of his search, which takes them through the world of the exile Tibetan community in India and becomes a journey of self-discovery.

The film tells of Maria (Antonella Costa), an activist fighting the Argentinian military dictatorship during the Dirty War.

She teaches reading and writing in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires and lives with her mother Diane (Dominique Sanda), who rents out rooms. One of the lodgers is a young man named Felix (Carlos Echevarría), who is in love with Maria, and rather shy. Felix seems to have come from nowhere and is supposed to work as a watchman in a garage.

One morning, Maria is kidnapped by a military squad in civilian clothes in front of her mother and is taken to the garage ''Olimpo,'' one of the many well-known torture places in the middle of Buenos Aires, which operate with the general indifference of the locals.

As soon as Maria is captured the film's mood becomes uncomfortable and the atmosphere is minimalist. The head of the center, Tigre (Enrique Piñeyro), asks Felix, their best torturer, to make Maria talk. Yet, Felix is overcome by his feelings for Maria, and Maria is determined to exploit this for her survival.

Renko is depressed because his beloved wife Irina is dead due to a misunderstanding through carelessness on the part of a Russian doctor and his nurse. He is in a suicidal state of mind when anonymously summoned to Havana to help an old acquaintance out of some unspecified trouble. By the time he arrives, however, the good Colonel Pribluda, late of the SVR, has apparently died under very mysterious circumstances.

The novel begins with Arkady at the tip of Havana Bay as the sun begins to rise on what promises to be a hot day in Cuba. The Cuban militia has what they believe is a dead Russian. Renko being a Senior Investigator from Moscow who knew Pribluda, the Cubans are hoping he can expedite matters by both confirming the liquefying corpse's identity and affirming it as a natural or accidental death.

In a decaying Cuba filled with cars and houses that were built in the 1950s and are now falling to pieces, Renko stumbles upon a plot to defraud Russia of $250 million in an underhanded sugar purchase scam. Along the way, there are the gruesome killings, abakua ceremonies and attacks upon his person.

File:Bahia Habana Entrada.jpg|Havana Bay entrance File:Old Havana Cuba.jpg|Street scene at the Old Havana

While at West Point, Lt. Bob Denton rebuffs Evelyn Palmer, who shows up later in Arizona as the wife of his commanding officer. Denton gets involved in a romantic relationship with Evelyn's younger sister, Bonnie. To keep him from marrying her sister, Evelyn falsely accuses Denton of sexually harassing her, which leads to his being expelled from the academy. She later learns that he and her sister had already been secretly married, however, which leads her to admit her lie about him to her husband, Colonel Bonham, who then reinstates the framed Denton.

After the events in ''Storm Front'', Kim Delaney, whom Dresden helped to control her magical talents, asks Dresden how to create a set of three magical circles, which could be used to contain powerful entities. Dresden withholds the information, because such circles are generally used to contain demigods and archangels.

Lt. Karrin Murphy asks Dresden to consult on a homicide: a henchman of mobster Johnny Marcone was found, savaged, near a group of wolfish paw prints. Without telling Murphy, Dresden magically follows the scent of the murderer's blood that leads him to a confrontation with a gang of teenage werewolves and their pack leader, Tera West. After consultation with his oracular skull, Bob, Dresden informs Murphy of the existence of four different types of lupine theriomorphs: classic werewolves, hexenwolves, loup-garous and lycanthropes.

At the police station, Dresden gets a tip from FBI Agent Harris that the Streetwolves biker gang might know something about the murder, and learns that the Streetwolves and their "pack leader," Parker, are lycanthropes. Dresden escapes unscathed, but now the Streetwolves want him dead.

Marcone offers to hire Dresden for protection, but Dresden refuses. On his way out the door, Marcone says that these killings are connected to a millionaire named Harley MacFinn and his Northwest Passage Project. Dresden summons the demon Chaunzaggoroth in order to get information, exchanging one more part of his name for information about Harley MacFinn. Before Dresden can check on Harley MacFinn, Lt. Murphy arrests him on suspicion of murder: Kim Delaney's shredded body was found in MacFinn's apartment next to a summoning circle.

Tera West frees Dresden, telling him that MacFinn, her fiancé, is a loup-garou, the most dangerous of the four "breeds" of werewolves. Dresden must draw a containment circle around MacFinn before the next full moon, or more innocent people will die. Dresden is shot during his escape from police custody, and is rescued by Tera. Desperate, he calls his sometime-girlfriend Susan, a reporter, and bums a ride in exchange for an exclusive on the wolf murders.

Ignoring Dresden's warnings, Murphy arrests and jails MacFinn in his human form. Dresden races to the station to get to MacFinn, but the moon rises, and MacFinn changes, slaughtering the suspects in the holding cells, the desk sergeant, and Murphy's staff. Dresden drives off MacFinn and goes in search of Marcone. While searching for MacFinn, Dresden is attacked by the Streetwolves. They are interrupted by the FBI agents, and Dresden captures one, learning that the agents are hexenwolves, planning on killing Marcone (who is considered immune from any conventional form of justice) and have been working with the Streetwolves, planning on using MacFinn to kill Marcone.

At moonrise, Dresden, Susan, Tera and her pack drive to Marcone's estate to save him from MacFinn. Dresden and his allies are captured by the FBI hexenwolves and are thrown into a pit Marcone had prepared to capture the transformed MacFinn, but Marcone frees them. Dresden and Murphy kill the FBI hexenwolves and MacFinn, and burn the hexenwolves' talismans so they can never be used again. Susan evacuates the Alphas, and the Chicago police arrest Marcone on general principle, though Dresden predicts that no charges will be filed. Tera, revealed to be a wolf that can change into a human, accepts that MacFinn had to be killed before he could cause more deaths, and returns to her family in the Northwest.

"Texas" Grant rides into a strange town only to find that everyone there recognizes him, but not as Texas Grant. The town villains confuse him with a lawman named Jim Rawlings whom they had murdered a few years prior, because the two men look very similar. Hefty the bartender and Sheriff Collins used to be friends with Rawlings and come up with a plan to fool the local crooks into thinking Grant really is the man they killed. Even Helen, the dead lawman's widow, thinks her husband has returned from the grave when she first sees him.

Grant sees how the woman's ranch hands are mismanaging the ranch her husband left her and are even stealing from her, and decides to help her get the place back to financial solvency. Appointing himself the new boss and adopting the identity of Jim Rawlings, he fires all but one of the ranch hands, an honest young man named Steve Pickett, and together Grant and Pickett try to help the widow rebuild her enterprise.

The prologue opens with a mystery person's point of view on knowledge, power and killing, "People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? You would run to the store. And you would win. Same for the stock market. You're not talking about a trend or a percentage game or a whisper or a tip. You're talking about knowledge. Real, hard knowledge. You would buy. Then later you'd sell, and you'd be rich. Any kind of sports at all, if you could predict the future, you'd be home and dry. Same for anything. Same for killing people."

In New York City, Reacher confronts and beats up two thugs sent to collect protection racket money from the new restaurant in which he has just finished dinners, and deliberately implies to the thugs that he is a member of a rival crime organisation. Reacher is picked up by the FBI and questioned but explains he's been a loner since he mustered out of the army. He is then questioned about two women whose cases of sexual harassment he dealt with when he was an MP. It is revealed they have both been killed in the last few months and a criminal profiling team has come to the conclusion that the person responsible was someone exactly like Reacher. Reacher realizes that he has no alibi for the places and times that the women were killed, and he requests a lawyer.

Reacher's lawyer girlfriend Jodie arrives, and he is released after further questioning. Jodie returns to work, and Reacher drives to his house in upstate New York that he inherited from Leon Garber. He is soon called upon by two members of the FBI team that previously questioned him. A third woman has been killed who was also an ex-soldier who filed for sexual harassment – albeit in a different timeframe from the first two. The FBI compels him to assist with the investigation by threatening to hurt him and, possibly, Jodie too.

Reacher and Special Agent Lamarr, the lead profiler on the team, drive from New York to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, whilst discussing information on the case. Lamarr's stepsister, it so happens, is a woman with the same particulars as the three already killed. Lamarr also reveals the killer's M.O., which is killing the victims in an unknown way, with no bruises or injuries, leaving them naked in their bathtub, filled with army-issue camouflage paint. ''Running Blind'' (Lee Child novel) US cover The team holds several meetings at Quantico, and Reacher meets agent Lisa Harper, the woman who has to accompany Reacher wherever he goes. Reacher suggests contacting Colonel John Trent at Fort Dix to inquire about special forces soldiers and the three week rotation (another of Lamarr's misdirects of the investigation). Reacher and Harper head up to New Jersey, but while Harper remains outside the colonel's office due to security clearance reasons, the colonel helps Reacher sneak out the window and arranges a four-hour trip to New York. Once there Jack targets a random pair of criminals collecting protection money and deliberately instigates a turf war between rival racketeers. By taking a certain crime lord out of the picture this effectively removes the leverage that the FBI has had over him and Jodie. He returns to New Jersey with Agent Harper being none the wiser.

The team continues the search, and the next victim is Agent Lamarr's stepsister. Local policemen are then put on surveillance of the remaining women on the list. Eventually Reacher and Harper catch the killer. It is none other than FBI Agent Lamarr. She is in the process of killing her fifth victim when Jack intervenes. Reacher and Harper come to the conclusion that Lamarr was utilising her hypnotising techniques to make the victims unwittingly suffocate themselves by swallowing their own tongues. Her motives were a family inheritance and a sociopathic bitterness to her stepsister; the other murders were carried out to muddy the investigative waters. The FBI is unhappy that Reacher has killed one of their agents, murderess or not, but an accord is eventually reached. Jack then meets up with Jodie, and she reveals she is leaving for London in a month's time. Reacher knows he will not want to go with her, since he misses his wandering ways, and the two agree to spend one last month together.

Jack Reacher breaks a bully's nose and finger after being repeatedly provoked in a Texas saloon, so when the bully turns out to be a local cop and shows up with three of his colleagues the following day to arrest him, Reacher decides it's time to move on. He chooses hitchhiking as the fastest escape and hooks up with a driver of Mexican heritage named Carmen Greer. She says that the only reason she stopped, however, is because she has a problem: Her tax-evading husband, Sloop, is coming out of prison soon, and he will inevitably continue beating her as he did so many times before, especially because he knows she was the one who informed on him. Carmen has been diligently searching for candidates to kill him, and she thinks Reacher's military background may qualify him for the job. Reacher initially refuses and even leaps out of the car and back into the sweltering 110-degree (Fahrenheit) heat, but then he expeditiously changes his mind and agrees to accept a ride back to her ranch. It is there that Carmen, her husband Sloop and the rest of his family live, and Reacher is promising nothing more than to look into the situation and, if necessary, to act as her bodyguard. Carmen and Jack then proceed to pick up her daughter Ellie, who gets on well with Reacher.

Meanwhile, two other groups are introduced: a group of watchers, composed of two men and a boy who have been staking out the ranch, and a trio of hitmen (two men and one woman) who subsequently kill the first group on the orders of their mutual employer after murdering Al Eugene, the lawyer who had secured Sloop's release.

Carmen and Reacher arrive back at the ranch, but Reacher does not receive a warm welcome from Sloop's bigoted mother, brother, or the two ranchers who work there. Reacher gets the Greers to hire him as a wrangler, and teaches Carmen how to handle a firearm. The family orders the other ranchers to dispose of Reacher; he subdues them and returns unharmed. Sloop then arrives, and claims Jack is trespassing; he is arrested and removed by Texas Rangers.

En route, the rangers are called back: Sloop has been shot and killed, and the authorities charge Carmen with the murder after finding a gun. Furthermore, while she is incarcerated, she suddenly confesses to the murder and assiduously denies legal help from Alice Amanda Aaron, the pro bono attorney whom Reacher procures for her.

Assisted by Hack Walker, the Pecos County district attorney and an old friend of Sloop's, Jack and Alice discover a cover-up related to the murder of several illegal immigrants by Hack, Sloop, and Eugene. Reacher concludes that Hack orchestrated the murders in order to protect his election chances, and that he is pressuring Carmen to confess by threatening Ellie's life. Reacher kills two of the hitmen in an ambush and confronts Hack at the ranch, whereupon Sloop's mother kills him as a fire breaks out and burns down their house. After tracking down and subduing the third man at a motel, preventing him from killing Ellie, Reacher leaves Carmen to start a new life as he prepares to look for a ride out of Texas.

Jack Reacher arrives in Atlantic City after hitching a ride cross-country with a couple of aging blues musicians who dream of playing at B.B. King's club in New York City. He is approached there by Secret Service Agent M.E. Froelich, who had dated Reacher's brother Joe, a fellow Secret Service agent, before his death (''Killing Floor''). Froelich hires Reacher to conduct a "security audit" of the Secret Service's protection of Vice President-elect Brook Armstrong, the junior senator from North Dakota.

Armstrong attends a meeting and photo-op with prominent bankers on Wall Street, a campaign event in Bismarck with the newly elected senator from North Dakota, and a fundraising event in Washington, D.C. Reacher reveals to Froelich that he hired his old colleague from the military police, Chicago security consultant Frances Neagley, to help with the "audit." Working together, Reacher and Neagley say that they could have killed the Vice President three times for sure, and once probably, in three days.

Froelich reveals that the Secret Service has been receiving letters from someone threatening to kill Armstrong. She and her supervisor, a man named Stuyvesant, agree to hire Reacher and Neagley to help their investigation. Reacher tries on one of his brother's suits, and Froelich sleeps with him. Froelich asks why Neagley and Reacher never had a relationship, and he tells her that, for reasons she will not disclose, Neagley has a fear of being touched by others.

The would-be assassins kill two men, one in Colorado and one in Minnesota, who resemble the Vice President and also have the name "B. Armstrong," as a warning message. A killer appears at another event in Bismarck, but Reacher breaks into the church tower where they were hiding out and they flee without a trace. On Thanksgiving Day, Armstrong is scheduled to serve food at a lunch buffet at a homeless shelter. Reacher and Neagley argue that Armstrong should be warned, and that the event should be cancelled. Stuyvesant agrees to bring in the F.B.I. for help; they send Special Agent Bannon, who concludes based on the weapons used in the Colorado and Minnesota homicides that a Secret Service agent is behind the killings. Froelich moves the benefit lunch outside, where the Secret Service can better control who gets close to Armstrong.

On Thanksgiving, Froelich meticulously secures the area. Ten agents look over the homeless people as they line up to get food from Armstrong, and snipers are posted on the only rooftop that has a clear shot at the Vice President. An assassin kills a Secret Service sniper named Crosetti, and fires at Armstrong twice. They miss with the first shot, and Froelich covers the Vice President from the second. Fatally struck in the neck, Froelich becomes delirious with blood loss in Reacher's arms. She tells him "I love you, Joe," to which Reacher replies "I love you too."

Against the recommendations of Stuyvesant and Bannon, Armstrong agrees to Reacher's demands that he publicly announce he will attend a funeral for Froelich in her hometown of Grace, Wyoming, to lure the killers out into the open. Armstrong insists that his protection detail be limited to three men, out of respect for Froelich's family. Reacher remembers seeing the Thanksgiving Day shooter running with a badge during the assassination attempt in Bismarck, and concludes that the killers are policemen. Reacher also deduces that the assassins are motivated by some personal feud with Armstrong. The Vice President confesses that, as a teenager in rural Oregon, he stood by as his father brutally beat two local bullies with a baseball bat. Armstrong reveals that he received a broken baseball bat in the mail from the killers, something the Secret Service did not pick up on during their postal screening.

Reacher and Neagley fly to Denver and drive to Grace, arriving the day before the funeral. Staking out the church steeple, they watch the assassins arrive and ambush them the morning of the funeral. Reacher kills both of the killers, who are revealed to be cops from rural Idaho.

Back at the Denver airport, Neagley gives Reacher a quick hug before catching the plane to Chicago. Reacher flies to New York, and stops at B.B. King's club to see if the musicians made it there from Atlantic City. An usher says no one matching their description has played at the club. Reacher heads toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal to catch a ride out of town.

Jack Reacher is working unofficially with the DEA to bring down a boy's father, Zachary Beck, who is suspected of smuggling drugs under the pretext of trading in oriental carpets. They stage a kidnap effort on Zachary's son, Richard Beck. A frightened Richard places his trust in Reacher and asks him to take him back home. Reacher gains access to Beck and gradually gains his confidence by working as a hired gun/bodyguard. While working undercover he regrettably has to eliminate a few of Beck's minions to prevent them from exposing him. During this time he figures out that he was not the only undercover agent appointed to keep track of Zachary Beck. The house maid, too, turns out to be a federal agent trying to find evidence of arms smuggling against Zachary. The DEA, on finding that they were mistaken about the nature of the business Zachary was involved in, tries to pull Reacher out. Reacher refuses to step back as his primary motivation in getting involved at all in this off-the-books operation is to have another go at Francis Xavier Quinn, a former Military Intelligence agent who, ten years before, had brutally mutilated and murdered a female military colleague of Reacher's. Reacher had originally presumed Quinn to be dead after their last little encounter but found that assumption to be incorrect after running into Quinn in public. It's ten years later and Quinn somehow just happens to be Zachary Beck's boss in a supremely lucrative, international gun-running enterprise. And it is revealed that Zachary was forced into working for Quinn and his family was tormented by bodyguards appointed by Quinn. As always, it is Reacher's all-consuming obsession with revenge, or at least with his personal interpretation of doling out justice, which pushes him far beyond the normal boundaries of physical endurance and acceptable risk.

''The Bug Wars'' takes place an unspecified length of time before the present, in an unspecified part of the galaxy. The song "Reminder," would suggest that it is at least one million years. Opening with the main character, Rahm, waking from stasis, the book covers his campaigns as part of the Tzen Warrior caste against a coalition of large Insect species; the Wasps, Leapers, and Ants, in that order.

After a mission to destroy the Wasp nests and queens on a planet, the Tzen intend to colonize. However, because of Tzen military practices, that a task force leaves after a predicted proportion of units return, assuming that all others are casualties, Rahm's flight group was stranded on the planet. The Tzen would return in a year to eliminate the Leapers, insects not unlike a praying mantis.

While stranded, the team made a number of discoveries, chief among which was the fact that the Tzen needed to find a natural predator of the Leapers to defeat them. The standard practice for the Tzen is to kill the next generation of insects before it is born, then return later to kill any remaining adults. The Leapers are immune to this, however, because they are all capable of reproduction, and bury their eggs, making them impossible to eradicate without levying resources unavailable to the Tzen Empire.

After the Empire returns as planned to eradicate the leapers, they retreat and begin looking for a creature that eats insect eggs. Rahm is selected to lead a team of Tzen from each caste to find such a creature. When they set up a pre-fabricated building as their base, they soon discover a number of hostile flora and fauna, including a plant with toxic thorns, Spiders, and a colony of Ants near their base. Several of the team are captured by the Ants, and learn that they are intelligent and capable of telepathic communication. When the team discovers a suitable creature, they round up as many as they can, but are hounded by the insects. The mission culminates in a battle between the Tzen and Insects at the base.

After the leapers have been defeated, Rahm is selected to lead a campaign against the Ants as a Planetary Commander. The mission is considered almost suicidal, with a casualty estimate of at least seventy percent. In the middle of the battle, Rahm discovers that, while they have eliminated the Ants primary power source, they had a reserve strong enough for one use of a power-consuming device. One colony used theirs for cold-beam lasers, another used it to launch an escape shuttle, which was promptly destroyed. After defeating the Ants, Rahm returned to stasis, to be reawakened whenever the empire needed him.

The novella is split into eight sections - each spanning roughly an hour. The narrative is fragmented, often making it difficult to tell who is talking or thinking, or whether events are occurring in the present or being recalled.

Section I

Dick awakes to find a fair being set up in the street outside. He recalls a visit he took to Bordeaux with his ex-lover Angela. They visited a crypt. He watches a film of a Victorian woman undressing in a mutoscope.

Section II

He returns to the crowd in the street and becomes nauseous as he is swept up by the mass of people. He meets the Snake-lady and propositions her - she accepts. He becomes lost in the crowd again, then is found by Monica, who is possibly his current girlfriend.

Section III

They enter a tent with waxwork displays of body parts, and disfigured people with what appear to be war-wounds. Dick picks up a dwarf. He and Monica kiss. He flees and watches another mutoscope film of a head biting a neck. He expresses a desire to rest.

Section IV

He returns to his bedroom and dreams of Angela. He wakes as Monica enters. He gazes at her, they kiss, then he takes her outside back into the crowd and slips away from her.

Section V

He leaves the crowd. He becomes confused and begins to daydream about Angela and his regret for love.

Section VI

He re-enters the fair and sees five wrestlers: a bear, a fat wrestler, a thin wrestler, a large woman, and a "flour-white-faced boy". They fight and the woman wins. Dick is disgusted by this. He then sees the ghost of Angela in the crowd, and has another daydream in a tent. He watches a projected film in which a face gets larger and larger on the screen.

Section VII

He collects Monica from his room and they go to a restaurant and then an aquarium. He has a vision of Angela as Undine.

Section VIII

Angela returns and Monica is forced to leave. Monica returns with an unnamed escort. They pick up the Snake-lady from the fair and all five go to a club. In the club Dick specifically notes the jazz musicians, black waiters, dancers, and a singer. An unidentified black man sits with them and plays with the snake. Dick talks with Angela in an anteroom. He starts to stack glasses on one another: they topple over after Angela tells him to stop. Dick becomes delirious and returns home in a taxi. He goes to sleep.

In the last hours of 1989, Major Gen. Kenneth Kramer dies of a heart attack in a seedy North Carolina motel, apparently while in the company of a prostitute. Army MP Major Jack Reacher investigates and comes to the conclusion that the woman Kramer was with stole his briefcase. Reacher's superior, Col. Leon Garber, orders him to deliver news of the general's death to his wife. Accompanied by a female officer, Lieutenant Summer, Reacher travels to her house in Virginia. When they arrive, however, they find evidence of a break-in, as well as Mrs. Kramer's body.

Reacher returns to the bar across the street from the motel in an attempt to identify the alleged prostitute. He gets into a fight with a bouncer, breaking his knee. Afterwards, Reacher is told by the motel's night clerk that he heard a military vehicle leaving after Kramer's death, and Reacher concludes that the woman Kramer was with is a female army officer. He is later confronted by two officers, Col. Coomer and Brigadier Gen. Vassell, members of Kramer's staff, who inquire about the briefcase but leave after Reacher mentions Ms. Kramer's death.

Later, a Delta Force soldier, Christopher Carbone, is found murdered in a manner that suggests he was gay. Garber is suddenly transferred to a new command in South Korea and replaced with Col. Willard, a deeply unpleasant bureaucrat who instructs Reacher to write off Carbone's death as an accident. He also reveals that Carbone filed a complaint against Reacher accusing him of assaulting the bouncer, and that he intends to use it as evidence that Reacher killed Carbone unless he closes the investigation quickly.

Shortly thereafter, another murder is reported: David Brubaker, Carbone's CO, is found shot dead in a Columbia alleyway with money and heroin in his pocket. Believing that the two murders are connected, Reacher and Summer focus on the one thing missing from Kramer's newly recovered briefcase: the printed agenda from a conference he was supposed to attend for members of the armored divisions. Coomer and Vassell deny that such an agenda exists, and Willard begins to turn up the pressure on Reacher, forcing him to rely on his wits, contacts in the military police, and years of experience as he tries to unravel the true reason why Kramer's briefcase was stolen.

In the midst of it all, he receives a call from his older brother Joe informing him that his elderly mother Josephine has died from cancer in Paris. Despite having been assured by Josephine earlier that she was ready to die, Reacher feels her loss immensely.

After returning to the United States with Summer following his mother's funeral, Reacher secures a meeting with the Chief of Staff, and reveals his findings: with the collapse of the Soviet Union imminent, the army is preparing to downsize its armored units in favor of infantry, and Kramer and his fellow officers, not wanting to lose their prestigious jobs and perks, were preparing to orchestrate an elaborate public relations and lobbying scheme to persuade Congress and the American people to reject the plan. Having foreseen this, the Chief admits that he arranged for twenty of the army's best investigators, including Reacher, to be assigned to specific posts across the world on a specific day, using forged orders from Garber, so that they would be in a position to prevent such manipulations. He provides Reacher with evidence of his claims, and notes that the Secretary of Defense was also working with the plotters.

Reacher deduces that Kramer was gay, and that he met Carbone at the motel, who stole his briefcase when he died and informed Brubaker of the contents. He also set up Reacher to be charged with assault to cover his tracks. Coomer and Vassell, eager to recover the briefcase, set up an exchange between Carbone and their gofer Maj. Marshall; Marshall killed Carbone and then murdered Brubaker as well before he could use the information. He also killed Ms. Kramer while searching her house for the case; Reacher realizes that Marshall also had a relationship with Kramer and killed his wife out of anger and jealousy.

Reacher travels to California and arrests Vassell and Coomer for conspiracy to commit homicide. He then travels to a firing range in the Mojave Desert where Marshall is conducting firing exercises to arrest him as well. Marshall attempts to commit suicide by maneuvering the tanks into firing on his position, but Reacher shoots him in the shoulder and takes him into custody. The missing agenda is subsequently retrieved from Carbone's billet: it contains a plan to assassinate eighteen prominent infantry officers, including many rising stars, to cripple their modernization efforts. The evidence is turned over to military authorities, and the accused are sentenced to life imprisonment for their crimes.

Reacher is informed that, due to the charge filed by Carbone, he will be demoted to the rank of Captain unless he denies it, which his lawyer encourages him to do. Instead, Reacher accepts the charge to avoid disgracing Carbone's memory further, and looks forward to serving on the front lines again. Before accepting his new command, he tracks down the corrupt Willard and executes him in his own house, planting drugs on the body to hide his involvement. The story ends with Reacher reflecting on the fact that he never saw Summer again despite hearing that she also received a promotion to Captain.

In a downtown Manhattan coffee shop Jack Reacher watches a man unlock a Mercedes and drive away. 24 hours later, in the same coffeehouse, he's approached, interrogated, and then driven to The Dakota where he meets Edward Lane and five ex-military soldiers, part of Lane's private mercenary army. Lane offers Reacher payment for his eye-witness description of the guy who stole the car; hearing that Reacher is an ex-Army CID investigator, Lane offers him a million dollars to help find his wife Kate (and, as an afterthought, Kate's daughter Jade). The pair, along with the chauffeur Graham Taylor (a British ex-SAS employee), disappeared while on a shopping trip to Bloomingdale's.

The kidnapper initially tells Lane to put $1 million in his Mercedes and park it near the coffee shop where Reacher had been sitting - the man Reacher had seen drive off was the kidnapper. After the ransom retrieval the victims are not returned. The kidnappers subsequently ask for $5 million and then an additional 4.5 million. The total comprises half the $21 million haul Lane had netted in an African operation. Kate and Jade are not returned.

Lane's first wife, Ann, had also been kidnapped; she'd been found a month later, dead in a vacant lot. Patti Joseph, Ann's sister, is convinced Lane had ordered Ann's murder (disguised as a kidnapping) because she'd asked for a divorce and a hefty settlement. Patti watches Lane's apartment month after month and passes info to an NYPD detective who passes it along to Lauren Pauling, a retired FBI agent who'd worked the first kidnapping.

(As Lane's African operation had been drawing to an ignominious close, Lane engineered the death of the mercenary he'd had kill Ann by leaving him and a second mercenary to be captured and killed, contrary to the military's vow to "bring every man home.")

The police find a body floating in the Hudson; everybody assumes it is the chauffeur Graham Taylor. The kidnappers don't call. It's assumed Kate and Jade are dead.

Pauling has a Pentagon contact who tells Reacher that Ann's murderer, Knight, and a second mercenary, Hobart had suffered terribly in prison camp. Knight died, the other - Clay James Hobart- made it back to the States.

Pauling and Reacher find Hobart living with his widowed sister (Dee Marie Graziano), whose door they break down, only to discover Hobart is near death after the prison camp torture: he's emaciated, toothless, a quadruple amputee, ill with malaria and tuberculosis. Dee Marie was the woman who visited Kate in the Hamptons, warning her about Lane.

Lane, through his own channels, finds out Hobart survived; his men fan out searching hospitals - it's clear that Hobart, though innocent, is a loose end and will be killed if found. Pauling and Reacher rush to warn Hobart and Dee Marie to flee, but it's too late, Lane and his men are outside. Reacher heads them off and tells Lane that for $1 million he'll deliver the kidnapper's name the following day. He tells Pauling he'll use the money to pay her and to pay for a good clinic, rehab, and an apartment for Hobart.

They figure out that Graham Taylor, Kate and Jade's chauffeur when they were kidnapped, was the kidnapper. He concealed his English accent by faking mutism and hid the victims in his own apartment. He's now flown back to England so Reacher, Lane, and all the henchmen follow.

Reacher has brought the phone number of Taylor's closest relative (found as a speed dial shortcut) and a local detective locates Taylor's sister, Susan Jackson, living on a newly-purchased, isolated farm in Norfolk. Pauling and Reacher drive out there, confirm Taylor's presence, and return to London. Reacher demands the promised million from Lane in exchange for the address, but as he's describing the location he suddenly realizes Kate left New York of her own free will and she and Jade are at the Jackson farm; Taylor had rescued, not kidnapped, them. Reacher races Lane and his men back to Norfolk and the showdown ends with Lane and his men dead and buried on the farm where Kate and Jade now live with Taylor and his sister's family, using the ransom money to make reparation for others like Hobart.

Category:2006 British novels Category:American thriller novels Category:Jack Reacher books Category:Novels by Lee Child Category:Bantam Books books

A man with two broken legs is thrown out of a corporate helicopter from 3,000 feet above the California desert.

Seventeen days after that, Reacher is roaming alone with no objectives, no phone, no address, just the clothes he's wearing and his ATM card, when he sees an anonymous deposit to his bank account. Reacher automatically analyses the amount, using his math obsession and investigative skills. Also obsessed with math, Frances Neagley (previously seen in Without Fail) is the sender of $1,030.00, which Reacher recognizes as their old army code, 10–30, for urgent help needed. He meets up with Neagley in California and they discover the death of Calvin Franz, one of nine members of their elite team of ex–army investigators, who are being hunted down one by one. After getting no reply from anyone else, their suspicions rise and Neagley convinces him to put the old unit back together. Reacher and Neagley find that three of the other five members are missing, while Stan Lowery had a fatal car accident years earlier. They conclude Franz called the others for help with a major problem but left out the remaining four that resided too far away to get to him quickly, apart from Reacher, who is famously untraceable.

Reacher and Neagley visit Franz's widow and child, Angela and Charlie. Angela is not surprised to see them and says that Franz told her all about the team, which made her feel like he had been married before, to them. Reacher notes if people were lucky like the team, they became family, but Franz got even luckier with her and Charlie, with Angela replying "but his luck ran out". The visit produces no useful information about Franz's death, but Angela gives them Franz's office keys, which Reacher and Neagley find gutted and trashed. They realise the perpetrators didn't find what they were looking for and that Franz kept his home life completely separate from his business, leading Franz to mail any dangerous computer data to himself, with triple backup of refreshed computer USB flash drives on rotating days. They find his flash memory sticks in his business post-office box and try unsuccessfully to crack the password. More information on the other team members shows that Franz was unlikely to be the one who called for help. Reacher and Neagley go to former team member Tony Swan's workplace, defense contractor New Age in search of information, but are sent away with basically nothing by the HR manager, Margaret Berenson, except that Swan had been unemployed by them three weeks prior.

They meet David O'Donnell at their hotel, confirming three of the team are alive. O'Donnell cracks the password to Franz's flash drives and the team reviews a set of bizarre numbers which they conclude to be scores, and an unfamiliar name "Adrian Mount" with four aliases. The trio then go to Swan's home for more clues. Following Reacher and his team is an unmarked car, which they trap to discourage the driver. After roughing him up they find out the driver is an LA County Deputy named Thomas Brant, but outside of his jurisdiction in Orange County, CA. The team decides to ditch their rental car for a new one and run into Karla Dixon. With four of the team now confirmed alive, they proceed to source money, cars and weapons. Except for Reacher, all the team members have "moved onward and upward" from the military, making Reacher reconsider his drifting. He is happy for the others' successes but feels as if he is "treading water while the rest are swimming". Putting aside conflicting reactions at seeing his team again, Reacher focuses on the three missing members; Manuel Orozco, Jorge Sanchez and Tony Swan, and which one was in a situation so bad they couldn't handle it on their own and called for help.

Unsurprised, Reacher is visited by Brant and his boss, Curtis Mauney, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detective. But Reacher is surprised when Mauney tells him that Reacher and his team are bait for whoever killed Franz and caused Swan, Sanchez and Orozco to be reported missing. Mauney's LA deputies and Las Vegas police frequently work together and recent information had linked the dead and the missing with Reacher's team. Neagley gets a response regarding Swan's company New Age from Diana Bond, a staffer for a guy on the House Defense Committee, that Reacher and his team distrust, but they pressure Diana for confidential information on New Age and its military contracts.

Mauney later contacts the team with information on Jorge Sanchez's death and Vegas police evidence on Adrian Mount with three aliases, one less than Franz had. Sanchez and Orozco were partners in a Las Vegas casino security firm, and the team drives to Las Vegas for clues and answers on Sanchez and the still missing Orozco. Reacher and his team seek out the major casino security directors about the possibility of Sanchez and Orozco being involved in a large scale internal multi-casino thief network and are told about Sanchez's girlfriend, who leads them to Orozco's wife and children. An assassination attempt is made on Reacher and his team but they kill the assassin and take his car, which Reacher recalls from their LA hotel. Reacher uses the cell phone in the car to return-dial the last number on the call list, telling the man who answers that his assassin failed, the team knows he is behind their unit's dead members and they are coming for him.

From Las Vegas they are told to meet Mauney at the hospital, leading Reacher to conclude that Sanchez is not dead, just severely injured. O'Donnell and Dixon go to the hospital and Reacher and Neagley go to find Margaret Berenson, after they realise that she has been lying to them. They find that New Age has been producing state of the art surface to air missiles and pretending to destroy the prototypes, while selling them to foreign terrorists. Neagley and Reacher leave Berenson's house after finding out Berenson is being blackmailed by New Age's corrupt director, Allen Lamaison, who has threatened to harm her son if she reveals what she knows. Upon discovering this, Reacher and Neagley arrange a safe hiding place for them. After investigating Lamaison, they also discover that Lamaison used to be a police officer before joining New Age, and his partner was none other than Curtis Mauney. From this, Reacher and Neagley deduce that Lamaison and Mauney are working together. O'Donnell and Dixon are captured by Mauney's men in the hospital and taken to New Age's Director, Allen Lamaison. Reacher and Neagley track Mauney down, take his suitcase containing the terrorists' payment of $65 million, and kill him. At the second New Age complex, Reacher stows away on the same helicopter as Lamaison, where he finds O'Donnell and Dixon tied up and about to be thrown off and killed the same way that Franz, Orozco, Sanchez and Swan were. Reacher confronts Lamaison just in time, kills his assistant and pushes Lamaison out of the helicopter once it is fully one mile above ground level. After the helicopter lands Reacher asks the pilot if he flew for each of the murders and after confirmation, Reacher kills the pilot as well.

The last part is the terrorist weapons buyer, who Reacher concludes does not know how to use them. The team finds the one New Age staff engineer capable of teaching the terrorist how to use the weapons, and who is being threatened with his daughter's torture. Reacher poses as the engineer briefly as the terrorist arrives, then he and Neagley tie the terrorist up, leaving him for FBI to find. Later, the four team members agree to set up trust funds for the murdered team members' loved ones, with a donation to PETA for Tony Swan's only family, his dog Maisi, and split the remaining money obtained from the bad guys. After going their separate ways, Reacher receives a deposit for over $100,000 in his account, automatically analyses it, and thinks the amount is just a boring plain number. He feels disappointed and let down by Dixon, the money manager of the group. But the detailed report shows multiple deposits, "101810.18. 10012 ... Military police radio code for mission accomplished, twice over. 10–18, 10–18 ... second deposit was her zip code: 10012. Greenwich Village. Where she lived." Reacher remembers her inviting him to visit her in New York, and considers a moment, but remembering his words to her that he "Doesn't make plans", withdraws a $100 and buys a ticket on the first bus available, with no idea where it is going.

The prologue describes Victor Truman "Hook" Hobie's carefully planned escape route in the event of somebody discovering his "really big, well-guarded secret". His "early-warning system" consists of geographically-located "tripwires" that will warn him that he has been discovered. The first is eleven thousand miles from his home in the United States and the second is six thousand miles out. His response to their activation would be to tie up loose ends, cash in, transfer his assets, and flee the country. Over thirty years of quiet success have made him feel somewhat secure. But he did not expect both alerts to arrive on the same day.

The story then begins with Jack Reacher working two jobs in Key West (digging pools with a shovel by day and working in a bar at night) and bumping into a private investigator, Costello, who happens to be looking for him on behalf of a client named Mrs. Jacob, a name Reacher does not recognise. Later on, while Reacher is working his night job as a bouncer in a strip club, two suspicious-looking large men also make inquiries about his location. Reacher attempts to follow them but instead finds Costello murdered on the sidewalk. Jack then flies to New York to find out why Costello was looking for him and why he was killed for it.

After finding Costello's office seemingly untouched, Reacher's suspicion is aroused by an unsaved document open on the secretary's computer. Searching through the files on the computer Reacher gets the contact information for Mrs. Jacob and arrives in the middle of a funeral for his old mentor, former commanding officer, and friend, General Leon Garber. Garber's now-adult daughter, Jodie Garber-Jacob, turns out to be the mystery client. She has become a successful lawyer.

Reacher and Jodie follow Costello's trail, uncovering information on her father's last project, an investigation for the Hobie family on the whereabouts of their son Victor, a helicopter pilot reported missing-in-action decades ago in Vietnam. They discover that the Hobies had been tricked into giving their life savings to a con man and gun runner named Rutter, who poses as a fake military liaison and investigator to families of MIA soldiers. Hobie becomes aware of their investigation, and tries to hunt them down. After forcing Rutter to return the money he stole, Reacher and Jodie visit the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which leads them to the military Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, a special facility that identifies the forensic remains of soldiers.

They then learn that Hobie served in the war as a helicopter pilot until he was shot down. However, it becomes clear that Hobie died in the crash, and that another soldier named Carl Allen assumed his identity in order to escape prosecution for fragging a superior officer. Severely burned by the crash, Allen left his own dogtags behind to fool investigators and had his right hand, lost in the helicopter crash, replaced with a hook.

Under his new identity, Allen amasses a fortune as an illicit "moneylender", before establishing himself as a legitimate businessman who offers high-interest loans to financially troubled firms unable to borrow from banks. However, his real objective is to seize control of their assets, using threats and torture to force his clients to agree to his terms. Despite being aware that Reacher's investigation could expose his crimes, Allen decides to complete one final job: the takeover of a bankrupt multimillion-dollar company owned by Chester and Marilyn Stone. Allen and his men take the couple hostage, but Marilyn is able to stall them before her husband signs over his company.

Jodie is called back to New York by her law firm to handle the Stone deal, but ends up being captured by Allen along with another private investigator posing as the Stone's lawyer, forcing Reacher to come to her rescue. Reacher manages to kill Allen and his men, but sustains a seemingly fatal bullet wound to his chest. At the hospital, however, a doctor discovers that, due to the arduous physical labour he has done digging pools in Key West, his pectoral muscle was so thick the bullet did not make it past his rib cage. Reacher is then visited (while convalescing) by the Hobie family to thank him for restoring their son's good name.

''Subway Stories'' is divided according to director into short films, each with their own title, but strung almost seamlessly together.

"Subway Car From Hell" Directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Adam Brooks A man (Bill Irwin) tries to grab a bite to eat and get on a train during rush hour. He is unable to squeeze into packed cars. Spotting an empty car, he happily jumps in only to find that it's empty because of a bag left on a seat that is emitting a noxious vapor. He's trapped when the doors close before he can leave. Concluded in the final short. "The Red Shoes" **Directed by Craig McKay, written by John Guare Starring Christine Lahti, Denis Leary, Kevin Corrigan, and N'Bushe Wright. An angry panhandler in a wheelchair enrages a woman by accidentally, then intentionally running over her red shoes while apathetic passengers watch. When she grabs his money and leaves, another woman turns passengers' opinions against him by claiming the two are working as a team to solicit sympathy and donations for him. Another bystander later confronts the second woman, who admits she was lying, but opinion turns against him as well. "The 5:24" Directed by Bob Balaban, written by Lynn Grossman Starring Steve Zahn and Jerry Stiller, this short follows the conversations between a wary young financial analyst and a seemingly brilliant, wise, older, and allegedly retired analyst who claims working in an office, though lucrative, would take the fun out his predictive abilities. When the older man proposes an investment that appears too good to be true, will the young analyst set aside his fears and gamble his savings on the older man's lucrative proposal? "Fern's Heart of Darkness" **Directed by Patricia Benoit, written by Angela Todd, and based on a story by Kathryn Drury Fern (Bonnie Hunt) takes the subway to a friend's home on her first trip to the city, but her overconfidence, unfamiliarity with the system and fears and stereotypes about big city people leads her to become stuck in a locked turnstile in a station that's closed for the weekend. Non-speaking appearance by Mekhi Phifer. "The Listeners" Directed by Seth Rosenfeld, written by Ken Kelsch Starring Michael Rapaport and Lili Taylor, this short examines the age-old problem of communication in relationships when Belinda accuses her boyfriend of not listening to her. Her angry shift of location to another car, and brief conversation about politics with a suited older man, who seems at first to just be friendly, reveals that in the city, listening, hearing, and understanding are far more complicated, communal activities than one might have thought. "Underground" **Directed by Lucas Platt, written by Albert Innaurato Starring Mercedes Ruehl as a sensual older woman with unusual appetites, this short asks and answers the question: what does a young man (Zachary Taylor) dumped by his girlfriend and beat up by her ex-boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard) and his friends need to soothe his bruised face and ego? "Honey-Getter" Directed by Alison Maclean, written by Danny Hoch Nicole Ari Parker and Sarita Choudhury star in this short as Sharon and Humera, attractive law students heading home after a late night out. Tired and boarding the train alone, although it is far from empty, Humera is groped by an offensive young man (Ajay Naidu). His friend (Danny Hoch) chastises him after they run away but when she spots the pair on the platform, she exacts violent revenge on both, resulting in all three of them being arrested. "Sax Cantor Riff" **Written and directed by Julie Dash Starring Taral Hicks, and with a brief appearance by Sam Rockwell, this short celebrates the unexpected musical gifts which the subway can give. In overlapping duets between a saxophone player (Kenny Garrett), accompanying first a gospel singer, and then a Jewish singer, one finds the subway to be an underground Carnegie Hall - whether the music is born of the grief wrought by experiencing the death of a parent in public, or produced by the heart-rending lament of a Hasidic man's (Dan Rous) unexpected emotional outpouring. "Love on the A Train" Directed by Abel Ferrara, written by Marla Hanson Starring Rosie Perez and Gretchen Mol, this humorous short follows a newly married man (Michael McGlone) who develops an utterly silent, distracting, sensual relationship with an attractive woman (Perez) on the subway. Although they never speak, they spend their morning commute lightly rubbing against each other, while appearing to only lean against a pole. He breaks his silence one day and she walks away in disgust. They eventually resume their wordless relationship. "Manhattan Miracle" **Directed by Ted Demme, written by Joe Viola Gregory Hines as a man watching with growing concern and fear as a distressed pregnant woman (Anne Heche) across the tracks from him seems to consider jumping onto the tracks. Soundtrack of Vivaldi's Concerto for Cello in D Minor provides atmosphere. "Subway Car From Hell" (part 2) *The man from the first segment arrives at his destination, adjacent to the 42nd Street Shuttle. He removes a didgeridoo from a case and begins performing with his fellow buskers.

A poor Mississippi farmer who has never owned slaves finds himself conscripted into the Confederate States Army to fight to defend the right of wealthy slaveowners to be able to maintain their grasp on their black property. After witnessing much deprivation and depravity, he deserts, returns home, and soon finds himself at the head of a band of former slaves, other Confederate deserters, and American Indians who had remained in Mississippi in defiance of the Indian Removal Act, fighting against the Confederacy and its sympathizers.

The play starts in the 1950s and follows the family through the next 35 years. The play's narrator is Clifford Glimmer, the only son of Gene, a talented but self-absorbed jazz trumpeter, and his alcoholic wife Terry, who describes the tumultuous relationship his parents shared and the haphazard career journey Gene followed over the course of three decades. Dedicated more to his music than his family, he refuses to accept a regular job to support them, and their home life gradually unravels. Clifford eventually assumes the role of breadwinner his father has forsaken and offers his mother the emotional support Gene cannot. Scenes alternate between the family's Spartan New York City apartment and the smoke-filled nightclubs and cabarets of another era.

A trucker named Biff Smith (Wayne) wins a contest between his caravan of trucks and a special train, the two competing against each other in a race to see who can deliver a load of aviation parts to an ocean liner before a labor strike takes place.

A new Mickey Mouse cartoon will have its premiere in the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Several Hollywood celebrities all arrive in limousines to attend this special event. Outside The Keystone Cops (Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, Harry Langdon and Chester Conklin) are guarding the traffic.

Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore step out of the first limousine, all costumed as in the film ''Rasputin and the Empress'' (1932). Then Laurel and Hardy leave the car and close the door behind them. Inside The Marx Brothers all stick their heads out of the car window.

In the next scene Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor costumed as in the film ''The Kid from Spain'', and Jimmy Durante take turns singing in front of a microphone. They are followed by Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford costumed as in the film ''Rain'' and Janet Gaynor all singing new lyrics to the chant. Finally Harold Lloyd, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, and Adolphe Menjou join in to conclude the song.

Sid Grauman is saluting all the guests. George Arliss and Joe E. Brown simply enter, but Charlie Chaplin sneaks inside. Then Buster Keaton enters the building, followed by The Marx Brothers all hidden under Groucho Marx' coat. Mae West enters, costumed as in the film ''She Done Him Wrong'', and utters her famous line, "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?", which shocks and embarrasses Grauman.

Then Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle Cow arrive in a limousine and are cheered by the audience. Once inside the theatre Mickey’s new cartoon, ''Gallopin' Romance'', premieres. The plot revolves around Mickey and Minnie playing music together, when suddenly Pegleg Pete kidnaps Minnie and drives off on a horse (Horace Horsecollar). Mickey chases him and beats Pete in the end, bringing Minnie to safety.

All the guests in the theatre move rhythmically to the music. We can see Helen Hayes, William Powell, Chester Morris, Gloria Swanson, and George Arliss in the audience. In the next close-up scenes the viewer can identify Jimmy Durante, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Rudy Vallee, Eddie Cantor, Joan Crawford, Will H. Hays (dressed as a king in reference to his position as ''“Censorship Czar”'') and Myrna Loy. Ed Wynn, Wheeler & Woolsey, Laurel & Hardy all laugh with the cartoon. Bela Lugosi (dressed as Count Dracula), Fredric March (dressed as Mr. Hyde) and Boris Karloff (dressed as Frankenstein's monster) do the same, but with spooky evil laughter. Joe E. Brown laughs so loud that his enormous mouth opens wide, while Buster Keaton keeps his poker face. Jimmy Durante and Douglas Fairbanks laugh so loud that they literally "roll in the aisles". They are joined in by Groucho Marx, Joe E. Brown, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy. As the cartoon ends the whole audience applauds and congratulates Mickey with his success. But Mickey is so shy that he has to be pulled on the stage by Will Rogers with a rope. All the Hollywood actors now shake Mickey’s hands (and feet!) to congratulate him with his success. Then Greta Garbo, no longer wanting to be alone, walks onto the stage and starts covering Mickey’s face with kisses. Mickey wakes up in his bed, while Pluto is licking his face. Mickey wonders if he was dreaming, and then the scene irises out.

Other Hollywood celebrities that can be spotted in the crowd scenes: Constance Bennett, Warner Baxter, and Walt Disney (as the fourth person on the right, in the scene where the other actors shy away because Garbo enters the stage).

The God-fearing residents of Middleton are worried that the Gopher Hole, a new roadhouse restaurant outside of town, will bring their teenage kids to ruin. Jeff Carter, a local teacher who also runs a youth club for the boys, takes a closer look at the place to see if the worries are justified.

Jeff discovers that a group of boys from town, including Willy Miller, Gene Spooner and the tough Danny Jones, are robbing a warehouse in town. Jeff tries to stop them, but in the struggle is shot and killed by Danny. The boys flee, using Willy's father's delivery truck, but the truck is recognized by a witness working at the warehouse. The boys hide out at the Gopher Hole, joining a game of cards and acting as if they have been there all night. The police soon arrive at the Gopher Hole and arrest the boys. Danny is the only boy who isn't under age, and he is prosecuted for first degree murder by district attorney Edgar Burns.

At the trial, Burns claims that Danny had planned to kill Jeff because of their previous encounters and the fact that Danny hated Jeff. Another boy, Leo Emerson, tells how Danny encouraged the boys at Jeff's youth club to visit the Gopher Hole, and then led them into other activities such as gambling and robbing gas stations. When Jeff tried to stop Danny's activities, and even offered Danny a job at the youth club, Danny refused and threatened to punch Jeff for interfering. Leo stopped his own involvement with Danny when Leo's absent father returned to the family home. Willy admits to taking his father's truck without permission and serving as lookout at the warehouse robbery, but in the process reveals that his father physically abuses him. Doris, a lonely teenage girl who is neglected by her parents and is in love with Danny, tries to lie on the stand to protect him, but breaks down when pressured by district attorney Burns.

Before the prosecution rests its case, Burns' beloved daughter Connie nearly causes a scandal when she admits to being close friends with Danny ten years ago, when they were both living at an orphanage. Burns explains that he was unaware for many years that he had a daughter, since his marriage was annulled and his wife disappeared without telling him she was pregnant. Some years later, Miss Templeton, the proprietor of the orphanage, contacted him, and he took Connie home. Connie was unable to say goodbye to her friend Danny before she left the orphanage, and had no further contact with him until the trial.

Miss Templeton, now elderly and in poor health, arrives to see Danny, having read about the case in the newspapers. She reveals to Danny that he, not Connie, is actually Burns' child, and that she lied and falsified records to pass Connie off as Burns' child instead, because Connie was weaker and was going to die if she wasn't removed from the orphanage. Miss Templeton wants to tell Burns, but Danny makes her promise not to reveal the secret, as he does not want to ruin Connie's good life with the man she thinks is her father. Nevertheless, Miss Templeton tries to tell the secret to the court anyway, but is interrupted by Danny publicly admitting to shooting Jeff, thus sealing his fate. While Danny is talking, Miss Templeton dies on the stand before she can testify.

In the end, Danny is convicted of Jeff's murder but manages to escape the death penalty, instead getting a sentence of life in prison. He is reminded that even a life sentence may be ended early for good behavior, and Connie and Burns promise to help him in every way they can.

A defeated politician, Blake Washburn, takes over as editor of a small town newspaper in an effort to get himself re-elected. His campaign is intended to be a continuing exposé of the evils of big industry, and his strategy is to publish daily screeds against enormous corporate profits that enrich shareholders.

On a school outing to an abandoned mine, Washburn's little sister is trapped in the collapse of a mine tunnel caused as the result of a disgruntled employee's negligence, and the town's industries come to her rescue. The sister is rescued and flown in a company plane to the big city, and Washburn has a change of heart and recognizes that big corporations are necessary because, "It takes bigness to do big things," a line in the movie delivered by MacFarland, the maker of the medical device that saved the sister.

When printer John R. Hodges is forced to retire at age 65 because of a company policy, he decides to do something about it. Dyeing his hair black, he poses as Harold P. Cleveland, the president of his former employer's parent company, and goes on an inspection tour of his old workplace, with the firm's nervous, mystified executives in tow. While walking around the plant, Hodges runs into Joe Elliott, the boyfriend of his granddaughter Alice, and winks at him to let him in on the joke. Afterward, Hodges complains about the lack of experienced, older employees, causing company president Louis McKinley to promise to rescind the retirement policy and rehire all those affected by it within the past year.

However, before he can depart, Hodges finds that McKinley has arranged for him to address the local chamber of commerce. Hodges is up to the challenge, delivering a rousing speech about the virtues of the older worker. He receives a standing ovation, the newspapers praise him, and even the stock market rises on the optimism generated.

Hodges is taken to dinner by McKinley and his neglected wife Lucille. McKinley, it turns out, is more interested in his curvaceous private secretary Harriet. Hodges has a wonderful time, dancing the night away with Lucille. Swept away by his compliments and attention, she fancies herself in love with him. Later that night, she tells her dumbfounded husband that she wants a divorce.

Meanwhile, Joe is unable to convince anybody that Cleveland is actually an impostor. Frank Erickson, his rival for a promotion, and the entire Hodges family – son George, daughter-in-law Della, and Alice – all think Joe is crazy. However, when Hodges returns home with his dyed hair, Joe is vindicated. Because Hodges will be exposed anyway, Della proposes that Joe turn him in so that he can get the promotion, but Joe refuses to do it. The next day, Erickson finally believes Joe and tries to warn their mutual boss Horace Gallagher, but Gallagher thinks Erickson is mentally unstable and gives the promotion to Joe. This enables Joe to finally propose to Alice.

Meanwhile, the real Harold Cleveland is in an awkward position. The speech has done wonders for his and his company's image and even raised the price of the company's stock, but he is unsure of his impostor's motives. When McKinley discovers Hodges' identity and informs Cleveland, he decides to pay him a visit.

Lucille gets there first, but Hodges tells her that he will not come between a man and his wife and that he suspects she is still in love with her husband. McKinley barges in and apologizes to his wife, and the happy couple reconciles and kisses. As McKinley is leaving he fires Hodges, unbeknown to him that the real Cleveland is in the house with Hodges.

When Cleveland meets Hodges, he is reassured that the old man has no sinister intentions. Cleveland is so impressed that he offers Hodges a job advising him on public relations but gets turned down. Before Cleveland leaves, he tells Hodges that a memo will be sent to McKinley the next morning informing him that Hodges is to have his job back.

When serviceman and author Jim Scott (William Lundigan) returns from Paris to his hometown, New York City, he is flabbergasted to discover that his well-meaning but unrealistic wife Connie (June Haver) has invested his wages in a run-down apartment building. Despite Connie's hopes that being a landlord will give Jim time to write a novel, Jim realizes that the building will require much work and will barely give them enough income.

Meanwhile, smooth-talking Charley Patterson (Frank Fay), a confidence man who romances and swindles wealthy widows, meets his neighbor in the building, gentle widow Eadie Gaynor (Leatrice Joy), and becomes enamoured of her even though she is poor. Then, Jim persuades Connie to rent the vacant apartment to his old Army buddy Bobbie. When Bobbie arrives, Connie is shocked to see that she is a stunning former WAC named Roberta Stevens (Marilyn Monroe).

An FBI agent visits and asks the Scotts what they know about Mr. Patterson, implying that he is under investigation. Later, an inspector from the Department of Housing and Building informs the Scotts that the exposed wiring in their building is a serious code violation, and that if it is not fixed within fifteen days, the building will be condemned. That night, Charley and Eadie announce their engagement, worrying Connie. Charley and Eadie leave the next day to be married, after which Jim learns that it will be so expensive to fix the wiring that he must sell the building.

Jim and Connie have received no offers by the time Charley and Eadie return, and Charley lends Jim the $800 needed for the repairs. Jim still wants to sell, however, as he is convinced that the building will drive them deeper into debt. Connie and Jim argue about the building and Bobbie, of whom Connie is still jealous, and Jim storms out of their apartment to sleep in a hammock in the back yard. Jim ends up sleeping in Bobbie's empty apartment, as he knows that she is away on a modeling assignment, but the next morning, Bobbie returns home, and Connie mistakenly assumes that she and Jim have spent the night together. Connie's anger is deflected by a newspaper story concerning Mrs. Frazier, a woman she and Jim saw in a nightclub with Charley, who has been cheated by an "elderly Casanova" named Charley Price. Charley assures them that he truly loves Eadie and has now retired. Charley decides to leave and send for Eadie later, but the police arrive before he can escape. As he is being taken away, Charley reassures Eadie that she is the only woman he has ever loved.

Charley, who insists on paying for his crimes by pleading guilty, arranges for Jim to get arrested for receiving the $800 from him, as it was part of the money he took from Mrs. Frazier. Jim is infuriated when he is thrown in a cell with Charley, but the older man explains that he needed time to tell Jim his life story so that he can write a book about him. Jim is released the next day and writes Charley's book, which becomes a best-seller.

After eighteen months, Charley is released from prison and reunites with Eadie. Later, Jim and Connie, who have beautified the apartment building with Jim's royalties, watch with amusement as Eadie and Charley take their newly born twin daughters for a walk.

Hugh (Macdonald Carey) and Miriam Halsworth (Claudette Colbert) are in the final stages of their divorce procedure. Miriam wants to separate because he's addicted to gambling - although he often wins. She's living with her daughter Barbara (Barbara Bates), her son-in-law Jerry Denham (Robert Wagner) and her little grandchild. Hugh, who's living at the hotel where he works.

Hugh is also Jerry's boss. They work in the publicity department for the Miramar Hotel and have to follow Victor Macfarland (Zachary Scott), a self-made millionaire who's trying to get on the financial advisory committee for the President. Twenty years ago Hugh and Victor were rivals for Miriam's hand.

A blonde fortune hunter, Joyce Mannering (Marilyn Monroe), is trying to attract Victor, but he's only interested in winning back Miriam. Miriam accepts Victor's marriage proposal, but is disappointed when Victor postpones the marriage for a hearing on his appointment in Washington. Just before he steps on the plane he explains to Miriam why he left her twenty years ago (but the audience can't hear what he says because the plane makes too much noise).

Miriam is furious with Hugh but he doesn't know why. She refuses to let him in, which leads to a comical intermezzo in which Hugh and Jerry are arrested by the police. They are identified by Miriam and Barbara, and leave the police station.

Back home Miriam explains to Hugh that she was so angry because Victor told her that twenty years ago Hugh won her hand in a game of craps. Hugh admits this, and still has those two dice with him. He asks her to throw. It turns out the dice were loaded; they always throw three and four. Hugh admits he cheated because the stake was so high. Miriam is pleased with this explanation and they reconcile.

Johnny Casar (Mickey Rooney) runs away from a home for wayward boys, tired of being teased about being short and a poor athlete. He soon finds a pair of roller skates and is befriended by Bruno Crystal (Ralph Dumke), who allows him to wash dishes at his café, while a priest who runs the home, Father O'Hara (Pat O'Brien), secretly keeps an eye on him.

A traveling roller-skating team takes an interest in Johnny after he shows some aptitude. He clashes with Mack Miller (Glen Corbett), a cocky champion, and falls for Mary Reeves (Beverly Tyler), another top skater. Johnny ends up featured in grudge matches against Miller, where they take turns one-upping one another.

As his fame grows, Johnny becomes every bit as arrogant as Miller and more. Life takes a bad turn when he is diagnosed with polio. A long period of physical therapy follows, until a wheelchair-bound Johnny tries to get his life back on track.

Sean O'Malley, a wheelchair-using fight promoter once known as the best in his business, has lost his professional stature and is now in poor health. His daughter Pat has taken over many of his responsibilities and is romantically involved with his best fighter, Johnny Monterez.

Sean is unhappy that Johnny is ashamed of his Mexican heritage. When Sean tells Pat that promoter Allan Goff is trying to steal Johnny from him, Pat visits Johnny at his training camp in time to watch him fight a practice match, but Johnny hurts his hand.

While Johnny's hand is being examined at the hospital, Pat looks for her friend Rick Gavery, a hard-drinking sports reporter who has been following Johnny's career. Pat finds Rick in jail, where she has found him on many previous occasions. When Johnny's doctor tells him that his hand is now vulnerable to permanent injury, Johnny asks him to keep his condition a secret. After telling Pat and some reporters that his hand is merely bruised, Johnny returns to his training camp. A short time later, Johnny receives word that his trouble-prone cousin Luis is in jail again and needs bail money.

Believing that his injury may end his boxing career at any moment, Johnny agrees to sign a lucrative contract with Goff, who has promised Johnny guaranteed income from promotional sales after his retirement.

Johnny takes Rick to visit his mother, but soon after they arrive, Johnny tells his sister Marina that she must stop dating her boyfriend Bob because he is a "gringo" who is only interested in her because she is the sister of a famous fighter. When Rick accuses Johnny of harboring prejudice against whites, Johnny sends him away with an insult.

Later, Pat, expecting a marriage proposal from Johnny, is disappointed when Johnny tells her that he has decided to sign with Goff. Sean dies a short time later, and Pat accuses Johnny of killing her father with his act of betrayal. Realizing that he has nearly lost Pat's love and Rick's friendship, Johnny decides to leave boxing forever by purposely losing a title match. Pat and Johnny reconcile and look forward to a happy future together.

Boyd is an American with an uncanny ability to speak Japanese. He aspires to succeed in the world of Japanese business but finds himself mostly on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, his roommate Jerome is a Japanese American who has always felt too American to be Japanese but too Japanese to be American. He aspires to be a sumo wrestler but finds his weight and blood pressure are thwarting his dreams. Together they struggle to find their place in a world where cultural identity is seldom what it seems.

The film follows Caveh Zahedi on a road trip to Las Vegas with his father and half-brother in an attempt to prove the existence of God. He suggests that if God exists, and if God is indeed omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then all the filmmaker has to do is roll the camera and let God direct the movie. In an attempt "to force God's hand" and change the direction of the film, Zahedi tries persuade his father and half-brother to take ecstasy with him. When they refuse, things quickly start to unravel.

When elderly Mr. Bush (Victor Moore) is appointed justice of the peace, he starts marrying couples on Christmas Eve. However, his appointment takes effect on the first of January. Later, this issue becomes known when one of the six couples he married files for divorce. To avoid a bigger scandal, the remaining five couples are informed that they are not really married. The film then shows how the other couples react to the news.

Steve (Fred Allen) and Ramona Gladwyn (Ginger Rogers) are a husband-and-wife radio team whose on-air loving behavior on their show "Breakfast with the Glad Gladwyns" conceals the fact that they cannot stand each other. However, they do not want to lose their large salaries. When they arrive outside the marriage license bureau, they encounter a happy couple leaving. The sight makes Steve reconsider his relationship with Ramona, then she does too.

The second couple is Jeff (David Wayne) and Annabel (Marilyn Monroe) Norris. Annabel has just won the "Mrs. Mississippi" pageant. Jeff is fed up with taking care of their child, while Annabel and her manager Duffy (James Gleason) are out preparing to compete for the title of "Mrs. America". Jeff is delighted at the prospect of getting Annabel back when he learns they are not married. He sees to it that she loses her title, but in the end is pleased when his now-fiancée wins the "Miss Mississippi" contest.

Bush remembers Hector (Paul Douglas) and Katie Woodruff (Eve Arden) talking constantly, but they have now run out of things to say to each other. When Hector gets the letter from Bush, he imagines seeing all his gorgeous girlfriends again, then burns the letter before Katie sees it.

Kind millionaire Freddie Melrose (Louis Calhern) is married to a young gold-digger named Eve (Zsa Zsa Gabor). When Freddie goes on a business trip, she agrees to meet him at his hotel, but instead sets him up. Another woman shows up instead, followed shortly afterward by three men who witness his fake adultery. Eve and her attorney, Stone (Paul Stewart), inform Freddie that while Eve is entitled by law to half his assets in a divorce, they want much more, threatening him with criminal charges. Bush's letter arrives just in time to save him.

Young soldier Wilson "Willie" Fisher (Eddie Bracken) is about to be shipped out to Hawaii and the "Asiatic-Pacific Theater." At the train station, his wife Patsy (Mitzi Gaynor) arrives late and just has time to tell him she is pregnant before his train leaves. He is unable to tell her that they are not married. He sends her a telegram, urging her to meet him at the port. There, he goes AWOL in order to try to marry her, while dodging two MPs. However, he is caught and thrown in the brig, and his ship sets sail. Fortunately, a military chaplain notices an upset Patsy and manages to extract the story from her. He then arranges for her and Willie to get married by radio.

In the American West, a pioneer woman, Sarah, and six women, who are called her daughters, face frontier life. Rather than a straightforward storyline, the musical is presented as a series of short tales and tableaux matched with musical numbers, each presenting an aspect of frontier life or womanhood. The patches or blocks show "girlhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness and death." The patches are ultimately put together to form one dramatic tableau.

''Lamb'' tells the story of a young priest, Brother Sebastian, who works in a Roman Catholic institution for troubled boys on the west coast of Ireland, referred to as "a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor" by its head, Brother Benedict. There, the Brothers teach boys to conform in a harsh, uncompromising regime which Brother Sebastian, whose real name is Michael Lamb, finds deeply distasteful. The Brothers teach the boys "a little of God and a lot of fear."

When his father dies, leaving him a small legacy, the tie which kept him at the home is gone and he decides to leave and take Owen Kane, a bullied, unhappy 10-year-old boy with him. His decision is also affected by the fact that he has made a vow of poverty and Brother Benedict expects him to hand his inheritance over to the Brothers.

Michael has formed an attachment to Owen. He is the youngest boy there and has been in the home for two years. Brother Benedict beats him for painting graffiti on the wall outside, because it ends with the word OK – Owen's initials – despite knowing that it was not Owen who did it. Owen comes from a broken family and a drunken, abusive father. Michael cannot see how he will survive there and wishes to give him his freedom.

He secretly leaves the school and takes Owen with him to London hoping to be the boy's saviour, although he knows he is committing a criminal act. They pass themselves off as father and son and move from hotel to hotel. Michael lets Owen smoke, play on gaming machines and takes him to a football match to see his favourite team Arsenal play, but Owen, an epileptic, has a fit. They have to slip away from the medical centre before questions are asked.

Owen sometimes prattles on and on and sometimes just sits silently. Michael feels embarrassed during the silences and recognises that Owen controls the communication between them. As the days and weeks go by, Michael became more comfortable with the silences and they laugh a lot.

As his money dwindles and news of the kidnapping reaches the English community, with Owen's picture in the newspaper, Michael finds himself running out of ideas on how to save the boy's life. About to fly back to Ireland, they come across an ex-army man called Haddock who tells them about a nearby squat and says they can move in. Michael returns to the hotel to find Owen in floods of tears, thinking Michael has left him. In an emotional scene, Michael tells Owen he loves him and man and boy hug and hold each other tight.

Michael gets a job, leaving Owen at the squat, but returns to find that Haddock, who he knows is gay, is in his dressing gown, has his arm around the boy's shoulders and has been letting Owen smoke pot. Michael is worried Haddock may have molested the boy, or will try to, and decides they have to leave.

The ''denouement'' of the novel is grim. Determined to save Owen from being forced to return to the home, but realizing he cannot look after the boy himself because of the frequency of the seizures and his inability on how to monitor them, Michael drowns him in the sea during Owen's next seizure, after hearing him describe the experience of a seizure as a form of joy. The drowning is portrayed as a baptism as Michael calls out to God while holding Owen under the water. Having murdered the boy, Michael tries to drown himself, but is unable to. The movie ends with the sun setting, Owens body laying on the sand and Michael hugging his knees and looking off in deep thought.

For decades, Vaillante, run by the Vaillant family, has had a long history of success in various motor racing disciplines. Their most famous driver is Michel Vaillant, son of the team's founder and owner, Henri, and younger brother of the team's manager, Jean-Pierre. One night, Michel's mother Élisabeth has a nightmare of her son's death in an accident at the 24 Hours of Le Mans involving a car bearing the number 13 operated by Leader, a team with which Vaillante had a historic rivalry for more than a quarter of a century. Henri comforts her, assuring that the Vaillante team is not planning to race at Le Mans, that Leader has quit racing for 5 years, and that no one will bother using the number 13 at the race.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Michel and his best friend and teammate, Steve Warson, are both competing in a WRC race. Michel wins the race, which spikes the wrath of Bob Cramer, a ruthless rival driver who was blocked by him during the race. Cramer confronts Michel's co-pilot, David Wood, over the matter. A few days later, Henri announces that the Vaillante team has purchased engines for the upcoming 24 Hours of Le Mans, and that Wood has been promoted to the driver's seat, promising him a seat at Michel's Le Mans car if he does well in the Rally of Italy. During the race in Italy, Cramer forces Wood off the road. Wood's car crashes violently, and he dies after getting caught in the resulting explosion.

At the funeral for David Wood, Michel meets Julie, Wood's wife, who asks him a favor. Michel then convinces his brother to let Julie join the team so she can take her late husband's place. Meanwhile, the Leader team, now under the management of Ruth, the team founder's daughter, returns to racing. They announce that they will race at Le Mans with the number 13, hiring Bob Cramer as one of their drivers. Élisabeth starts to worry that her nightmare may soon become a reality, and unsuccessfully pleads with Henri to withdraw from Le Mans.

At the weekend before the Le Mans race, Ruth, determined to rid the race of Vaillante, has her henchmen tamper with the Vaillante car delivery. Both Vaillante cars are forced to speed through the streets to Le Mans, and they barely make it in time to compete. Infuriated, Ruth decides to kidnap Henri, planning to blackmail Vaillante into losing the race if they wish to have her spare Henri. Michel initially complies, losing a lot of time each lap, but later tells his brother about Ruth's plot to kill their father. Michel is cleared to go out to save his father after having Julie pose as him during the race.

While trying to track his father's location through the GPS in Ruth's car, Michel is caught by Ruth, who gets him to drive the #13 Leader car, posing as Cramer after an accident puts him out of the race. The #10 Vaillante car and the #13 Leader car eventually meet each other on the track and end up colliding violently, just like in Élisabeth's nightmare. Both drivers, revealed to be really Julie and Michel, come out of the wreckage unharmed. Julie and Michel proceed to go with Warson to leave the race and save Henri.

The three manage to go back to the race, but unfortunately, Warson sustains a gunshot wound while fleeing from Ruth's henchmen after rescuing Henri. Michel decides to replace Warson during a pitstop for the #8 Vaillante car, posing as him for the remainder of the race. In the final lap of the race, when it looks like the #22 Leader car is about to win the race, the Vaillante car gets a flat tire. Meanwhile, the Leader car suddenly starts to slow down due to an engine failure, eventually stopping a few metres before the finish line.

The Vaillante car eventually arrives at the final stretch as the Leader car is being pushed toward the finish line by its driver, before proceeding to cross the finish line first, beating the Leader car by a close call. The Vaillante team go on to celebrate their most recent victory, while Ruth stares blankly in defeat.

Following the events of The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid, Sheriff Hall and H-725 (here named Charlie Warren) still get no rest from the military: because the little alien has not yet grasped the meaning of keeping a low profile, they are constantly on the move, and H-725’s father has to pick them out of a tight spot too many times already.

Hall and Charlie finally arrive at the city of Munroe (probably Munroe Fall, Ohio), where petty crime, from vandalism to armed robberies, is running rampant, moreso because the town currently has no sheriff. Charlie pushes Hall into staying in this place, and somewhat reluctantly Hall takes up the job in this chaotic place, with the help of the local radio jock and City Mayor Howard (Ferruccio Amendola). Soon the riff-raff in town learns not to underestimate the new sheriff as he metes out hard-hitting arguments to stay out of trouble.

However, the local thugs are the smallest of Hall’s problems. A task force of hostile alien invaders are preparing to enslave mankind with the use of hypno-wave devices and advanced androids; already they control the local authorities and military installations. Charlie immediately senses the true nature of these individuals, however, and after much persuasion convinces his big friend to look into the matter. But this arouses the suspicion of the alien leader (Claudio Undali); he has Hall arrested for snooping into matters of national security and Charlie kidnapped. Hall manages to sneak out of prison, and after Howard has told him what happened to Charlie, the sheriff decides to take up the fight. Through the public announcement Howard applies to the citizens of Munroe for help, and the thugs and hooligans whom Hall has previously thrashed join forces with the sheriff, just as the alien leader executes the final stage of his plan to take over Munroe by sending the local state police force to the El Dorado festival and round up the townspeople. Hall and his helpers engage the officers in a massive fist-fight, though, and begin to win the upper hand until the alien chief decides to use his hypno-wave machine. The rioters are quickly subjugated – except for the sheriff, who wanders as if in trance to the military base which serves as the alien’s headquarters.

As Hall arrives there, the alien leader and his androids discover that their hypno-waves have no effect on the sheriff (due to an earlier treatment by Charlie’s wonder device. The androids are sent against Hall, but the sheriff’s fists prove to be tougher than they are, and soon the androids’ neural-nets end up completely scrambled. The alien leader tries to activate a self-destruct device, but the sheriff takes a swing at him and he shatters (probably to avoid censorship). Charlie is released from captivity and happily rejoins the sheriff.

However, as the town celebrates their rescuers, once again the military arrives to try and apprehend Charlie once more. Fed up with the constant pestering, Hall and Charlie take off into space with the old-timer automobile to join Charlie’s family. But as soon as they have left the atmosphere, a small inconvenience makes Hall grumble once more: “Why does everything happen to me!”

Aspiring young actress Maggie Nelson (Anna Paquin), who lives in New York City with her father, an Interpol agent, gains chameleon-like powers one night after she gets unknowingly caught between a severe electrical storm and a magic rune her father had brought home to study after it was found at the scene of a murder at a New York City museum. Her powers are from a secret and ancient race known as the Chameliel, who are able to hide in plain sight due to their shape shifting abilities, and she is told all about the Chameliel after meeting a young Chameliel named Mosaic (Kirby Morrow). The murder victim at the museum was a Chameliel who was killed by another Chameliel named Maniken, who is stealing some of the powerful Chameliel stones hidden around the world to use them to gain the alchemical powers of his dead wife Facade, and ruling the world. After Maniken kidnaps her father, Maggie becomes determined to help Mosaic to fight Maniken.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1170587-stan_lee_presents_mosaic/ Stan Lee Presents: Mosaic - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes]

The two go from New York City, to the catacombs of Rome, to a large radio dish at the north magnetic pole, trying to stop Maniken, as he plans to sacrifice Maggie's father as part of a ceremony to use the Chameliel stones to transfer to Maniken the powers of his wife from her body and rule the Earth like a god. As Maniken prepares to begin the ceremony on the radio dish, Maggie uses her shape-shifting abilities with her acting skills to fool Maniken into believing she is his dead wife come back to life, to distract him from noticing Mosaic is planting explosives that destroy everything on the radio dish and render the ceremony impossible, and getting her father to safety. During the battle against Maniken, it is revealed that Mosaic is Maniken and Facade's son who volunteered to the rest of the Chameliel to go after his father and stop him. Maniken is defeated when Mosaic willingly sends both of them tumbling into an icy gorge, sacrificing himself to stop his father forever. Maggie then sneaks onto the Interpol copter her father is taken aboard, where she overhears him vowing to destroy all Chameliel.

Upon returning home, she plans to continue acting and agrees to her father's request to continue her studies, but at the same time, acknowledging her powers as the piece of the rest of the Chameliel within her, she vows to search for the remaining Chameliel stones and use their power for good, and honor Mosaic and the rest of the Chameliel by becoming the new Mosaic.

''Musya'' follows a pikeman (described as a spearman in the Japanese version) named Imoto (Jinrai (神雷) in the Japanese version), who must descend to the abyss to save Shizuka, a maiden. After Imoto survives a battle in which all other combatants perish, he travels to Tengumura Village, where he collapses. The mayor, Akagi (who is not named in the Japanese version), greets Imoto and tells him that Shizuka (しずか) needs to be rescued. Imoto heads into Tengumura Cavern (known in the Japanese version as Kihōshōnyūdō (鬼宝鍾乳洞)).

''The Chicken of Tomorrow'' deals with poultry farming and egg farming in the mid-1940s. Filmed to educate the public about how poultry and eggs are farmed, it also deals with how advances in genetic engineering and technology produce larger chickens. Eggs are farmed and kept in industrial incubators, and an equal number of chickens are used for meat and other products. Altogether, this produces more food for less money and allows people to support local poultry farms without breaking the bank. This is relatively similar to today's practice of poultry farming despite some technological differences.

Bill Chrushank is a psychologist working with convicted killers at a prison. While driving to work, Bill gets in a horrific car accident and loses an arm. At the hospital, Dr. Agatha Webb convinces Bill's wife to sign off on an experimental transplant surgery.

Bill awakens from the surgery and begins to adjust to his new arm. After he is released from the hospital, he resumes his work and things seem to be back to normal. However, Bill starts seeing visions of horrible acts of murder (as if he is committing them) and occasionally loses control of his new arm. At the prison, a convict tells Bill that the tattoo on his new arm is only given to inmates on death row. Bill has a police friend scan his new fingerprints and is shocked to discover the arm came from executed convicted serial killer Charley Fletcher, who had murdered 20 people.

Bill confronts Dr. Webb and finds the identities of two other patients: Mark Draper and Remo Lacey who received the killer's legs and other arm, respectively. Bill visits Remo, who was a struggling artist before the transplant but now is making a small fortune selling paintings he made with his new arm. Noting Remo's paintings depict the same visions he had, Bill tells him that he is painting what the killer saw. Remo, however, only cares about his newfound success and dismisses Bill's warnings. Bill meets Mark and tries to warn him but Mark is just happy to be able to walk again and advises Bill to be grateful and move on.

Bill becomes increasingly agitated and violent. He demands that Dr. Webb remove his arm but she refuses, stating that the problems he is experiencing are insignificant compared to her experiment's success. Bill meets up with Remo and Mark at a bar. A drunk man recognizes Bill from news about the surgery, and demands to see his arm. Bill snaps and a bar fight breaks out where Bill single-handedly takes out several men and almost kills one before being stopped.

As Mark returns home, his legs suddenly stop functioning. Scared, Mark calls Bill, who hears Mark yell and struggle with someone. Bill goes to Mark's apartment and finds him dead, with both legs missing. Bill calls the police and implores the lead detective to check on Remo. However, they are too late as Charley — who is still alive, having his head transplanted onto a new body — rips Remo's arm off and throws him out a window.

As Bill and the detective stop at a traffic light, Charley pulls up in a car beside them and handcuffs his wrist to Bill's. Charley speeds away, and the detective desperately tries to keep up, lest Bill's arm gets ripped off. Bill uses the detective's gun to destroy the handcuff just before they hit a divider that splits the road in two. As the detective leaves the car and opens fire on Charley, Bill drives away to pursue the killer. Charley brings his old limbs back to Dr. Webb.

Armed with a gun from the detective's car, Bill enters the hospital and finds Charley's torso and limbs in a glass case, wiggling as if having a mind of their own. Dr. Webb appears and says she is ready to take the arm back, and Charley knocks Bill unconscious. Bill wakes up strapped to an operating table. As Dr. Webb approaches him with a circular saw, he breaks his restraints, knocks her out and wrestles with Charley for his shotgun. Right before Charley can pull the trigger, Bill is able to snap his neck. He destroys the glass case and shoots at Charley's body parts. Charley, still alive, aims at Bill with the detective's gun, but accidentally kills Dr. Webb. Bill shoots Charley in the head, killing him for good.

Bill sits with his wife in a park. In his journal, he notes that he hasn't had any other problems with the arm after Charley's death, and he is still thankful to both Dr. Webb and Charley for the new arm.

The story is told in switching first-person narratives between Patience and Sarah. The first part is told by Patience White, a woman of considerable means compared to others in her town. Her father died and left her enough money that she would not have to marry to be cared for. She lives with her brother and his wife and children, in a room she has to herself, something her sister-in-law Martha considers an unnatural privilege. Patience paints Biblical scenes as a pastime, and helps Martha with the children sometimes. They do not get along well.

Patience has known of Sarah Dowling for a while since Sarah is a scandalous character to some, wearing pants and doing men's work. Sarah has a family of sisters and her father trained her to do men's work since he had no sons. Intrigued one day when Sarah delivers firewood to the White household, and to flout Martha, Patience invites Sarah into her part of the house and socializes with her. Sarah divulges that she plans to set out by herself and go west and buy her own farm. Not having the heart to tell her that she will not have the opportunity to do it, Patience indulges Sarah and tells her she wants to come along. In the midst of planning the trip west, Sarah admits she feels for Patience, and although too aware of the danger, Patience also admits her attraction for Sarah.

Sarah returns to her much poorer home, where she lives with her large family in a one-room cabin. She tells her sister Rachel that she's going west with Patience as her mate, and Rachel, upset by being replaced to go west by Patience, tells their father. He beats Sarah, then drags her to Patience's home to demand to know the nature of their relationship. Faced with having to admit their acts in front of witnesses, Patience denies she feels anything for Sarah and claims that it was all a game.

The narrative switches to Sarah's perspective as she cuts off all her hair, renames herself "Sam", takes an axe and walks west alone, healing from the beatings her father gave her (no harm meant, he says). After a few experiences that demonstrate the risks of freedom, Sam takes up with a traveling preacher named Parson. He goes from town to town selling books in a horse-drawn rig he sleeps in. He teaches Sam to defend himself against boys in towns, to cook, about the Bible and other cultures, but most importantly, to read. In time, Parson admits he's attracted to Sam and when he tries to seduce Sam, Sarah admits her true identity.

Away about six months, Sarah heads home again as Parson heads towards New York, his home. Patience arrives the next day to casually invite her to Sunday dinner. Sarah accepts, and their relationship starts again after Patience admits she lost her courage. They carry on their relationship, Sarah visiting Patience on Sundays, sometimes bringing a sister or her mother. But when they are caught by Martha embracing with their bodices open, Patience's brother tells them it's time for them to go.

They head to New York City with brother Edward's blessing. Thinking Sarah is lower-class, a man on the ship assaults her, but Patience rescues her and teaches her the necessary points of being a lady. They lodge with the captain and in their first locked room alone, consummate their relationship. They meet up with Parson again and decide that Greene County in upstate New York will be their destination, where land is cheap and they can live in peace.

They arrive in Greene County and they negotiate the purchase of a small farm, plant their crop and begin their life together.

The story follows a man named Daniel Quinn. One night, he receives a call meant for a private detective (strangely enough named Paul Auster, the same name as the author of the story). Quinn is intrigued by the phone call, and takes the case. His employers end up being a man, named Peter Stillman, and his wife. Through the course of the narrative, Quinn discovers some surprising things about identity, language, and human nature. He also ends up meeting, not the unseen detective Paul Auster, but writer Paul Auster.

In one section of Paul Auster's original novella, Peter Stillman delivers a long, somewhat disjointed speech about his life and the job that he has for Daniel Quinn. In the comic adaptation, the interplay between words and pictures is particularly interesting, with the word balloons coming less often from Stillman and more often from inkwells, storm drains, and even cave paintings. Spiegelman was particularly impressed with this section of the book, noting how well it translated Auster's description of Stillman's speech patterns.

One night in 1931, Masked raiders led by Sam Hollis attack the "K" Ranch, where owner Wade Kingsley and partner Slim Mosley bravely defend their property after Matilda Kingsley and infant son Wade Jr. safely return east to New York, her hometown. Wade and Slim are murdered, but vow before they die that their sons someday will avenge them.

25 years later in 1956, the wealthy Matilda receives a visit from her niece Carol and cowboy Slim Mosley, Jr., who has come to New York City to compete in a rodeo. They intend to use Slim's earnings to buy a prized bull called Cuddles and take him back west to replenish the K Ranch's stock.

Sweet but inept Wade, Jr. has always wanted to be a cowboy. He goes to the rodeo, where his bungling interference costs Slim first prize. To make amends, Wade buys the bull for Slim and accompanies them back west by train.

After a while, Slim warms to Wade and agrees to become partners, like their dads. Out west, to keep townsfolk from mocking the tenderfoot, Slim decides to introduce Wade to one and all as "Killer Jones," a tough hombre. Due to his heroic actions in stopping a runaway stagecoach, with Slim performing the actual heroics, Wade ends up being elected sheriff, impressing dance hall girl Dolly Riley.

Ranch hand Pete Rio is secretly working with banker Dan Hollis, who is every bit as corrupt as his father was. Dan's got his eyes on the K Ranch so he can sell the land to the government, which wants to build a dam. Dan tries proposing marriage to Carol, but she rejects him, so he announces that the bank will begin foreclosure proceedings against the ranch.

In disguise, Wade infiltrates the gang of masked raiders. He is caught and bound to a chair, strapped to sticks of dynamite, and when Slim comes to his rescue, Dan Hollis knocks him cold. All seems lost until the boys manage a last-second escape. Dan is dealt with accordingly, after which the pardners and their romantic partners celebrate their success.

In a flashback, five year old Steven and his little brother, Dave, are in a hospital where their grandmother soon passes away. Adult Steven narrates how he always thinks about that time, what was said about his grandmother, and about what was muttered concerning the "family secret" between his parents and the doctors. He also mentions how puzzled he was when he saw the Superman logo as one of the letters on a doctor's examination sheet. This was when he first read a Superman comic to his little brother; this would set up his path into being a comic book writer, but needless to say, he is not a fan of the Man of Steel.

In the present, as Steven finishes his current comic book project, his agent calls offering him a job to write Superman. Steven refuses, because he doesn't get the character, but his agent asks him to think about it. Steven narrates one thing he doesn't get about Superman, starting with the costume: he doesn't get why would anyone would wear that, and it makes him think of a kid from his school who wore to escape his outcast life for Halloween, only to wear it in the days after and get bullied for it. He meets with his girlfriend, Lisa, who mentions his mother called her looking for him fearfully. He doesn't tell her the details after he calls her, because he is afraid to talk about the "family secret" that claimed his grandmother: Huntington's disease. It's also what has made him afraid of having children, despite being told his father doesn't have it, so he and his brother won't. Steven discusses the idea of the outsider, someone in his words people would still notice if he or she were absent in people's everyday lives. Steven meets with his mother to which she reveals his father is missing.

These recent events lead back to Steven breaking down Superman: from how flawed the concept of his invulnerability is compared to Achilles, or even the Titanic were until they weren't; which in turn leads to the concept of the fictional Kryptonite, and then back to the real life Huntington's. Steven gets his friend Raphael to take him to his Aunt Sarah's house to search for his missing father, but the house turns out to be abandoned. Afterwards, Steven meets with then-Superman writer Joe Allen, where Joe talks to the cynical Steven the grand design of what makes Superman special, only for Steven to suddenly snap and punch him in the face. With the issue with Huntington's, his father, and hating Superman when he feels he's a fascist, a troubled Steven turns down the job to his editor. But his editor helps clear his head and gives him an extension. Steven thinks of a dream where Superman is naked and locks himself from his home, it happens again the next day but Superman is in full costume while everyone else is naked, but its much worse by comparison because his hidden self is exposed.

Steven's issues affect his relationship with Lisa, and when he tries to find courage to talk to her, even imagining himself as Superman, he ends up breaking down and they take a break, leaving Steven alone. Staying in bed for days, he becomes weak until Dave finds him, when he learns of their father's disappearance. They both go out to find him, and using his credit card transactions, they find their father has been at a hospital where their Aunt Sarah is a patient. Steven already knows why before he heads to her room, and sees the grim reality of someone suffering from Huntington's. He is confronted by his angry father who then starts a fight with his own son. It is then that Steven reveals what was said back when his grandmother died: if his father and mother knew about Huntington's in their family, they weren't have had their children in the first place. And that is why Steven's father is angry, because he is ashamed that because it didn't actually skip his generation, he might've passed it onto his sons just by having them. His father stops and breaks down, to which they along with Dave hug, gaining hope that they'll have the strength to confront any obstacle. At long last, because of this, Steven finally gets Superman, and the hope the character brings to his readers and fans.

Some time later, Steven has accepted and has been writing Superman. He and Lisa are back together, and things seem to be happy. The last scene is of Steven seeing two kids wondering what's in the sky, a bird or plane. He joins them and says "it's Superman".

The characters gather on a cold winter night to rejoice in telling the story of L. Ron Hubbard. "Hey! It's a Happy Day!" A narrator notes: "Today we relate the life of L. Ron Hubbard: Teacher, author, explorer, atomic physicist, nautical engineer, choreographer, horticulturist, and father of Scientology!" Hubbard is born in a nativity scene, surrounded by parents and barnyard animals, as an angel proclaims, "Billions of years of evolution had climaxed with his birth." He begins to question the nature of his existence. He is adrift on a boat in the Pacific Ocean during his service in World War II, when he begins to think about starting a religion. Hubbard tells his followers about what he has learned through his travels in "Science of the Mind", singing about "the key to being free, the way to be happy". He tells his followers that during the war "I saw how emotion can make you blind", and he begins to teach his followers about the reactive mind.

, as described in a puppet show, 2007 Philadelphia production Hubbard thanks the analytical mind (portrayed by two characters) for helping him to find the answers he was searching for, and proclaims: "Thinking rationally is the way to be happy and the key to learning more." He announces to his followers, "You'll operate with your analytical mind only. ... There won't be any emotions to stand in the way of your success." As Hubbard tells his followers about his new ideas, they each proclaim to him: "You're right!" Hubbard answers: "Of course I'm right!" Hubbard's followers thank him for teaching them his new ideas: "Now the sun will shine / And the world is fine / We have got the science of the mind." A Church of Scientology auditor explains some technical Scientology jargon to new recruits, and the E-meter is described in a puppet show.

Finale, 2007 Philadelphia production As Hubbard's followers progress in their Scientology teachings, they learn of the story of evil alien prince Xenu. Celebrity actor characters describe their relationships with Scientology: John Travolta explains how Scientology "fueled his cool"; Kirstie Alley says that it helped her conquer drug addiction "enabling me to star in the fine television series ''Fat Actress'' and to promote the quality products of weight loss expert Jenny Craig"; and Tom Cruise interacts with sock-puppet incarnations of his new wife and daughter. The Internal Revenue Service brings a case against Hubbard, but he is able to defeat the tax charges by brainwashing his accuser. Celebrities Cruise, Alley and Travolta testify on Hubbard's behalf during the trial. Skeptics question Hubbard about the Church of Scientology's finances and methods of recruiting and retaining members. One young boy, left alone on the stage, sings about profound alienation. The entire company finally comes together to sing the "chilling finale", which includes the refrain: "Just don't ask questions / And everything is clear."

Allan (Hugh Grant) is an engineer working in 1930s Calcutta. He is invited to stay with the family of his boss, Narendra Sen (Soumitra Chatterjee) which includes his wife, Indira (Shabana Azmi) and daughter Gayatri (Supriya Pathak). Gayatri and Allan become romantically involved leading to tragedy.

After humanity almost became extinct at the hands of alien factions, the remaining humans rallied and conquered the universe apart from the Universal Heart, which spawned all life. As Captain Iconah, the player seeks out the Heart.

The Church appoints Vicar Juno to accompany him. When they enter the Lifewave Galaxy, they discover mysterious stone altars filled with bloodair (the essence of the Heart) and an organid ship near them. Then they meet the Cy-breed, a race of cyborg aliens. After a fierce battle, Iconah learns that the Cy-breed thought they were the Defiance who are recruiting to fight an alien race whom they are at war with. The Cy-breed and Iconah fend off the Defiance. Based on the player's choice, they fight at a trade system or the Cy-breed homeworld. Choosing to seek out this Defiance, Iconah's fleet comes to a sector filled with aliens humanity conquered in the past and have developed a new gene (Breeder) designed to fight the organids. Iconah manages to steal the gene and escape to the Great Trade Nexus where merchant Fax Chance gave them the coordinates to a possible clue to the Heart. Arriving in another system filled with altars, Iconah sees that the Defiance are at civil war because its leader, Loodweeg plans to destroy the Lapis altars for unknown reasons. Fending off the Defiance and protecting two altars, Iconah gets a call from Loodweeg himself who explains that the Lapis depend on the altars to find their way across the galaxy.

Iconah follows the bloodair trail to a frozen system, inhabited by the Cold Whites, an all-female race. After defeating a group of pirates, Iconah contacts the Whites. In a movie clip, the organid shape former accidentally enlarges the image of Il, the Cold Whites' leader, to where her torso fills the entire bridge, They then shrank it down to its proper size. Il directed Iconah to a system with Lapis altars and Cy-breed ships who were brought in for sacrifice to the Lapis. The humans demonstrated the power of the organids compared to the Lapis ships. After they destroy all Lapis ships, Judge Infinity arrives, towing along a Cathedral class-mothership. After talking, Iconah challenges Juno to take his fleet and destroy the Defiance. Based on what choices are made, either Juno goes alone or Infinity joins him. The player can ask for the assistance of the Cy-breed in this battle.

Two years after Juno defeated the Defiance, the Lifewave Galaxy and the Cy-Breed Empire had sworn their fealty to the Human Empire. Juno was then planning on performing a church mass and had Iconah seek out the Cy-breed leader, Nell Exer, and the others, Il and Infinity. Once all the guests were present, the Lapis attack the sector. Nell and Il flee while the humans fend for themselves. Retreating to Infinity's base, they succeed in stopping the Lapis from attacking them. Iconah deduces that the ship Il gave them as a gift is filled with bloodair. Juno assigns Iconah to execute both Loodweeg and Il for this. After obtaining the severed heads of the fallen leaders, Iconah is then directed to the Cerebrals. The player has the choice of doing some tasks for the Cerebrals or get the information by force. Either way, the player has to battle the Cerebrals. Iconah's fleet then comes to Rock City where he has to retrieve a Lapis altar in order to open a portal. After defending the altar from the Lapis, Iconah's fleet goes through.

By some joke, Iconah comes back to the day of his fifth birthday in his child form. His father explains they have to repeat everything again. After destroying two waves of organic ships, Iconah then enters another portal. There, he finds the rest of his fleet who he manages to convince he is real. Defeating the three gate guardians, the fleet escapes the time zone created by the Heart. Iconah is then reunited with Juno who had spent 50 years in the distant past, planning on eliminating all aliens before they can attack Earth in the future. Iconah attacks Juno but he escapes. He then makes contact with the Lapis. He goes to the Lapis homeworld and makes an alliance with the Lapis. The Lapis and Iconah defeat the Inquisition. He stops the mad vicer and restores the timeline.

The film is about a detective's hunt for a killer and the love affair that goes along with it.

In the continent of Polyphonica, spirits materialize in the world, surviving on the music that is played by humans, and live together with them. While the spirits do not appear often, some spirits have enough power to materialize in human or animal forms. Musicians called play using special instruments called which enable the spirits they have partnered with to manifest their true powers. The ''Crimson'' series follows the adventures of a Dantist named Tatara Phoron and his contract spirit Coathicarte Apa Lagranges (Coatie). In the video game, the player plays Phoron as a student at . In the first ''Polyphonica'' anime television series, he and his friends work together at . The second television series, ''Polyphonica Crimson S'', takes place when they are still in school.

Two Manhattanites, Prudence and Bruce, are seeking stable romantic relationships with the help of their respective psychiatrists, lecherous Stuart and scatterbrained Charlotte, each of whom suggests the patient place a personal ad. Their first meeting proves to be a disaster, but when they reunite sparks begin to fly. Complications ensue when bisexual Bruce's jealous live-in lover Bob decides to assert himself and do everything possible to maintain his status quo.

It is time for Ted, Dougal, and Jack to take their annual holiday. They go to the Kilkelly Caravan Park, where Ted's friend, Father O'Rourke, has offered them use of his caravan. Following the vague directions, Ted mistakes a rather luxurious caravan as O'Rourke's, only to find it occupied by a young couple showering together - the husband comes out of the shower while talking to his wife and discovers the Fathers - the husband, in consequence, is, like the Fathers, left confused upon seeing them. After apologising profusely to the couple and the gardaí, Ted recognises that their caravan is a compact, squalid model, with barely enough room for the three of them. Only then does Ted realise that Dougal forgot to hitch the trailer containing all of their games and entertainment back at the parochial house with Ted also making clear that Dougal also forgot to lock the door - instantly stealers come in and out of the Parochial House taking what they can find.

After putting a cardboard 'sleeping box' over Jack's head to put him asleep after they start to get fed up of the boredom of being in this caravan, Ted and Dougal quickly exhaust all of the activities within the caravan. Pushing Jack in a wheelchair, they later explore the only two attractions nearby: St. Kevin's Stump and the Magic Road, where the laws of gravity seemingly disappear - while Ted and Dougal are distracted, Jack's wheelchair is dragged up the Magic Road, and he falls over a cliff, screaming a rather long "Drink!" as he descends - the exact whereabouts of Jack now are revealed with a slight splash sound as he falls; the other Fathers think Jack has just gone for his own walk. After Ted and Dougal inadvertently come across the same young couple from the luxury caravan making out behind a rock, Ted has another word with the police, and he decides to report Jack missing.

After it starts to rain heavily, Ted and Dougal return to the caravan, only to find for themselves that Father O'Rourke has also promised its use to Father Noel Furlong and his youth group, who are cramped inside and having a sing-song. Noel's boundless energy quickly grates on Ted, and confuses Dougal. Ted decides they will cut their vacation short, but before leaving, Ted and Dougal hide in an outhouse to avoid the man from the luxury caravan seeing them for a third time, and they realise too late that it is already in use by his wife. Her husband, clad only in a towel, chases after the Fathers after his wife calls him about what the Fathers did as they get in their car in a bid to drive off. The man hangs onto the bonnet as Ted races away from the caravan park, the man's towel becoming lost along the way. Ted eventually stops, giving time for the man to, via being sent flying by the abrupt stop, get off; the man finds a glass bottle that he breaks slightly for the purpose of puncturing the tyres before he gives the Fathers offensive sign language for a enraged farewell bidding and walks off. Ted and Dougal, refusing to go back to the park if Noel is still going to be inside, look to hitchhike home (In the caravan, Noel and his group are performing an Irish dance to Irish music; as they do so, their movements tip the caravan over to one side - the caravan is now lying on one side as a result of their dancing but what happened to the people inside is unknown). They are elated when island eccentric Tom, transporting raw sewage in a tanker-truck which he, at the start of this episode was given the responsibility of driving, offers them a ride. He however hits the wrong button to open the door, and instead opens the sewage release valve, treating the Fathers to a foul drenching.

Meanwhile, Jack is later shown on a luxury yacht - as he regains consciousness, he discovers that he is surrounded by "drink" and beautiful "girls" - he has awakened in the company of two of his favourite temptations.

Part I (Issue #1)

Buffy is leading a squad of Slayers—including three named Leah, Rowena, and Satsu—in a raid on a large, dilapidated church protected by a forcefield. She reveals that there are at least 1800 Slayers now active, 500 of whom are working with the Scooby Gang spread over ten squads. There are two Slayers posing as decoys of her, lest she become an easy target; one literally underground and another in Rome publicly partying and dating the Immortal. Working with Xander, who is running things at Slayer headquarters in Scotland (Buffy refers to him as a Watcher despite his objections) with a team of computer workers, psychics and mystics, including a Slayer named Renee, Buffy and her squad find three monstrous demons. There are also three dead humans.

The demons are killed in battle. The humans have odd symbols carved in their chest and there are nearby automatic weapons. Buffy tells Xander to send a copy of the symbol to Giles, when another Slayer finds the machine that generated the force field, also presumably belonging to the victims. There is a shadowed spy nearby.

In Sunnydale, General Voll of the United States Army surveys the crater left after the collapse of the Hellmouth, calling the Slayers a threat to the United States government and likening their squads to terrorist cells. A government expedition is being led sixty feet under the Hellmouth, but is cut short when one of the exploratory members encounters something.

Buffy takes a break from studying the symbol to talk to Dawn. She is now giant-size; the others believe it was because her ex-boyfriend is a 'Thricewise' but Dawn remains quiet on the topic. The two have been feuding since the destruction of Sunnydale. It is revealed the government is working with Amy Madison who wants to destroy the Slayers. Amy has an ally that Voll has captured.

Part II (Issue #2)

Giles and Buffy, in different locations, are both disappointed in the fighting techniques of the Slayers they are training. They encourage the groups to use teamwork. Buffy compliments the Slayer Satsu on her skills and hair. In Southern Italy, Andrew is outside with a group of Slayers. He tries to go with a lecture on combat techniques but is distracted with talk of Lando Calrissian.

Xander wonders if Dawn has made herself giant sized to gain attention from her sister; Dawn splashes Xander in return. Elsewhere, General Voll and his assistant discuss possible plans to destroy Buffy and her Slayers, from Amy Madison to a nuclear bomb. It's revealed Voll has the same symbol as the victims Buffy found earlier.

Buffy has a sexual dream concerning Xander, which segues into a demon crucifying her. Amy Madison tries to kill Buffy, but fails and is trapped inside the castle by magic. However, she succeeds in cursing her with a sleeping spell that can only be lifted by the kiss of true love; later established to be simply one who loves Buffy.

Renee and another Slayer discuss the attraction the former is developing for Xander. Then kilted zombies attack, summoned by Amy. As the Slayers fight the zombies, both sides taking casualties, Buffy is visited in her dreams by a mysterious figure. Willow Rosenberg appears to force Amy to stop the zombies.

Part III (Issue #3)

The figure in the duster and red shirt is revealed to be Ethan Rayne, a former friend of Giles and chaos-worshipping sorcerer. He reveals that they are trapped within Buffy's dreamspace, the conglomeration of all of a person's possible dreams. Ethan urges Buffy to escape so she can help the battle raging outside. He gives hints about 'Twilight'.

Amy Madison is defeated, but Buffy is still locked in a coma. Only a kiss from someone who loves her can free her. Willow commands all surrounding her to close their eyes. They do and someone kisses Buffy. She awakens with the cry of "Cinnamon Buns!".

Giles contacts a demon of the same breed as those killed in Part 1, asking for information about the symbol found on the bodies. The demon insists that the symbol is meaningless to his kind. Xander warns Andrew and comforts Renee.

Despite being subdued, Amy's magics transport Willow to an Army base; it is revealed Amy has allied herself with Warren Mears.

Part IV (Issue #4)

As he prepares to torture and mutilate Willow, Warren tells how Amy found and rescued him from death, she is now his 'skin'.

Buffy's mystical allies will only be able to transport two back to the Army base. Buffy chooses Satsu and borrows her cinnamon lip gloss.

When the portal is opened, Voll has already set up a high powered energy cannon to blast anyone on the other side of the wormhole. Fortunately for Buffy, Xander had already taken the necessary precautions by rigging a large mirror to reflect the energy blast back through the portal, destroying the cannon and leaving Voll's squad badly damaged and uncoordinated. Buffy and Satsu then appear through the opening. Slayer Scythe in hand and Satsu at her side, Buffy takes on the entire squad, mortally wounding many. This gives her the perfect leverage for the location of her friend, as Willow will be able to heal them.

Willow is being lobotomized but mysterious elemental beings somehow manifest. They warn her that she cannot come back if she dies at Warren's hands. They inspire her to fight back. She goes 'dark' and frees herself. She slowly heals her own injuries. Willow also channels magical energy into Buffy. This and an illusion of Catherine Madison (Amy's body-stealing mother) allows Buffy's group to win, at least temporarily.

Buffy learns they are two miles south of Sunnydale. She discovers Voll has slain Ethan Rayne and is a follower of the concept of 'Twilight', the recurring symbol supposedly means the end of the Slayer line. General Voll believes the Slayers will take power because their demonic-origins will corrupt them.

Following the events of ''The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid'', Sheriff Hall and H7-25 (using the official identity of Charlie Warren) still get no rest from the military: because the little alien has not yet grasped the meaning of keeping a low profile, they are constantly on the move, and H7-25's father has had to pick them out of a tight spot too many times already.

Hall and Charlie eventually arrive at the city of Munroe, where petty crime, from vandalism to armed robberies, is running rampant, more so because the town currently has no sheriff. Charlie pushes Hall into staying in this place, and somewhat reluctantly Hall takes up the job in this chaotic place, with the help of the local radio jock and City Mayor Howard (Ferruccio Amendola). Soon the riff-raff in town learns not to underestimate the new sheriff as he metes out hard-hitting advice to stay out of trouble.

However, the local thugs turn out to be the smallest of Hall's problems. A task force of hostile alien invaders are preparing to enslave mankind with the use of hypno-wave devices and advanced androids; already they control the local authorities and military installations. Charlie immediately senses the true nature of these individuals, however, and after much persuasion convinces his big friend to look into the matter. But this arouses the suspicion of the alien leader (Claudio Undali); he has Hall arrested for snooping into matters of national security and Charlie kidnapped.

Hall manages to sneak out of prison, and after Howard has told him what happened to Charlie, the sheriff decides to take up the fight. Through the public announcement system Howard appeals to the citizens of Munroe for help, and the thugs and hooligans whom Hall has previously thrashed join forces with the sheriff, just as the alien leader executes the final stage of his plan to take over Munroe by sending the local state police force to a festival and round up the townspeople. Hall and his helpers engage the officers in a massive fist-fight and begin to win the upper hand until the alien chief decides to use his hypno-wave machine. The rioters are quickly subjugated, except for the sheriff, who wanders as if in trance to the military base which serves as the alien's headquarters.

As Hall arrives there, the alien leader and his androids discover that their hypno-waves have no effect on the sheriff (due to an earlier treatment by Charlie's wonder device). The androids are sent against Hall, but the sheriff's fists prove to be tougher than they are, and the androids' neural nets quickly end up thoroughly scrambled. The alien leader tries to activate a self-destruct device, but the sheriff takes a swing at him and he shatters like glass. Charlie is released from captivity and happily rejoins the sheriff.

However, as the town celebrates their rescuers, the military arrives to try and apprehend Charlie once more. Fed up with the constant pestering, Hall and Charlie take off into space with the old-timer automobile they were riding at the parade to join Charlie's family. But as soon as they have left the atmosphere, a small inconvenience makes Hall grumble once more: "Why does everything happen to me!"

The novel consists of five parts that tell the life of Gergely Bornemissza from the age of eight until the year 1552, when he is in his early thirties.

I. Gergely is a half-orphan and son of a poor woman, while Éva Cecey is the daughter of a landowner. They are nevertheless playmates. While playing in the woods, the two children are captured by a Turk named Jumurdzsák and have to join a trek of prisoners. Due to the cunning of little Gergely, the two children are able to escape and later also to free the other prisoners. Gergely's mother dies in a raid by the Turks, but the little boy is adopted as a foster son by the rich aristocrat Bálint Török, where he gets a good education.

II. Several years later, Gergely has to experience that Buda is captured by the Turks through deceit and his foster father Bálint Török is led away prisoner. Gergely meets Éva again, who has become a pretty young girl.

III. Gergely learns that Éva who is an excellent rider and fighter is to be married to the cowardly Adam Fürjes at the request of the queen. They flee together and get married. Together with some friends they plan to free Bálint Török from his prison in Istanbul. They go to the Ottoman city, but despite many adventures, they finally fail in freeing the Hungarian aristocrat.

IV. It is 1552, a force about 200,000 Turks is approaching the little town of Eger, the citadel of which is only defended by 2000 soldiers. István Dobó, captain of the citadel, calls on the troops of the emperor for aid, but no-one arrives. Gergely joins the forces who are preparing to fight in Eger, while leaving Éva home with their little son. Shortly after he has left, a stranger arrives and kidnaps the little boy. Éva realizes that the stranger must have been the Turk Jumurdzsák. She understands that there must be a connection with the siege of Eger, so she masquerades as a man and tries to enter the besieged castle.

V. Even though the forces of the Turks are overwhelming, the Hungarians in Eger are able to defend themselves. Eger's strong walls and the high morale of its defenders allows the fortress to withstand five major assaults and continuous cannon fire - almost 12,000 cannonballs land inside the fortress before the siege ended. In a stroke of unparalleled ingenuity, Bornemissza devises primitive but lethal grenades and powder keg sized bombs to use against the attackers, as well as a water-mill wheel packed with gunpowder which he rolls into the Ottoman ranks. Éva finally arrives at Eger. Though the Ottomans attack again and again, the citadel stands firm, with also the women of Eger joining the battle. Finally, the Ottoman forces withdraw. Gergely's and Éva's little son is exchanged for a Turkish boy who has been captured, and the family is finally reunited.

''Home Beyond the Sun'' is the story of persecution, faith, and escaping a world of fear. Bible-college student Jenna goes to teach in an area of China where her faith is forbidden. She discovers an orphanage, befriends Chinese orphan Chu Lee, and tries to help her get adopted by a family in the United States. Unfortunately, the Chinese police strenuously forbid this when they discover that Jenna and the prospective adoptive family are Christians.

Part I – The ''St. Barbara''

Mihály Timár is a young man working on the transport ship ''St. Barbara'' on the River Danube. The ship is owned by Athanáz Brazovics, a rich Serbian merchant living in Komárom, a town in Hungary, and is on its way back to Komárom carrying sacks of wheat. The owner of the goods, Euthym Trikalisz, and his thirteen-year-old daughter Timéa are also aboard. On the way to Komárom, they stop at an island, the "no man's island," which lies in the Danube between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian part of the Habsburg Empire, undiscovered and unclaimed by both. This island is the home of Teréza, a widow, and her young daughter Noémi, who lead a calm and idyllic life here. Another man, Tódor Krisztyán, arrives soon. He knows Teréza and Noémi, but is apparently disliked by both.

The travellers spend a night here, but Timár cannot sleep and overhears a conversation in which Krisztyán blackmails Teréza by threatening to reveal the island’s existence to the authorities. When Teréza says they have no money, Krisztyán takes away the golden bracelet Timéa gave to Noémi, then leaves the island. Timár tells Teréza that he overheard the conversation; in turn, Teréza tells him that her husband was ruined and driven to suicide by Krisztyán's father and, Athanáz Brazovics and so she fled to the island with her baby daughter. The latter was raised there, unspoiled by civilization. She also tells him that Krisztyán always demands money from her and wants to marry Noémi even though the girl hates him. Timár feels frustrated that he cannot help Teréza.

The next day the ship continues its journey. Mr. Trikalisz wantes to speak to Timár in private. He reveals that he is in fact not a Greek merchant but Ali Csorbadzsi, a former high-ranking official of the Ottoman Empire, who is fleeing the Empire because the Sultan wants him dead, his wealth was confiscated, and his daughter was added to the harem. He wanted to go to Brazovics, who is his brother-in-law, but the previous day he recognized Krisztyán as a spy of the Ottoman Empire (Krisztyán is, in fact, a scoundrel, adventurer and a spy of both empires). He knows Krisztyán will betray him and Austria will extradite him to the Ottoman Empire, so he has taken poison, and makes Timár swear that he will make sure Timéa arrives in Komárom safe. He gives a small box with 1000 gold coins to Timár and makes him promise he will keep it for Timéa; he also mentions that the rest of his wealth is the wheat in the sacks (which is worth ten thousand gold coins). Finally, he asks Timár to wake up Timéa when he has died – he gave her a potion so that she will sleep and they could speak in private, but if she was not given the antidote soon, the potion would kill her.

Csorbadzsi then dies. Timár is tempted by the amount of money – if he let Timéa die and reported that Csorbadzsi traveled on the ship, one third of the confiscated wealth would be his by law. Because of his honesty and his awakening love for Timéa, he shrinks back from the evil thoughts. He wakes Timéa, gives her the antidote and tells her about her father's death. Later, when they arrive at the next city and the police catch up with their ship, he tells them he knows nothing about the escaped Turkish pasha and his treasure and that they only carried a Greek merchant on the ship, but he died. Thus he saved Timéa's wealth for her. Later he begins to wonder that if Csorbadzsi's remaining wealth was ten thousand gold coins, that could have been carried in a bag, why did he buy wheat with it, which fills a whole ship? And if this is the whole wealth, why does the Sultan pursue them?

As they continue their journey, the ship runs on a cliff and sinks, with Timéa and Timár barely escaping.

Part II – Timéa

Timár takes Timéa to the Brazovics mansion in Komárom. Brazovics himself is not at home, so they are greeted by his wife Zsófia, their daughter Athalie and Athalie's suitor Lieutenant Imre Kacsuka, who was Timár's friend since childhood. Brazovics arrives home just when Timéa is introduced to her new family. He has just read in the newspapers that Csorbadzsi fled the Ottoman Empire with his daughter, so he hurried home to meet them. He warmly welcomes Timéa, but when he receives the small box full of gold and learns that the ship went under with the rest of the pasha's possessions, he becomes angry and accuses Timár of stealing the rest of the money. Timár coldly refuses the accusation, and asks what should be done with the sunken ship. Brazovics charges him to auction off the wheat, which is worth almost nothing, lying soaked in the sunken ship. Timár leaves. Brazovics and his wife agree that Timéa's inheritance is not enough to raise her as a noble lady, but since she is their niece, they have to look after her, so she will be a companion to Athalie – not exactly a servant, but neither their adopted daughter.

Timár meets Kacsuka, who is in charge of supplying the army with bread. Kacsuka advises Timár to buy the shipload of worthless wheat and sell it cheap to the army. He assures him that the army will buy from him, not from others, since he can sell the cheapest wheat, and he will gain a great profit. Timár is hesitating, for he knows what poor quality the bread made of that wheat will be, but when Kacsuka tells him that this way he could make some money to compensate Timéa for the loss of her inheritance, he agrees. He buys the shipload and inspects the workers bringing it out from the river. He notices a red crescent painted on one of the sacks and recalls Csorbadzsi's last words, when he said something about the red crescent but couldn't finish the sentence before he died. Timár takes away that sack when nobody notices, and opening it he finds it to be full of treasure.

He struggles with his conscience. He feels that it rightfully belongs to Timéa, but he also knows that if he gave it to her now, all of it would be taken by Brazovics. Finally, he decides he will keep the money, invest it, increase his wealth and later he will ask Timéa to marry him, sharing his wealth with her. Still, a voice deep in his mind says "you are a thief".

Timár becomes rich, buys a house in the town and is invited to the social events of the elite. Only Brazovics suspects that there's something amiss. One night Timár, to fend off all danger, pretends to be drunk and tells Brazovics about making bread from the drenched wheat and selling it to the army. Brazovics swears he will keep that information secret, but of course he immediately reports Timár to the Ministry of Finance, which was in charge of funding the supply of the army. There is, however, no one to bear witness against Timár; all the soldiers say they never ate better bread than what Timár sold them. Timár is thus acquitted of all charges, and everyone expects him to demand compensation from the minister who ordered the investigation. But Timár is still looking for a way to explain to the world how he became rich, in order to be able to use the rest of his wealth too. He travels to Vienna, asks for an audience with the minister, and asks him to lease out a land on the countryside, in Levetinc to him. The minister, pleased that Timár is not demanding an apology for the false accusations, and knowing that the previous tenant of that land went into debt, agrees. He also makes Timár a nobleman, with the title "of Levetinc" added to his name.

Timár, as the new landlord of Levetinc, is supervising the agricultural work on the fields. He gains more and more money and becomes the richest wheat merchant in Komárom. He gives a lot to charity, founds a hospital, gives money to schools, churches, and beggars. He is like King Midas, everything he touches becomes gold, each of his investments is successful, and the people in the town nickname him “the man with the golden touch”. However, he still feels deep in his heart that all this wealth does not belong to him.

Meanwhile, Athalie Brazovics is preparing for her wedding with Kacsuka. Her father, Athanáz Brazovics hates and envies Timár for his success, but always greets him with a warm welcome in his house, thinking that he is courting Athalie, and not knowing that he visits them because of Timéa.

Athalie is playing a cruel game – she knows that Timéa is in love with Kacsuka, and told her that Kacsuka will marry her. Timéa is sewing and embroidering her bridal gown, not knowing that it is Athalie's, not her own, and it will be Athalie marrying Kacsuka, not her. She even converts to Christianity for the marriage's sake. Timár knows about this cruel game and dislikes Athalie and her family more and more.

Brazovics asks Timár if he is planning to ask for Athalie's hand. Timár refuses this, and tells Brazovics he finds his treatment of Timéa disgusting. He tells him that he had better fear the day when they'll meet again. He says goodbye to Timéa, promising her he will return, and then leaves.

The whole town follows Timár's actions in the financial world and when he starts buying land near Komárom, Brazovics thinks Timár knows something he doesn't. He guesses that it must be that the State plans fortifications to be extended around the town; therefore, the lands will be expropriated and the owners will get a large compensation, much more than the lands were originally worth. The only question is where will this work begin, since construction will last for at least thirty years, and in order to gain much, one has to buy the lands where the constructions will be started first. With false information, Timár tricks Brazovics into investing all his money into lands where the construction will not start in the following decades.

The day of Athalie's wedding has come. When Timéa wakes up, she sees Athalie in the bridal dress she made for herself, and realizes that it will be Athalie's wedding, not hers.

The news comes that Brazovics is ruined, and that the lands he invested in are worthless. He dies. Kacsuka breaks his engagement with Athalie, for he only wanted her for her money. Brazovics's creditors are demanding their money, and all of his property is auctioned off. Timár buys everything and gives it to Timéa, then asks her to marry him. Timéa, although she loves Kacsuka, agrees to marry him, out of gratitude. She asks Timár to allow Athalie and her mother to stay with them. Timár agrees and offers to give a rich dowry to Athalie so that she can marry the Kacsuka, but Athalie says she doesn't want Kacsuka any more. She says she will stay with them as Timéa's servant girl.

Part III – The "No Man's Island"

After the wedding, Timár realizes that though Timéa respects him enormously, she is not in love with him. He provides Timéa with gifts, jewels, and travels to foreign countries, in the hope of making her falling in love with him, but without any success. They move into the luxurious Brazovics mansion in Komárom. Athalie is intent on making them miserable.

Timár begins to suspect that Timéa loves someone else. He decides to test her. He tells her he will travel to Levetinc and spend a month there. He leaves, but returns the same night to see if Timéa is with someone else. He finds the sleeping Timéa alone in her bedroom. He runs into Athalie who knows what's on his mind. Athalie, who is watching Timéa's every move, tells Timár that Timéa does not love him, and confirms Timár's suspicions about who Timéa loves; but she also tells him that Timéa is faithful to him and will always remain faithful. Timár feels he cannot stay, and leaves his home as if pursued.

In his travels he finds himself near the No Man's Island, and decides to visit its dwellers. He feels at home with Teréza and Noémi, who is now sixteen years old. Noémi carefully asks him if he has anybody waiting for him to return home, and Timár lies and tells her that no one is waiting for him.

Part IV – Noémi

In the winter, Timar arranges for the affairs of the farm, and as spring arrives, he rushes down to the island of Nobody to Noémi.  When he arrives, he sadly sees that last year’s flood killed the beautiful big walnut trees.  When he reaches the hut, he finds a small child with the two women.  Teresa says the son of a smuggler who died here ... Timar immediately falls in love with the child and decides to cut down the walnut trees and build a house for them.  However, as autumn approaches, Mihály leaves the island again.

At home, on the advice of doctors, he sends Timea to Meran with Athalie.  He himself receives a sculptor and builds a revelry with him on his monastery estate.  He will help him on his own, he will still need experience ... Spring will find him again on the island, where he dispels the suspicions of fishermen by calling his carpentry tools a weapon, and so the locals consider him a freedom hero.

On the island, Timar continues to build the house, but suddenly the "onion glaze" (typhus) falls off his feet, and he only lies for weeks while Noémi nurtures him unbroken.  When Mihály's condition starts to improve, it turns out that little Dódi has a throat lizard.  The disease is incurable, his body is buried on the island, a rose bush is planted above it, but Mihály dares to tell this only after he has fully recovered.

After what happened, Timar goes home again, where they immediately see that he is ill, that he is in danger of death.  The doctors advise him to travel somewhere, so he goes to his castle in the Balaton Uplands.  Here, after a long, lonely contemplation, he realizes that he can no longer live such a double life.  First, decide to end your life.  To this end, he also travels to the island of Nobody in the spring.

However, when he arrives on the island, he gets a new purpose in life, and he finds a little boy in the hut again.  According to Teréza, he is also the son of a dead smuggler ... Timár continues to build a house, which he successfully completes in four years.  Then Teréza tells him bad news: his heart is sick, he will die again this year.  Hearing this, Archbishop Sándorovics arrives on the island to confess Teresa, but the woman is already a little distant from her religion.  It doesn't matter that the priest doesn't break into the other room because he wants to know who Noémi's future will be.  Only the presence of the woman's soul saves the situation.  Teresa will soon leave the living.  She is buried in an unmarked grave on the island of Nobody without a coffin.

Part V – Athalie

When Timar returns home, Athalie tells him that Timea is unfaithful.  He recommends that Timar pretend to leave and then shows him a secret corridor from which he can listen to the conversation between Timéa and Kacsuka, who has since been promoted to major.  However, the dialogue reveals something completely different: Mr. Kacsuka defended Timar’s honor against a tramp in a duel, and Timea assures him that he is loyal to his grave.  Timar leaves the house sensitively and upset.

Timár hides in his house on Rác Street, where he starts reading his accumulated mail.  A letter reveals that his protégé, Krisztyán Tódor, cheated on him and stole him in Brazil for being sentenced to fifteen years in galley, but he also escaped from there.  Reading this, Timar no longer has to stay in this city ...

Not to be noticed, he walks across the frozen Danube.  However, the fog descends and Timár finds the other side only after almost nine hours of walking.  Here he receives a car and transports him to his castle at Lake Balaton.  Local fishermen gather on Lake Balaton, under the guidance of Master Galambos, they cut down the lake and have a rich catch through it.  Timar celebrates with them and then writes his last letter to Timea, who also sends a small fish.

That night, Timar is resting in his castle when an unexpected guest arrives in Krisztia.  Not as good a soul as they were when they last met.  Mihály nails a rifle and tells him of Brazil's ordeals: He stole ten million thieves, but was captured and sentenced to galley arrest.  However, he is known in his captivity to his father, who told him who his principal was and that he had once followed him because of the fugitive bastard.  To his greatest shock, his father knew Ali Csorbadzsi, for he had once warned the Khazarnia that they were about to take his life.  But the bastard played him and didn't pay him, even though he promised his daughter Tódor!  From this, the boy "realized" that Timar had killed the bastard and kidnapped his treasures.  His father died in bondage, and he fled with his two companions.  And now he threatens Timar that if he does not hand over to him the island of Nobody with Noemi as a temporary hiding place, he will win over the Austrian and Turkish governments, and even Timea and Noemi.  Mihály jumps on this, pushes him out the door.  But he won't kill him, he's put up with his fate ...

Timár decides for the second time that he will commit suicide, so he goes to the roar on Lake Balaton to strangle himself.  However, when it gets there, the water raises the head of a corpse to the surface.  It is Krisztyán Tódor.

Timar visits the island of Nobody, Noemi.  Upon his arrival, the grateful Almira, whom on his previous visit still greets Christ, was wounded to death with his pistol, with his last strength, and then perished.  Michael promises to never leave Noemi again.

In the spring, fishermen found a corpse among the melting ice in Lake Balaton.  Everyone in the body wants to explore Timar.  And Krisztyán (as he was) is buried in the Levetinczy's own graveyard with the greatest honor, like the Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, the Italian Order of St. Moritz and the Brazilian Order of Annunziata.

Ms. Zofia visits Mr. Kacsuka, who tells her it’s time to break the long mourning, try to win the heart of Timéa, who is still in love.  With that, he wants to finally be able to marry Athalie too, because she can't take the house anymore.

Timar teaches Dodi everything, including writing.  He suddenly realizes how much Timéa is at risk for revenge-hungry Athalie.  Therefore, since no one else can write a letter home, they ask Dodi to write to Timea the secret corridor that opens into the woman's room.

The old scene is repeated, only the roles change.  Timéa decides to invite Duck to her "ball" of the name day, where she extends her hand to her.  In less than half a year, they are getting ready for the wedding at the house.  Athalie is now dressing Timea in her wedding dress.

The last night before the wedding, Athalie mixes dream powder into the maid’s drink, which is not consumed only by Ms. Sophia, so everyone except her sleeps.  He is lurking in the secret corridor, and after Timéa goes to bed after the major leaves, he attacks him with his own sword (i.e., Timéa received it from Kacsuka, with which he fought against Christian), but his cuts are not fatal.  Ms. Zofia wakes up to the noise and shouts for the patrol.  Athalie runs away, Timéa faints.  Athalie is later found in her room, mimicking sleep.

Athalie is sued, but there is no evidence, she denies everything and Timéa refuses to accuse her.  Timea asks her expectant husband to read the letters she received.  When the Major reads Dodi's letter, he realizes everything, revealing the hideout, with the signs of sin in it: the sword and the bloody clothes.  Once Timea recovers, the wedding takes place.  However, Timea has yet to go through the confrontation at trial.  Athalie is convicted, but she leaves one last sting in Timea's heart: she says only she and Timar knew about the hideout, so Timea's previous husband has yet to live.

Forty years have passed, but Athalie has never sought pardon during that time.  He claims that if he is released, he will kill Timea immediately.  And poor woman has long since died.  He was buried in Levetinc, so that the cause of his father's death, Tisztor Krisztyán, did not end up.

Forty years have passed.  The writer visits the island of Nobody with his friend, where a peaceful little colony lives.  Descendants of two people, about forty.  A man in his forties, Deoda, greets them, who leads their visitors to a wooden house where the "old men" live.  The old man greets them and asks the author to write his story: for he has "left the world in which they were staring and made himself a world where they are loved."  The islanders still have approx.  they can live in peace on the island of Nobody for fifty years.

The Tenth Doctor tells Martha that they are being pursued by the Family of Blood, who seek the Doctor's Time Lord life force to prevent themselves from dying. He tells Martha that he must transform into a human to escape the Family's detection until they die out, and gives her a list of instructions to follow. The Doctor turns himself into a human and transfers his Time Lord essence and memories into a fob watch that he asks Martha to guard.

They land on Earth in 1913. The Doctor has taken the persona of John Smith, a teacher at Farringham School for boys, and Martha acts as a maid at the school. John is quiet and timid, but faint memories of the Doctor slip through in his dreams. He catalogues the dreams in a book he has titled ''A Journal of Impossible Things''. John keeps the fob watch on his mantle, believing it is a normal watch. John has also become infatuated with the school nurse, young widow Joan Redfern, and shares his journal with her. Martha is concerned, as the Doctor did not instruct her on what to do should he fall in love. Timothy Latimer, a young student at the school who has extrasensory perception, discovers the fob watch and bonds with it, seeing visions of the Doctor.

The Family of Blood track the Doctor to Earth, and cloak their ship with an invisibility shield to keep it hidden. The Family seek out humans to possess, and take the bodies of several people including one of the schoolboys, Jeremy Baines. They also animate scarecrows to use as their soldiers. When Timothy briefly opens the fob watch and experiences portions of the Doctor's memories, the Family detects its presence at the school. Martha realises that the Family has found them, and attempts to retrieve the watch but cannot find it. John asks Joan to accompany him to the village dance that night, and she accepts. Timothy follows them to the dance and bumps into Martha, recognising her from the Doctor's memories. At the dance, Martha again tries to persuade John to become the Doctor by showing him elements of his past such as his sonic screwdriver. Now aware that John Smith is the Doctor, the Family interrupt the dance and confront him. They take Martha and Joan as hostages and give John a choice to either become a Time Lord again or watch his companions die.

Continuity

All ten incarnations of the Doctor are also illustrated (albeit not all are shown on-screen), with the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth clearly visible, marking the first time the faces of the Doctors from the classic series had been depicted on screen in the revived series. The pocket watch from the episode is also sketched.

Beaver Greenway, a longtime horse owner with a drinking problem, is upset because one of his mares has been lured away by Thunderhead, the wild stallion that previously belonged to Rob and Nell McLaughlin. He goes to Goose Bar Ranch to assist in the hunt for the wild stallion, who is now well known for taking the Albino's place in stealing mares from many different states but the McLaughlins no longer have any control of the horse.

Ken McLaughlin returns home to his parents from a horse-buying trip with Crown Jewel, a trotter. Rob is skeptical about the purchase, more so when Crown Jewel develops altitude sickness in the Wyoming hills.

Ken goes on a date with Greenway's granddaughter Carey. A veterinarian advises Crown Jewel be put down due to her congested lungs, but Beaver Greenway, a former sulky driver, recommends a treatment that works.

Thunderhead returns and lifts the mare's spirits. Crown Jewel is taken to Ohio to compete in the Governor's Cup sweepstakes, where Ken McLaughlin has entered his own horse, Sundance. Ken was going to ride Crown Jewel, but Sundance wins. However, all of the McLaughlins are proud of Crown Jewel's effort, particularly when they learn she is pregnant.

The book describes two "spaces" that exist simultaneously in the universe, each of three spatial dimensions, and each occupied by human beings of roughly equal technological standing. The people in the two "spaces" have no awareness of each other, but each has developed faster-than-light transportation that relies on navigation through a fourth dimension that the two spaces share. Through their joint use of the fourth dimension, psychics (called "psiontists") in the two spaces become aware of each other, and meet to exchange technologies. The residents of one of the spaces use their superior weaponry and psychic abilities to help the residents of the other defeat a Hitler-like leader who plans to kill or enslave all those who do not belong to his "Garshan" race.

The book was published almost twenty years after Smith's death, and edited by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach.Smith, E.E. ''Subspace Encounter''. Edited and with an introduction by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. Berkley Books, 1983. .

Annabelle Tillman, the worldly and emotionally mature 17 year-old daughter of a senator, is sent to Saint Theresa Catholic boarding school after being expelled from two previous schools. Simone Bradley, a poetry teacher at the school, is in charge of her dormitory. Annabelle shares the dormitory with an amiable classmate, Kristen. She also shares her room with Catherine, who tends to bully people, and Colins, a student with a nervous disposition.

Simone is a dependable and respectable teacher who occasionally bends the rules out of concern for her students. Her personal life is synonymous with abiding by the conventions of society and her religion. Annabelle is her antiagent, with unrestrained behavior, unconventional choices and outright defiance of authority.

Annabelle receives a stern rebuke from the principal, Mother Immaculata, for audaciously flaunting her Buddhist prayer beads. Simone is given the responsibility of controlling her. At first, Simone requests that the principal move Annabelle to another dormitory but soon notices her maturity and sensitivity and convinces her to comply with the school regulations. In the process Annabelle falls in love with Simone.

Simone ignores Annabelle's delicate overtures until they are left alone at the school during spring break. Simone takes Annabelle on a day trip to her beach house, where Annabelle discovers painful details about Simone's past. Annabelle holds Simone tightly in her arms as Simone breaks down and a deep emotional connection is established between them.

Simone struggles within herself to resist Annabelle, but is eventually moved by her relentless pursuit. At the annual school dance, Annabelle goes up on stage with her guitar and sings a song she wrote for Simone. Simone runs outside, but Annabelle catches up with her. They kiss, then go to Simone's room and have sex.

The next morning, when Colins wonders were Annabelle was because she did not spend the night in her room, Catherine suspects what happened and out of spite tells Mother Immaculata to check on Annabelle and Simone. The clock alarm had not gone off and as they rush to get dressed, Mother Immaculata walks in on them and orders Simone to come to her office immediately. Upon being questioned if she had thought about the consequences beforehand, Simone admits that she loves Annabelle. Police detectives arrest Simone (for statutory rape or a similar crime) and just as she is leaving, Annabelle places her most prized possession — the Buddhist prayer beads — in Simone's hand.

Inside Simone's room, Annabelle tearfully looks at the photographs taken by her at the beach house as Simone, gazing serenely out the car window, is driven away. The film ends quoting Rainer Maria Rilke: "For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks...the work for which all other work is but preparation."

On a little island on Trem Land, a crazed wizard named Hex, plans to take over the world using red meteor chunks. He can't do this on his own so he plans to set up an event to get all the meteor chunks and return them to Hex.

A number of nasty characters have signed up to the event, think that they have the guts to find the meteor chunks. All the characters don't know of what Hex is doing, so he waits until all the meteor chunks have been gathered for world domination. Hex mentions that for the one who brings back all the meteorchunks, will win a pig. Not according to the contract, one of the contestants named Sid, said that they win a Magic Sceptre. One of the Tremmals (Hex's Henchmen) saying agree with it, so Hex did. This is where the game begins.

Young prince Jan has been sent to a quiet coastal resort to study for his final exams, but instead he spends most of his time with his new friend, the lighthouse keeper. Jan ignores the warnings of the locals who claim that the loony lighthouse man (Armin Mueller-Stahl) eats seagulls for breakfast. Maybe the lighthouse keeper is crazy, but this does not prevent him from introducing prince Jan to the dreamland Taxandria, a phantasmagorical place devoid of time, memory, and progress. Jan learns that a reason for the lighthouse keeper's notoriety among the locals is that from time to time he hides political refugees from Taxandria from the authorities; in one scene, we see some of these fugitives arrive at the coast in a boat and taken in by the lighthouse keeper. It is however never made clear whether Taxandria really exists or if the viewer only sees what the lighthouse keeper relates to prince Jan, although once Jan is transported to Taxandria simply by looking into the lighthouse's rotating light while the keeper is away.

As a failed scientific experiment in the past accidentally removed Taxandria from its home planet (a disaster now recalled by the citizens of Taxandria as the ''Great Cataclysm''), all science, progress, and measure of time are outlawed as a consequence, whereas the ''Perennial Present'' reigns supreme. The land is ruled by two conjoined princes, always hidden behind a curtain, and their police force who insure that everyone there lives in the Perennial Present, as it is illegal to discuss the past or future. The police is headed by this world's evil counterpart of the benevolent lighthouse keeper (a double role for actor Armin Mueller-Stahl), communicating the will and orders of the mute Two Princes, making him the effective ruler of Taxandria.

While at first Taxandria seems a magical, wonderful place, Jan soon sees the darker side of this strange world. The people are not happy living only in the present; it is repressive. Soon he sees that many suffer from extreme paranoia. Aimé (Elliott Spiers), the son of the evil Head of Police, seems to be a catalyst for change in Taxandria, as he is obsessed with making new inventions and learning about the country's past. Later, Aimé falls in love with Princess Ailée who is trying to free herself from the paradisaical confines of the Garden of Mirth, where women are kept away from men, and discovers the secret of his father that made him Taxandria's effective ruler while being the Head of Police, as well as the true nature of the Two Princes.

Future: soft drugs are legalized, Bowling is Olympic sport and countries such as the Asian Union and the United Pan-American States have appeared. An assault group under the command of Gudvin (Gosha Kutsenko) breaks apart because of his conflict with Skif (Vladimir Vdovichenkov).

Five years later Lisa (Anastasiya Slanevskaya) has left Skif and is married to Gudvin. Russia, the Asian Union and The United Pan-American States have signed a disarmament treaty, but keep a close watch one another.

A state of emergency is declared at one of Russia's secret and, per international treaties, prohibited laboratories on an island in the Arctic Ocean, causing an emergency beacon to begin broadcasting, creating the risk of discovery by the other nations. To prevent this from happening Gudvin assembles his former group. By that time Spam (Anatoli Belyj) is jailed, Luba (Stanislav Duzhnikov) works in that same prison as a warden, Festival (Grigori Siyatvinda) is engaged in commerce of banned drugs (lysergic acid), Pai (Azis Beyshinaliev) works in a casino, and Skif ruins himself with drink.

Together they depart to that island to penetrate the base and stop the emergency beacon.

The protagonist of the book is Aasha Rani, a dark, chubby girl from Madras who has striven for seven years to become a famous Bollywood starlet. Her mother, Amma, has pushed her to attain this status by selling herself into the world of blue films before she was twelve years old, and when she was fifteen to Kishenbhai, a once-famous producer who was encouraged by Amma to take her as a lover in exchange for a film role. Kishenbhai, unable to secure a role for her any other way, finances a film with his own money after promoting her as the newest Bollywood starlet and having her sleep with the appropriate people to secure her attention and renaming her from Viji to Aasha Rani. He then proceeds to fall madly in love with her, who abandons him as she strives to get ahead in the filmi world, fully aware that she was just being used by him at first and is thus unable to return the affection of the older man.

She falls in love with Akshay Arora, a famous Bollywood sex symbol who stars in a string of hits with her. Amma, who had been living with her in Mumbai, was sent away to Madras by Aasha for objecting to Akshay beating her one day. Eventually Akshay gets bored with her and after his wife confronts her unsuccessfully about her affair with her husband, he reveals to ''Showbiz'' magazine that she was a former pornographic actress, and effectively has her blackballed from making further films. When she accosts him at a society party about this, he beats her. Sheth Amirchand, a Member of Parliament and the gangster that controls most of the Mumbai underworld, then takes an interest in Aasha Rani and she becomes his lover and restarts her career under his protection. She then has an affair with Linda, a gossip columnist for ''Showbiz'' magazine and Abhijit Mehra, the son of an industrialist, who is about to be married. Linda advises her to go to the south and do an art film, which she does, where she tries to seduce the director only to find that he is impotent. Her interest in her work declines as she continue to obsess over Akshay Arora. She confronts him at a traffic light as their cars are next to each other and their affair is rekindled for a short time. She attempts to get Akshay to marry her, but when it becomes apparent that his interest in her is only due to his flagging stardom and not out of affection for her, she attempts suicide.

Her lesbian lover Linda, meanwhile, writes a juicy scoop on her suicide attempt. After she recovers she rekindles her affair with Abhijit Mehra, but Malini, Akshay's wife, reports this to his father and he has his weak-willed son Abhijit cut the affair off and sends Aasha to New Zealand with instructions to keep out of Abhijit's life. Aasha then retires to New Zealand and decided to leave the film business. She marries a New Zealander named Jamie Phillips (Jay) and has a child with him. Since Jay is not Indian and not in the film business, it occurs to her that she does not have to retire once she is married as is the custom in India. It is then revealed that Akshay has succumbed to AIDS as a result of his promiscuous lifestyle. Sudha Rani claims that Jay tried to seduce her and in revenge, Aasha Rani initiates an affair with Jojo, the producer of her next film.

Aasha Rani is forced out of the film industry by Jojo's wife, who sends ''goondahs'' to threaten her. She flies back to New Zealand and meets a man called Gopalakrishnan who she has sex with in the bathroom of the plane. She discovers that her husband is having an affair with her babysitter and they decide that their marriage is over. Her daughter, Sasha rejects her and begins to have her own identity crisis as a multiracial child. Aasha then meets a young lady named Shonali who she begins to spend a lot of time with. She is a London socialite and call girl and introduces Aasha to London High Society. At a party, Aasha notices Gopalakrishnan, the man she had sex with on the flight to London. He turns out to be an arms dealer. She accosts him and later he has an assassin quartered at her house and threatens to have her daughter murdered if she tells. Shonali murders the assassin and ushers Aasha Rani out of the country.

Sudha Rani has meanwhile had a film financed by the mob and she begins to doctor the books instead of repaying her debts. The gangsters have her assaulted by some thugs and they set her on fire. Sudha Rani is badly burned and is forced out of the film industry, and Aasha reconciles with her. As Appa weakens, he reveals that he has kept position of a studio that Aasha can use to support herself by preparing her daughter, Sasha, to take her place as Bollywood's next starlet.

Rusty Angel

As he scavenges the Zalem dump heap for useful parts, cyberphysician Daisuke Ido comes across the remains of a female cyborg, who is still alive. Ido takes her home and decides to restore her, transferring her into a new cyborg body.

Shortly after, the cyborg, now called Gally, becomes interested in Yugo, a local boy who is performing maintenance work for Ido. After Ido returns home late that night, the following day Gally notices his injured arm, which he explains away as the result of a fall. After introducing herself to Yugo, he convinces her to go with him and the two leave just as Chiren arrives.

Yugo and Gally try to climb onto the roof of an abandoned factory, but they both fall. Instinctively, Gally manages to catch Yugo and land safely. On the roof, they contemplate Zalem as Yugo discusses his interest in the floating city. Gally makes her interest in him known, but Yugo's obsession with Zalem blinds him to this.

Ido and Chiren go out for a drink. Chiren is obsessed with returning to Zalem, and views being in Scrap Iron City and Ido's acceptance of his lot in life as a waste. He warns her not to get involved with The Factory, and says he has no regrets about what happened in Zalem.

That night, Gally is awakened by Ido going out. Curious, she decides to follow. Elsewhere in Scrap Iron City, a lone woman on her way home runs into the criminals Rasha and Grewcica. Before they can do anything to her, Ido appears and attacks Rasha with his rocket hammer, slicing off his left arm, but getting stabbed in the shoulder. Gally then arrives, killing Rasha by punching his head off. Grewcica, enraged at Rasha's death, manages to deflect one of Ido's attacks. He then fights Gally, who slices off his right arm with a kick before knocking him into the sewers. Surprised at Gally's abilities, Ido also notices her bloodlust and regret at not being able to finish Grewcica off.

Ido takes Rasha's head to The Factory to collect the bounty, explaining the nature of his work as a hunter-warrior. Gally, realizing that something has awakened within her, decides to become one as well, but Ido will have none of it, so she runs off.

After sealing their deal with sex, Vector tells Chiren that her part of the bargain involves upgrading the coliseum gladiators. Soon after, a damaged Grewcica arrives at Chiren's apartment, begging for help. His mention of Ido and Gally catches Chiren's attention.

The next day, Ido realizes that Gally's life is hers to lead, but wonders if her desire to follow him as a hunter/warrior is a result of some residual memory. Gally returns to The Factory and registers herself as a hunter-warrior, but when she asks about Zalem, the only answer she gets is "no comment". In the meantime, Chiren starts to rebuild and upgrade Grewcica to defeat Gally. Gally returns to Ido's, where he accepts her decision to become a hunter-warrior. That night, they head out to Bar Kansas, while elsewhere in Scrap Iron City, Yugo robs a cyborg of his spinal column.

Just as they arrive at Bar Kansas, Gally and Ido are confronted by a newly rebuilt and upgraded Grewcica, who uses a cutter installed in one of his fingertips to shred to pieces a stray dog that Gally picked up. Without help from the other hunter-warriors, Gally accepts Grewcica's challenge. Chiren then appears, wondering which of the two cyborgs will prevail.

The scene shifts to the Zalem dump heap, where Gally and Grewcica's fight is watched by Ido, Chiren, and an unnamed hunter-warrior (Gime). Grewcica has an initial advantage, but Gally is able to dodge his subsequent attacks. Using her superior speed and ability to generate plasma, she first disables one, then both of Grewcica's arms before slicing him in two, killing him. Chiren hysterically acknowledges her loss, but vows vengeance. As they leave the dump heap, Gally assures Ido that she will still remain Gally no matter how much she changes.

Tears Sign

As Yugo and Tanji prepare to leave an alley with their cyborg victim's spinal column, Vector appears and kills the cyborg to eliminate him as a witness, then admonishes Yugo for his carelessness.

At Yugo's place, Gally waits for Yugo with his neighbors, who are skeptical of his plan to get to Zalem. After turning down Vector's offer of a role in his business operations, which include control of the resources sent to Zalem via The Factory tubes, Yugo - intoxicated - is dropped off by Vector, who notices Gally. In his apartment, Yugo discusses his dream of Zalem with Gally. To help him out, she embarks on a bounty spree, earning bags of credit chips.

Later, a customer who has taken Yugo up on his offer for a lube job reveals himself as a hunter-warrior in disguise (Zapan) who realizes that Yugo is about to paralyze him from behind. Tanji attacks Zapan, who deflects his attack and kills him. Yugo throws a fire bottle on Zapan, engulfing him in flames and enabling him to flee, but Zapan knows that there will soon be a bounty on Yugo.

Vector, who is with Chiren at his office, gets a call from Yugo apprising him of the situation and tells Yugo to bring his chips to his office. After the call, a news broadcast reveals that Zahriki, the reigning coliseum champion after Grewcica's disappearance, has lost again. Vector tells Chiren that it will be time to rebuild Zahriki, but Chiren complains that this is moot as all her efforts seem to be fruitless. Vector then notices a newspaper piece on Gally, recognizing her. Chiren also recognizes her, and is surprised at Vector's scheme to have Gally fight in the coliseum for him by using Yugo as leverage. He gives Chiren the task of tracking Gally down with the promise of sending her to Zalem if she succeeds.

Outside The Factory, Ido is surprised at Gally having collected fourteen bounties in seven days, as she did not become a hunter-warrior for the money. As they discuss how Yugo and Gally feel about each other on the way home, they discover from a bounty update broadcast that Yugo is now a bounty. Gime is shown receiving the news as well. Gally sets off to look for Yugo, not finding him at his place. Chiren, who has been on stakeout, follows her.

At the same abandoned factory he visited with Gally in ''Rusty Angel'', Yugo finds that he is 500,000 short of the 10 million chips he needs to buy passage to Zalem from Vector. Gally finds him here, after which they discuss what Yugo will do next. He refuses to relinquish his dream of reaching Zalem. Gally confesses her love for him, but Yugo brushes it off. Desperate to know how he feels about her, Gally confronts him. Yugo admits that they are now partners in crime, and Gally kisses him.

Afterwards, Gally asks Yugo about the scar on his right wrist. As Chiren eavesdrops on their conversation, Yugo reveals his personal history about how the hand is a keepsake of his older brother, an engineer of The Factory who planned to fly to Zalem by constructing an airship. His wife however, betrayed him to The Factory and he was killed by a hunter-warrior (Gime) on the night the airship was finished. Gally reveals that she empathizes with Yugo's sister in-law, and offers to help Yugo get to Zalem. The discussion changes something within Chiren.

After the storm abates, Yugo heads outside. Hearing him suddenly scream, Gally rushes out to find Gime standing over Yugo, whose right arm has been cut off. She attacks Gime, who blocks her attack and claims his right to the bounty on Yugo. He also reveals his jealousy at Gally's having beaten him to all the bounties since Grewcica. Realizing that the relationship between her and Yugo has more meaning, Gime fights her with a double-edged sword. He gets Gally in position to deliver a killing blow, but she blocks his blade with her hands while charging it with electricity. A bolt of lightning that is attracted to the electric charge hits Gime, incinerating him. As Gally holds a dying Yugo and wonders how she can save him, Chiren appears.

Gally then goes to Ido's with Yugo's body and head and begs him to save Yugo. After successfully transplanting Yugo's head onto a cyborg body, Ido reveals that bypassing her life support system and connecting it to Yugo's head kept his brain alive. Gally reveals that Chiren did this, which surprises Ido.

Back at Vector's, Chiren tells him Yugo was killed by a hunter-warrior and that she cannot find Gally. As she is about to leave, Vector tells her that he will now send her to Zalem.

As Yugo lies on the operating table, he overhears Ido tell Gally that the idea of buying passage to Zalem is a lie and no one knows this better than he does, being a former citizen of Zalem. Yugo wakes up screaming in denial and escapes from the clinic. Gally races off in pursuit, while Ido sees the bag of Yugo's chips and becomes enraged.

Going to Vector's office, Ido confronts Vector about lying to Yugo. He also discovers what is left of Chiren: organs and body parts in preservation tubes. Vector reveals that this is to fulfill a monthly quota that comes down from Zalem, and presses a button that reveals Zahriki from behind a screen. Zahriki attacks Ido, who dodges the attack and slices Zahriki in half with his rocket hammer, which flies into and kills Vector.

High above the city, Yugo has started to walk on a Factory tube towards Zalem. Soon, a massive spiked ring comes hurtling down the tube, forcing him to jump to avoid it, but his feet are destroyed in the process. Gally reaches the base of the tube and prepares to follow Yugo, who has survived the first ring to come down, but has lost his feet.

After emerging past the clouds, Yugo can clearly see Zalem. Gally, who has caught up with him, pleads with him to return. Yugo is still adamant about reaching Zalem, but Gally convinces him that they can find a way to live in Scrap Iron City together. Another ring comes hurtling down the tube and Gally's warning comes too late as Yugo is shredded by the ring and thrown into the air. Leaping after him, Gally manages to grab his remaining arm and use her knife to secure herself to the tube. His elbow joints cannot hold however and break loose, but not before Yugo is able to say goodbye, leaving Gally on the tube clutching his forearm.

At sunset, Ido and Gally are in the Zalem dump heap. They place Yugo's forearm and Chiren's earring into a basket attached to a balloon, and release it in the direction of Zalem.

L.P.A. Flight 820, a Concorde test flight, is sabotaged which forces the plane to crash land in the ocean off coast of Martinique in the French Antillies of the Caribbean. The only survivor is a Jean Beneyton (Mimsy Farmer), a French hostess on the flight. Two fishermen find her, but then are soon killed off by a group of suited corporate agents who ride out in a speedboat, because they were witnesses to the crash.

In New York City, an American investigative reporter, Moses Brody (James Franciscus), receives a phone call from his ex-wife Nicole (Mag Fleming), who runs a local restaurant in Martinique, who tells him about an "important story". But upon arrival in Martinique, Brody learns that Nicole has died from an apparent "heart attack". Brody is devastated. Later that evening, while wandering the streets of the town, Brody is attacked by a gang of thugs, but is rescued by a mysterious local man named George, who owns a fishing trawler and tells him that Nicole was a friend of his and she was killed because she knew that the crashed Concorde flight landed on a reef nearby and the two of them decide to investigate.

Meanwhile, a shady businessman named Milland (Joseph Cotten) and his business partner Danker (Edmund Purdom) learn about the Concorde crash and after consulting with their associate, Martinez, plot to cover up any evidence involved with the crash. It becomes apparent that Milland and Danker are behind the events.

Brody and George are in a boat when they see Jean Beneyton jump off of the henchmen's boat and attempts to swim away before she is recaptured. Later, they arrive at the crash site and after donning scuba gear they find the wreck of the Concorde submerged under 100 feet of water in the Caribbean. While Brody goes inside the wreck, George gets his arm stuck in a jagged part of machinery and Brody has to amputate George's left arm to free him. Moses discovers explosive charges on the downed plane which were planted earlier by Milland's henchmen to destroy any evidence of foul play.

Upon surfacing, George gets hit in the goggles by a bullet as several henchmen in a speedboat appear and attack. Brody is forced to go back down under the water with two scuba men in chase. Brody outwits them by hiding in an underwater cave in which he goes back to the surface and pulls out the henchman who remained behind in the speedboard and steals it.

Brody then goes to the United States Consul of Martinique, and wants to start an investigation. He then takes them to the site and finds nothing. They call off the search for the missing Concorde. Brody then says that he saw Jean on a yacht. The Consul then says that if he knew it was Brody, he would have gotten him off the case as Brody was reporting a scandal concerning a Congressman.

Meanwhile, Milland and his men watch a video as the submerged Concorde explodes. They then find out that Jean is alive and being held for a $1 million ransom. At the same time, another L.P.A. Concorde plane lands in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which prepares itself for a flight from Venezuela to London.

That evening, Brody sneaks on board the henchmen's boat, where he overhears them saying that they want to get rid of Jean and also overhears them talking about their superiors taking down a second Concorde flight. Brody rescues her and they escape from the boat. After reaching the shore, Brody tries talking to Jean about the crash, but she is so shaken by the traumatic experience that she can't remember very much. In the morning, they hitch a ride on a banana truck driven by a local farmer. But soon Milland's henchmen, led by Forsythe (Venantino Venantini) find Brody and Jean again and give chase, but they are cut off by a construction vehicle.

On board the airborne second Concorde, L.P.A. Flight 128, a crew member turns on one of the inboard engines on the plane. Up in the cockpit, the pilot Captain Scott (Van Johnson) discovers something which same thing happened as with the first attack: loss of power. This is because a henchman puts vials of acid in the food of the flight which breaks upon being heated up and acid breaks through the microwave ovens and severs the electrical lines in the cabin.

In Martinique, Brody calls the Consul and has Jean begin to tell her story about it, but they are cut off as the henchmen are back. As the Consul calls up his associates in London with his ideas to what might be happening, the chase continues. The Concorde then loses radio contact with London control, and the cabin lights begin to flicker. Captain Scott soon regains contact with London, who suggests they run a circuit control. The London air traffic controller (Robert Kerman) also gets a call from Jean. The controller then reports they can't reach the Concorde. On board the plane, the navigator (Roberto Santi) then reports that pressure in the main cabin is dropping.

On the ground, Jean contacts the American Consul at a bank, but Forsythe and his henchmen arrive again, and she and Brody have to run. This time, the police are there and enter a shootout with the men in which all of the henchmen are killed.

Meanwhile, London Air Traffic Control gets radio contact with the Concorde on a VHF frequence. Captain Scott on the Concorde then descends the aircraft to a lower altitude below 12,000 feet, but London now can't get Concorde on the VHF frequency, either. Brody and Jean reach the American Consul and she begins describing what happened.

The Concorde banks and the number one engine overheats. London control reports that the crash began with overheating of the oven. The crew discovers the number one engine is now on fire, and they quickly extinguish it. The Concorde continues its descent, as one passenger becomes hysterical.

The plane then levels out at 9,000 feet. London control can now see them on radar, and proceed to clear a runway. Concorde then makes a beautiful landing. Brody is relieved.

The next day, Milland contacts Brody by phone where he wants to offer him a shady contract after reading the headline "Concorde Passengers Saved by Journalist". Jean thinks that he'll get a big welcome in New York. Brody jokingly states that he doesn't have to go, and they laugh. He says he has to pay a visit "to a certain bigshot". Jean then gets on an Air France flight to return to Paris, but before she leaves he says he'll give her a call.

Brody then calls his friend Alfie and says that he wants to "push a certain Humpty Dumpty off his wall". He says he wants to know the heads of the top corporations in New York City, heavily involved in aircraft sales to South American countries, specifically those most hurt by competition from Concorde. The credits begin over footage of a Concorde in flight.

The film depicts the lives of labourers who extract salt from the sea off the Araya Peninsula in Venezuela. Their method for extracting salt, virtually unchanged for centuries, depends on gruelling physical labor, but provides a dependable, if meagre, living for the men and their families. The film ends with a recently built plant for mechanised salt extraction that could eliminate the community's traditional source of income.

Inside an artificial insemination factory, a mechanical wasp hovering around the establishment is crushed to death by the machinery's gears, causing its vitals to drop into one of the jars on the conveyor belt. This results in a woman giving birth to a thumb-sized fetus-like child in her and her husband's house in a grim and slum urban town. Outside, a man in a black suit witnesses the whole scene and goes to an alley to encounter Pa Thumb, who picks up a ventriloquist box-shaped doll house to make his son's bedroom. The man simply grins at him but leaves when he gets creeped out by the ventriloquist's dummy at the window of a toy shop.

Pa and Ma Thumb decide to call their diminutive son "Tom," but their time with him is short-lived. He's soon kidnapped and taken to a laboratory to be studied and experimented on. After engineering an escape with the help of one of the lab's other captives, Tom finds himself in a town populated by people his size. There he meets Jack, a young warrior who hates the bigger people, whom he and the others call giants. Nonetheless, Tom convinces Jack to help him attempt to find his father.

The novel begins with Dreyfus being sent out on a routine assignment to lock down a glitter-band habitat for polling violations. His superiors send one of his deputies, Thalia Ng, to distribute software upgrades around the Glitter Band to prevent anyone from attempting a similar violation.

In the meantime, Dreyfus is sent to investigate the recent destruction of a habitat named Ruskin-Sartorious. Analysis indicates that the habitat has been destroyed by the flame of a Conjoiner Drive, and Dreyfus's team believe the lighthugger ''Accompaniment of Shadows'', the only one to have been near the habitat in recent weeks, is responsible. Before they can conclude their investigation, however, the Ultranauts take justice into their own hands and destroy the ship, but not before Dreyfus is able to converse with the captain, who convinces him that his crew were not responsible. Believing him to be truthful, Dreyfus and his deputy, the hyperpig Sparver, decide to investigate the matter further.

Dreyfus and Sparver interview digital backups of the inhabitants of Ruskin-Sartorious. Dreyfus speaks with one of them about the Clockmaker, an alien machine which formerly lived in a Glitter Band research centre, creating, as its name suggests, clocks, before it began a violent killing spree and was destroyed with nuclear weapons nine years prior to the novel. He and Sparver then analyse communication records from the Ruskin-Sartorious habitat, and discover links with an orbiting asteroid owned by the Nerval-Lermontov family (a member of which was called Aurora). They defeat its defence systems and penetrate inside, discovering a Conjoiner starship trapped inside. One of them, Clepsydra, has escaped and is hiding. She meets with Dreyfus and tells him that she and the other Conjoiners had been enslaved by Aurora (now an extremely powerful software entity) to use the Exordium to predict the future. The Conjoiners predict a future devastated by what is implied to be the Melding Plague, and Aurora has been planning to respond to stop it (use of the Exordium creates a new timeline which can be changed to avoid the future the Exordium describes). She and Dreyfus escape as a ship under Aurora's control arrives and destroys the habitat.

At the same time, Thalia has distributed the software upgrade to the required four habitats across the Glitter Band, but it appears to be malfunctioning; information access is shut down in the habitats she has visited, and servitors (service robots used across the Glitter Band) are rounding up and exterminating civilians. She and some of the survivors of the last habitat take refuge in its polling core tower, barricading the entrance. Outside, the servitors begin to construct "weevil" war machines using plans stolen by Gaffney, a Senior Prefect secretly in alliance with Aurora.

Back at Panoply, with Dreyfus in the field and out of communication, Gaffney manipulates the Senior Prefects into voting Aumonier out of office. Clepsydra is taken into isolation, whilst Dreyfus explains the situation to the Senior Prefects. Unbeknownst to him, however, Gaffney kills Clepsydra and frames Dreyfus. The Prefects debate what to do about the emergence of the weevils, which have now left the four original habitats and are moving towards others.

Before very long, however, Gaffney is exposed as the murderer of Clepsydra when attempting to interrogate Dreyfus. He admits to his role in the weevil outbreak and informs the Prefects that Aurora is responsible. Aurora herself contacts Panoply and demands that they stand down, claiming to be taking over the Glitter Band for its own good. Aumonier, now back in power, refuses and orders Panoply to ready for war. Although Thalia escapes from Aurora's forces during a disastrous attack by Panoply, simulations run by the Prefects indicate that they have virtually no chance of success; the weevils are destroying habitats and converting them into even more weevils, grossly outnumbering the Prefects.

Aumonier speaks to Dreyfus and tells him that the aforementioned Clockmaker was not actually destroyed nine years previously; part of it survived and was recovered by Panoply. The ultra-secret Panoply unit, Firebrand, was established to research it. Although Aumonier ordered it shut down, she now believes its members relocated the Clockmaker to Ruskin-Sartorious. As the Clockmaker was the only intelligence in the Glitter Band capable of defeating Aurora, she attempted to destroy it. Dreyfus confronts members of Firebrand, who confirm Aumonier's theory, but reveal that the Clockmaker was not in fact destroyed; Firebrand became aware of the attack in advance and moved the Clockmaker. Following them to the surface of Yellowstone, he and Sparver fight their way into an abandoned Amerikano colony, where the Clockmaker is being hidden. Sparver leaves to fight Gaffney, who is approaching the colony with bombs to destroy the Clockmaker.

Dreyfus meets with the Clockmaker, who reveals that he is actually Philip Lascaille, a character in ''Revelation Space'' who was believed to have committed suicide after meeting with the Shrouders, but was in fact scanned to produce a simulation, which was sent back to the Shrouders, who turned it into the Clockmaker. Dreyfus tells the Clockmaker what is happening. It incapacitates him and leaves. Regaining consciousness, Dreyfus meets with Sparver. They return to Panoply to find that the weevil attack has collapsed; the Clockmaker has uploaded itself into the Glitter Band's data network and is fighting a digital war with Aurora. As such, she is unable to control the weevils effectively, and the Prefects are destroying them in alliance with the Ultras. Dreyfus begins preparing to investigate the death of Philip Lascaille, having promised the Clockmaker he would bring those responsible to justice.

Set in the year 2001, ''Penumbra: Overture'' follows the story of Philip, a thirty-year-old physicist whose mother has recently died. After receiving a mysterious letter from his supposedly dead father, Philip follows a series of clues that lead him to a mysterious location in uninhabited northern Greenland. The harsh cold forces him to take shelter in an abandoned mine, the entrance of which collapses as he enters it, and he is forced to move deeper inside. Within the mine, Philip discovers diary extracts written by a stranded scientist who gradually resorted to eating cave-dwelling spiders as an alternative food source as his supplies diminished.

The scientist also describes discovering a psychoactive toxin in the spiders and deduces that, after eight months of using them to supplement his diet, it was beginning to have an effect on him. Philip begins to receive radio messages from Tom "Red" Redwood, a man driven insane by cabin fever. Red promises that, if he is found, he will give Philip answers. The game follows Philip as he descends deeper into the mines in search of Red while unravelling the secrets of their previous and current inhabitants.

Philip quickly discovers that the mine is inhabited by an ecosystem of abnormally large and hostile animals: dogs, giant spiders, and gargantuan earthworms, among others. Abandoned outposts and various papers scattered throughout the mine indicate that a secret society is studying some unusual phenomena inside the mines.

Following clues and solving various puzzles, Philip eventually comes to an area deep within the mine where Red is waiting for him. Red waits inside an incinerator, where he begs Philip to kill him. With no other option, Philip activates the incinerator and, amongst Red's remains, he finds an item that he needs in order to progress into a new area of the mine identified as "The Shelter". Once inside, Philip notices what appears to be a human watching him. Philip approaches the figure, but the lighting is suddenly extinguished, and Philip is knocked out and dragged away.

Detective-Sergeant Johnson has been a police officer for 20 years and is deeply affected by the murders, rapes, and other violent crimes he has investigated. He is plagued by images of violence, and he appears to be losing his mind under the strain.

His anger surfaces while interrogating Kenneth Baxter, who is suspected of raping a young girl. By the end of the interrogation, Johnson has severely beaten Baxter, who is then taken to the hospital where he later dies.

Johnson is suspended for the beating and returns home for the night, getting into a violent argument with his wife Maureen. Two of Johnson's colleagues come to inform him of Baxter's death and they take him to the police station for questioning.

The following day, Johnson is interviewed by Detective Superintendent Cartwright. During their long confrontation, flashbacks show the events of the previous night, when Johnson beat Baxter.

The flashbacks portray Baxter — whose guilt or innocence is left ambiguous — taunting Johnson, insinuating that Johnson secretly wants to commit the sort of sex crimes that he investigates. Johnson at first flies into a rage and strikes Baxter, but he eventually admits that he does indeed harbour obsessive fantasies of murder and rape. He then tearfully begs Baxter to help him. When Baxter recoils from him in disgust, Johnson brutally beats him while Baxter continues to taunt and laugh at him.

The film ends with another flashback, this time of Johnson attacking the police officers who pulled him off Baxter, and muttering "God...my God..." as he realises what he has done.

The series uses elements from all five of the live-action ''Fantaghirò'' movies, combining and rearranging various events and characters appearances. The main theme throughout the series is the love between Princess Fantaghirò and King Romualdo, which changes and affects everyone around them. The main villains throughout the series are the Black Witch and her master, the lord of evil Darken, both of whom appear from the very first episode. Various places and people that were not named in the films have been given names in the cartoon adaptation, such as the kingdoms of Tuan and Dana, which are Fantaghirò and Romualdo's respective home kingdoms.

The series revolves around the adventures of Fantaghirò, the youngest daughter of King Hadrian of the kingdom of Tuan. She is brave and outspoken, and refuses to be demure and obedient like all women are supposed to be. Initially unknown to her, Fantaghirò was born with a very specific destiny, which is to conquer all the evil in the land. Her passion comes from her great love for Romualdo, the prince of the kingdom of Dana. Throughout the series the Black Witch and Darken attempt to separate or destroy both Fantaghirò and Romualdo.

The novel begins in the fictional city of Kingsbridge, England in the year 1327. Four children - Merthin, Caris, Gwenda, and Merthin's brother Ralph - head into the woods on All Hallows Day. Together the children witness two men-at-arms killed in self-defence by Sir Thomas Langley, aided by Ralph. The children then flee, with the exception of Merthin, who helps the wounded Sir Thomas bury a letter with instructions to dig up and deliver it if and when Sir Thomas should die. After this Sir Thomas flees to Kingsbridge and seeks refuge in the monastery, becoming a Benedictine monk, while the four children swear never to speak of what they saw.

During mass at All Hallows, Gwenda is forced by her father to steal the money that Sir Gerald was supposed to use to pay his debts to Kingsbridge Priory. Forced to default on these debts he is disgraced, his property confiscated and he and his wife are left as pensioners to the Priory. This disgrace drives their sons Merthin and Ralph to seek to regain the family's fortune and honour. Ralph is accepted as a squire under the Earl of Shiring, while Merthin is pushed to the far less prestigious role of apprenticing himself as a carpenter.

Ten years later, in 1337, Caris and Merthin are in love. When a section of the vault of the Kingsbridge Cathedral collapses Merthin, now an apprentice carpenter, shows his genius by developing a cheaper means of repair than his master.

Ralph, now a squire to Earl Roland of Shiring, provokes a fight and has his nose broken by a handsome peasant from Gwenda's village named Wulfric, for whom Gwenda has a hopeless infatuation. Gwenda is sold for a cow by her father to be prostituted at an outlaws' camp. She kills one of the outlaws while he is raping her, and escapes. She is followed by her buyer, but is able to drown him when the Kingsbridge bridge collapses, a tragedy that kills many, including all of Wulfric's immediate family and Prior Anthony of Kingsbridge (at the hands of Godwyn's mother). In the midst of the disaster Ralph saves Earl Roland's life and is rewarded with the lordship of Gwenda's village of Wigleigh.

Gwenda and Wulfric return to Wigleigh and attempt to gain Wulfric the inheritance of his father's land. The inheritance is eventually denied by Ralph because of the grudge he bears against Wulfric. Due to his poor prospects, Wulfric's beautiful wife-to-be, Annet, leaves him. By months of intensively showing Wulfric her love and devotion, Gwenda finally wins his love and they marry. Gwenda then tries to win Wulfric back his lands by having sex with Ralph, but Ralph does not uphold his end of the deal. Gwenda's first son, Sam, is conceived through this liaison.

Ralph, as lord, is merciless and brutal, and he winds up raping Annet as well. Wulfric does not permit this outrage to go unpunished, and lodges a complaint against Ralph with the Earl on her behalf; though English law of the time forbids rape regardless of the perpetrator's social status, it is very risky for peasants to sue their lord. Gwenda, despite her consternation at her husband's defence of his former sweetheart, helps by interceding with Lady Philippa about Ralph's case. Thanks to her intervention, Ralph is convicted of rape and is sentenced to hang, but with the Earl Roland's connivance, he manages to escape and becomes an outlaw. After robbing and murdering many people on the road to Kingsbridge, he is eventually captured with Merthin's help, and is once again set for execution, but since the king has declared war on France (launching the Hundred Years' War in May 1337) he is granted a royal pardon on condition that he fight in the war (in 1339, when Edward invades northeast France).

Meanwhile, the monastery's Sacrist, Godwyn, a nephew of Prior Anthony, outwits his opponents and wins the priory election in an overwhelming victory. Godwyn claims to be a reformer, but turns out to be even more conservative and quickly begins to clash with the townspeople on a number of issues, including the funding and building of a fabulous new bridge designed by Merthin and permitting the townspeople to full wool for a growing fabric industry. Caris, who becomes the de facto alderman, is a particular problem, leading the campaign to get for Kingsbridge the status of a Royal Borough and emancipate the townspeople from the Priory's control. Despite being her cousin, Godwyn charges Caris with witchcraft hoping to have her executed to get her out of the way. To escape execution, Caris agrees to join the Kingsbridge nunnery. With his planned marriage to Caris thus denied, Merthin leaves Kingsbridge for Florence, Italy to pursue his building career. He becomes a highly successful and rich architect, and after hearing that Caris had taken nun's vows he marries Sofia, the daughter of one of his Italian clients.

Eight years later (in 1346), Godwyn steals money from the substantially more profitable nuns in order to build for himself a luxurious palace. In July 1346, Caris seeks to petition the bishop to redress this theft. However, by this time the bishop has left for France with King Edward III. Caris travels to France with Mair, an attractive nun from the convent who has romantic feelings for Caris; during their travels they start an intimate relationship, although Caris feels guilty that she still cares more for Merthin. Along the way, Caris witnesses the ravages of the war and acts as a field nurse during the Battle of Crécy, during which Ralph, having fled charges of rape and murder in England, saves the life of the Prince of Wales and is rewarded with his lifelong dream of knighthood. Caris's errand is fruitless, however, as the bishop of Kingsbridge as well as Earl Roland have been killed in the battle.

In Florence, the city is ravaged by the Black Death, having arrived in Messina in 1347. Merthin and his entire family are stricken, he recovers in the spring of 1348 but his wife dies. He remembers his love for Caris and decides to return to Kingsbridge with his daughter Laura (Lolla). There he finds Caris unwilling to renounce her vows but the two go through a sporadic liaison. At the same time, Merthin re-establishes himself in the community by solving flaws left in the new bridge during its completion after his departure.

Soon after Merthin's return, the plague reaches Kingsbridge and thousands die, and the city quickly descends into anarchy; this includes Caris' intimate partner, Sister Mair. Godwyn loses his nerve and flees with the monks to an isolated chapel where he and all the monks die except for Gwenda's brother Philemon, who fled, and Thomas Langley. After the prioress of the nunnery dies Caris is elected Prioress and promoted acting Prior in the absence of Godwin, and she institutes the use of masks and cleanliness which help to protect the nuns from the plague. With social mores loosened under the devastating effect of the plague, Caris regularly breaks her vows as a nun and for some time lives openly with Merthin; the townspeople, grateful for Caris tireless efforts, tolerate this, as does the pragmatic Bishop who himself has a long-standing homosexual relationship with his archdeacon. But the returning Philemon starts denouncing Caris, who must drop Merthin in order to continue her monastic and medical work. The disappointed Merthin angrily tells her he would not wait any more, but would find another love.

After William, the new Earl of Shiring, dies from the plague along with all his male heirs, Ralph sees a chance to become Earl. After murdering his young wife Matilda (Tilly) he arranges his marriage to William's widow Lady Phillipa, whom he has long desired, and makes himself Earl. However Philippa spurns him and leaves for the Kingsbridge nunnery, where she and Merthin fall in love in 1350 and she conceives his child. Afraid of Ralph's wrath, Philippa seduces Ralph to make him believe the child is his. As a result, Merthin and Philippa cannot continue their liaison.

After two years, the plague dissipates and Caris renounces her vows, after finally being able to run her own independent hospital, and marries Merthin. After ten years of hardship, the people of Kingsbridge are granted a borough charter, freeing them from the lordship of the priory, and Merthin becomes alderman. Merthin also solves the long troublesome problem of why the vault of the cathedral collapsed by dismantling and rebuilding one of the towers which he redesigns to be the tallest building in England. Although Ralph continues to harbour a grudge against Wulfric, he is forced by the labour shortages caused by the plague to allow Wulfric to regain his father's land. When Sam, the secret son of Ralph, kills the local bailiff's son and is sentenced to death, Gwenda reveals his true parentage to Ralph to gain Sam's release. Armed with this knowledge, Ralph blackmails Gwenda into having sex with him again. When Sam walks in on this, there is struggle in which Sam and Gwenda kill Ralph. Davey, Gwenda's second son, negotiates a free tenancy and marries Amabel, the daughter of Wulfric's former wife-to-be, proving to Gwenda that her life has had some worth.

Gwenda's conniving brother Philemon becomes Prior of Kingsbridge and even tries to become Bishop, but his ambition is ruined after Sir Thomas Langley dies of old age. Merthin keeps his promise and digs up the letter which reveals that the deposed King Edward II had secretly survived and had taken the identity of one of his attackers. Merthin trades the letter to a member of the king's court in exchange for Philemon's departure from Kingsbridge forever.

As the plague comes back, Caris's intelligence, practical sense and determination allow the townspeople to subdue this second outbreak, making her the most popular and revered figure in Kingsbridge. Merthin completes his spire and succeeds in making Kingsbridge cathedral the tallest building in England. He tops the spire with a statue of an angel modelled on Caris.

Romeo is a dog who once lived in luxurious surroundings. One day his owners decide to migrate to London and he is left at the mercy of the servant of the house, who dumps him on the streets of Mumbai. Left to fend for himself, he is soon cornered by the local gang – Guru, Interval, Hero English and a dog-wannabe-cat, Mini, who tell him that this is their domain. Romeo does not know the street lingo and is at a loss for words at first, but he manages to win the gang over with giving them haircuts. They love their new looks and accept Romeo as part of their gang. Together, they set up a successful dog-grooming business until Chhainu, the right-hand of gangster-dog Charlie Anna, arrives to collect "weeklies" (weekly protection money) in the form of bones. Romeo throws Chhainu out, and the others, terrified, go to Charlie to plead their case. Charlie threatens them with his trio of female ninja dogs, whom he calls his Angels, but Romeo tricks Charlie into allowing his friends to leave unhurt.

Romeo then meets Laila, who is singing from a rooftop, they dance and he falls in love. To win her over, Laila tells Romeo he must dance with her in front of everyone at the "Moonlight Club" where she performs. Romeo says yes, unaware that Charlie has long wanted her, and anyone who dares go near her is punished. However, Romeo braves the odds and dances with Laila to win her heart. As Laila starts falling in love with him, Charlie, in a fit of rage, captures and terrorizes Romeo. Romeo then promises that he would make Laila fall in love with Charlie. Romeo does not intend to lose Laila but plans to deflate Charlie's ego by having a disguised Mini pretend to be Laila and make it clear she's not interested. This only ends up exacerbating Charlie's ire, and Romeo promises him a second meeting with Leila.

The night of the appointment, however, Chhainu catches Romeo kissing Laila, who then shouts at Romeo telling Laila of Romeo's deal with Charlie and she angrily and violently slaps him and after she sees what Romeo had done says she never wants to see him again despite Romeo's pleas for forgiveness. In a pursuit, Charlie's Angels are wooed by Guru, Interval and Hero English, Chhainu is cornered by a mouse (and smashed with a "jumbo jet") and Charlie is chased and caught by the city dogcatchers. But just before Charlie is caught with a net, Romeo pushes him under the dog-catchers van to escape while Romeo goes, Charlie then convinces Guru, Hero English, Interval and Mini to create a distraction to get the guard away from the van, they all succeed and Charlie jumps on the van and says he will free Romeo using a pin in his chain to pick the lock, but the van begins to drive and he falls off, after which Charlie races after the van, losing the pin in the progress, but thankfully one of Charlie's ear hairs suffice.

They escape but Romeo feels there is no point staying as Laila said she never wanted to see him again, and Charlie badly wants her. The next morning, Romeo throws his sack onto an open train boxcar about to leave the station but Charlie arrives with Laila and the others. Charlie tells Romeo that he is a fool for leaving Laila when she still loves him, that he explained everything to her and says she is Romeo's and no one else's. He lets go of her hand and Laila begins to run after the train, while Romeo holds his hand out for her. Resembling a famous scene from ''Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge'', Charlie remarks "Where have I seen this before?". She reaches for his hand and grabs it but the handle Romeo was holding had lost its top screws, making him fall off with Laila, after which they raise their heads to each other and say "I love you" in sync. It then goes to the "Moonlight Club" where everyone is back singing a reprise of "Main Hoon Romeo" in party-remix.

Dwight Arno is an attorney who is divorced from his wife Ruth. Ruth controls custody of their son Lucas while Dwight maintains visitation rights. Dwight and Lucas are at a baseball game when Ruth calls, informing Dwight that he is late returning their son home. Dwight drives Lucas home in a hurry, thinking he might otherwise forfeit his visitation privileges. When he loses control of his vehicle, he strikes a young boy, Josh Learner, who is standing by the roadside.

Aware that he has struck the boy, Dwight decides to flee the scene. He further lies to Lucas, who has a minor injury from the incident, saying that they had collided with a tree log. Dwight later hears on a newscast that Josh died in the collision. Subsequently, he tries to cover up the evidence which implicates him in the hit-and-run. After the initial shock, Josh's mother Grace gradually tries to get on with life, but her husband Ethan obsesses over finding the perpetrator. Frustrated with the lack of progress the police are making, Ethan eventually decides to hire a lawyer, who oddly enough turns out to be Dwight.

Consumed with guilt, Dwight thinks of turning himself in. At the police station he is at the point of confessing, but, being a coward, he doesn't go through with it. The investigating officer, thinking he has come as Ethan's lawyer, admits that the case is going nowhere and leaves the room before Dwight says anything. While picking up his daughter Emma, who has begun taking piano lessons from Ruth, Ethan encounters Dwight again. In anticipation of going to jail later, Dwight asks Ruth to have Lucas for a week stating that it will be the last week for a long time. Sensing desperation, Ruth reluctantly agrees.

Ethan eventually discovers the truth and fears that Dwight would be sentenced to only a short time in prison. He buys a gun and arrives at Dwight's house just as Lucas has gone to bed. Dwight begs Ethan to take him outside and spare Lucas the trauma. Ethan forces Dwight into the trunk of his car and lets him out after a short drive. Because of Ethan's emotional state and resulting hesitation, Dwight manages to grab the gun and point it at Ethan. He then points the gun at himself and convinces Ethan that he wishes he had died instead of Josh. Ethan leaves Dwight to deal with his remorse. The film ends with Lucas, by himself, watching a taped confession to the hit-and-run that Dwight had made earlier.

Michael Nolan (McGavin) finds himself down on his luck following his divorce settlement, which has left him with nothing. During the repossession of his car, he makes chase all the way to the auto repossession company. His persistence impresses the owner, who hires him on the spot. Nolan is then teamed up with Larry, a 16-year-old experienced repo agent. As Nolan settles into his new career, he continually finds himself troubled by women, angry car owners, and more.

''Pot-Bouille'' recounts the activities of the residents of a block of flats in the Rue de Choiseul over the course of two years (1861–1863). The characters include:

The Campardons. Madame Campardon has a mysterious medical condition that keeps them from having sex (probably a prolapse since the maids describe her as "blocked"). The husband is having an affair with her distant cousin, who eventually moves in and manages the household while continuing the affair. Despite their best efforts, they cannot conceal this arrangement from their daughter Angèle, who learns all the secrets in the building from the family servant. The Duveyriers. Monsieur Duveyrier detests the bourgeois respectability of his wife's household, particularly her piano playing and takes refuge with a bohemian mistress Clarisse, an arrangement that suits his frigid wife perfectly. When Clarisse aspires to domesticity and respectability, Monsieur Duveyrier attempts suicide and later begins an affair with one of the maids. The Josserands. Madame Josserand is relentless in her hunt to find husbands for her daughters. Zola compares the business of husband-hunting to prostitution and indeed Madame Josserand trots her daughters out in society to snare any man who will have them, under the cover of respectability and decorum. Madame Josserand instills her contempt for men (including her husband) in her younger daughter Berthe, who is able to compromise Auguste Vabre and force a marriage. The Vabres (Théophile and Valérie). The wife, described as neurotic and somewhat hysterical, is involved in multiple, loveless affairs (it is common knowledge that her son is not her husband’s). The husband is a possibly impotent hypochondriac living in perpetual suspicion of his wife's behaviour. *The Pichons. Going through the motions of marriage, they have subjugated all passion in every aspect of their lives, including rearing their daughter, subduing any romance (Madame Pichon has an affinity for the novels of George Sand) beneath cold, hollow propriety.

Condoning the behaviour of these characters are the local priest and doctor, who use their positions to cover up everyone's moral and physical failings. The characters' habits and secrets are also guarded by the concierge, who turns a blind eye to everything going on. The sham respectability of the residents is contrasted with the candour of their servants, who secretly abuse their employers over the open sewer of the building's inner courtyard.

The novel follows the adventures of 22-year-old Octave Mouret, who moves into the building and takes a salesman's job at a nearby shop, The Ladies' Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames). Though handsome and charming, Octave is rebuffed by Valérie Vabre and his boss's wife Madame Hédouin before beginning a passionless affair with Madame Pichon. His failure with Madame Hédouin prompts him to quit his job, and he goes to work for Auguste Vabre in the silk shop on the building's ground floor. Soon, he begins an affair with Berthe, who by now is Auguste's wife. Octave and Berthe are eventually caught but over the course of several months, the community tacitly agrees to forget the affair and live as if nothing had happened, thereby restoring the veneer of respectability. Octave marries widowed Madame Hédouin and life goes on in the Rue de Choiseul the way it has always done, with outward complacency, morality and quiet.

This volume deals with the aftermath of World War I in Europe during the 1920s (with the Beer Hall Putsch, the Italian fascist regime and some of the important conferences) and later the Roaring Twenties.

After two disastrous affairs with married women Lanny marries in the end a rich heiress from New York, Irma. In the climax Lanny covers his father's stock market margin call on Black Thursday, Oct 24th 1929, then insists that his father sell all his stocks the next market day, thus escaping the carnage of Black Tuesday. His efforts to save his wife's wealth were not quite as successful, and her uncle was wiped out.

Category:Novels set in the 1920s Category:1941 American novels Category:American historical novels Category:Novels by Upton Sinclair

Maria Mercedes is a poor young woman who lives with her father and three siblings after being abandoned by her ambitious mother. Because of the lack of support from her perennially drunk father, she is forced to raise her brothers and sister on her own, working in the streets of Mexico City selling lottery tickets and juggling in a clown costume.

Santiago del Olmo is very sick and knows that he is dying. One morning when he is in the garden, he sees María selling lottery tickets in the street. He comes up with the idea to marry her just to upset his avaricious aunt Malvina after his death as a personal revenge. He gains Maria's trust and friendship, proposes to her, and she agrees.

When Santiago dies, María becomes the head of the family, making Malvina's ire burn stronger. According to Santiago's will, Malvina, her son Jorge Luis, and her daughter Digna must live there in his house with Maria if they want to inherit any of his fortune.

Since the murder of his wife on their wedding day, Jorge Luis has become a pessimistic young man, in contrast to his younger sister, Digna, who is a very religious and fearful woman, and who has never dated a man.

After María moves into the del Olmo household, she falls in love with Jorge Luis, who is weak and does not oppose his mother's will, always doing as she wants. Malvina makes it her life's mission to antagonize María. When she finds out that María loves her son, she pushes him to marry her in order to get the inheritance back.

She plans that after a few weeks Jorge Luis could make Maria give him control over the whole fortune and after that get divorced. Jorge Luis and María get married but they do not share a room nor do they live like a traditional married couple. Over time, Jorge Luis starts to develop a real and passionate love for María. Unfortunately María has another foe, Mistica, a sultry and selfish woman who used to be Jorge Luis' girlfriend, but then left him heartbroken in order to marry a wealthy older man, Sebastian Ordoñez. She realizes that she still loves Jorge Luis and is furious to learn that he is married and falling in love with Maria. She promises herself that she will get Jorge Luis back and starts to help Malvina get rid of María.

María then meets Maria Magnolia, a beautiful, rich, and sophisticated woman who is revealed to be her real mother. Maria Magnolia has now remarried and has another son, but she deeply regrets having left her family. She gains María's trust and starts to help her children, especially Guillermo who is in jail and is the only one who knows the truth about her.

Maria Magnolia's true identity remains a secret however for María and her other siblings, Rosario and Andres, and all the things she does for them have to be hidden from her new husband, Rodolfo (an architect who is Rosario's boss and is also a friend of Jorge Luis' family) and their son Gustavito (who is the youngest half-brother of Guillermo, Maria Mercedes, Rosario and Andres).

Maria Magnolia teaches María good manners and how to seduce her husband. Not long after, Sebastian Ordoñes throws a high class party where he gives a prize to Jorge Luis and then tries to seduce María. Jorge Luis, moved by jealousy and by the sight of the beautifully well-dressed María, finally starts to fall for her and sleeps with her. Soon María learns that she is pregnant.

After María's father passes away, she and Jorge Luis go on a vacation that goes terribly awry because of the intervention of both Mistica and a local lifeguard who hits on María. Jorge Luis impulsively makes up his mind because of this and asks María for a divorce as soon as they arrive in Mexico City.

However, Malvina has other plans. She tries to drive María crazy with the help of Cordelio, the butler, and puts her in an asylum. María manages to escape from the asylum and hides from the police in the house of Doña Filo, a good friend from her poverty-stricken days, until Jorge Luis asks the police not to pursue her any more.

With Cordelio as her ally, Malvina tries to kill María but it all fails. Malvina recognizes Maria Magnolia's influence and begins to wonder if she could be María's mother. She tells this to Magnolia's new husband, Rodolfo Mancilla, who in turn goes to María's old house (where Rosario and Andres still live) and asks to see a picture of their mother. He at once recognizes her and later confronts her, arguing with her and throwing her out. Maria Magnolia nevertheless survives by helping out a French tailor who once recognized her talent and pushed her ambitions (which clashed with the need to raise her family; she chose her career over them).

Meanwhile, Jorge Luis realizes that his feelings for Maria have grown so strong that he can’t live without her any more. He asks for forgiveness and she returns to the house where they live as a real married couple.

Nine months later María gives birth to twin girls, one of whom dies a few days later. Jorge Luis then puts an end to Mistica's interference for good after she attempts to pin a pregnancy on him (the child was actually her husband Sebastian's). When he discovers that his mother still hates María, he decides that it is time to leave his mother and raise his family with Maria.

He stands up for himself for the very first time against his mother's wishes and leaves. Malvina goes crazy and dresses as María used to in her impoverished past and runs to the street where she starts to sell lottery tickets and clean windshields. She is caught and put in an asylum.

Maria Magnolia finally decides to tell the truth to her offspring. María at first is shocked by this revelation but her resentment shatters and she accepts her mother with love. Rosario, on the other hand, is disgusted and filled with rancor, a situation that remains until Rodolfo Mancilla (who happens to be her boss), agrees to accept all of them as his step-children.

With this, the sisters make peace and Rosario finally accepts the courtship of Ricardo, a younger friend of Jorge Luis, without any remarks by María. Since María and Jorge Luis only had a civil wedding, they decide to have a great church wedding in the Basilica of Guadalupe with all their friends and relatives, closing the scene after they say "I do", thus ending the soap opera with a romantic kiss.

The English version has 30 episodes, and the other three languages have 13 episodes each. The plot of the 13 episodes is nearly the same in all the language variants.

Hector/Sam, with only a very basic grasp of the featured language, comes to stay with his pen pal, Bridget/Sacha/Sascha/Lola. Living with Bridget/Sacha/Sascha/Lola is roommate Anna/Annie/Ana. Sleazy and sly neighbor Nick/Nico/Nic/Pablo lives across the hallway. Hector's/Sam's efforts to get to grips with the language provide the dynamic for the series' language learning content. The series is particularly suitable for adolescents and young adults who can relate to the contextual setting and implied meanings in the screenplay. The series ended with Sam and Annie's wedding being canceled, ending with a cliff-hanger; however, the English version had 17 more episodes which provides a better understanding of the character, continuing with Nico and Sacha beginning to date and facing problems, and Sam and Annie wanting to break up. In the end, Sam was offered a job opportunity in the U.S as a producer. The 30th episode ended with Sam questioning "Should I go?", and there were no more episodes produced, hinting Sam's departure. Thus the plot begins and ends with Sam.

A monk opens the play, introducing himself as a disciple of famous priest Hōnen Shōnin, and explaining how Hōnen once found a baby boy in a box at the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto. The monk says that Honen raised the boy, and, that many years later, a young woman came forth revealing herself to be the boy's mother, and explaining that his father was Taira no Atsumori. As the boy now longed to see his father's face, Hōnen suggested that he should go to Kamo and pray there for a week.

The monk concludes his introduction by explaining that this is the last day of that week, and that he has come with the boy to Kamo once again, to pray. The boy then tells the monk that he had a dream while praying, in which a voice told him to go to Ikuta Shrine in order to see his father.

Traveling to Ikuta, the pair come upon a small hut, where they decide to ask to spend the night. The man in the hut explains that he is the ghost of Atsumori. Through the intervention of the Kamo kami, Atsumori explains, he has been granted by Yama, the lord of death, a brief opportunity to appear here in the mortal world, to meet his son. He regales his son with the tale of the battle of Ichi-no-tani, in which he was killed. A messenger of Yama then appears, and takes Atsumori with him, back to the realm of the ''shura'', the hell of constant battle.

The story is narrated by Sekhet-a-Ra, familiarly known as Sekeeta. Most of the story takes place in the city of 'Me'n-atetiss', Memphis, Egypt, founded by Sekeeta's ancestor 'Meniss' (Menes). In the course of the narrative she becomes co-Pharaoh with her brother Neyah during the First Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. The narrative follows her life and training in the arts of war, statecraft, and metaphysics. All members of the royal family are routinely trained in the use of extrasensory abilities and taught a doctrine of esoteric discipline, reincarnation and karma. In the course of the story, she has an affair with a man named Dio from Minoas, and gives birth to a daughter she names Tchekeea, who becomes the fourth ruler of the First Dynasty, Den. Sekeeta rides a chariot into battle and engages in hand-to-hand combat to defend Egypt from invasion by the people of 'Zuma' (Sumer, which we are told is the land of the forerunners of the Babylonians), at the 'Amphitheatre of Grain', now the site of Tell el-Amarna. Sekeeta lives to an advanced age, dies, and is buried in Abidwa, the modern Abydos, Egypt. The name on her tomb is Meri-Nyet, her "priest name" which might be more properly rendered as Merneith.

The story follows Jaime Lara, a passenger whose ship makes a stop in Buenos Aires for one day. Lara elopes, leaving his wife on board, and walks around the city at night, coming to meet a beautiful yet frivolous hooker, Isa. Jaime and Isa go to a bar, and later on to her house, but Jaime would rather talk to her than anything else. Meanwhile, the captain of another ship, Cristian, is looking for Isa "to settle a score". Drunk, he meets Isa's neighbor and fellow prostitute, Tita, who falls for him.

Jaime and Isa walk around the city and make a stop in a clothes' shop. They have a chance encounter with a group of actors who are short of two people for rehearsal. When they see Isa try a gown, they immediately approach them and ask them to join them in the show. They're introduced to their ringleader, the pompous Pamela, who hosts a rehearsal for a few selected critics. Jaime and Isa perform marvelously, despite the fact they read from the script while acting. Pamela congratulates them and has them driven away to a n expensive hotel.

Isa refuses to have sex with Jaime, and the following day they take a stroll on a riverside park. Isa, unaware that Jaime has a wife waiting for him on the ship, questions him about his uneasiness, but he dismisses her questions. He promises that he will never leave her, and that they will both move to the countryside. For once, Isa is happy. They return to her home, where Jaime is distracted by the bellowing of the ship. Tita comes up and asks Isa down to her apartment.

Cristian confronts Isa in Tita's place. He tells her that he has changed, and asks her to come back to him. Isa, however, refuses, and goes back upstairs to find that Jaime has abandoned her and gone back to the parting ship. Tita, having heard Cristian's proposal to Isa, shoots herself dead with Cristian's revolver. A steward walks in and takes Cristian away back to his ship. The final scene shows Isa back in her usual spot, waiting to prostitute herself. As the screen fades to black, an embittered Isa remembers Jaime's promises of love and devotion.

Lidia is a woman who recently rejected his boyfriend, Alfredo's proposal to her. She then leaves and goes to a river afterwards. While standing at the river, she falls in. Edmundo, one of Lidia's coworkers, rescues her from the water.

Edmundo takes Lidia to her house, as she is unconscious. Her boyfriend, Alfredo, begins worrying. Not knowing where she is, Alfredo hires a detective to locate Lidia.

British agents try to stop a communist returning home from the West.

Coming fresh from the police academy, Dave Speed is sent to deliver a parking ticket to a member of a tiny Native American village in the Florida Everglades. Unbeknownst to him, the U.S. government and NASA are preparing to conduct a secret radiation experiment by firing a nuclear missile loaded with red plutonium into the village, which has been evacuated. After Dave arrives at the village, he is hit by the radiation, but survives and returns to civilization. His tale of having been close to the explosion is marveled at by most, but dismissed by Sergeant Willy Dunlop, his partner and friend.

Dave soon discovers that he has picked up a wide range of superpowers, including super reflexes and speed, endurance, telekinesis, precognition, hypnotism, and invulnerability. He is puzzled, however, by the fact that at seemingly random times, his powers suddenly fail to work without any apparent reason. Despite this, his powers enable him to discover a counterfeit money operation taking place in the city, which he learns is the work of a local businessman named Torpedo and his mistress Rosy Labouche, a former actress on whom Dunlop has a serious crush. Dave is less a danger to them, however, than an old retired magician named Silvius, who, after having inadvertently discovered Torpedo's counterfeit scheme, now finds himself chased by Torpedo's henchmen. When Dave sees them in pursuit of Silvius, he dispatches them and then asks Silvius. From Silvius' revelation, Dave realizes that his powers are neutralized whenever he sees the same color - namely red - that he saw during the explosion.

Dave reveals his secret to Dunlop and Evelyn, Dunlop's niece and his girlfriend, who are less than ecstatic about it. While Dunlop points out that Dave's precognitive abilities are unlikely to be admitted as evidence in court, Evelyn is not overjoyed at having a too-perfect man in the house. One night, Dave and Dunlop go to Torpedo's clubhouse, where Dave has Dunlop dance with Rosie (with some hypnotic encouragement) while he poses as a corrupt cop who wants a share of the winnings. By using his hypnotic powers on Torpedo, he gets the gangster to blab out the location of his printing facility: the fishing trawler ''Barracuda''. But in the meantime, Dunlop inadvertently tells Rosie about Dave's powers and weaknesses in order to impress her.

Once the information is obtained, Dave and Dunlop proceed out to sea to find the ''Barracuda''. Going aboard alone, Dunlop finds the printing press and the latest stash of dud money, but is knocked out by Torpedo's men, who lock him into a freezer and then sink the trawler to destroy the evidence. Upon his return to police headquarters, Dave is arrested following a trumped-up accusation by Rosie, who also makes sure that he keeps seeing something red to prevent his escape from prison. Dave is put on death row for murder, but his powers thwart the first three attempts to execute him.

Despite Rosie's last-ditch attempt to ensure Dave's demise by having a bouquet of red roses left in the execution chamber, Dave finally manages to escape prison and jumps into the sea, where he swims to the ''Barracuda''. Once he finds Dunlop aboard, alive but frozen stiff, he uses a borrowed piece of bubblegum to create a balloon, and both men rise out of the ocean and float back to the city. Having heard of Dave's escape, Torpedo and Rosie prepare to flee with Evelyn as their hostage. Dave manages to intercept them by jumping onto their amphibian aircraft and redirecting it to an airfield where the police are waiting. Finally convinced of the validity of Dave's powers, Dunlop confidently jumps off the balloon while Dave races to save him. At the last instant, he manages to catch Dunlop (though in the process they wind up plunging through the earth and straight up to China), and both return safe and sound to prepare for Dave's and Evelyn's wedding. However, Evelyn, still reluctant to have a super-powered husband, has decided to have the last word in the matter by having her hair dyed red.

During a state visit to Canada, President Adam Scott (Hal Holbrook) is warned by Secret Service agent Jerry O'Connor (William Shatner) about a potential threat to his life. Scott ignores O'Connor's warning and is consequently abducted (while walking through Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto) by South American terrorist Roberto Assanti (Miguel Fernandes) and his female accomplice. They demand $100 million in diamonds along with two airplanes as ransom for the president's safe return.

While Scott is being held captive in an armored truck booby-trap with high explosives timed to detonate at midnight, O'Connor must find a way into the truck to rescue him before that happens, while also contending with a turf war between various U.S. federal law enforcement agencies and the political ambitions of the U.S. vice president, Ethan Richards (Van Johnson).

Agent O'Connor eventually gets one of Assanti's terrorist group members to turn on Assanti, which caused Assanti's sister to die. O'Connor learns Assanti's plan for the president and develops a plan to save the President by going through the engine and firewall with a cutting torch.

Medfield College's Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) is about to be fired for financial mismanagement due to extreme overspending by Prof. Quigley's (William Schallert) science class. Higgins finds out the high costs are for renting a cow as a test subject; they are feeding it various concoctions to make it fatter. In a rage, Higgins fires Quigley then threatens to have his entire class thrown out of college. When the dean slams the door as he leaves, Dexter Riley's (Kurt Russell) chemical experiment mixes with that of another student, Richard Schuyler's (Michael McGreevey) vitamin cereal mix.

When the cow eats some of the cereal into which the mixture has leaked, the students learn that the cereal gave the cow the ability to produce a huge supply of milk, over 80 gallons. When Dexter eats it the next morning he gains super-strength, as does the fraternity house's pet dog.

Dexter shows the dean and Quigley his super-strength by picking up an obese kid in a chair with the right hand and Schuyler with the left. Higgins jumps on this as an opportunity to get Medfield out of its financial slump and keep the Board of Regents from firing him. Higgins takes the formula-laced cereal to the board of the Crumply Crunch cereal company and demonstrates its effects to the board and its president, Aunt Harriet Crumply (Eve Arden). They decide to advertise the powers of the formula-laced cereal by challenging Krinkle Krunch, a rival cereal company run by Mr. Kirwood Krinkle (Phil Silvers), to a competition between their sponsored weight-lifting team and Medfield's to see which cereal can give the other greater strength. Krinkle sponsors the well-funded State College.

Krinkle has a mole named Harry (Dick Van Patten) on the inside who tells the Krinkle president about the formula. Hearing this, he hires A. J. Arno (Cesar Romero) and some of his goons, just released from prison, to steal it. They break in, but are almost caught before they can get it. They then kidnap Schuyler (as no one knows that Dexter's chemical was the vital ingredient of the formula, rather than Schuyler's vitamins). They take him to Chinatown where they use Chinese torture and hypnotism to get the formula. They then hypnotize him to return home and not tell what happened to him. This accidentally causes him to steal a police car, leading to a car chase which gets him thrown in jail. Fortunately, without Dexter's chemical added in, the formula Krinkle Krunch has in the cereal does not give super-strength; when Krinkle tries it, he ends up breaking his hand. While he berates the mole on the phone, the mole realizes that if they do not know that the formula does not work, then Medfield does not know either and will lose the weight-lifting competition.

On the day of the competition, Dexter realizes it was his formula that gave the cereal super-strength; he sets off to the lab to get it, taking the Dean's beautiful but slow vintage car. When he finally gets there, he is confronted by Arno and 10 of his goons. By drinking some of the formula, Dexter is able to beat up all the men, then uses Harry to strike Arno and his men down like bowling pins. He hears on the radio that he must return to the contest in four minutes or forfeit. He adds some formula to the car's fuel tank, which makes it race off at high speed, shedding parts as it goes. He makes it in time to compete last, but the car is a complete wreck, to the Dean's horror.

Medfield is losing badly, but Dexter uses the last of his super-strength to lift the 1,111 pound weight and win it for Crumply Crunch and Medfield. Higgins and Quigley get to keep their jobs, Arno is imprisoned yet again and the scheming Krinkle breaks his hand again after eating the wrong cereal.

''Final Sacrifice'' is a ''Magic: The Gathering'' novel involving a tale of duelling wizards, with the archdruid Greensleeves and her brother Gull against Towser.

A solar flare from the sun sends a serpentine alien composed of fire to Earth where it begins to wreak havoc throughout a small community. During its search for more fuel to consume it stumbles upon a large military oil reserve. It soon becomes clear that an old man may hold the key to destroying it in the form of a Halogen Gun which may be used as a makeshift fire extinguisher of sorts. A small group of citizens decides to use this technology to make a stand against the creature only to face additional resistance from the beast, as well as a government employer who voluntarily helps the snake because he believes it is the spirit of a god.

Driving a car, Captain Black (voiced by Donald Gray) murders a filling station attendant called Mason by running him over. The Mysterons (voiced by Donald Gray) create a replica of Mason under their control. Later, con artists Steele and Kramer pull in to have their car's brakes serviced. Instead of topping up their brake fluid, the reconstructed Mason drains it. Back on the road, Steele and Kramer are unable to stop at a cliff edge and are killed when they crash onto the slope below. They are then replicated by the Mysterons, who transmit a message to Earth vowing to destroy the whole of North America.

After meeting with Colonel White (voiced by Donald Gray) regarding a "special assignment" concerning the Mysterons' threat, Captain Scarlet (voiced by Francis Matthews) visits a casino and, with uncharacteristic poor judgement, ends up losing $5,000 on roulette. When he is unable to pay his debt, the casino informs Spectrum and Scarlet is dismissed from the organisation. Broke, Scarlet moves into an Arizona hotel. He is soon approached by the reconstructions of Steele and Kramer, who offer to write off his debt in exchange for a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle. Agreeing to this proposal, Scarlet learns that the men intend to use the SPV to attack Nuclear City, Nevada. Their aim is to detonate a nuclear device within the city, creating a chain reaction powerful enough to obliterate the North American continent.

Concerned by Scarlet's recent behaviour, Captain Blue (voiced by Ed Bishop) goes AWOL from Cloudbase to track down his friend. When Blue arrives at the desert ranch house where the Mysteron agents are unveiling their plan, Scarlet appears to shoot Blue dead to reassure his new allies that he is on their side. However, he has fired nothing more than a tranquilliser dart and Blue regains consciousness after the others leave to steal an SPV from a nearby garage. He is radioed by a furious White, who informs him that Scarlet has been working undercover to infiltrate and sabotage the Mysterons' plot. From a map left at the ranch house, Blue learns of the threat to Nuclear City and relays this information to White.

The Angels are launched and intercept Scarlet and the Mysteron agents as they speed to Nuclear City in the SPV. Scarlet activates a smoke signal instructing the Angels to attack the vehicle. Realising that he and Kramer have been betrayed, Steele fatally shoots Scarlet, but the captain ejects before the SPV is destroyed, killing Steele and Kramer and saving Nuclear City. Later, the revived Scarlet is joined by Blue, White and Lieutenant Green (voiced by Cy Grant) for an off-duty night at the casino.

Four Star Studios is suffering a slump at the box office, and studio head Forbes, noting the enormous popularity of Kyser's band on radio and in concert, decides to sign them up to star in a movie. But to the band's disappointment, Kyser turns down the offer, believing he should "stay in his own backyard." Their manager, Deems, manages to change his mind, and they head off to Hollywood. Upon arrival, they're greeted by their producer, Delmore, and fast-talking press agent Stamp. Deems has rented an enormous house for them to live in, which upsets the thrifty Kyser until he finds that his beloved Grandma has been brought out to live in and run the place.

At the studio, things quickly take a bad turn, as top screenwriters Village and Cook realize that Kyser's unprepossessing looks and personality don't exactly fit the mold of the dashing romantic lead most movies require. After over 40 failed attempts to come up with an acceptable story, they tell Delmore it's hopeless. Fearful of being fired, the producer figures the only way out of this situation is to get Kyser to quit. He tells the bandleader that his girl, vocalist Ginny, will be replaced by rising star Sandra Sand. It appears to do the trick until the writers, feeling sorry for putting Kyser in this spot, concoct a way for him to put a monkey wrench in Delmore's scheme.

The series focuses on a rare species of little bears with wings that live in the magical forest in a utopian cooperative community. The little flying bears together with their friends, took on themselves the task to defend their forest from pollution. However, their efforts, very often, are disturbed by two weasels, Skulk and Sammy, who strive to pollute the forest. Every so often the weasels receive help from Slink the snake. The three always strive to find new ways to disturb the harmony of the forest but their plans are destroyed always by the bears. The bears are always attentive to the advice of the old bear, Plato (who is too old to fly) and his friend Ozzy the owl.

A ruthless preacher, Parson Josiah Galt, leads a band of Southern marauders during the Civil War that includes his sons, David, Adam and Jacob. The parson has turned vengeful and sadistic since the death of his wife.

David can no longer stomach what his family is doing. When his brother Adam tries to rape a girl in a Kansas town that the Galts have just raided and looted, David tries to leave. He is brought back, accused of "treason" by his own father and sentenced to hang.

Managing to escape, David returns to his wife Laura and son Pauly and relocates in Texas under a false name. They live peacefully there for six years and the war ends.

The robberies and killings by the Galts continue, however, and one day they turn up in the Texas town. A conscience-stricken David feels compelled to tell Sheriff Kirkpatrick who they are and who he really is. Then, in a confrontation, David kills his brother Adam.

Parson Galt and son Jacob exact revenge by taking Laura and Pauly captive and then kill David's wife. To get his son back, David learns of a train robbery his father has planned. He foils it and kills his brother Jacob. In a final showdown, Josiah and David fight and both fall to their death.

An all-American family inherits a deceased uncle's house. John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary Hyatt (Paula Prentiss), together with daughter Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) and son Billy (Kevin Brando), move in, but Waldemar (Jeffrey Tambor), a vampire, and Yolanda (Nancy Lee Andrews), his wife, want desperately to get into the rundown house because it contains a book of evil.

Billy finds the mysterious book. He reads of a curse hanging over the date of Saturday the 14th. As he turns the page, a monster is unleashed and with each turn, another disappears from the page and is materialized within or outside the home. The house is soon swarming with monsters.

Strange things start happening: eyes appear in John's coffee, sandwiches are mysteriously eaten, the television tunes into ''The Twilight Zone'' only, dirt is found in Mary's bed, dishes get done by themselves, neighbors disappear. As this is happening, neither John or Mary suspect anything, completely oblivious to the spooky occurrences around them.

Waldemar gets into the house by turning into a bat. Mary keeps hearing noises at night, which she thinks are made by owls, but are actually the sounds of Waldemar in bat form. John hires an exterminator to get rid of the bats. The exterminator turns out to be Van Helsing (Severn Darden), who is also after the book of evil.

John and Mary begin planning a housewarming party for Saturday the 14th. Guests arrive, but they cannot leave. When they try, a thunderstorm appears outside the door. As the night unfolds, the monsters begin to kill the guests one by one.

Eventually a duel between Van Helsing and Waldemar and Yolanda erupts, where it is discovered that Van Helsing wants the book in order to rule the world and Waldemar and Yolanda were only trying to stop him from getting his hands on it. Good triumphs over evil, as Van Helsing and the monsters are defeated.

The Hyatts end up in an upscale new home, while Waldemar and Yolanda keep the original house as their own.

Juan Robles, the son of a police superintendent, becomes involved in crime and is sentenced to a prison term. After being released, he falls in love with Emilia, a young single mother who rejects him. Obsessed with the woman, Juan and some fellow gangsters kidnap Emilia's little daughter. Pedro Robles, his father, ask his superiors to take the case himself in order to confront his deranged son.

An old carriage-driver who is rendered jobless by cars and progress is so desperate that he becomes a gangster. But when his own son starts a life of crime, he repents and gives himself to the authorities, setting an example for his family and especially for his son.

A young boy named Juanito Hernandez befriends and nurses back to health a horse that undergoes an operation. When the horse recovers, owner Clarissa Stewart and her trainer, Charlie, come to believe Juanito's hunch that the recovered horse now has a good chance to win the Kentucky Derby.

The film is set in the Radio Moderna broadcast station. The station director, Martín Martínez, is interpreted by Enrique Santos Discépolo, who also helped with the script. The director is worried about withdrawal of ads and falling profits, and throughout the film is looking for something exciting for listeners that will make the audience grow again.

The character of the radio tango star, Alicia Reyles, interpreted by Amanda Ledesma, is a modern woman who divorces her husband in Montevideo because she has a relationship with the station's most important sponsor, Aguirre. Reyles is victim of an assassination attempt and kidnapping while singing during a radio broadcast. The story of the radio station emerges as different members of the station are interrogated by the police. At the end of the film it is revealed that Martínez has arranged the disappearance as a strategy to increase the audience.

In parallel, the film tells the story of Juanita (Rosita Contreras), a girl from the interior who comes to Buenos Aires to try her luck with radio, but has little success. One night Argüello, the announcer of Radio Moderna, finds Juanita in the street, decides to help her, and then they fall in love. This couple solve the mystery of the kidnapping of Alicia Reyles at the end of the film, when the station is given a new direction.

The main musical numbers are rehearsals and performances of the two tango stars, Amanda Ledesma and Rosita Contreras. There are also outstanding performances by the Juan d'Arienzo's well-known orchestra and the Santa Paula Serenaders jazz band. The orchestra and band made important contributions to the success of the film, as did the star performers. One number is a comedy where everyone in the cast sings a part of a song in which the main singers are Ledesma and Contreras.

The aristocratic Alberto Rosales (Arrieta) falls in love with the blond tango dancer Rubia Mireya (Ortiz) leaving his fiancée (Córdoba). His father convinces him to give her up and return to his respectable fiancée. Ten years later Alberto and Rubia meet again at a charitable event organized by his wife. He wants to rekindle the romance, but when his two children burst on to the scene, she leaves without a word. Though she still cares for him, she will not allow his children to become fatherless.

War with the neighboring country of Scanra is declared at last, and Kel finds herself in charge of a refugee camp. Her district commander, Lord Wyldon, has chosen not to place her in control of a border post or a portion of the army like the other knights, so she's certain that he wishes to keep her—who, as a woman, he views as inferior in combat to males—out of fighting. However, it is revealed that she was chosen for her post because she is the only knight Wyldon knows who wouldn't discriminate against those not of noble blood. Kel soon comes to realize that these refugees, torn from their homes, robbed of their wealth and self-respect, are her responsibility. She must feed them, house them, and keep them safe from harm far too close to the Scanran border. She is able to be a hero, even outside of the battlefield.

In her work at the camp Kel names Haven, she receives help in the shape of her old friends Neal and Merric, the horses Peachblossom and Hoshi, the dog Jump, and her personal sparrow flock, as well as from a mixed myriad group of others: the Wildmage Daine; Daine's lover, the great mage Numair Salmalin; Neal's own father, Duke Baird of Queenscove; Kel's former knight-master Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak; men of the King's Own (including Kel's friend and Neal's cousin Sergeant Domitan of Masbolle); convict soldiers who have been given the choice to fight in the army or to die at hard labor; several hundred disillusioned refugees who have received too many empty promises from nobles; smugglers; and a young, orphaned boy with wild magic for horses named Tobe.

While Kel struggles with her responsibilities and the urge simply to abandon the camp and find a real fight, another obligation hangs over her. Before the war began, she was given a task by the Chamber of the Ordeal: to find and destroy the mage whose necromancy creates the giant, swift-moving, deadly metallic machines from the souls of children, known to the Tortallans as "killing devices." But, tied to the camp, she cannot pursue it. However, as the summer wears on and the war intensifies, events move to put that perverted mage and his conscienceless war-leader in Kel's path, and at last her resolve is tested, and she and all of Tortall find out if she is truly worthy of her shield.

After months of hard work with the refugees, Kel feels that they can sufficiently take care of the camp while she is gone for several days to deliver a requested oral report to Lord Wyldon. However, when Tobe is brought into the fort, tired from a long trek from Kel's refugee camp, she knows that something is wrong. The Scanrans have captured her people, and Kel believes that the children will be used to create the horrible metal killing devices terrorizing Tortall. Worse, Lord Wyldon forbids her to go after them. She is left with a choice: obey Wyldon's orders and leave her people for the killing devices, or go after them and presumably be declared a traitor.

After burying the few dead at Haven, Kel tricks her guards into returning to Lord Wyldon without her, and begins what she believes will be a long and harrowing journey into enemy territory. Much to her surprise and dismay, she is soon joined by Neal, several of her other year-mates, Owen, Tobe, and members of the King's Own. They follow the path of the kidnapped refugees across the deadly Vassa river and into Scanra. A series of altercations result in the Scanran guards being depleted, and the rescue of the adult refugees and convict guards of Haven. Continuing to track the kidnapped children, they are led to Fief Rathhausak, and a final battle between the Tortallans and the Scanrans leaves Blayce dead, and the people of Rathhausak free from his tyranny.

The Tortallans and villagers of Rathhausak return across the border to Tortall. In recompense for disobeying orders, she is ordered to build and command a new refugee camp, known as New Hope.

At Wingate High School, a group of pals including Griner (Ronnie Burns), Arthur "Beau" Beaumont (Pat Boone) and Sanford "Fofo Bidnut" Wilson (Dick Sargent) race cars and boats, hang out at an after-school place called the "Shamrock Club", and jokingly profess their love for a mythical dream girl named Bernardine Mudd from Sneaky Falls, Idaho.

Sanford, who's academically and socially less successful than his pals, declares that he intends to take a date to see bongo king Jack Costanzo perform at the Black Cat Club. When the boys call the local phone company for the fictional Bernardine's phone number, a young operator named Jean (Terry Moore) answers the phone. Soon she accepts a date with Sanford.

The love-struck Sanford feels that he has found his "Bernardine". But when his widowed mother (Janet Gaynor) talks about remarrying, and he realizes he could flunk out of school rather than graduate, he decides to briefly put his new romance on the back burner. His friends try to help him with his problems, but their well-meaning attempts don't go as planned.

Completed by Mirbeau's long-time friend Léon Werth, when the author's ill health prevented him from writing the concluding chapters, ''Dingo'', Mirbeau's final novel, appeared in completed form with Fasquelle in 1913. An autobiographical fiction, Mirbeau's tale chronicles the author's adventures with his pet dog Dingo while simultaneously offering a jaundiced view of country life, in Ponteilles-en-Barcis, a squalid town modeled on the village of Cormeilles-en-Vexin, where Mirbeau had the misfortune to reside.

''Already Dead'' follows the adventures of a vampyre named Joe Pitt as he tries to figure out a mysterious zombie epidemic stemming around New York. He has connections in Manhattan Underworld which make him a valuable item for clans. Joe is then asked to find the gothic daughter of a rich man, and is pressured to do the work. Meanwhile, a disease is spreading zombie like symptoms around the town, causing whoever is bitten (or infected) by this disease into "Shamblers", and it's up to Joe to find the mysterious carrier of this sickness.

Aside from his line of work, Joe has a girlfriend named Evie, a human that is HIV positive, is currently terrified of any sexual contact since she's afraid of infecting him with the sickness. Joe knows how to cure her HIV, but fears the side effects; so he tries his best to keep his vampyrism a secret from her.

Law student David Clark kills best friend Art Bradley in self-defense after an argument. He flees, but later confesses to his father, Howard, a lawyer. The next morning, Howard expects his son to explain what happened to district attorney Redman, but instead David merely asks the DA if he can be of any help after another man, Joe Elsner, is arrested. Elsner is a bookie to whom the dead man owed a debt.

Marie Elsner comes to Howard Clark, asking that he represent her husband in court. David sits by his father's and the defendant's side at the trial. He has always been irresponsible, which is why secretary Lee Pearson keeps resisting David's romantic attentions, even though she is attracted to him. Howard Clark proves a key eyewitness to be a convicted perjurer. It looks like Elsner might be found innocent, but the stress causes him to have a fatal heart attack. David finally realizes he must turn himself in and promises to Lee he will lead a better life.

This prison drama is the story of Joe Hufford (Glenn Ford), a man convicted of manslaughter. George Knowland (Broderick Crawford) is the warden who understands Hufford, helps him adjust to prison life and recognize that he has a future after release. Hufford witnesses the murder of an informer by another convict, Malloby (Millard Mitchell), but he sticks to the prison's "silent code" and refuses to talk, even though it means he will be accused of the killing. He is locked in solitary confinement. In the end, the real murderer confesses and Hufford escapes the electric chair. He obtains his release and, having fallen in love with the warden's daughter, (Dorothy Malone), ensures he has permission from Knowland to pursue a relationship with her.

Scrooge McDuck foils what Donald Duck calls "Magica De Spell's most bizarre and complex scheme yet". Donald says neither of them will be satisfied until becoming so rich as Croesus. Scrooge says he's already richer than Croesus once was (actually the doubt about who's the richest man on history remains a doubt around all the story). His three grandnephews tell Scrooge about an exposition at the Duckburg Museum on Croesus. This visit leads our heroes in search of his fabled treasure, as Scrooge himself did 50 years ago. They find the treasure, but due to a rightful ownership by the Turkish locals, all Scrooge keeps is his first coin. Upon learning that a witch named Circe wanted the first coin minted by Croesus for the same reason Magica wants the Number One Dime, Scrooge finds a way to turn this tragedy in a triumph: he gives the coin to Magica. If the spell works, she will no longer try to steal his Number One Dime. Because it doesn't, much to Donald's relief as she tested the amulet on him, Scrooge is now sure he is richer than Croesus once was.

Yale graduate Dan Brooks is expected to marry wealthy boss J.L. Higgins' daughter Margaret and join the family box-making business. He is far more interested in racing a horse he owns named Broadway Bill.

Doing poorly at work, Dan and his groom Whitey leave town to enter Bill in the Imperial Derby, but first must find money for the entry fee. He and old pal Professor Pettigrew each try to con the other out of money and then must sing the Yale school song when they cannot pay the check at a restaurant.

Maggie's younger sister Alice is secretly in love with Dan, so she offers him some money, pawning her belongings. Whitey is beaten up trying to win money in a craps game, and Broadway Bill is carted away because Dan does not pay his feed bill, and Dan is thrown in jail as well.

A rich man makes a bet on Bill as a 100-to-1 shot, leading to false rumors that the horse is a sure winner. The odds drop fast, but gamblers and a crooked jockey try to ensure that their own favorites win the race. Broadway Bill somehow manages to win but collapses at the finish line and suffers a fatal heart attack.

Dan finds comfort in his sadness when he decides to buy and race Broadway Bill II. Dan's enthusiasm persuades Alice and her father to help him.

The novel is divided into several sections. A foreword from the author challenges the reader to solve the gruesome mysteries; it claims that every clue necessary will be included in the text, and that the characters will have no unfair advantage over the reader.

The first section is a fictional short story and will which lays out the setting: it is 1936 in the Shōwa period of pre-World War II Japan.

A painter and womanizer named Heikichi Umezawa has long been obsessed with astrology and alchemy; he is a wealthy but fairly old man from a respectable family, who stills lives in a traditionally run sprawling household. He is finishing his greatest work: 12 large paintings, each depicting a member of the zodiac. As he works in his private studio on the last one, a portrait of Aries, his head is smashed with a blunt object. The murder is curious: it took place on a heavily snowing day, and many of the suspects have solid alibis. Further, when discovered, the room is locked and apparently had been locked from inside - leading to a locked room mystery.

When the studio is investigated, a bizarre note is discovered - the same short story which starts the novel. In it, the narrator, who identifies himself as Heikichi, describes a long-running battle with mental disease, diabolism, and his murderous urge to create the perfect woman called "Azoth.” To do this, he will cut up his 2 daughters, 2 of his 3 stepdaughters and his 2 nieces, and take a single astrologically aligned piece of her body and combine it with the others. The reason given for excluding his remaining stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, is that she is not a virgin. Each one will be killed with an alchemically significant metal and buried in a place which produces those metals. He writes that he will carry out his plan as soon as he finishes the Aries portrait.

Shortly after the murder of Heikichi, Kazue Kanemoto is discovered with her head smashed as well. The murder is deemed an unrelated case of aggravated robbery.

After that murder, Heikichi's remaining daughter, stepdaughters and nieces, along with Heikichi's widow, travel to Mt. Yahiko to lay Heikichi's spirit to rest. They split up there, and the 6 young women disappear. Their bodies are discovered over the next few months, buried near mines all over Japan, and missing a body part as listed in Heikichi’s note. The murders become a national sensation, but each one remains unsolved for the next 40 years.

The novel is brought up to the present, where a freelance illustrator and avid fan of mysteries, Kazumi Ishioka, is teaching his friend, the astrologer Kiyoshi Mitarai, about the Zodiac Murders; Mitarai had been approached by a client who claimed to have new evidence about the murders. This evidence is revealed to be a secret confession by a policeman involved in the investigation of the murder of Kazue. Just before she was murdered, he had in fact gone with her to her house and had sex with her. Afterwards, an anonymous letter arrived, which claimed to be from one of the many secret agencies in pre-war Japan like the Nakano School. The sender threatens to reveal his tryst with Kazue, which would make him the prime suspect if ever discovered. In exchange for their silence, he would carry out a task for them: take the dead mutilated bodies of six young women to different places in Japan and bury them as specified.

In Act 2, Ishioka and Mitarai travel to Kyoto to interview surviving people related to the case.

Act 3 sees a more comprehensive investigation of the environs of Kyoto and the people. In the last page, Mitarai is musing about an old scam in which one used tape to counterfeit new paper bills from existing ones. Abruptly, he is struck by insight and he solves all three cases.

The author follows with a note to the reader, warning that in the subsequent pages the solution will be revealed, and that the reader has all the needed information, and a valuable hint.

Solution

In Act 4, Mitarai remains coy as to the solution, but takes Ishioka to a polite meeting with the culprit: an old woman who would have been 23 at the time of the murders. Ishioka concludes that that means the culprit behind the murders was in fact one of the daughters, but is unable to deduce which one.

The final act sees Mitarai revealing the solution to a number of people. He explains Heikichi’s murder, Kazue's murder, and the Azoth murders: it is possible, if one cuts apart paper money and then tapes the pieces back together appropriately, to create one more bill than one originally had. In the same way, the culprit, Heikichi's daughter from his first marriage, Tokiko (now living under the name of Taeko Sudo), had cut apart the bodies of the other five young women and arranged them in such a way that it seemed as if there were 6 bodies, when in fact there were only 5 - the missing pieces which everyone had assumed would go to building Azoth were in fact all hers. The note too was a forgery intended to mislead and focus attention on Azoth. Taeko was motivated to her elaborate revenge by the extremely poor treatment she received at the hands of her stepmother, stepsisters, and cousins and particularly by the treatment her mother (Heikichi's first wife, Tae) had received: divorced by Heikichi and impoverished, she had to waste her life selling cigarettes on the street. After Mitarai explains everything, the police take credit and news soon arrives that Taeko has committed suicide, after sending a letter to Mitarai detailing her exact role in the story.

The book follows an ensemble of protagonists who are investigating what at first appear to be freak events related to the world's oceans. A new species of marine worm works together with bacteria to destabilize the continental shelf, causing a megatsunami which kills millions and severely damages the coastal infrastructure. Whales and sea-borne mussels band together to attack and incapacitate a commercial freighter. Swimmers are driven from the coast by sharks and venomous jellyfish. Commercial ships are attacked and sometimes destroyed. France sees an outbreak of an epidemic caused by contaminated lobsters.

When it becomes clear that all those events are related, an international scientific task force is created under the lead of the United States, led by Lieutenant General Judith Li, a close friend and adviser to the President. Sigur Johanson, a marine biologist working at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, finally announces his hypothesis: the phenomena are intentional attacks by an unknown sentient species from the depths of the oceans. Johanson calls them "yrr", after three letters he typed randomly on his computer. The goal of the yrr is to eliminate the human race, which is devastating the Earth's oceans.

General Li and a small group of scientists take to the sea on the helicopter carrier USS ''Independence'' in an attempt to find the yrr and make contact with them. They discover that the yrr are single-cell organisms that operate in swarms, controlled by a single hive-mind. The scientists have some success in investigating the yrr and make limited contact. The attacks do not cease.

Johanson finds out that one of the scientists has been working on a modified pheromone to eradicate the yrr completely. Johanson disagrees with this approach because the elimination of the yrr may completely destroy the marine ecosystem and thus the human race. Li, however, is unwilling to accept that dominance over the Earth may not be a God-given birthright of mankind, and the United States in particular. While she gives orders to have Johanson killed, the ship is attacked and crippled by the yrr and a final showdown ensues on the sinking ''Independence''.

Li races for the ship's DeepFlight midget submarines with two torpedoes containing the modified pheromone. The scientists are trying to stop her and at the same time implement their own plan to save humanity. She is stopped at the last moment by Johanson who gives his own life to detonate the torpedoes and kill Li.

Karen Weaver, a scientific journalist, then manages to get hold of the last surviving submarine and dives into the depth of the oceans. There she releases a dead human pumped full of the yrr's natural pheromone, hoping to trigger an "emotional" response. This works and the yrr cease their attacks on humanity.

The epilogue reveals that a year later, mankind is still recovering from the conflict with the swarm. The knowledge that humans are not the only intelligent lifeform on Earth has plunged most religious groups into chaos, while parts of the world still suffer from the epidemic the yrr sent to destroy the threat to their marine homeland. Humanity now faces the difficult task of rebuilding their society and industry without coming into conflict with the ever-watching superpower under the sea again.

The book is written in the first person from the point of view of unreliable narrator Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, whose posthumous notes Moorcock claims to have transcribed. Pyat, as he is also known, describes in the novel his adventures in Tsarist then Revolutionary Russia. Born on 1 January 1900 in Kiev, Pyat dreams from early on of becoming a great inventor and engineer.

His widowed mother, lacking any means to support his higher education, sends him at age 16 to a relative in Odessa, where Pyat is introduced to bohemian life, cocaine and sexual adventures. Making a good impression on his relative, he secures a position at a technical university in St. Petersburg. After having failed to obtain a degree, he returns to Kiev, where he manages to profit from his knowledge of machinery and runs a successful repair enterprise.

The revolutionary and post-revolutionary civil war bring him again to Odessa; on the way, he aligns with whatever group is in power. Finally, he manages to escape by ship to western Europe. Throughout all his wanderings, Pyat does not pass over any opportunity for self-aggrandisement, despite being a genuinely despicable character. The character appears to have been addicted to cocaine and sex. He is also obsessively antisemitic despite being Jewish himself.

The plot remains the same as ''Turok: Dinosaur Hunter''.

The player assumes control of Tal'Set (Turok), a Native American time-traveling warrior. The mantle of Turok is passed down every generation to the eldest male. Each Turok is charged with protecting the barrier between Earth and the Lost Land, a primitive world where time has no meaning. The Lost Land is inhabited by a variety of creatures, from dinosaurs to aliens. An evil overlord known as the Campaigner seeks an ancient artifact known as the Chronoscepter, a weapon so powerful that it was broken into pieces to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Campaigner plans on using a focusing array to magnify the Chronoscepter's power, destroying the barriers that separate the ages of time and rule the universe. Turok vows to find the Chronoscepter's eight pieces and prevent the Campaigner's schemes.

The president nominates Robert A. Leffingwell as Secretary of State. The second-term president, who is ill, has chosen him in part because he does not believe that Vice President Harley Hudson, whom both he and others usually ignore, will successfully continue the administration's foreign policy should the president die.

Leffingwell's nomination is controversial within the Senate, which must use its advice and consent powers to approve or reject the appointment. The parties of both the president and the minority are divided. Senate Majority Leader Bob Munson, the senior senator from Michigan, loyally supports the nominee despite his doubts, as do the hard-working majority whip Stanley Danta of Connecticut and womanizer Lafe Smith of Rhode Island. Demagogic peace advocate Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming is especially supportive, but Munson repeatedly advises him not to aggravate the situation. Although also of the majority party, the curmudgeonly president pro tempore Seabright "Seab" Cooley of South Carolina dislikes Leffingwell for both personal and professional reasons and leads the opposition.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee appoints a subcommittee, chaired by majority member Brigham Anderson of Utah, to evaluate the nominee. The young and devoted family man is undecided on Leffingwell. Cooley dramatically introduces a surprise witness, Herbert Gelman, during the subcommittee's hearing. The minor Treasury Department clerk testifies that he was briefly affiliated with a communist cell with Leffingwell and two others at the University of Chicago. Leffingwell denies the charge and questions Gelman's credibility but later tells the president that he had committed perjury and that Gelman was correct. He asks the president to withdraw his nomination, but the president refuses.

Cooley identifies another member of the cell, senior treasury official Hardiman Fletcher. He forces Fletcher to confess to Anderson, who tells Munson. Despite personal lobbying by the president, the subcommittee chairman insists that the White House withdraw the nomination because of Leffingwell's perjury or he will subpoena Fletcher to testify. The president angrily refuses, but the majority leader admits that the White House will soon have to nominate another candidate. Anderson delays his committee's report on Leffingwell, but the president sends Fletcher out of the country, angering the senator.

Anderson's wife receives anonymous phone calls from a man warning that unless the subcommittee reports favorably on Leffingwell, information about what happened with "Ray" in Hawaii will be disclosed. A worried Anderson visits fellow army veteran Ray Shaff in New York. Shaff admits that he sold evidence of a past homosexual relationship between the two. Hudson and Anderson's friend, Smith, joins others in attempting to counsel the troubled chairman, but unable to reconcile his duty and his secret, Anderson takes his own life.

The president denies knowing about the blackmail to Munson and Hudson. He tells the majority leader that he is dying and that Leffingwell's confirmation is vital. Munson criticizes Cooley for opposing the nominee but not exposing Fletcher and thus forcing Anderson to bear the pressure alone. Anderson's death nonetheless permits the subcommittee and the Foreign Relations Committee to proceed with the nomination. Both report favorably to the full Senate.

In the Senate Chamber, Cooley apologizes for his "vindictiveness." While he will vote against Leffingwell and his "alien voice," the senator will not ask others to follow. Munson, moved by Cooley's action, cites the "tragic circumstances" surrounding the confirmation. The majority leader will vote for Leffingwell but will permit a conscience vote from others. Hudson's quorum call and the majority leader's refusal to yield the floor prevent Van Ackerman from speaking until Munson asks for the "yeas and nays," ending debate. The majority leader tells Van Ackerman that but for the Andersons' privacy, the Senate would have censured and expelled him, as he was responsible for the blackmail. Van Ackerman leaves the chamber before the vote.

Munson's side is slightly ahead until Smith unexpectedly votes against Leffingwell, and the majority leader prepares for the vice president to break the tie in the nominee's favor. Secret Service agents enter the chamber, and Hudson receives a message from the Senate chaplain. He announces that he will not break the tie, thus causing the nomination to fail, and that the president has died during the vote. As he leaves with the Secret Service, Hudson tells Munson that he wants to choose his own secretary of state. The film ends as Munson makes a motion to adjourn because of the former president's death.

The film tells the story of Ariel Perelman (Daniel Hendler). While he has an easygoing lifestyle, he's trying to find his way in life in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He works at a university as a law professor. The film begins with a long narration of the way things stand in his life. He describes his father, Bernardo Perelman (Arturo Goetz), in detail. Perelman, as he's known, is a popular public defender who meets his clients where they work or in restaurants so he can determine what they are "all about." Most of his clients are generally poor. He's very close to his secretary (Adriana Aizemberg) since his wife died fifteen years ago. Work fills Perelman's days, and Ariel is astonished by his energy.

After lusting after Sandra (Julieta Díaz), an attractive woman who takes his class, Ariel decides to chase her and takes the Pilates class she teaches. Not much happens until Sandra is sued for teaching Pilates without the approval of the company who hold the rights to teach Pilates in Argentina. Ariel (known as Perelman to Sandra) reaches out to his father for help and wins the law suit.

In the process, Sandra falls in love with the younger Perelman and they marry. She begins to decorate their home for a few years and they have a child they name Gastón (Eloy Burman), who is a quite charming young boy.

Ariel's university building is shut down for a month because it had collapsed, and he is given some time off. However, he doesn't share this news with his wife. During this time his father starts spending some quality time with Ariel, which makes him think something must be wrong. Ariel is asked by the Swiss kindergarten school Gastón attends to participate in a play and swim classes with the other fathers. Ariel first rebels but gives in.

The film ends with his father's death and burial and a long introspective look at Ariel Perelman's life in his 30s.

In Riverdale, Illinois, a man carrying a lighted, basketball-sized glass container bumps into a pedestrian. The container is broken, a fight ensues, and a hissing sound is heard.

Glenn Cameron and his fiancée, Elaine are returning home from announcing their engagement when they are distracted by a bright light. They stop to investigate in nearby woods and find three dead animals before coming upon a large, cone-shaped, spiral metal structure resembling a rocket nose cone.

Two days later, in Washington, D.C., a flying saucer investigation committee reviews classified army footage of the object. Sen. Walter K. Powers and his assistant Dan Walker arrive late. The metal object stands 50 feet high and has a base diameter of 50 feet. The nature and origin of the object is unknown. Dr. Paul Kettering is the chief investigator. Also noted is the murder of several people in the nearby town. The senator and his assistant fly to Riverdale to investigate and are met by Glenn Cameron, who explains that his father, the mayor, is missing. The three drive to the object's location. Alice Summers, the mayor's secretary, assists Kettering by recording test results. The senator climbs scaffolding erected around the spiral cone to question Kettering and his assistant, Dr. Wyler. Kettering explains that the cone appears to be indestructible. He then crawls inside to explore. He is inside for a long time so everyone begins to get worried. Just as Wyler prepares to go inside to look for him, Kettering crawls out; the interior is made up of a maze of small, winding tunnels. A field phone call informs them that the mayor has returned to his office.

Mayor Cameron acts as if possessed. He takes a pistol from his desk drawer and struggles to point it at his head. Kettering, the senator, Alice and Glenn arrive at town hall. The mayor is hostile and angry, even towards his son. Kettering notices an odd mound near the mayor's neck, under his suit coat. The mayor pulls the pistol on the group. Kettering asks him about the mound, and the mayor strikes his son while attempting to flee the room. As he does, Kettering hits the mayor, who discharges several gunshots. The mayor is shot and killed in the hallway by a deputy.

An autopsy reveals something strange. The doctor (Doug Banks) and Kettering find a dead creature of unknown origin attached to the mayor's neck; it injected some kind of toxin into his nervous system. Even without being shot to death, he would have died within 24–48 hours.

As the sheriff (Greigh Phillips) drives toward the metal object, he sees a man lying on the road who attacks him as the sheriff gets out of his patrol car. Nearby another man, holding a lighted glass container, watches the fight. The sheriff is knocked out, and the two men remove something from the container. The sheriff revives and the three drive off in the patrol car.

While working with Alice in the lab, Kettering experiments with a piece of the creature taken from the mayor's body. It attaches itself to his arm just like a parasite, but he is able to free himself by burning it with a Bunsen burner. Wyler calls Kettering at the lab, and they drive out to the metal cone. Along the way, they discover an abandoned electric company utility truck. A call to the sheriff from Sen. Powers goes unanswered as the sheriff struggles with being possessed. Three groups are organized to search for other strange metal objects. Kettering and Alice find the dead body of the utility truck's driver with two puncture wounds on the back of his neck. While searching, Glenn and Elaine are locked inside an empty cabin. Someone tries to set the cabin on fire, but Glenn shoots at the arsonist and he and his fiancée are able to escape. The three groups later reassemble at the mayor's office. There, they discover two glowing containers holding more parasites. The senator calls the telegraph office to send a warning to the governor. The telegrapher takes down the message but, being possessed, does not send it.

Three men drive to Alice's apartment building and plant a parasite in her room. She is taken over and joins the men in their car. Paul and Glenn later discover that she is missing. They drive back to the spiral cone and discover a dying man who they recognize as Prof. Helsingman, who vanished five years earlier along with a scientific expedition. They discover marks on his neck and take him to hospital. Kettering questions the professor but he only utters the word "Carboniferous", referring to a geologic time period millions of years ago. Sen. Powers tries to make several telephone calls but is consistently told that the lines are busy. Glenn and Paul go to the telegraph office to find out if the warning was sent to the governor's office. They are attacked but manage to subdue their assailants and flee.

Kettering climbs the metal object's scaffolding to check on his equipment. He realizes that the two deputies on guard are now possessed, and both are shot and killed. Kettering and Glenn crawl inside the cone and discover a room filled with a heavy mist behind a sliding tunnel wall. They are greeted by another member of the missing expedition, an old, bearded man (Nimoy). He tells Kettering that he was once Prof. Cole and explains, "Now I hold a position of a much higher order." He provides details about the parasites' invasion, which is coming from inside the Earth, and says, "We shall force upon Man a life free from strife and turmoil. Ironic that Man should obtain his long-sought utopia as a gift, rather than as something earned". After the possessed Cole disappears, Kettering shoots and kills the lurking sheriff. Parasites on the loose chase Kettering and Glenn outside.

Kettering formulates a plan using the abandoned power company truck. Using a harpoon gun, he connects an electrical wire from one end of the ravine to the other. He prepares to shoot a connecting wire from the metal object to an overhead high voltage transmission line, completing a circuit. Before Kettering can finish, Alice exits the spiral cone and appears on the scaffolding. Kettering climbs up to rescue her but, being possessed, she refuses to go with him. She pulls a pistol and shoots him and he falls to his death. Glenn hesitatingly fires the harpoon gun, making the connection to the overhead transmission lines, which engulfs the grounded metal cone in high-voltage sparks. Alice collapses as the parasites inside the object are electrocuted. After the cone is made safe, Sen. Powers and Glenn crawl inside and verify that the menace has been eliminated. Later, as Glenn and Elaine walk away from the site, they embrace.

Donnie Rose (Rossif Sutherland) plays a former boxer who is released from prison after serving time for a vicious assault on a Black teen that left the teen physically and mentally disabled. The beating of the teen sparked outrage and further divided the historically segregated city of Halifax. Upon his release from prison, he is surprised by a hero's 'welcome home' party at his brother Keith Rose's ( Greg Bryk) house and other members of the White community in Halifax. While at the party Donnie is confronted by the victim's father George Carvery (Danny Glover) who is holding a gun contemplating shooting Donnie to avenge the assault of his son. After a tense, heated exchange between George and Keith who is wielding a baseball bat, Donnie tells George "Just do what you came here to do" . After contemplating for a few moments George returns to his car and drives back to his mostly African Nova Scotian North End Halifax- area home. At this time, we get the first glance at his family, his wife Ruth Carvery (Tonya Williams) and his mentally and physically challenged son Charles (K. C. Collins). The condition of Charles has an obvious strain on their marriage, as just the sight of Charles condition forces them to come to grips that he will never again lead a 'normal life'.

The release of Donnie from prison is much to the chagrin of members of the Black community in Halifax. Ossie Parris (Flex Alexander) a famous boxing champion challenges Donnie to a fight in the hopes of seeking retribution for the vicious attack that left Charles disabled, offer him $20,000 to participate in the prize fight. Knowing that Ossie will use the opportunity to murder Donnie in the ring, George offers to train Donnie in order from keeping him from being killed. Later in the movie members of the Black community attempt to enter a night club which has an unofficial policy of not allowing Blacks to enter. The clubs security force which is headed by Keith, Donnie and other members of the White community, refuse entry to the Black would be party goers. A fight at the club's entrance ensues with gunfire breaking out and a car being lit on fire (the scene is to resemble the Halifax race riot in 1991 in which over 150 Black and White clashed outside a downtown Halifax bar, after Black men were continually being denied entry in local bar establishments due to their race). Looking for further retribution Keith's crew burned down the Black community church. Members of Ossie's crew then kidnap and savagely beat Keith to death, leaving him at the same location where the beating of Charles took place years earlier. Donnie then goes to the Halifax Black Baptist Church during Sunday congregation to kill the culprits, but then leaves the church, instead deciding to turn in the suspects. Days before the fight Donnie and George meet at the same place where both their loved ones suffered brutal attacks, and they share a deep moment that put the film in perspective. George explains that he has a resenting hate in heart from all his years of struggle, and tells Donnie that he has the same hate in his heart and he must let it go. It is then that it was revealed that it was, in fact Keith that brutally beat Charles, and that he only confessed because he was a minor and would have served less time than his brother.

On fight night Donnie enters the ring to a chorus of boos from the crowd. The fight goes back and forth between both fighters landing decisive blows. With George and his family in attendance, Charles suffers an 'episode' and climbs in the ring, causing an already agitated crowd to throw chairs and enter the ring themselves. A riot breaks out in which both Ossie and Donnie fight off crazed fight fans. The fight is subsequently forfeited and Donnie hangs up his gloves to symbolize the giving up of his hate.

In 1914, American showgirl Suzanne Trent (Jean Harlow) is in London, hoping to meet and marry a man with money. She tells her friend Maisie (Inez Courtney) she can charm any man she chooses into marrying her, and then learn to love him.

She sets her sights on Terry Moore (Franchot Tone), an Irishman she sees in a borrowed Rolls-Royce. She soon learns he is not wealthy, but he has a respectable job and good prospects, being an engineer, inventor, and pilot. They quickly fall in love and marry. But then they stumble on a German plot, and her husband is shot by a mysterious woman (Benita Hume), who leaves immediately. The landlady arrives moments later and hysterically calls for police, accusing Suzy of murder. Suzy also flees the scene, and therefore does not learn that Terry is expected to survive.

Maisie has moved to Paris, and Suzy now follows her, taking a job at the same cabaret just before World War I begins.

Thinking she is a widow, Suzy is heartbroken, until she meets the famed French flying ace Andre Charville (Cary Grant) at the cabaret. They quickly fall in love and get married. Andre's aristocratic father, Baron Edward Charville (Lewis Stone), welcomes Suzy into the family home, but is concerned about the whirlwind romance and marriage because Andre has had many short-lived relationships with women. After Andre is recalled to the front, Suzy bonds with the old man, even inventing letters from Andre that she pretends to read to him.

The Baron's concern was justified: when Andre returns briefly to Paris, he is more interested in socializing with his fellow pilots—and their girlfriends—than taking the opportunity to see the wife he has not even told them about. The Baron covers for him, but makes sure Andre and Suzy do meet for a few minutes as he returns to the front.

Andre is wounded in action, and Suzy goes to comfort him. There she is shocked to meet Terry, who is delivering to Andre's squadron new British fighters he helped design. She explains to Terry what happened, but tells him she now loves Andre. Terry is incensed at her for not telling Andre she was already married to him, and for having run away. He assumes she never loved him.

Suzy goes to Andre to tell him the truth—and has another shock, finding him in a compromising position with the woman who shot Terry. Unable to think clearly, she returns home to Paris, where she finds a magazine photo of Andre with the woman. Her name is Diane Eyrelle, and she has been "caring for" Andre during his recovery. Obviously, she is actually spying on him. Suzy returns to the air base and tells Terry what she has learned. He is dubious but agrees to take action. Suzy points out that as Andre is a public figure, for the sake of morale they should try to avoid damaging his reputation. They confront Andre first, but Diane overhears them, and as the four argue, her henchman comes in and shoots Andre.

Andre was about to return to active service and is scheduled to take off immediately on a dangerous mission. Terry says he can fetch a doctor or take over the flight, but has no time to do both. Andre says to fly the mission.

Terry takes his revenge, killing Diane and her henchman by strafing their car, then shooting down the German fighters meant to ambush Andre. He deliberately passes the airfield and crashes into a tree in front of the chateau, where Andre now lies dead. Suzy and Terry move his body so it will seem he died in the crash.

At the funeral that follows, a German flyer drops a bouquet in homage.

Terry is asked to escort the ace's widow back to Paris.

One month after falling in love with the writer Hiroshi Yosano, Akiko leaves her parents to move to Tokyo to be with him. After they marry, Akiko faces gossip that she drove Hiroshi's wife away. Upset at her poetry, some Japanese citizens consider Akiko a traitor and set fire to her house. Hiroshi Yosano grows poor attempting to continue circulation of the magazine ''Bright Star''.

After attending the opera, Akiko is knocked over by a motorcycle driven by the author Takeo Arishima. He sends her a Western outfit as an apology gift but she brings it back to his home to return it to him. The editor Akiko Hatano pressures Arishima to provide an essay about suicide for her publication but he is reluctant to do so.

Hiroshi runs for election to the House of Representatives, funded by the uncle of Tomiko Yamakawa, Akiko's former romantic rival. Akiko makes negative statements about the campaign and Hiroshi eventually loses, but chooses to stay with Tomiko while she recovers from tuberculosis.

The actress Sumiko hangs herself after her lover Hogetsu commits suicide. At the memorial service, Arishima asks Akiko to come with him to his father's farm at the foot of Mount Yōtei in Hokkaido. Akiko tells her children that she will return by Sunday. In Hokkaido, Arishima is briefly arrested for holding a socialist meeting with the farmers. Tomiko dies and Hiroshi returns home. Akiko returns home from Hokkaido days later than expected and her children have grown to hate her for her selfish actions.

Arishima and the editor Akiko Hatano decide to commit suicide together. They stop themselves at the last moment several times until they are caught in an embrace by her husband, who threatens to sue for adultery. They then hang themselves together at Arishima's home.

After the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake destroys the Yasano home, Akiko reads that her friends the anarchist Sakae Osugi and Noe Itou have been executed by the police. When she sees two of their anarchist friends being dragged by chains behind mounted police, she rushes to give them some rice balls and encourages them to live on. Akiko and Hiroshi commit themselves to living on and rebuilding their home.

''Socket'' is a dark sexual tale of a gay man being drawn into a cult of electricity addicts after being struck by lightning. Bill (Derek Long), a surgeon, is struck by lightning and winds up recovering in his own hospital. There he meets an intern named Craig (Matthew Montgomery), who suffered the same natural accident and has developed an appetite - a capacitance - for electrical voltage. After meeting him, Bill realizes he has the same craving. Craig introduces him to an underground group of people who all share this addiction. Bill then uses his surgical knowledge to come up with a method of inserting electric sockets and prongs into the members' wrists so they can "juice up". But after Bill accidentally discovers that he can mainline electricity from living people, he becomes hooked on absorbing this particular kind of power.

Officer Avraham Azoulay is a patrolman in Tel Aviv's district of Jaffa. He is an honest man, though extremely naive, and because of his character, has never been promoted during his twenty years in the force. He is married to a dull woman (played by veteran actress Zaharira Harifai); the couple have no children.

His superiors, Captain Levkovich and First Sergeant Bejerano, decide not to renew his contract, though they feel sorry for him. In the meantime, he falls in love with the simple but charming prostitute Mimi, and removes her photograph from the arrests billboard. His wife finds the photo and tears it to pieces, which Azoulay secretly glues together again. Nevertheless, this love will not be realized as Azoulay refuses to divorce his wife, claiming that "it will destroy her". In addition, being a Kohen, he cannot marry a prostitute according to Halakha.

Azoulay shows some success at dispersing a demonstration without resorting to violence because of his knowledge of the Bible and of Yiddish; he also charms a group of visiting French policemen who adore the French-speaking policeman; in an Arab-speaking club house he gives an unaware speech in Arabic. Azoulay is able to see people for what they are and not what they represent. None of these events, however, help to change his superiors' decision to dismiss him. Azoulay forms a friendship with Amar, unaware that he is a notorious criminal. The criminal and his associates decide to fake a crime and allow Azoulay to catch them in the act so that he receives a promotion and regain his contract. They finally decide upon stealing ritual objects, including a large golden cross, from a monastery in the neighbourhood. Azoulay manages to catch the criminal in the act and is finally promoted to the rank of a sergeant, but his contract is not renewed and he is forced to retire from the police.

In the final scene Officer Azoulay leaves the precinct with his new rank and policemen practising marches in the courtyard are being ordered to salute in his direction by Bejerano. The final shot of the film presents Azoulay saluting the marching policemen, thinking that they salute to him, as his eyes fill with tears. This image became one of the most memorable in Israeli cinema.

The film was expanded as a feature.

Set in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, it follows Odessa Cotter (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman who works as a maid/nanny for Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek). Odessa and her family confront typical issues faced by African Americans in the South at the time: poverty, racism, segregation, and violence. The black community has begun a widespread boycott of the city-owned buses to end segregation; Odessa is forced to take long walks both ways to work.

Miriam Thompson offers to give her a ride two days a week to ensure she gets to work on time and to lessen the fatigue her "long walk home" is causing. Around the city, some informal carpools and other systems are starting, but most of the blacks are forced to walk to work.

As the boycott continues, tensions rise in the city. Blacks had been the majority riders on the city-owned buses, and the system is suffering financially. Miriam's decision to support Odessa by giving her a ride becomes an issue with her husband, Norman Thompson (Dwight Schultz), and other prominent members of the white community who want the boycott to end. Miriam has to choose between what she believes is right or succumb to pressure from her husband and their friends.

After an argument with her husband, Miriam decides to follow her heart. She becomes involved in a carpool group to help other black workers like Odessa. In the film's final scene, Miriam and her daughter Mary Catherine (Lexi Randall), who is the narrator of the story in flashback, join Odessa and the other protesters in standing against oppression.

In an English country house, Sir Clifford Chatterley lives with his wife Constance. Severely wounded in World War I, he is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair. Constance tries to be a good wife, but he is distant and her life is empty. One day the maid is ill and Constance goes to see Parkin, the gamekeeper, about some pheasants for the table. Approaching the hut in the woods where he works, she sees him stripped to the waist and washing himself; the sight perturbs her.

She is falling into a depression, for which the doctor says there is no physical cause, urging her to take charge of her life and not give in as her mother did. Told that the first daffodils are blooming in the woods, she ventures out to pick some, but the effort tires her and she has to sit. Parkin grudgingly lets her rest on the steps of the hut, where she falls asleep. Feeling relaxed there, she resolves to visit more often and asks her husband for a duplicate key. He says he does not have one, so Constance asks Parkin, who is reluctant but as an employee has to, in the end, produce one.

She starts going to the hut regularly, taking an interest in the taciturn Parkin's work. When taking hold of a recently hatched pheasant chick, the tremor of new life in her hand sets Constance weeping uncontrollably. Parkin comforts her and, with her mute assent, has brief forceful sex. He is uneasy afterwards, but Constance feels liberated and starts meeting him secretly for more sessions. As he gets more comfortable with her, their lovemaking becomes more tender and intense, one day cavorting naked in the rain and decorating each other with flowers.

Sir Clifford confronts Constance with a rumor that she is pregnant, which she denies. The two discuss the possibility of her conceiving a child with another man, giving her a baby and Sir Clifford an heir. She says she might do so when she goes on holiday with her father and sister to the Mediterranean. Taking more of an interest in life, Sir Clifford buys a motorized wheelchair and ventures into the woods, but it gets stuck and stalls. In rage and frustration, he will let nobody help him, though eventually Constance and Parkin do push him home.

Before going off on holiday, Constance spends the whole night with Parkin in his cottage, from which he has cleared all traces of his wife, who has gone to live with another man. She tells him she has money from her dead mother and would like to buy him a small farm so that he could be independent. While on holiday, Constance gets a letter from Sir Clifford's nurse with all the local gossip. This includes the news that Parkin's wife, thrown out by her lover, returned to their home. Parkin went to court to get her thrown out, but was told he would have to divorce her first.

Constance heads back to England to find that Sir Clifford has been making further efforts to live more normally and has begun to walk on crutches. She also learns that, in a fight with the lover, Parkin was beaten up and, because of the scandal, has had to resign as gamekeeper. Going to see Parkin, she tells him she is pregnant, but he is not happy because the child will, in the eyes of the law, be Sir Clifford's. Having lost his job and his home, he will have to live with his mother and find work in a factory. He talks of emigrating to Canada, but Constance says that is no solution and wants him near her. Eventually, he accepts her offer of buying him a small farm and agrees that they must part until the baby is born. If she then decides to leave Sir Clifford, he says he will take her.

The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive on a human colony world beloved by the Doctor for its art and music.

After reading a controversial new novel by an author called Paul Chapin, Nero Wolfe reveals to Archie Goodwin that he has been approached by Andrew Hibbard, a psychologist fearing for his life. Hibbard had received threatening poems from an individual he refused to name, but after reading a phrase in Chapin's book that also appeared in the poems, Wolfe has deduced that the man Hibbard feared is Chapin. Wolfe orders Archie to contact Hibbard to offer Wolfe’s services, but when Archie does so he learns that Hibbard has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Hibbard is a member of “the League of Atonement”, a group of college friends who once played a prank on Chapin that, to their lingering shame and remorse, left him permanently crippled. In addition to Hibbard's disappearance, two other members of the group have also died under mysterious circumstances, and both Hibbard’s niece Evelyn and the police suspect that Chapin has murdered them. Wolfe acquires a list of the other men in the League and summons them to his office, where he proposes to both determine the truth behind the deaths of their mutual friends and remove the threat that they believe Chapin poses. The meeting is interrupted by Chapin himself, who claims innocence in the affair but refuses to provide evidence when Wolfe challenges him to do so. This prompts the League to agree to Wolfe’s terms.

Wolfe has Archie arrange for Chapin to be tailed as closely as possible, a search for Hibbard to be conducted, and the two deaths to be investigated. Archie discovers that another member of the League, Dr. Leopold Elkus, is also tangentially involved in the two deaths and, as Elkus is sympathetic to Chapin, begins to suspect that he is helping him commit the murders. He also discovers the existence of a mysterious man with gold teeth and a pink tie who also appears to be tailing Chapin. On bringing this man to Wolfe, they discover it is in fact Andrew Hibbard. Hibbard, driven to desperation by his fear and paranoia of Chapin, had faked his death and begun following Chapin to work up the courage to murder him.

Soon after, Paul Chapin is arrested for the sudden murder of Dr. Loring Burton, who is both a fellow member of the League and the man who married the woman Chapin was in love with. This prompts Wolfe to take the drastic step of leaving his home to consult with Chapin, while Archie gains the trust of Burton’s wife and learns that Dora Chapin, the wife of Paul Chapin and Burton’s former house-maid, had visited Burton before he was murdered. Believing Dora to be the murderer, Archie attempts to confront her but is taken by surprise, drugged, and incapacitated.

Upon regaining consciousness, Archie is alarmed to discover that Dora Chapin has apparently kidnapped Wolfe. On receiving a message from Wolfe, however, he learns that Wolfe has convinced Dora Chapin that he poses no threat to her husband and does not believe him to be guilty of murder. Wolfe then summons the members of the League to his office, where he produces Hibbard and reveals a confession he has apparently received from Paul Chapin. To the League’s surprise the letter confirms, as Wolfe suspected all along, that Chapin had no involvement in the deaths of their two mutual friends at all. The deaths were an unfortunate accident and a suicide respectively, but Chapin, psychologically incapable of murder but resentful of his friends for both their responsibility for his injury and their pity towards him, sent the poems to scare his friends and gain his vengeance on them that way.

Incredulous and skeptical of Wolfe’s claims, the League vote on whether to pay Wolfe. When the vote indicates that Wolfe will not receive his fee, Wolfe presses one member—Ferdinand Bowen, a stockbroker—to change his vote. When Bowen refuses, Wolfe reveals that Bowen is in fact Burton’s murderer. Burton had discovered that Bowen had been embezzling from him and other members of the League whose investments he managed, and Bowen used the fear and paranoia that everyone had of Chapin to stage Burton’s murder and throw suspicion on Chapin. Bowen is arrested, leaving Archie to realise that Chapin’s letter was faked. His vengeance thwarted, Chapin reveals to Wolfe that he will be basing a character on Wolfe in a forthcoming novel, and that character will meet a very unpleasant end.

Claire Marrable, the vainglorious aging widow of a prominent businessman, is distraught upon discovering that her husband's estate has been stripped of all assets, leaving her in debt and with nowhere to live. His only personal effects include a briefcase, a butterfly collection, two antique daggers and a stamp collection.

Claire relocates to Tucson, Arizona to be close to her nephew, George, and his wife Julia. Late one evening, Claire lures her live-in housekeeper, Rose Hull, outside to plant a pine tree, and clobbers her to death with a rock before burying her in a shallow grave. She hires the timid Edna Tinsley as a replacement housekeeper shortly after. Edna invests money in stocks Claire claims to have gained significant capital on; when she inquires about them, Claire murders her in the same fashion as the last housekeeper, burying her in the yard beneath a new pine tree. She burns all of Edna's belongings except for her Bible, though she disposes of the front page which bears Edna's name.

At one of George and Julia's dinner parties, Claire is introduced to Harriet Vaughn, a young widow from the East Coast whose husband was a stock broker. Harriet and her young nephew, Jim, rent a cottage from George, much to Claire's displeasure as the cottage neighbors her property. Harriet subsequently begins a romance with Mike Darrah, a car restorationist from Phoenix. Meanwhile, Claire hires retired nurse Alice Dimmock as her new housekeeper. Alice discovers Edna's Bible in Claire's library and is visibly perturbed, and later retrieves pieces of Edna's mail; the letters enquire about Edna's whereabouts. Claire claims Edna was a drunk and she fired her, but Alice appears skeptical of her story.

One afternoon, a stray Labrador Retriever named Chloe continues to bark viciously outside Clarie's house. Claire grows worried that the dog will unearth the bodies and makes several attempts to get rid of her. She reveals to Alice that Chloe is a tramp and that her former housekeeper, Rose Hull, used to feed and care for Chloe.

Mike stops by one day to visit Alice; he is, in fact, Alice's nephew. It is revealed that Alice is posing as a housekeeper to investigate her good friend Edna's disappearance. Mike uncovers Edna's bank account, which has been almost entirely drained of funds. Claire plans an impromptu trip to attend a music festival in New Mexico the next morning. Alice asks if she can drive into town, claiming that she needs to buy toothpaste and stockings for the trip; while she is gone, Claire finds a full tube of toothpaste in Alice's bathroom. Suspicious, she investigates further, and finds a new box of stockings in Alice's dresser. Claire finds a letter to Alice from Mike regarding Edna's bank account, confirming her suspicion that Alice is on to her.

Claire confronts Alice, who admits that she is searching for Edna, and demands to know where she is before accusing her of murder. The women begin fighting, and Claire chases Alice through the house. Claire beats Alice over the head with a phone receiver, rendering her unconscious. The next morning, Harriet stops by to tell Claire that George has been attempting to call, but has been unable to reach her. Inside, Claire tells her that Alice injured her head on a falling tree branch during a windstorm the night before and pretends, within Harriet's earshot, to talk to an incapacitated Alice in her bedroom.

That afternoon, Claire dresses herself in Alice's clothes and wig, and drives the incapacitated Alice to a nearby lake and sinks the car. Shortly after, George and Julia arrive at the same time as a telephone repairman. George asks where Alice is, and Claire claims that she went to the drugstore to retrieve allergy medication. Mike and Harriet arrive moments later, inquiring about Alice's whereabouts. George answers a phone call notifying that Alice was found dead in her car, which crashed off the road into the lake. That night, Claire invites Harriet and Jim over for dinner and serves them drugged egg nog. Jim is fascinated by Claire's husband's stamp collection, and Claire offers to give it to him. Once Harriet and Jim are unconscious, she drags their bodies into their cottage and lights the home on fire, trapping Chloe in the process.

In the morning, Claire finds the pine trees in her yard upturned and the graves exposed. She is confronted by the sheriff, George and Julia, as well as Harriet, Jim, and Mike; Mike saved them the night before and stopped the fire. Jim returns the stamp collection to Claire, which she learns is, in fact, worth over $100,000. Claire looks over her pine trees and laughs hysterically.

Set in the future, the Earth has become severely polluted (people need to wear breathing masks when outside) with severe overpopulation affecting available resources. Because of the permanent thick smog that has settled over the dismal cities that now cover the Earth's entire surface, all animals – even common household pets - are extinct; people eat tasteless bright-colored paste out of plastic containers. To reduce the world's population, the world's government decrees that no children may be born for the next 30 years. Breaking this law will result in a death penalty for both the parents as well as the newborn. Brainwashing and robot substitutes are used to end the yearning for children, with the death penalty as the ultimate deterrent, by being placed under a plastic dome and suffocated to death. Couples of fertile age visit "Babyland" and are given life-size animatronic children instead.

Russ (Oliver Reed) and Carol McNeil (Geraldine Chaplin) work in a museum recreating life in the 20th century. Carol is desperate for a child and when she conceives she avoids the abortion machine installed in their bathroom to remain pregnant. After the child's birth, the couple must shield the baby from being discovered. Once Carol decides to break the law and have a baby, they must not only avoid the prying eyes of the Big Brother-like government, but also the growing jealousy of their own friends. Neighbors finding a couple with a ''real'' child will go into the streets screaming "baby, baby," until authorities show up.

When neighbours George (Don Gordon) and Edna Borden (Diane Cilento) find out about the baby, their initial offer to help conceal the baby leads quickly to trouble. Jealousy and envy arises as the Bordens want to share the baby as if it is a new car. The McNeils and the Bordens begin to fight over the baby and the Bordens then seek to keep the child for themselves. Finally, the McNeils are captured and placed under one of the state's execution domes, but the couple, along with the baby, manage to escape by digging underground, making their way through darkened tunnels in a raft to a remote island where there is no visible pollution. However, the whole island may still be in a radioactive state, as it was used to bury old nuclear missiles in 1978.

Nero Wolfe is approached by Anthony Perry, president of the Seaboard Products Corporation, who is concerned that one of his employees is being unjustly accused of theft. A package containing $30,000 has gone missing, and Ramsey Muir, the company's vice-president is accusing Clara Fox, Perry's personal assistant. Perry's meeting with Archie Goodwin is interrupted by Harlan Scovil, who has recently arrived in New York City from Wyoming and is one of a group that has a later appointment with Wolfe. At one point Scovil seems to mistake Perry for another man, Mike Walsh.

Before Archie can attend to Scovil, he is summoned to Perry's offices, where Muir—motivated by jealousy and spite after Clara rejected his advances—is threatening to call the police. Archie's preliminary investigations turn up little, and he arrives back to the brownstone to learn that Scovil has left, summoned away by a telephone call. However, the other members of his group have arrived, including the real Mike Walsh, and Archie is surprised to discover that Clara Fox is their leader. Clara wishes to hire Wolfe to recover a sum of money owed to the group by the Marquis of Clivers, a British nobleman in America on confidential government business. Years ago, the group (or in the case of Clara, her father) were a Wild West posse called "The Rubber Band", and they saved the future Marquis from a lynching. The Marquis promised them a substantial share of his fortune in return but has rebuffed Clara's claims. '' (February 29–April 4, 1936)

The discussion is interrupted by a police detective who brings the news that Harlan Scovil has been murdered. In his pockets were found the contact details for the Marquis of Clivers, prompting the police -- eager to avoid inconveniencing the Marquis and causing diplomatic issues with Britain -- to suspect the group of blackmail. Wolfe also learns from Fred Durkin that the police have found the missing $30,000 in Clara's car, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. Once the policeman has left, Wolfe questions Fox concerning the stolen money and the murder. Satisfied as to her honesty and innocence on both matters, he accepts her as his client, and persuades her to remain in the brownstone. Mike Walsh rejects Wolfe's offer of protection and storms out. Wolfe sends a letter to the Marquis informing him of the group's claims and suggesting that legal action may be taken. He also informs Perry that he will not be investigating on behalf of him or the corporation.

For several days, the numerous charges that Clara is facing mean that Wolfe is forced to keep her as his guest in the brownstone. However the police, led by the obnoxious Lt. Rowcliff, soon arrive with a search and arrest warrant to enter the brownstone and arrest Clara for the theft of the $30,000. Wolfe is outraged by Rowcliff's impertinence, but is forced to allow the police to search the premises. Clara, however, cannot be found, and once the police have left Wolfe reveals that he concealed her in the orchid rooms.

Wolfe receives a visit from the Marquis of Clivers himself, who insists that he has already paid his debt to the Rubber Band. He claims that the group's leader, Rubber Coleman, approached him years ago representing the Band, and that on receiving the money Coleman provided him with a receipt signed by the other members. The next day, Archie receives a phone call from Mike Walsh claiming that he has found "him", only for the call to be ended by a loud noise that sounds like a gunshot. Moments after the call Walsh is found dead, with the Marquis of Clivers standing over the body. Inspector Cramer, Police Commissioner Hombert and District Attorney Skinner arrive at the brownstone and demand that Wolfe share what he has learned about the case. Wolfe produces Clara and provides proof that she neither stole the $30,000 nor murdered Scovil and Walsh. He reveals to the authorities that he is almost ready to solve the case, but one lingering unresolved detail is troubling him.

The next morning, Archie is surprised to find Wolfe slamming wooden boards in the orchid rooms, to no purpose that Archie can see. Wolfe takes notice of Archie's bundle of papers secured with a rubber band. After doing so, Wolfe has him summon everyone, including Ramsey Muir, Anthony Perry and the Marquis of Clivers, to his office. Once he arrives, the Marquis recognizes Anthony Perry instantly — he is Rubber Coleman. Wolfe reveals that Perry, or rather Coleman, swindled the money from the other members of the Rubber Band and used it to fund his numerous business enterprises, only to discover that Clara was pursuing the Rubber Band's claim. Coleman hired her to keep her close, and attempted to discourage her from her pursuit but framed her for the theft of the $30,000 when he was unable to do so. Although intending to hire Wolfe to cover his tracks and throw suspicion off himself, Coleman had the misfortune to be recognised by Scovil at Wolfe's office, and so murdered him and Walsh to preserve his secret. Coleman staged the phone call that purported to record Walsh's death with the use of a rubber band to simulate a gunshot, thus giving himself an alibi.

Though Coleman is defiant, Wolfe reveals that he has obtained the "receipt" that Coleman used to forge the signatures of the other members of the band when claiming the money from the Marquis; even by chance he cannot be convicted of murder in New York, this will be sufficient to convict him of fraud in England, which will equally expose and ruin him. Thwarted, Coleman attempts to shoot Wolfe but is gunned down by the Marquis and Archie before he can do so. Having proven Clara's innocence, Wolfe negotiates with the Marquis to claim the remainder of the Band's fair share of his inheritance. Guilt-ridden by the deaths she believes have been caused by her quest, Clara attempts to turn it down, but Wolfe persuades her to accept it.

Molly Lauck, a beautiful model, has died after eating a poisoned Jordan almond, and wealthy socialite Llewellyn Frost has hired Nero Wolfe to investigate the case. His true purpose, however, is to ensure that his ortho-cousin Helen is freed from the employment of Boyden McNair, the owner of the fashion boutique where Lauck died. He pressures Wolfe to leave his home and investigate the crime scene directly, producing a letter signed by the directors of the Metropolitan Orchid Show urging him to do so. Although highly reluctant, Wolfe eventually relents and travels to the boutique with Frost and Archie Goodwin.

Wolfe and Archie interview McNair, who is noticeably ill and distressed by recent events, and several of the models including Helen Frost. Although the interview is apparently unhelpful, Wolfe is intrigued when Helen indicates that she knew the contents of the chocolate box containing the candy that killed Lauck despite claiming to have never seen it before. Llewellyn Frost, who has romantic feelings for his cousin and believes that Wolfe intends to incriminate her, tries to terminate his contract with Wolfe. Outraged by Frost's actions, Wolfe refuses to drop the matter without being paid his full fee, despite being pressured by both Helen's mother Calida and Frost's blustering father Dudley.

Intrigued by Wolfe investigating a crime scene personally, Inspector Cramer tries to find out what Wolfe has learned. Although Wolfe offers him little, he does suggest that Cramer and Archie gather the people of interest in the case and one-by-one offer them a chocolate from a box similar to that which contained the poisoned item that killed Molly Lauck. Making note of who selects what, Archie notes that Boyden McNair’s response is different from the others in that he initially goes to select a Jordan almond, as the victim did, but then reacts skittishly and chooses something else. Wolfe and Archie also learn that Boyden McNair displays a particular fondness towards Helen, apparently due to her resemblance to his own long-dead daughter.

Boyden McNair meets with Wolfe and confesses that, as the chocolate box had been intended for him, he believes someone is trying to murder him. Although he refuses to identify a suspect, McNair reveals that he has made Wolfe the executor of his estate and has willed to him a red leather box containing papers relating to a shameful incident in his past. Before he can reveal any more, however, he is killed in front of Wolfe and Archie by a poisoned aspirin. Although this voids Wolfe's original contract, Helen hires Wolfe to locate McNair's murderer.

Wolfe determines that the red box will most likely reveal the culprit, and orders it found. As executor of McNair’s estate, Wolfe sends Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather, Fred Durkin, and Johnny Keems to McNair’s cottage in the country to search the grounds for the box, with orders to keep the police out should they attempt to interfere. Wolfe learns that Helen is the heir to the Frost family fortune, which is held in a trust managed by Dudley Frost until her 21st birthday, but if anything were to happen to her it would instead go to Llewellyn Frost.

Later that night, the operatives at the cottage catch Perren Gebert, a family friend of the Frosts with designs of marrying Helen, trying to break in. Archie is sent to collect Gebert and bring him to Wolfe for questioning, but before he can the authorities arrive to search for the red box. Archie manages to prevent them from doing so, but is forced to surrender Gebert to their custody. While the police are unable to get any useful information from Gebert, Cramer reveals to Archie that Gebert has been receiving monthly payments of $1,000 from Helen Frost’s trust fund. The next night, after being released from custody Gebert is murdered with a nitrobenzene trap set in his car.

A package arrives for Wolfe that prompts him to summon the main players to his office. Once everyone has arrived, Wolfe reveals that he has discovered that Helen Frost is in fact Glenna McNair, the daughter of Boyden McNair. The real Helen Frost was the child who had died years before, but Calida Frost bought Glenna from the then-impoverished Boyden McNair and raised her as Helen in order to eventually control the inheritance. Bitterly regretting what he had done ever since, McNair proceeded to make his fortune, formed an attachment with Helen/Glenna and planned to reveal the truth to her, but Calida Frost killed him to prevent this. Perren Gebert was also murdered because he knew of the arrangement and had been blackmailing Calida, and also planned to marry Glenna.

Wolfe produces the red box that he claims holds the proof of his accusations. In fact, it is a mock-up containing a bottle of cyanide, which Calida Frost uses to commits suicide. The actual red box is eventually found in Boyden McNair’s boyhood home in Scotland with plenty of evidence to support Wolfe’s theories but, as Archie notes, "by that time Calida Frost was already buried".

Aldin, a poor, traveling water seller, falls in love with Miriam, a beautiful slave woman on auction in Baghdad, but Havasalakum, the son of the chief of police, buys her. Before he can take her home, a sand storm interrupts the auction. Aldin uses the opportunity to steal away the slave woman, rescuing her from slavery. They hide from pursuing guards in a seemingly empty mansion. They have sex there, and are secretly watched by the master of the mansion, Sulaiman, who locks them in and commands them to continue. Havasalakum and his guards invade the mansion, where he finds them and capture Miriam. Badli, the right-hand man of the chief of police, murders Sulaiman. Aldin is tortured and sent to prison by mistake for the murder of Sulaiman. Meanwhile, a heartbroken Miriam dies in childbirth.

One year later, Aldin is set free and meets Badli in the desert. Aldin threatens to kill him, but shows him mercy and lets him leave. Aldin finds the magic cave where Kamahakim and the forty thieves hides their treasure. Aldin follows a thief inside, and as the thieves are asleep, he begins stealing the treasure. Madia, a young female thief, awakens and threatens to kill Aldin, who convinces her to see the world with him. The two fly away on a magic wooden horse. While they are crossing the ocean, living hair pulls them down.

Aldin and Madia eventually find themselves in the Lotus Island, which is home to beautiful Sirens. Their queen, Lamia, invites them to stay, but Madia becomes jealous and does not trust them. She leaves on the magic horse while Aldin stays and has sex with the sirens. Lamia forbids Aldin from following her into her house in the woods at night, but he still does so, and he is shocked as Lamia and the sirens transform into serpents. The serpents chase him, but Aldin flees from the island and is rescued by sailors. He travels with the sailors to a mysterious island, which is inhabited by a man-eating giant who eats most of the crew while Aldin survives. Aldin then finds a magical, sentient ship that will take him anywhere and fulfill almost any of his wishes.

15 years later, two genies on a carpet come across a shepherd named Aslan, whom the female genie falls for. The male genie, in hopes of keeping the other genie from risking death by being seen by the shepherd, brings a beautiful princess named Jalis, who is from Baghdad, but teleports her away when things start going wrong. The male genie, in a huff, leaves the female genie, as she transforms into a horse to help Aslan go to Baghdad. When Aslan and Princess Jalis cross paths in the desert, the genie disappears from sight.

Meanwhile, Aldin, now a rich man, enters a competition in Baghdad, the winner of which will become king. He wins the competition by tricking his opponent onto his magical ship, and by commanding the ship to take him to the end of the world. Aldin tries to use his power as the king to make Princess Jalis – who is Miriam's daughter – marry him, but she is in love with Aslan. Aldin commands the people to build a tower to heaven. The people hate him and revolt, led by Muhammand bin Sabaik, Aldin's second-in-command. Not prepared for the pressures of kingship, Aldin gives up the throne to travel the world as a poor man again, now seeing the value of freedom and peace.

The famous Hawthorne sisters — April, May and June — visit Nero Wolfe in a body to ask his help in averting a scandal. After the shock of their brother Noel's death three days before, they have been dealt another shock at learning the terms of his will. May, a college president, insists that Noel had promised to leave $1 million to her school; however, the will leaves each sister nothing but a piece of fruit and passes almost all of Noel's estate to a young woman named Naomi Karn. The sisters want to hire Wolfe to persuade Naomi to turn over at least half of the inheritance so that Noel's widow Daisy will not bring a case to court that would cause a sensation.

Daisy's unexpected arrival interrupts the conference. She wears a veil at all times to cover the disfiguring scars left after Noel accidentally shot her with a bow and arrow. She discovered that Noel was having an affair with Naomi and now hates the entire Hawthorne family as a result. Wolfe assures her that he will consider her interests in addition to those of the sisters and attempt to negotiate with Naomi on their behalf.

Later that day, Inspector Cramer interrupts another meeting with the news that Noel had in fact been murdered. He had been killed by a shotgun blast while hunting on his country estate; it was assumed that he had tripped and discharged the weapon, but further analysis of the evidence has led the police to discard this theory. Archie is called away to help Fred Durkin keep an eye on a man whom Fred had been tailing - Eugene Davis, a partner at the law firm that drew up Noel's will, who had been seen in a bar with Naomi. Davis is now drunk and passed out in a run-down apartment.

On Wolfe's orders, Archie travels to the Hawthorne mansion on 67th Street, where he finds Wolfe, the family and other associated individuals gathered to meet with the local police. Archie finds, to his surprise, that there are apparently ''two'' Daisy Hawthornes in the house. One is meeting with Wolfe and accusing April of the murder, based on the fact that a cornflower was found next to the body and April had had a bunch of them with her. The other is speaking to Naomi in the living room. The one meeting with Wolfe turns out to be the real Daisy, and Wolfe later determines that the other was actually April in disguise, trying to get information out of Naomi about the will and the relationship between her and Noel.

Later in the day, Archie finds Naomi strangled to death, her body hidden in an alcove next to the living room. Wolfe slips out of the house without telling Archie and has Orrie Cather drive him back to Wolfe's brownstone on 35th Street. After being confronted by the Hawthornes, Daisy spitefully claims to the police that April is the murderer, and she is arrested by the authorities. Meanwhile, June's daughter Sara tells Archie that someone has stolen her camera. The film it contained had already been sent off to be developed, and Wolfe and Archie later retrieve the pictures. After examining them, Wolfe warns Sara that her life will be in danger if she returns to the estate and has her stay at the brownstone. Cramer threatens to arrest Wolfe as a material witness to Naomi's murder, but Wolfe counters by threatening to turn evidence of the murderer's guilt over to a local newspaper instead of the police.

With all of the principals assembled in his office, Wolfe accuses Davis of switching Noel's actual will (which left generous bequests to Daisy, his sisters and May's college) with a forgery that leaves nearly the entire estate to Naomi, in a plot to win her affections, and of killing Noel and Naomi. When Glenn Prescott, another of the law firm's partners, agrees with this theory, Davis angrily accuses him of the murders. Wolfe then reveals his evidence: one of Sara's pictures, which shows Prescott wearing a wild rose in his lapel, a flower that he could not have obtained in the city. He had picked it at the scene of Noel's murder, discarding the cornflower he had worn (later found near the body), and had only remembered after Sara had taken the photograph. Prescott is placed under arrest, and Archie decides to keep the material witness warrant as a souvenir.

Andrew Crocker-Harris (Albert Finney) is a veteran teacher of Greek and Latin at a British public school. After nearly 20 years of service, he is being forced to retire on the pretext of his health, and perhaps may not even be given a pension. He is disliked or ignored by the other teachers and while his pupils fear his relentlessly strict discipline, they are bored by his dictatorial but dreary and uninspiring teaching methods. His younger wife Laura (Greta Scacchi), whom he has sexually and emotionally neglected, is unfaithful, and now lives to wound him any way she can. She is having an affair with Frank (Matthew Modine), an eager, young American science teacher who is highly popular with his pupils, much more lenient with classroom rules yet is able to connect with the pupils. In his final class, Andrew, while reading from a Greek play, finally shows some genuine passion about the subject, giving a glimpse at the teacher he could have been. Andrew's nervous new replacement Tom (Julian Sands) expresses his awe at the ironclad control that the former exerts over his classes, but Andrew advises his young colleague not to follow his example.

As his retirement at the end of the school term draws near, Andrew is approached by a quiet and sensitive pupil named Taplow who has detected the unhappiness and loneliness of his teacher and makes an attempt to reach out to him, saying that Andrew's Latin teachings have inspired him. Taplow gives Andrew a gift – a rare copy of an early edition of the 'Browning Version' – the 1877 translation by Robert Browning of Aeschylus’ ancient play ''Agamemnon''. Touched by this gesture, Andrew's emotional guard begins to be let down for the first time. Increasingly aware of Andrew's isolation, Frank feels guilty about the affair with Laura and ends the relationship. Shortly before the end-of-term school assembly in which Andrew will make his farewell speech, Laura tells her husband that she wants their marriage to end and that she intends to leave him.

The school's senior staff want Andrew to make his speech first, to be followed by the farewell speech of a younger, more popular teacher who is leaving to pursue a career as a cricketer. But Andrew insists on going second, even though the headmaster angrily says that it will give the ceremony an 'anti-climax'. To the surprise of everyone, including Laura who has lingered to watch the event, Andrew's speech is highly emotional and revelatory, apologising for his failures both as a teacher and as a person. Moved by the speech, the pupils and staff give Andrew a huge applause.

Andrew, as a parting gesture of gratitude, tells Taplow that he has organised a place for him in Frank's science class which the pupil had been eager to join. Laura has a newfound sense of respect for her husband and the two part on good terms. As he watches Laura drive away, Andrew sadly but calmly faces the next phase of his life.

During World War I, 18-year-old Paul Bäumer enlists in the German army with five of his high school friends (Behm, Kropp, Muller, Kemmerich and Leer), after being indoctrinated by Kantorek, their teacher, as to the glory and superiority of German culture. After surviving training camp under the brutal Corporal Himmelstoss, the young men board a troop train bound for the front line. Ominously, at the same moment, they notice another train arriving in town loaded with returning wounded soldiers, who are carried off on stretchers.

Once at the front line, they are placed in a squad, along with soldiers Tjaden, Westhus, Detering and others, under the supervision of Stanislaus "Kat" Katzinsky. Kat teaches them how to best take cover, how to find extra food, and other survival skills.

When Paul and his squad return to a French town for a rest week, they see the new recruits have grown younger and younger. To their delight, the leader of these new recruits is their recently demoted training NCO, Himmelstoss. When Himmelstoss tries to make them obey him, they stand up to him. Later in the trenches, while the Germans are launching an offensive attack, Paul sees another squad cowering in a crater, which includes Himmelstoss. Paul forces Himmelstoss to keep on the offensive.

The French and German armies are shown attacking each other repeatedly over a few hundred yards of torn, corpse-strewn land. Kemmerich is wounded, and later dies in an overcrowded army hospital. Paul returns to the trenches with his squad, distraught over Kemmerich's death.

When a French soldier falls into a crater Paul is hiding in, Paul stabs the man in the stomach with his trench dagger. Forced to spend the night with him, Paul tries to bandage the dying soldier's wounds, but he dies anyway. Paul escapes from the crater, stricken with guilt. An inexperienced new recruit, after falling into a pit of poison gas, is carried off by the medics to a slow, painful death; the medics had appeared before Kat could put him out of his misery.

Although Paul, Kropp and Leer have their first sexual experience with a trio of accommodating French peasant girls, the vast majority of the young men's experiences are horrific. One by one, practically all of Paul's schoolmate friends die. A haughty, stiff Kaiser Wilhelm II (Denys Graham) visits their camp to ceremoniously pin medals on heroic soldiers, which includes Himmelstoss.

When Paul's squad is bombed in a French town close to the front, Behm dies while Kropp loses a leg and Paul is seriously wounded. Paul improves and he is granted two weeks' leave. Returning home, Paul's sister tells him that their mother is dying of cancer. In visits to a beer garden and to his former teacher, Paul realises that his town's older men, in their enthusiasm for war, have no sense of the horrors they have sent their youth to. He also visits Kemmerich's mother and lies to her that he did not suffer.

Paul returns to duty, Kat is wounded in the leg by an artillery shell and Paul carries him many miles to a field hospital. Only at the hospital does Paul discover that Kat has died, shot at some point during the journey.

Paul writes a letter to Kropp, the sole survivor of their class, who is now an amputee. After finishing the letter, Paul walks through the trench checking on the younger soldiers, having taken up Kat's position as a mentor. He spots a bird and begins to sketch it. The bird starts to fly away, and as Paul stands up to see where it went, a lone sniper's shot rings out, killing him. A field communique from the German High Command is captioned over Paul's lifeless body, declaring "All Quiet on the Western Front", the date on the communique showing '11 October 1918', exactly one month before the Armistice.

Bank robbers Kruger, Doig and Carl break into the Spectrum Security Vaults but are disappointed to find only classified information of no material value. Nevertheless, Kruger is fascinated by documents describing Earth's war with the Mysterons, and devises a plan to exploit it.

Meanwhile, the Mysterons inform Spectrum that they have studied human greed and corruption and that they now intend to destroy the "heart of New York". As the city's population is evacuated and its perimeter roadblocked, Captains Scarlet and Blue (voiced by Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop) search the deserted streets for concealed explosive devices.

Driving through forest, Kruger, Doig and Carl stop at a fire tower and feign drunkenness in front of the lookout. They then destroy their car by sending it over a cliff edge, leading the lookout to believe that they have been killed in a drink-driving accident. Returning to the tower, they tell the lookout that they are Mysteron reconstructions and intend to destroy the Second National Bank of New York. When the lookout's story reaches Cloudbase, Colonel White (voiced by Donald Gray) decides that he will not risk lives to protect the bank and orders all Spectrum personnel to retreat to the roadblocks.

Having acquired another car, Kruger, Doig and Carl drive up to a roadblock manned by Captains Magenta and Ochre (voiced by Gary Files and Jeremy Wilkin). They present false FBI identification and claim to be on official business that has nothing to do with the Second National Bank. Ochre's Mysteron Detector shows them to be human and Magenta permits them to enter the city. The men arrive at the bank aiming to steal the entire East Coast gold reserve. However, they have been followed by Captain Black (voiced by Donald Gray), who locks them inside a vault and warns them that the bank will soon be destroyed.

Learning of the men's arrival, Scarlet is puzzled how a group of supposed government agents knew that the Mysterons were specifically targeting the bank when only Spectrum personnel had been informed. Realising that they are the men who confronted the fire lookout, and that they evidently faked their deaths and are now about to get away with robbery, Scarlet and Blue speed to the bank in their Spectrum Patrol Car but turn around when they see Black driving the men's car in the opposite direction. As the Mysterons use their powers to teleport Black to safety, the bank is destroyed in an explosion, killing the thieves. Back on Cloudbase, White concedes that Kruger, Doig and Carl exemplified the greed and corruption denounced by the Mysterons, but insists that the good of humanity will eventually prevail over the Martian evil.

The film is inspired by Cunningham's years in Hawaii. Mark Thompson (played by Roy Newton) leaves Los Angeles and moves with his mother to the Big Island and befriends three "locals", Ronnie (Lorenzo Callendar), Zulu (Kalani) and Keao (Daryl Bonilla). At the same time, he is bullied and harassed for being a "haole" or foreigner.

The three lead characters were also inspired by Cunningham's real life high school friends, as seen in the ending credits. The film is dedicated to Donald Boy (Ronnie), Zulu (Zulu), while Keao was a composite of two friends combining the humor of one friend and the drug element of another into one character.

The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage. His inheritance and the woman he loved are stolen from him by the same man, his eventual wife and mother-in-law badger him constantly, and his twin daughters, neglected by their mother, can provide him with joy only until an untimely death takes them. Death robs him even of his beloved mother.

To escape, he decides one day to sneak off to Monte Carlo, where he encounters an amazing string of luck, acquiring a small fortune. While reading a newspaper on his return home, he discovers, to his immense shock and delight, that his wife and mother-in-law declared an unknown corpse to be his own. Faced with this sudden opportunity to start afresh, he first wanders about Europe, and finally settles down in Rome with an assumed identity. His character develops in unexpected, even admirable, ways. Yet one admirable act brings the protagonist a crisis, followed by additional crises that lead him to conclude that continuing with his plans will entail only misery for those he loves, precisely because his entire life, including the precious liberty he thought he had gained from his past, is now a lie. He ultimately decides to fake his own death and return to his original life. But even that proves difficult; his family and town have long since adjusted to his "death," and his own adjustment of character prompts him to have mercy on his now remarried wife. So the twice-dead Late Mattia Pascal reduces himself to a figure outside the mainstream of society, a walk-on part in his own life.

The film deals with the conflict between a father, master of a cattle ranch, and his son, who has returned after study.

James Hart (Timothy Bottoms) starts his first year at Harvard Law School in a contract law course with Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. (John Houseman). Hart is unaware that he was to read an assigned case for the first class. When Kingsfield immediately delves into the material using the Socratic method and asks Hart the first question, Hart is totally unprepared and feels so humiliated that, after class, he throws up in the bathroom.

Hart is invited to join a study group with five other students: * Franklin Ford (Graham Beckel), the fifth generation of Fords at Harvard Law School * Kevin Brooks (James Naughton), a married man with a photographic memory but lacking in analytical skills * Thomas Anderson (Edward Herrmann) * Willis Bell (Craig Richard Nelson), an abrasive individual who is devoted to property law * O'Connor (Robert Lydiard)

While out getting pizza, Hart is asked by a woman, Susan Fields (Lindsay Wagner), to walk her home, as she says she feels uncomfortable about a man who has been following her. Hart returns to her house soon after and asks her on a date, after which they begin a complicated relationship: she resents the time he devotes to his studies, while he expects her to provide him with a great deal of attention and wants a firm commitment. When Hart and his classmates are invited to a cocktail party hosted by Kingsfield, he is stunned to discover that Susan is Kingsfield's married daughter. (She is, however, separated from her husband and eventually gets a divorce.) She and Hart break up and get back together several times.

Hart categorizes his classmates into three groups: those who have given up; those who are trying, but fear being called upon in class to respond to Kingsfield's questions; and the "upper echelon" who actively volunteer to answer. As time goes on, he moves from the second classification to the third. Late one night, Hart and another student break into a secured room of the library to read personal notes Kingsfield had written as a law student.

The mounting pressure, as the course nears its end, gets to everyone. When Hart gives Kingsfield a flippant answer, the professor gives him a dime and tells him, "Call your mother. Tell her there is serious doubt about your becoming a lawyer." Hart calls Kingsfield a "son of a bitch" and starts to walk out. Surprisingly, Kingsfield agrees with Hart's assessment, telling him, "That is the most intelligent thing you’ve said today", and invites him to sit back down, which he does. Brooks attempts suicide and drops out of school. The study group is torn apart by personal bickering. With final exams looming, Hart and Ford hole up in a hotel room for three days and prepare feverishly.

The film is a faithful adaptation of the novel, although it adds two elements not in the book: Hart's first name and middle initial (James T.), and his grade in contract law (93, an A). In both the novel and the film, Hart makes a paper airplane out of the unopened letter containing his grades and, with Susan watching on shore, sends it sailing into the ocean.

The play begins with the Librarian appearing on stage, which is sparsely furnished with a whiteboard and marker pens, a magnetic bulletin board, and a table. The Librarian carries with him a battered suitcase. He informs the audience that he is giving a lecture for only one day about a discovery he has made.

The Librarian then opens his suitcase and begins to show the audience what he calls his "scraps": pieces of evidence each marked with numbered tags that provide evidence of a person whose identity is gradually revealed over the course of the play.

He starts with a copy of a Baedeker travel guide that was anonymously returned 113 years overdue to the library in the small Dutch town where he used to work. Tracking down the loan records of the book, he finds that the book was borrowed by one "A." who provided a post office box as his address. Inside the book, he finds a 73-year-old dry-cleaning ticket for an unclaimed piece of clothing in a London laundry shop. Intrigued, he takes leave from work to visit London. He finds that the laundry shop is still in business and, using the ticket, redeems a pair of trousers that has not been cleaned because of its poor condition.

Eventually, the audience learns that the person to whom all of the Librarian's items relate may be Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew, a mythical figure from medieval Christian folklore.

The story begins with Wolverine and Rogue having an argument about him leaving. When Wolverine goes to Charles and Jean Grey, they get headaches. An explosion occurs, and Charles and Jean disappear. The resulting trauma caused the X-Men team to disband and go their separate ways, leaving Xavier's once highly revered league of mutant peace preservers out of commission.

Due to the loss of the Professor, Jean, and severe damage to the mansion, many of the X-Men have withered in their faith towards the stability of their former team and have since detached themselves from their former community. Some examples include Cyclops' subsequent isolation resulting from Jean's disappearance, Storm's relocation back to her home continent of Africa, and Iceman's move back into his parents' home in the quiet suburbs.

One year later, the MRD (short for the Mutant Response Division), a government-supported organization created for the detainment and subsequent registration of existing mutants, begins capturing mutants from all over the country in response to the countless human protesters determined to protect the safety of humankind. This course of action causes Wolverine and Beast to ally and resolve to bring the once defunct X-Men team back together again.

Meanwhile, Rogue is in the street and attacked by the Brotherhood of Mutants. They trick her into joining them, and she later smiles devilishly as she enters their base, appearing to have switched allegiance to become an evil mutant. Thanks to the generosity, wealth, and resourcefulness of Angel, the slowly reforming X-Men team begins to see a promising return to its former glory with the rejoining of junior members Iceman, Shadowcat and Forge along with the reconstruction of the previously demolished Xavier Institute. Unfortunately, without the necessary capabilities of a competent telepath to operate Cerebro, the possibility of locating some of the more globally scattered X-Men members along with the missing Charles Xavier and Jean seems all but a pipe dream.

Fortunately, this problem does not last for very long when Emma Frost, the beautiful former Headmistress of a now inactive mutant school of her own in Massachusetts, makes a surprising appearance on the doorstep of the Mansion with an interesting proposal: membership with the X-Men in exchange for utilizing her telepathy to pinpoint the missing Xavier's whereabouts. Upon the team's – and particularly Wolverine's – reluctant acceptance of the offer, Emma's efforts prove successful as she is able to locate a comatose Charles on the shores of Genosha in the care of Magneto. After their arrival on Genosha and a short confrontation with the Master of Magnetism himself, Magneto eventually permits the X-Men to take his old friend's body back to the sanctity of the Mansion where he is certain that Xavier will be placed in proper care. Upon their return, Xavier telepathically contacts the X-Men twenty years from the present in an alternate dystopian future and informs Wolverine that he is to lead and reunite the X-Men if they wish to successfully prevent the inevitable war that will cause the world to fall under the domination of Master Mold and the Sentinels.

Throughout the course of the entire season, Emma's role as the X-Men's primary acting telepath enables the team to relocate the rest of the other members in the hopes of reforming once again and assisting in Xavier's cause. While some were met with initial hesitancy such as with Nightcrawler, others such as Storm were more than willing to accept the offer once Xavier's vision had been put into perspective. The X-Men overcome many hardships and obstacles along the way, eventually achieving their ultimate goal of locating Jean and finally discovering the truth surrounding the mystery of what caused the Mansion's explosion, along with Xavier and Jean's subsequent disappearances.

Meanwhile, Magneto welcomes new mutants to Genosha, one of whom is Nightcrawler. Magneto claims that Genosha is a safe and secure area for mutants, rather than a threat. At first Nightcrawler believes this, but upon closer inspection, Genosha is exposed as a method to use mutants' powers by Magneto. Nightcrawler eventually escapes, but is captured by Mystique when he arrives back at the mansion.

Elsewhere, Wolverine begins to have some visions from the past, and Emma offers to sort out his visions telepathically. In his visions, Wolverine meets a lone mutant girl, figure from the past Sabretooth, and finally discovers many mysteries about his past. Cyclops has constant memories about Jean and is depressed. He believes she is still alive, so, with the help of Emma, he seeks out Mister Sinister. The X-Men and Mister Sinister have a confrontation that does not result in them finding out any new info about Jean's whereabouts. Wolverine has Cyclops swear an oath to be in the X-Men again and promise not to go off searching for Jean. Somewhere across town, Jean is shown waking up in a random hospital after months of being in a coma.

It is later revealed in the three-part first-season finale "Foresight" that the previously assumed attack on the Mansion was not from the efforts of a third party, but rather from the result of Jean who unwittingly releases the immense and highly destructive strength and power of the Phoenix Force, that originally lay dormant deep within her subconscious, in an attempt to halt an oncoming telepathic attack led by Emma (who was secretly working as a double agent for the Inner Circle and the Stepford Cuckoos). Along with Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Harry Leland, and Donald Pierce, it was the Inner Circle's utmost duty to not only obtain the power of the Phoenix Force by abducting Jean from the protection of Xavier and the Mansion, but to also obliterate the ancient being's existence before it could fully mature and consequently bring forth unparalleled destruction onto the world as it had done numerous times in the past throughout Earth's history. However, in a move that was completely unknown to Emma at the time, the rest of the Inner Circle members all shared an entirely different and more sinister vision than Frost had initially believed: to control and manipulate the power of the Phoenix Force and have it cater to their own hidden agenda. Upon realizing the error of her ways, Emma betrays the Inner Circle and attempts to redeem herself in the eyes of the X-Men by not only rescuing Jean but, by also following through with her original plan of destroying the cosmic entity before it could mature. Unfortunately, her actions result in her apparent death. Rogue apologizes to Wolverine, and finally rejoins the X-Men for good. The now fully reformed X-Men are praised for their actions by Professor Xavier, but are warned of a new danger approaching: the Age of Apocalypse.

After the Great Flood, Noah and his family are seen outside of the Ark praising the Lord, followed by depictions of the building of the Tower of Babel, the worshipping of the golden calf, and then the eve of World War I, where a bankrupted trader shoots his uncaring stockbroker.

In 1914, American playboy Travis and his New York taxi driver buddy Al are traveling aboard the "Oriental Express" train. Travis helps a pious minister reclaim his seat from a rude fellow passenger. A washed-out bridge causes a deadly derailment. Travis and Al rescue Marie, a German member of a small theatrical troupe, with the help of a prisoner who unhandcuffed himself from a now-dead escort.

At the nearby lodge where they take shelter, fellow survivor Nickoloff, an officer in the Russian Secret Service, tries to sneak into Marie's room. When Travis objects, a fight breaks out, during which Nickoloff is cut on the hand by a bottle he was wielding. They are interrupted by French soldiers, who announce that war has broken out. Travis, Al and Marie sneak away in the confusion and head to Paris together. Travis and Marie fall in love.

When America enters the war, Al enlists as soon as he can. Travis tells him he cannot, as he has married Marie. However, when he later sees Al marching with his unit down the streets of Paris, he impulsively joins up as well. He loses touch with his wife.

Travis and Al meet by chance in the trenches. They are each assigned a squad to attack a machine gun nest holding up the American offensive. Tragically, Travis tosses a hand grenade into the position, not knowing that Al had captured it moments before. Al is fatally wounded, but lives long enough to bid his friend adieu.

Nickoloff spots Marie in a group of dancers entertaining the troops. He threatens to have her arrested as a German spy unless she meets him later. When she tries to sneak away, he carries through his threat, and she is sentenced to face a firing squad. She is comforted by the minister from the train. Travis, who by chance is part of the squad, recognizes her in the nick of time. The couple and others are trapped below a demolished building by a German artillery barrage. The minister compares the war and its flood of blood to the biblical story of Noah's Ark.

The film reverts to that time, with the actors playing second roles. King Nephilim has converted his subjects into worshippers of the god Jaghuth. Only Noah and his family remain faithful to Jehovah. Following Jehovah's command, Noah and his three sons begin building the Ark on a mountainside.

Nephilim orders the sacrifice of the most beautiful virgin in his realm to his god in a month. His soldiers choose Miriam, a handmaiden of Noah's. When Noah's son Japheth tries to save her, he is blinded and set to labor turning a stone-mill with other prisoners. Just as Miriam is about to be slain, Jehovah unleashes his wrath, with the great flood destroying and drowning everything in its path. Among the chaos, Japheth, freed from his chains, finds and carries Miriam back to the Ark, where Jehovah restores his sight. Nephilim tries to climb aboard the Ark, only to have the door slam on his hand, inflicting the same injuries Nickoloff suffered.

Returning to World War I, the trapped group is freed. Soon after they emerge, they learn that the Armistice has been signed and the war is over.

When a major engineering corporation conducts a survey into high employee turnover, a report is returned claiming that Waldo Moore, an employee recently killed in what was believed to be a hit-and-run accident, was murdered. The company president, Jasper Pine, approaches Nero Wolfe and hires him to find out whether this claim is true. Archie Goodwin is sent undercover as an outside consultant and assigned to investigate the stock department, where Moore worked, and is amazed to discover 500 beautiful women employed as secretaries and assistants.

Archie discovers that Moore was notorious among the employees as a lothario but had become engaged to Hester Livsey, a stenographer. He quickly identifies numerous possible suspects for Moore's murder — in addition to Livsey, these include Rosa Bendini, who had enjoyed a dalliance with Moore; Bendini's jealous estranged husband Harold Anthony; Gwynne Ferris, who had tried to seduce Moore but was rebuffed; Benjamin Frenkel, a supervisor who had developed feelings for Ferris and had been rebuffed; and Sumner Hoff, a hot-headed technical advisor who had gotten into a physical fight with Moore, which was believed to be over Livsey. As gossip begins to spread among the employees about Archie's true mission, he begins to clash with Kerr Naylor, the eccentric and unpleasant department supervisor who lodged the initial report claiming that Moore was murdered.

During one confrontation, Naylor reveals that he knows Archie's true identity, and that Moore had been given his job due to the intervention of Naylor's sister Cecily, who is also married to Jasper Pine. Naylor and Cecily are the children of one of the founders of the company, and Naylor resents Pine being promoted over him. Naylor also claims that he knows the identity of Moore's murderer, but when Archie reveals this in a report to the company directors he changes his story and claims Archie was lying. Cecily Pine meets with Wolfe, asking him to drop the investigation.

When an article about Wolfe's investigation appears in the newspapers, Inspector Cramer confronts Wolfe in his office about what he knows. The increasingly heated and childish argument is interrupted by a phone call for Cramer; Kerr Naylor has been found dead, killed in a seeming hit-and-run accident in exactly the same manner and location that Waldo Moore had been found. The similarity of the deaths and the location remove any doubt that both men have been the victim of homicide. Wolfe had previously assigned Saul Panzer to shadow Naylor and, while Saul had lost the tail before Naylor's murder, Saul managed to witness Naylor arguing with Hester Livsey hours before his death, with Sumner Hoff also present at the scene.

The company directors hire Wolfe to solve the murder of Kerr Naylor in addition to Waldo Moore. Archie hints to Livsey that he is aware of her meeting with Naylor prior to his death, and her suspicious reaction convinces him that she knows even more of the matter than she has let on. Archie persuades her to come to Wolfe's office for an interview, but Sumner Hoff tags along, suspicious and confrontational towards both Archie and Wolfe. When Wolfe challenges them regarding her meeting with Naylor, both claim that they were with each other at the time, concocting an overly detailed story as corroboration. While the lie is obvious, it is also sufficiently unbreakable to completely stall the investigation.

Insulted by the transparency of Livsey's lie, Wolfe concocts a plan to expose the truth. Archie stages a meeting with Livsey which, with Archie's prodding, quickly results in the rumour spreading that Livsey knows the identity of the murderer. Livsey eventually cracks under the pressure and insists that she will reveal the truth to anyone other than Jasper Pine. Archie convinces her to accompany him to the brownstone for her protection, where Wolfe summons Cecily Pine by informing her that he knows who the murderer is.

When she arrives, Cecily Pine confirms Wolfe's suspicions—the murderer was her husband, Jasper Pine. Pine and Livsey had begun a clandestine affair, but Pine had become increasingly obsessed with her. Although unbothered by the actual affair, Cecily had begun to worry that her husband's obsession was threatening their comfortable lifestyle, and so persuaded Moore to seduce Livsey away from her husband. When Moore and Livsey ended up falling in love, Pine was driven to a jealous rage and murdered Moore. Cecily confided in her brother, and Naylor used the information to try and force Pine out of the company presidency and seize it for himself, but Pine murdered him.

Before the authorities can be notified, Wolfe receives news that Jasper Pine has committed suicide. Wolfe and Archie realise that Cecily contacted her husband before meeting Wolfe, and manipulated him into taking his own life. The investigation is closed, and Archie ends the novel by arranging a simultaneous date with Hester Livsey, Rosa Bendini and Gwynne Ferris.