From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Sigsbee Manderson, a wealthy American plutocrat, is found shot dead in the grounds of his English country house "White Gables", in the village of Marlstone, on the south-west coast of England. Philip Trent, an artist, freelance journalist, and amateur detective, is commissioned by Sir James Molloy, a Fleet Street press magnate, to investigate and report on the case. Trent receives the cooperation of the police (the investigating officer proves to be Inspector Murch of Scotland Yard, an old acquaintance), and is able to view the body, examine the house and grounds, and interview those involved. Other members of the household include Manderson's wife, Mabel; his two secretaries (Calvin Bunner, an American, and John Marlowe, an Englishman); Martin, a manservant; and Célestine, a lady's maid. Nathaniel Cupples, Mabel Manderson's uncle-by-marriage and another old friend of Trent, is staying at a hotel in the village. Trent pursues his enquiries, and learns, among other things, that the Mandersons' marriage was in difficulties, and that the couple had grown distant from one another. In the process, he falls in love with Mabel Manderson. The coroner's inquest finds that Manderson was killed by a person or persons unknown: there is a strong suggestion that he was the victim of a business vendetta. Trent, however, concludes that Manderson was shot by Marlowe, who then returned to the house wearing some of Manderson's outer clothing in order to give the impression that Manderson was at that point still alive, before driving to Southampton to provide himself with an alibi. Trent believes that Marlowe's motive was his own love for Mabel, but is unclear as to how far she may have colluded in the affair. He writes down his ideas in the form of a dispatch for Molloy, but before sending it presents it to Mabel and asks whether there had been anything between her and Marlowe. Her reaction persuades him that there had been, and he leaves the dispatch unsent. Six months later (having spent the intervening period in Latvia as a roving correspondent for Molloy) Trent re-establishes contact with Mabel in London, and finally extracts her version of events. She tells him that there had never been any sort of intimacy between her and Marlowe, but that her husband's suspicions had been the cause of their marital rift, and that in his jealousy he may have plotted an act of revenge. Trent now sends Marlowe his original dispatch, and arranges a meeting, at which Cupples is also present, to allow Marlowe to give his side of the story. Marlowe explains that Manderson had fabricated a web of incriminating evidence to implicate Marlowe in his apparent "murder", and send him to the gallows; and had then shot himself. Having realised what was happening, and having discovered Manderson's body, Marlowe had attempted to cover his tracks and give himself an alibi – this much of Trent's analysis had been correct. Following this meeting, Trent and Cupples have dinner together, at which Cupples reveals – in the final pages of the book – that, while the majority of Marlowe's story had been accurate, it was in fact he who had fired the fatal shot. He had chanced upon Manderson pointing a pistol at himself, probably meaning only to cause a self-inflicted wound. However, suspecting a suicide attempt, Cupples had intervened, and in the ensuing struggle had shot Manderson in the face. On the last page, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection. ===== I, Libertine tells the story of a social climber who styles himself Lance Courtenay, and most of the plot is closely based on the historical personage Elizabeth Chudleigh. An afterword states "The story of Elizabeth Chudleigh is substantially true ... ." which could easily be taken as part of the hoax, but the story of Elizabeth Chudleigh actually is true.T. H. White, The Age of Scandal, Faber & Faber, 2011, ===== Quintus Teal, a "Graduate Architect" in the Los Angeles area, wants architects to be inspired by topology and the Picard–Vessiot theory. During a conversation with friend Homer Bailey he shows models made of toothpicks and clay, representing projections of a four-dimensional tesseract, the equivalent of a cube, and convinces Bailey to build one. The house is quickly constructed in an "inverted double cross" shape (having eight cubical rooms, arranged as a stack of four cubes with a further four cubes surrounding the second cube up on the stack). The night before Teal is to show Bailey and his wife, Matilda, around the house, an earthquake occurs. The three of them arrive the next morning to find what appears to be just a single cubical room. Inside, they find the upper floors completely intact, but the stairs seem to form a closed loop. There appears to be no way to get back out, as all the doors and windows lead directly into other rooms. At one point, they look down a hallway and are shocked to see their own backs. Teal realizes that the earthquake caused the house to fold into an actual tesseract. In attempting to move from one room to another by way of a French window, Teal falls outside and lands in shrubbery. Exploring further, they find that the windows of the original top room do not connect where they mathematically "should". One gives a dizzying view from above the Empire State Building, another an upside-down view of a seascape. A third window looks out on a place of no-space, with no color, not even black. The fourth window looks out on an unearthly desert scene. Just then another earthquake hits, and so they exit in a panic through the open window. They find themselves in a desert with twisted, tree-like vegetation around them, with no sign of the house or the window they just jumped through. They are relieved when they discover, from a passing truck driver, that they are in Joshua Tree National Park. Returning to the house, they find it has vanished. Teal remarks that it must've "fell through into another section of space" on the last earthquake, and that he should've "anchored it at the foundations". The story ends with Teal rejoicing that he's now got a "great new revolutionary idea for a house", and Mr. Bailey presumably attacking him out of frustration, which Teal was able to dodge in time, as "he was always a man of action". ===== Following the events of Planet of the Apes, time-displaced astronaut Taylor and the mute Nova ride horseback through the desert of the Forbidden Zone in search of a new life far away from Ape City. Without warning, fire shoots up from the ground and deep chasms open. Confused by the strange phenomenon, Taylor investigates a cliff wall and disappears through it before Nova's eyes. The phenomenon disappears, leaving Nova alone. Elsewhere in the Forbidden Zone, a second Earth spaceship has crash landed after being sent to search for Taylor and his crew. Brent and his Skipper are the only survivors, though the Skipper dies shortly after crashing. Brent, while noting he is in the year 3985, assumes he has travelled to another planet. After burying his Skipper, he encounters Nova and notices she is wearing Taylor's dog tags. Hoping Taylor is still alive, he rides with her to Ape City, where he is shocked to discover the simian civilization. He observes the gorilla General Ursus leading a rally for the apes to conquer the Forbidden Zone and use it as a potential food source, against the objections of the orangutan Dr. Zaius. Brent is wounded by a gorilla soldier and taken by Nova to the home of the chimpanzees Cornelius and Zira, who treat his wound and tell him of their time with Taylor. The humans hide when Dr. Zaius arrives and announces that he will accompany Ursus on the invasion of the Forbidden Zone. Attempting to flee the city, Brent and Nova are captured by gorillas. Ursus orders they be used for target practice, but Zira helps them escape. They hide in a cave which Brent soon discovers is the ruins of the Queensboro Plaza station of the New York City Subway, realizing he traveled through time to Earth's post-apocalyptic future. After following a humming sound deeper into the tunnels, Brent begins to hear voices telling him to kill Nova. Entering the remains of St. Patrick's Cathedral, he finds a population of telepathic humans who worship an ancient nuclear bomb. Brent and Nova are captured and telepathically interrogated by the telepaths' leadership under Mendez. They explain themselves to be the descendants of humans who survived nuclear holocaust and mutated over generations. While claiming to be a peaceful society despite using mind-control and illusion on their enemies, the mutants force Brent into revealing the apes' march on the Forbidden Zone; but their attempts to repel the invaders with illusions of fire and other horrors ultimately fail when Zaius sees through it. With the apes closing in, the telepaths plan to detonate their "Divine Bomb" as a last resort, holding a religious ritual during which they remove their human-skinned masks to reveal their malformed skinless appearance from generations of radiation exposure. Brent is separated from Nova and taken to a cell where he finds Taylor. The mutant Ongaro, explaining that they cannot let them leave the city alive, uses his telepathic powers to force Brent and Taylor to fight each other. Nova escapes her guard and runs to the cell, screaming her first word: "Taylor!" This breaks Ongaro's concentration, freeing Brent and Taylor from his control long enough for them to overpower and kill the mutant. Brent describes the bomb the mutants worship to have Greek letters Alpha and Omega on its casing, Taylor recognizing it as a "doomsday bomb" capable of destroying the entire planet. The apes invade the subterranean city, making their way to the cathedral; many of the mutants are either captured, killed, or found to have committed suicide. After Nova is killed in the midst of the chaos, Taylor and Brent reach the cathedral as Méndez is shot dead after raising the bomb into activation position. The humans attempt to stop Ursus from accidentally setting off the weapon, but Taylor is shot as his pleas to Zaius fall on deaf ears. When Brent is gunned down after killing Ursus, the mortally wounded Taylor collapses while bringing his hand down on the activation switch and triggering the bomb. The scene whites out, and voiceover narration states: "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead". ===== Three years after winning the world heavyweight championship against Apollo Creed, Rocky Balboa has had a string of ten successful title defenses. His fame, wealth, endorsements, and celebrity profile have increased, leading him to participate in an exhibition charity event against the world wrestling champion, Thunderlips. Rocky's manager, Mickey, worriedly eyes a young and powerful contender rapidly rising through the ranks named James "Clubber" Lang. While unveiling a statue of himself at the stairway by the Philadelphia Museum of Art just prior to announcing his retirement, Rocky is publicly challenged by Lang, now the number-one contender. Lang accuses Rocky of intentionally accepting challenges from lesser opponents, and goads Rocky into accepting his challenge for a championship fight. Mickey initially wants no part of it. Pressed by Rocky, Mickey confesses that he handpicked the opponents for Rocky's title defenses in order to spare him from another beating of the kind that Creed gave him in their rematch. He explains that Lang is young and powerful, and most of all he's "hungry", and that Rocky won't last three rounds because he hasn’t been hungry ever since he won the title and became "civilized". Rocky, now knowing that he never really defended his title against the best opponents, convinces Mickey to work with him for one last fight. Despite his promise to Mickey to 'live in the gym', Rocky trains in a Las Vegas-style environment that is filled with distractions, and is clearly not taking his training seriously. In contrast, Lang trains with ruthless determination and vigor. Lang and Rocky meet at Philadelphia's Spectrum. Pandemonium erupts backstage, as Mickey is violently shoved by Lang, causing Mickey to suffer a heart attack. Distraught, Rocky wants to call the match off, but Mickey urges him on while he receives medical care in the dressing room. By the time of the match, Rocky is both enraged and severely distracted by his mentor's condition. The match begins with Rocky pounding Lang with several huge blows looking for an early knockout, but he cannot put Lang down due to his own lack of conditioning. Rocky's mind on the match is not fully set, as Lang quickly recovers and takes charge, dominating Rocky and knocking him out with a haymaker left hook in the second round, winning the world heavyweight championship. After the match, Rocky tells a dying Mickey that the match ended in a second round knockout without saying who the victor was. Mickey then dies. Rocky, lapsing into severe depression, mourns over Mickey's death. Stopping by Mickey's closed gym, the forlorn Rocky encounters his former rival, Apollo Creed, who witnessed the match as a guest analyst. Creed offers to help train Rocky for a rematch against Lang in exchange for a future favor which Rocky accepts. Apollo then takes Rocky to the gym where he once trained, Tough Gym in Los Angeles. Creed, along with his former trainer Tony "Duke" Evers, infuses Rocky's undisciplined brawling style with more of Apollo's trademark footwork, skill and speed to become a more complete fighter and to help him regain his edge. At first, Rocky is too distracted and demoralized to put forth his best efforts, which infuriates Apollo. However, Rocky regains his focus after Adrian helps him come to terms with Mickey's death. After months of training, the rematch takes place at Madison Square Garden. Apollo lends Rocky the American flag trunks that he wore during their first match. At the outset of the match, Rocky sprints from his corner, battering Lang with a level of skill and spirit that no one ever expected. Rocky completely dominates the first round, leaving Lang enraged and bewildered after the bell. Lang gains the upper hand in the second round, and Rocky adopts an entirely different strategy that bewilders Apollo by intentionally taking a beating from Lang, even getting knocked down twice, all the while taunting Lang that he cannot knock him out. By the third round, Lang, who is used to winning matches swiftly with knockouts in the early rounds, becomes increasingly furious over Rocky's taunts. He quickly exhausts his energy trying to finish Rocky off with repeated knockout blows, which Rocky blocks or dodges. With Lang rattled and vulnerable, Rocky out-boxes Lang with a flurry of punches, culminating in a brutal knockout to reclaim the heavyweight championship. Afterwards, Rocky fulfills Apollo's favor — a closed door rematch with him, but this time in the spirit of friendly competition, then fierce rivalry. The film concludes with both fighters throwing their first punch simultaneously, leaving the audience guessing as to who won. ===== Riders of the Purple Wage is an extrapolation of the mid- twentieth century's tendency towards state supervision and consumer-oriented economic planning. In the story, all citizens receive a basic income (the purple wage) from the government, to which everyone is entitled just by being born. The population is self-segregated into relatively small communities, with a controlled environment, and keeps in contact with the rest of the world through the Fido, a combination television and videophone. The typical dwelling is an egg-shaped house, outside of which is a realistic simulation of an open environment with sky, sun, and moon. In reality, each community is on one level of a multi-level arcology. For those who dislike this lifestyle, there are wildlife reserves where they can join "tribes" of Native Americans and like-minded Anglos living closer to nature for a while. Some choose this lifestyle permanently. Art (and art appreciation) are prominently displayed in this society. Artists receive press coverage comparable to that of today's movie stars. Hardly less glamorous are the art critics, each of whom has a pet theory about art. A critic also acts as an agent and manager, promoting the work of one or more artists, especially if their work seems to support his ideas. The story revolves around one of these pampered artists, who sometimes finds himself uninspired, due to the lack of major conflicts in society. Sexual relations and sexual orientation are portrayed as absolutely free from prejudice. The main character is bisexual, and it is implied that most of his acquaintances have had at least experimental relations with members of both sexes. Several forms of birth control are also commonplace, encouraged by the government, and freely discussed. For people who do not want to bother with social interaction, there is the fornixator, a device that supplies sexual pleasure on demand by direct stimulation of the brain's pleasure centers. The fornixator is technically illegal, but tolerated by the government because its users are happy, never demand anything else, and usually do not procreate. Two new sets of customs have arisen which profoundly influence the story. By tradition, everyone has a Naming Day when they are grown, at which point they select a name which reflects their outlook on life, their chosen profession, or the way they want others to see them. The second change derives from the so-called "Panamorite" religion, which features total sexual freedom including oral sex between parents and their children. One source of frustration for the main character is his mother's decision to "cut him off" from intimate physical contact, a situation made worse by her becoming morbidly obese, which is not unusual in this society. ===== It's World War II, and "King Nine," a B-25 Mitchell bomber, has crashed in the desert. Captain James Embry finds himself stranded, alone except for the wreckage and the mystery of what happened to his crew, all of whom have disappeared. The movement of the plane in the wind and his visions of the missing men serve to heighten Embry's disorientation. While searching for his crew, Embry finds the grave of one of his men and recognizes, in the sky, Navy F9F Cougar (Blue Angels) jets, which are impossible for 1943. He is bewildered as to how he knows about jet aircraft and becomes increasingly distressed. Embry collapses in the sand, and we discover that he is apparently hospitalized and suffering hallucinations, 17 years after the crash. Confident that Embry will recover, two doctors discuss their speculation that his suffering has been triggered by a newspaper headline. The paper has reported the desert discovery of the long-lost King Nine, which had not returned to base from a wartime mission in 1943. Having come down with a fever just before he was to board the ill-fated flight, Embry had been replaced on the mission by another captain. Seeing the headline has triggered survivor guilt, the intensity of which, we are to understand, has caused him to imagine himself at the crash site. The doctors assure Embry he has returned to the site only in his mind. However, when a nurse handling his clothes accidentally turns one of his shoes on its side, sand spills out. ===== A poor elderly woman visits Arthur Castle, an unsuccessful antiques dealer, bringing a wine bottle she found in a trash can. It has no value, but he buys it for a small amount out of pity. The bottle proves to contain a genie, who offers to grant four wishes to Castle and his wife. They use their first wish to repair a broken glass cabinet, proving the genie's power, and then receive a million dollars in cash upon making their second wish. After they have given tens of thousands away to their friends, an IRS employee visits the shop and presents the Castles with a tax bill that, once they pay it, leaves them with only $5. The genie warns them that every wish has consequences, and that they should think carefully before making their next one. Castle decides that he wants to be in a position of great power, and wishes to be a leader - who cannot be voted out of office - of a modern and powerful country. He is turned into Adolf Hitler and transported to the last days of World War II; he is hiding in the Führerbunker as one of his men brings him a vial of cyanide so he can kill himself. In desperation, he makes his last wish—to be returned to his old life; he throws the vial to the floor. In an instant, Castle is back in his shop and the wine bottle shatters on the floor. He and his wife have nothing to show for their experience except a repaired cabinet — which Castle accidentally breaks again as he sweeps up — and a changed perspective on life. He dumps the pieces of the bottle into a trash can outside; they magically reform into a whole bottle, waiting for someone else to pick it up and release the genie. ===== An insecure, unsuccessful gangster named Jackie Rhoades (Joe Mantell) waits in a cheap hotel room for instructions from his boss, George (William D. Gordon). George gives Jackie a gun and orders him to shoot a barkeeper who has refused to pay for protection. Jackie begs to be given another job, but George flatly refuses, roughs Jackie up, and leaves. Terrified, Jackie starts talking to his reflection in the mirror, trying to justify committing murder. He puts a cigarette in his lips but finds no match. A puff of smoke emerges from the other side of the mirror, and he sees reflected a different version of himself: a strong, self-assured, confident man. Jackie and his reflection engage in a lengthy argument about how his life has turned out as a result of going along with peers and never standing up for himself. Finally, the double tells Jackie he wants to take over, that it is his turn to run their life, and that he deserves to live. Jackie argues but cannot decide what to do. George telephones and Jackie nervously assures him that he is on the way to do the job. The double reappears and tries to persuade Jackie to let him out. He knows that disaster will strike, life will be over, if Jackie tries to do the job; he refuses to let Jackie lead them both to ruin. Angry and panicking, Jackie spins the mirror on the chest of drawers and, as it spins, Jackie backs away in terror when he sees that the double is looming larger and larger. George comes by, furious that Jackie has not done his job. He sarcastically explains that the old man Jackie was to shoot is "in excellent health" and demands, "So what've you got to say for yourself?" Jackie calmly looks up at him and answers, "Two words. I resign!", emphasizing the point by kicking and punching a stunned George. He opens the door and orders the hoodlum out, tossing the gun after him and demanding he never come back. Ringing the room clerk to check out, he refers to himself as "Jackie—'JOHN' Rhoades." The nervous Jackie, now on the other side of the mirror, asks, "What's to do now?" John responds, "Now we go look for a job. Now maybe we get married. Now maybe we stop biting our nails." John then walks out of the room, looks back at the mirror, and sees only his own confident reflection. ===== A repairman has paid a house call to Bartlett Finchley, who is having trouble with the TV, and notes that he should not damage his appliances (he smashed the screen of the TV for a mild inconvenience). It turns out he is an ill-tempered gourmet magazine critic who reviles humanity (a misanthrope), though he simultaneously seems lonely. He's as inept with machines as he is with people. Frustrated, he constantly abuses machines and starts to think they are conspiring against him. The people he tells about this write him off as paranoid, but eventually every machine in his house (including his car) turns on him. We learn from him his views about why the radio doesn't work and why his clock chimes more than the hour. His typewriter types the message, "GET OUT OF HERE FINCHLEY", three times. A woman on the TV speaks the same message, and upstairs his electric razor rises menacingly into the air, lunging at him like a cobra. He rips the telephone cord out of the wall, but a voice on the phone is heard repeating, "GET OUT OF HERE FINCHLEY". He hears a siren and goes outside to find that his car has rolled down the driveway and almost hit a small boy. After rudely dismissing the neighbors who have collected to gawk, and the attending police officer, Finchley returns to the house where he drinks a full bottle of hard liquor, and passes out. When he wakes up, the television and other machines start telling him to get out, and his razor slithers down the stairs in pursuit of him. Finchley runs from the house and is chased by his car (a 1939 Lagonda coupe). It chases him to his pool and pushes him in. He sinks to the bottom and drowns. The police pull him out of the water, and neither they nor the ambulance personnel can explain how he could sink to the bottom when he was not weighted down (normally, a body would float), nor could they explain the car near the pool. They theorize he may have had a heart attack. ===== The story is told in a flashback by an American named David Ellington. While on a walking trip through post–World War I Central Europe (circa 1925), Ellington becomes lost in a storm. He sees a building, and walks towards it. It turns out to be a castle, which is now the home of an order of Brothers (Wolfring Castle, referred to in the episode as the "Hermitage") near the village of Schwarzhof. He knocks, the door opens, and he pleads for help. He is told by the monk who opens the door that they do not allow visitors. Ellington pleads, explaining he is lost, and begs for sanctuary from the storm; while the monk goes off to speak to a person he names as Brother Jerome, Ellington waits in the hallway. He hears a wolf-like howl coming from somewhere in the castle. The monk returns and, when Ellington asks him about this howl, says it is merely the wind. The monk takes him to meet Brother Jerome, who is the leader of the order. After Ellington explains that his only purpose in being at the castle is to escape the storm and perhaps obtain some food, Brother Jerome announces that there is no help to be had there and that Ellington must immediately leave. Bewildered, Ellington turns to leave, but gets only as far as the doorway before collapsing. When Ellington awakens, he is inside the castle and again hears howling. He investigates and finds a bedraggled man in a cell. The man claims to be a prisoner of an insane religious order, locked up because he kissed his sweetheart in public, and beaten by Brother Jerome using the staff he carries. Ellington is seen talking to the prisoner and is taken back to Brother Jerome. When an explanation is not forthcoming about the man in the cell, Ellington says he will leave, but also threatens to go to the police. Brother Jerome, realizing that Ellington's threat might set the prisoner free, then reveals the truth; the prisoner is not a man, but rather the Devil himself, and can only be contained by the "Staff of Truth", which Brother Jerome has. The Devil had come to the village shortly after World War I to corrupt it, but Brother Jerome had recognized him for what he was and used the staff to imprison him. These actions have given the world five years of relative peace, with only the evils created by mankind itself. Now convinced that Brother Jerome is insane, Ellington pretends to believe the incredible story. Brother Jerome is not fooled, however, and assigns another brother to watch him. Ellington waits until his guard falls asleep, then creeps down to the cell. Seeing that the door is held shut only by a staff that is within reach of the imprisoned man, Ellington briefly wonders why the man has not simply removed it himself. At the man's urging, Ellington removes the staff. The prisoner exits the cell-- and pins Ellington to the floor with a wave of his hand. As he walks toward the exit, he begins to change, taking on more and more of the appearance of the Devil with each step, before departing the castle in a plume of smoke. Brother Jerome arrives, realizes what has happened, and sadly explains that the inability to recognize the Devil has always been Man's great weakness. The flashback ends. Ellington has been telling the story to a maid. He says that ever since then he has been hunting for the Devil to atone for his mistake, through World War II, the Korean War, and the development of nuclear weapons. He has finally succeeded; he has locked the Devil in a closet barred by a staff similar to the one Brother Jerome had used. Ellington intends to return him to the castle and Brother Jerome's keeping. He warns the skeptical housekeeper to not remove the staff under any circumstances, while he goes to make final preparations. As soon as Ellington leaves, the maid hears a howl from behind the door and, in her curiosity, removes the staff. The door slowly opens. ===== Janet Tyler has undergone her eleventh treatment (the maximum number legally allowed) in an attempt to look normal. Tyler is first shown with her head completely bandaged so that her face cannot be seen. Her face is described as a "pitiful twisted lump of flesh" by the nurses and doctor, whose own faces are always in shadows or off-camera. The outcome of the procedure cannot be known until the bandages are removed. Unable to bear the bandages any longer, Tyler pleads with the doctor and eventually convinces him to remove them early. As he prepares, the doctor develops great empathy for Tyler. The nurse expresses concern for the doctor and admits she still is uneasy about Tyler's appearance. The doctor becomes displeased and questions why Tyler or anyone must be judged on their outer beauty. The nurse warns him not to continue in that vein, as it is considered treason. The doctor removes the bandages. The procedure has failed, and her face has undergone no change. The camera pulls back to reveal that, by the contemporary viewer's standards, she is beautiful; by those same standards, the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital are ugly, with large, thick brows, sunken eyes, swollen and twisted lips, and wrinkled noses with extremely large nostrils. Distraught by the failure of the procedure, Tyler runs through the hospital as what is considered normal in this alternate society "State" is revealed. Flat-screen televisions throughout the hospital project an image of the State's leader giving a speech calling for greater conformity. Eventually, a handsome man (again, by the contemporary viewer's standards) named Walter Smith arrives to take the crying, despondent Tyler into exile to a village of her "own kind", where her "ugliness" will not trouble the State. Before the two leave, Smith comforts Tyler, saying that she will find love and belonging in the ghetto, and that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", meaning that even though the people from the State and their society might find Tyler "ugly", others will find her beautiful. ===== A second-rate boarding school in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, in the Paris metropolitan area, is run by the tyrannical and cruel Michel Delassalle. The school is owned, though, by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina, an emigrée from Venezuela. Delassalle also has a relationship with Nicole Horner, another teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women are shown to have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel, who is physically and emotionally abusive to both, as well as unkind to the children. Unable to stand his mistreatment any longer, Nicole devises a plan to get rid of Michel forever. Though hesitant at first, Christina ultimately consents to help Nicole. Using a threatened divorce to lure Michel to Nicole's apartment building in Niort, a town several hundred kilometers away, Christina sedates him. The two women then drown him in a bathtub and, driving back to the school, dump his body in the neglected swimming pool. When his corpse floats to the surface, they think it will appear to have been an accident. Almost everything goes according to their plans until the body fails to surface. Michel's corpse is nowhere to be found when the pool is drained. Nicole sees in the paper that the police have found the corpse. However, when Christina goes to the morgue, she finds it is not actually Michel's body. There, she meets Alfred Fichet, a retired senior policeman now working as a private detective. He becomes involved in the case, much to Nicole's chagrin. When Christina and Alfred return, a boy is punished for breaking a window. Strangely, the boy says it was Michel who punished him. After hearing this, Christina becomes very upset and is unable to join in the school photograph. When it is printed, somebody looking like Michel is seen at a window behind the group. Nicole becomes worried and leaves the school. Christina, overcome by fear, tells Alfred everything. He does not believe her, but he investigates the pool. That night, Christina hears noises and wanders round the school. When she realizes that someone is following her, she runs back to her room. There she finds Michel's corpse submerged in the bathtub, which is full of water. Michel rises from the tub, and Christina, who was said to have a weak heart, has a heart attack and dies. It is then revealed that Michel and Nicole have set up Christina from the beginning, with Michel acting as dead to scare Christina to death. However, Alfred hears their celebration and figures out everything, telling them they will get 15 to 20 years, depending on their lawyer. Some time later, the same boy who had earlier broken a window breaks another. When asked how he got his slingshot back, the boy says that Christina gave it to him. A final title screen tells the audience not to reveal the ending to others. ===== ===== Edward is at ease in the family estate owned by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, who maintains the family's traditional Tory and Jacobite sympathies. He spends time with his parents as well, though less time after his mother dies when he is about 12 or 13 years old. His Whig father works for the Hanoverian government in nearby Westminster. Edward has a sense of his honour, but he starts life with no political affiliation. Edward is given a commission in the Hanoverian army by his father and posted to Dundee. After some military training, he takes leave to visit Baron Bradwardine, a friend of his uncle, and meets the peer's lovely daughter Rose. J Pettie. When wild Highlanders visit Bradwardine's castle, Edward is intrigued and goes to the mountain lair of the Clan Mac-Ivor, meeting the Chieftain Fergus and his sister Flora, who turn out to be active Jacobites preparing for the insurrection. Edward has overstayed his leave and is accused of desertion and treason, then arrested. The highlanders rescue him from his escort and take him to the Jacobite stronghold at Doune Castle, then on to Holyrood Palace, where he meets Bonnie Prince Charlie, with whom he is charmed. Encouraged by the beautiful Flora Mac-Ivor, Edward goes over to the Jacobite cause and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans of September 1745. The battle is recounted in some detail. Undaunted by the light, inaccurate guns, the Highlander army continues its charge; however, the centre becomes bogged down in marshy land, and in driving forward the men's different speeds of advance cause them to form into a "V". One of the soldiers who tumbles into the marsh is the Hanoverian Colonel Talbot, whom Waverley picks up on his horse, saving his life. This man is a close friend of his Waverley uncle. Edward gets separated from Fergus and both their bands in one battle that the government troops were winning. Edward finds local people who take him in until he can leave safely after events are calmer and the snows are gone. He sees a newspaper that informs him that his father has died, so he heads to London. When the Jacobite cause fails in 1746, Talbot intervenes to get Edward a pardon. Edward visits the decrepit estate of Baron Bradwardine, attacked by soldiers. After making contact with the Baron, he asks for his daughter's hand in marriage, and soon is the established lover of Rose. The Baron is also pardoned. Edward seeks Flora the day before her brother's trial; she plans to join a convent in France. Edward then attends the trial in Carlisle at which Fergus Mac-Ivor is condemned to death, and is with him in the hours before his execution. Edward then returns to his uncle and aunt on the Waverley Honour and begins preparations for their wedding and also to make the legal appearances to assure the pardons of Edward and his future father-in-law. The Talbots restore the Baron's estate, taken from him for his Jacobite activities, and repair it completely, restored to the original appearance with Bradwardine's family crests. The Talbots bought their own estate near Waverley Honour, while the Baron's family estate is restored to his ownership by Edward Waverley, using the funds from selling his late father's home. ===== With autumn in full swing, the Peanuts gang prepares for Halloween. Linus and Lucy go out to the local pumpkin patch to find a pumpkin. Lucy selects the largest they can find, and makes Linus the one to get it back to the house. He becomes dismayed when it turns out Lucy is "going to kill it" to make a jack-o-lantern. After the opening credits, Snoopy helps Charlie Brown finish raking a pile of leaves. Linus jumps into the heap with a large lollipop. Then Lucy entices Charlie Brown to kick a football, with the usual results. Linus is writing his yearly letter to the Great Pumpkin, despite Charlie Brown's disbelief, Snoopy's laughter, Patty's assurance that the Great Pumpkin is a fake, and even his own sister Lucy, who threatens to "pound" him. (She is watching TV and reading a TV Guide with her picture on it.) Only Sally, Charlie Brown's younger sister, smitten with Linus, supports him— until Charlie Brown takes her away, fearing Linus is corrupting her. Linus goes out to mail the letter, lassos the mailbox handle with his security blanket, and opens the box to waft in the letter. Charlie Brown gets invited to a Halloween party hosted by Violet. Neither Charlie Brown nor Lucy can believe his invitation: as he breaks out into a "happy dance," she assumes it is a mistake. On Halloween night, the gang goes trick- or-treating, each with their own costume. Most dress as ghosts in simple white sheet costumes; Charlie Brown has "trouble with the scissors," leaving his costume full of holes Pig-Pen's trademark dust cloud makes him easy to identify. Lucy dresses as a witch, saying it is the opposite of her real personality. On the way, they stop at the pumpkin patch to jeer at Linus for missing the festivities as usual. Undeterred, Linus is convinced that the Great Pumpkin will come to his sincere pumpkin patch, and persuades Sally, acting almost entirely on her infatuation with Linus, to skip trick-or- treating and join him. During "tricks or treats," the kids get their goodies (except for Charlie Brown, who gets nothing except rocks). After going back to the pumpkin patch to tease Linus and Sally, the gang goes to Violet's Halloween party. Violet and Lucy ask Charlie Brown to serve as their model, initially to his delight, then dismay as he learns the real reason why he was invited: the back of his round, bald head made the perfect surface to diagram potential jack-o'-lantern designs on it. Meanwhile, Snoopy, wearing his World War I flying ace costume, climbs aboard his doghouse (imagining it to be a Sopwith Camel fighter plane). After a fierce but losing battle with the unseen Red Baron, Snoopy makes his way across "the countryside" to crash the Halloween party. Sneaking into an apple bobbing tank, he accidentally kisses Lucy when she picks up an apple, disgusting her and sending her into a circling frenzy. Then he is entertained by Schroeder's playing of World War I tunes on his piano, though the sad songs make him cry. Embarrassed, Snoopy leaves. Linus and Sally are still in the pumpkin patch. When Linus sees a mysterious shadowy figure (which turns out to be Snoopy) rising from the moonlit patch, he mistakes it for the Great Pumpkin and faints. When Linus wakes, Sally furiously yells at him for making her miss the Halloween festivities when Charlie Brown and the others come to get her. As they leave, Linus, still convinced that the Great Pumpkin will materialize, promises to put in a good word for them "if he comes." He then panics, as he had said if instead of when. At 4 a.m., Lucy realizes that Linus is not in his bed. She finds her brother in the pumpkin patch, shivering and half asleep. She brings him home, takes off his shoes, and puts him to bed. The next morning, Charlie Brown and Linus lean against a wall and commiserate about the previous night. Charlie Brown attempts to console Linus by saying he has done stupid things in his life, too. A livid Linus vows that the Great Pumpkin will come to the pumpkin patch next year; Charlie Brown listens with an annoyed look on his face as Linus rants and the program ends. ===== When newlywed Don (William Shatner) and Pat Carter's (Patricia Breslin) automobile breaks down in Ridgeview, Ohio, they have lunch at the Busy Bee Cafe while they wait for repairs to be made. The booth they sit in has a fortune teller machine on the table that answers yes or no questions for a penny each. Don asks the "mystic seer" if he is going to get a promotion at work. The card says "It has been decided in your favor". Don calls the office and learns he has been promoted. Because of this initial success, Don asks the seer if their car will be fixed in the promised time, and receives the answer "You may never know". Questioning the seer on this point produces eerily relevant answers, leading to the prediction that it is unsafe to leave the diner until 3 p.m. Don accordingly stalls for time, but Pat argues that the seer cannot genuinely predict the future and eventually convinces him to leave a few minutes before 3. The couple is almost struck by a car while crossing the street. A nearby clock shows it is 3 p.m. After they calm down, Don goes back to the cafe and again asks about their car. The seer answers "It has already been taken care of", and the mechanic steps into the diner to tell Don that the car is fixed. Pat remains skeptical, contending that the seer answers in generalities, that any machine in the cafe would give the same results; she feels that Don is creating the coincidental links to his specific questions himself. Don challenges her to try it for herself. Although she asks the seer trick questions, the answers are still accurate. Don wants the seer to tell him where they're going to live and asks it yes/no questions to narrow down the answer. Pat finally tells Don straight out that whether or not the seer can really tell the future doesn't matter. She argues that he is more than capable of making his own future, that he has no need to allow himself to be controlled by what the seer tells him. Recognizing the truth in what she says, Don apologizes and then announces directly to the mystic seer that they are leaving to go do what they please. After their exit, a beleaguered and distraught older couple enters the diner. They sit at the same table as Don and Pat had and the man asks questions about whether they will ever leave Ridgeview. The couple is deflated by the answers. While this is happening, Don and Pat leave Ridgeview. ===== Jana, the sensitive daughter of a creative genius, Dr. William Loren, is distraught over her parents' reliance on her father's five seemingly perfect robot servants, complete with programmed memories and personalities. The dismayed Jana repeatedly looks at the family photo album and asks her parents questions about the pictures. She implores her father to dismantle the robots before he and her mother become completely dependent on them. When her request becomes an ultimatum, Dr. Loren complies in an effort to save his relationship with his daughter. He orders the robots to his basement workshop, where they are to wait to be disassembled. The machines express concern, asking how it could be that their service was substandard; each of them articulates their certainty about their abilities and accomplishments as perfect servants. Dr. Loren again orders them downstairs. Once the robots are out of the picture, Jana is thrilled and begins looking forward to a new life with travel, parties and the prospect of finding a man, marrying and having children. Her parents react strangely to these happy goals and this, combined with a series of sudden realizations (including the fact that the family photo album contains no picture of her as a child) prompts Jana to arrive at the shocking awareness that, while she is much more emotionally sophisticated than the robots, she is, in fact, also a robot. Like the servants, all of her past memories were created by Dr. Loren. Dr. Loren tries to explain that he and his wife were childless and wanted someone to love. Jana is convinced that she was built not to be a beloved daughter, but to be merely a prop. She exclaims "I'm a machine" and repeatedly bangs her arm against a railing while yelling "No pain". She becomes conscious of the fact that she cannot even feel love. This discovery causes Jana such anguish that her "father" recognizes it is not possible for her to go on this way. He decides to erase the memory of her identity as Jana and utilize her as a replacement for the maid known as Nelda, who wore a blank expression while skillfully giving Mrs. Loren daily shoulder massages. ===== Aging Broadway actor Booth Templeton is at home, watching his much-younger wife, Doris,DeSapio, Michael Martin. Twilight Zone Museum. http://twilightzonemuseum.com/media/templeton.php flirting with a gigolo by the pool. The butler, Marty, comes in with Booth's daily medication, and Booth half-jokingly wonders what will happen when his pills stop working and he dies. He notes that he hasn't achieved any contentment with his wife and fondly reminisces about the happiness he had with his first wife, Laura, who died after seven years of marriage. Marty suggests that Booth tell the director of his new play that he cannot make the first day of rehearsal, but Booth insists on going. He arrives at the theater late and meets Sid Sperry, the play's unctuous financial backer. Sperry informs him that the director has been replaced by up-and-comer Arthur Willis. Booth enters to see Willis announcing to everyone in no uncertain terms that he is unquestioningly in charge; he lectures about punctuality and discipline, implies that the distinguished Booth is no more important than any of the other players, and ends with a pointed question to him about his commitment to the play. Pressured and desperately unhappy, Booth runs out the stage door, and is greeted by a crowd of admirers applauding him for his latest performance. Their attire and a nearby vehicle suggest to Booth that something is amiss; a play poster, and a stagehand inform him that he is inexplicably in 1927—more than 30 years in the past. The poster says that "1927's Big Hit!", The Great Seed, was written by Booth's best friend, Barney Flueger. The stagehand tells Booth that his wife is waiting for him at the speakeasy around the corner. Eager to see Laura again, Booth runs to the speakeasy; the owner, Freddie, lets him in. Laura is drinking beer with Barney and assumes Booth is wearing makeup to make him look older. He wants to talk to her in private about their relationship and the phenomenon he is experiencing. She refuses, insisting that she just wants to have a good time. She then ignores him and fans herself with a script which Booth, wanting her attention, snatches from her and puts into his jacket pocket. He tries to explain that he is from the future and that she and Barney are both dead in his time. They treat him as though he is joking or crazy, and continue partying. When Booth objects, Laura says, "What did you expect?" Barney adds, "Yes, old chap, what did you expect?" Booth seriously professes his love, but Laura bursts out laughing. When Booth tries to force her into leaving with him, she slaps him and tells him, "Go back where you came from; we don't want you here." Confused, hurt and puzzled by Laura's hostility, Booth storms out. As soon as he leaves, the music suddenly ceases mid-song and everyone stops moving. The room becomes dark, with light only on Laura and Barney. Laura steps forward and Barney fades into the darkness. Alone, she stares sadly at the door of the bar. Then she too, fades into the blackness. Booth runs to the theater and reenters the stage door. Suddenly, he is back in the present. He fans himself with Laura's script, and notices that it is for a play titled What to Do When Booth Comes Back. Flipping through it, he discovers that everything in the speakeasy was scripted. Booth realizes that ghosts from his past were performing for him, to force him from his paralyzing nostalgia. Sperry and Willis are waiting for him and demand to know if he is there to work or not. Booth asserts himself, dismissing Sperry and demanding respect from Willis. The rehearsal begins, with Booth now living happily in present time. ===== Two thieves, husband and wife Chester (Fred Clark) and Paula Diedrich (Jean Carson), have just robbed an antique shop and returned to the hotel suite they are using as a hideout. Chester dismisses most of the items they have stolen as junk, but find a strange old box camera among them. When he takes a picture of Paula, it generates a self-developing photo of her wearing a fur coat. After she finds one inside a stolen chest and puts it on, the pair realize that the camera's pictures show the immediate future of its subjects, about five minutes ahead. Its next picture accurately predicts the arrival of Paula's brother Woodward (Adam Williams), who has just escaped from prison. A televised horse race gives Chester the idea to take a picture of the blank winners' board at the local track before each of the day's races is run, then place bets to take advantage of the results. The scheme allows them to win thousands of dollars. As they celebrate in their suite afterward, a French waiter named Pierre (Marcel Hillaire) takes notice of their camera and translates its French inscription dix à la propriétaire as ten to an owner. Once Chester ushers Pierre out, he determines that the trio have taken a total of eight pictures. As they struggle over the camera, arguing about how to use the final two, they accidentally take a picture that shows a terrified Paula. Chester and Woodward continue their fight, but fall out an open window to their deaths. Paula reacts as in the picture, but calms down once she realizes that she can now keep all the money for herself. She snaps the tenth and final picture of the two bodies and prepares to leave, only to be interrupted by Pierre. Having learned of her status as a wanted criminal, he robs her and threatens to turn her in to the police if she calls them for help. Glancing at the picture, he remarks that it shows more than two bodies in the courtyard below. Paula rushes to the window to check, but trips on an electrical cord and falls out of it to her demise. Pierre counts the corpses in the picture, but notices that there are four instead of three. Shocked, he drops the camera on the floor and falls out the window as well, leaving the suite empty. ===== On April 14, 1961, young engineer Peter Corrigan (Russell Johnson) is involved in a discussion with colleagues at the elite Potomac Club on the question of whether events in history could be changed if time travel were possible. After bumping into William, a familiar attendant, on the way out, Peter feels faint. Confused by the gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages on the street, he notices that he's wearing clothes of a much older style and walks home. He finds that his home is now a boarding house. In discussion with the strangers he meets there, he discovers that he has been transmitted back in time to April 14, 1865, the date of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Corrigan rushes to Ford's Theatre to warn everyone but is arrested for disturbing the peace. The police presume him to be a Union soldier under emotional distress or drunk. One officer tends to believe Corrigan, but is overruled by his superior. After he has been held in the police station a short time, a "John Wellington" arrives and persuades the police to release Corrigan into his custody. Corrigan implores Wellington to do something to warn and protect the president. In Wellington's room, he gives Corrigan a drink, but it is drugged and he collapses. Wellington then leaves and locks the door. Later the policeman who believed him arrives and rouses him, relating that he had tried unsuccessfully to convince anyone to take additional precautions. The landlady identifies the tenant of the room as John Wilkes Booth, and indeed the handkerchief left behind by "Wellington" bears the initials JWB. Booth himself had drugged Corrigan to prevent any interference in his mission. And now it is too late: the crowd outside is spreading the news that the president has just been shot. Corrigan pounds his fist on a window sill and finds he is back in 1961, pounding on the door of the Potomac Club. It seems the same, but there is no longer an attendant named William. Back at the table with his colleagues, he finds that the scholarly discussion has moved from time travel to money, and William is also at the table participating. He says that his money was inherited from his great- grandfather, a policeman who had had made a name for himself by somehow predicting the assassination of Lincoln and trying to warn about it, becoming Chief of Police, then a councilman, and eventually become a millionaire through real estate. Overwhelmed by all that has happened, Peter steps aside to wipe his brow with the handkerchief in his pocket and notices the initials: JWB. It turns out that Corrigan was able to change the past, but not in the way he had intended. ===== The dealership of glib used-car salesman Harvey Hunnicut is visited by a mild-mannered elderly gentleman who offers to sell his vintage Model A car for a very low price. Though curious, Harvey accepts it, and only after the paperwork is signed and the ownership transferred does the older man admit that the antique contraption is haunted. Laughing this off, Hunnicut accepts the jalopy, intending to quickly unload it. To his dismay, he realizes that he is no longer able to lie. He tells a young couple, prospective buyers, that all the cars on his lot are lemons and they should buy from a respectable dealership instead. When explaining to his wife why he's going to be home late, he openly states that he intends to play poker with his friends, which is what he always does when he tells her he is "doing inventory". When Irv, his employee, asks about the raise he was promised, Harvey confesses he always strings his workers along without ever giving raises. Irv punches out Harvey and quits. Hunnicut concludes that his livelihood depends on his ability to rid himself of this supernatural burden. He's visited by Honest Luther Grimbley, a politician running for reelection, who shows interest in the haunted car despite its flaws. He nearly buys it, but Harvey is compelled to tell him about the car's curse, and Grimbley openly admits that he'd lose his job if he couldn't lie. When Harvey's brutally honest answer about the rest of the cars on the lot convinces Grimbley that the curse is real, he suggests selling the car to someone else who made a living on lies, showing him a newspaper story about the U.S. playing host to visiting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Surmising that, like every totalitarian state, the Soviet Union owes its existence to a tissue of lies, the politically savvy Hunnicut calls the Soviet embassy and convinces its representatives to visit his dealership. By being absolutely half-truthful, he sells the car as a potential anti-American propaganda tool, exemplifying shoddy, outdated U.S. automobile workmanship. By the concluding scene, it seems that Hunnicut is about to change the course of history because the passenger watching the sale from the embassy limousine now has his name on paper as the haunted vehicle's owner. It appears to be none other than Khrushchev. Hunnicut telephones Washington, asking if he could possibly get in touch with "Jack Kennedy". ===== An impoverished, aging woman (Agnes Moorehead) lives alone in a rustic cabin. She is dressed shabbily, and there are no modern conveniences in evidence. After hearing a strange deafening noise above her kitchen roof, she is accosted by small intruders that come from a miniature flying saucer that has landed on her rooftop. Two tiny figures, apparently about six inches high, which may be robots or beings wearing pressure suits, emerge from the craft. The small figures attack the woman, using small, pistol-like weapons that leave radiation burns on her skin, and, after following her into her cabin, slashing her ankle and hand with her own kitchen knife. The suspense builds as the woman searches for the invaders. She eventually destroys one, wrapping it in a blanket and beating it until it is still, then throwing it into the burning fireplace. She follows the other to the saucer-ship on her roof, which she proceeds to attack with a hatchet. All this has taken place with no words being spoken, but now a voice (director Douglas Heyes) is heard speaking in English from within the craft. The intruder frantically warns that his partner, "Gresham", is dead; and that the planet is inhabited by a "race of giants" and impossible to defeat. The camera pans to the markings on the side of the ship, which reads U.S. Air Force Space Probe No. 1. The "tiny" invaders were human astronauts from Earth; the woman in the small farmhouse belongs to a race of giant humanoids native to another planet. She finishes destroying the ship and then climbs back down from the roof into the house, exhausted. ===== Hector B. Poole is a sensitive, insecure bank clerk. On the way to work he tosses a coin into a vendor's open box to pay for a newspaper, and it miraculously lands on its edge. Suddenly he can hear other people's thoughts, but at first does not understand that they are not speaking. Distracted, he is nearly hit by a car, and is confused when he hears the driver expressing concern while thinking angrily about Hector's carelessness. At work, he hears his boss, Bagby, thinking about a weekend affair he is planning with his mistress. Hector also hears the thoughts of Helen Turner, a co-worker who admires him from afar and wishes he would be more assertive. While finalizing the paperwork for a $200,000 loan to a businessman named Sykes, he hears Sykes thinking about using the money for a run at the horse track to win back money he has embezzled from his company. Hector challenges Sykes, who accuses him of lying and withdraws his business from the bank, to Bagby's annoyance. Despite this embarrassment, Hector finally summons the courage to talk to Helen. When one of Poole's coworkers thinks inappropriate thoughts about her, Hector pours water on his head. Next Hector hears an old, trusted employee, Smithers, thinking about how he will steal cash from the bank and escape to Bermuda. He takes Helen fully into his confidence; she doesn't believe in his powers, but urges him to tell Bagby about Smithers. Hector does, saying he overheard Smithers talking about the theft; incredulous at first, Bagby decides the story is plausible enough to try catching Smithers in the act. Smithers proves to be innocent, and Bagby fires Hector. Smithers then privately admits to Poole that he has fantasized for years about just such a theft as an escape from his dead-end job, but is too set in his ways to go through with it. Hector vents his unhappiness to Helen: being able to read minds has taught him more than he wanted to know about the disconnect between people's thoughts and their actions. Bagby learns that Sykes has been arrested for gambling with company money, and offers to reinstate Hector. At Helen's telepathic prompting, Hector says he deserves to become accounts manager instead, but Bagby resists. Hector then blackmails Bagby using his knowledge of the man's adultery; he gets his promotion and also insists on a Bermuda vacation for Smithers at the bank's expense. After work, as Hector returns home with Helen (for the first time calling her by her first name), he returns to the newsstand, where his coin is still standing. Buying an afternoon paper, he knocks it over, and then finds his mind-reading ability gone. However, he doesn't need it anymore, as he is a man changed for the better, with a new job, a girlfriend, and a new-found confidence in himself. ===== It is Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er- do-well, dressed in a baggy, worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on a sandwich and six drinks at the neighborhood bar. While Bruce, the bartender, is on the phone, he sees Corwin reaching for the bottle; Bruce throws him out. Corwin arrives for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, an hour late and obviously drunk. When customers complain, Dundee, the manager, fires him and orders him off the premises. Corwin says that he drinks because he lives in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is incapable of fulfilling his desired role as Santa. He declares that if he had just one wish granted him on Christmas Eve, he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth". Still in his outfit, he returns to the bar but is refused re-entry by Bruce. Stumbling into an alley, he hears sleigh bells. A cat knocks down a large burlap bag full of empty cans; but when he trips over it, it is now filled with gift-wrapped packages. As he starts giving them away, he realizes that the bag is somehow producing any item that is asked for. Overjoyed at his sudden ability to fulfill dreams, Corwin proceeds to hand out presents to passing children and then to derelict men attending Christmas Eve service at Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House". Irritated by the disruption and outraged by Corwin's offer of a new dress, Sister Florence hurries outside to fetch Officer Flaherty, who arrests Corwin for stealing the presents from his former place of employment. At the police station, Dundee reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purportedly stolen goods, but instead finds the empty cans and the cat. Angry at having his time wasted, he throws accusations of incompetence at Flaherty and disbelief at Corwin's claim that the bag is supernatural. Dundee challenges Corwin to produce a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903. Corwin reaches into the bag to hand Dundee his exact request, and is set free. He continues to distribute gifts until midnight, when the bag is empty. A man named Burt, whose desired pipe and smoking jacket had come from Corwin's bag, sees Corwin again and points out that Corwin himself has not received a gift. Corwin says that if he had his choice of any gift at all, "I think I'd wish I could do this every year". Returning to the alley where the gift-laden bag had presented itself, he encounters an elf sitting in a large reindeer-hauled sleigh, waiting for him. Realising that his wish has come true and he is now the real Santa Claus, Corwin sits in the sleigh and sets off with the elf. Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly tipsy from Corwin's brandy, look upward upon hearing the tinkle of bells and see Corwin, in Flaherty's words, "big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin' next to an elf", ascending into the night sky. Dundee invites Flaherty to accompany him home and share some hot coffee, with brandy poured in it, adding, "...and we'll thank God for miracles, Flaherty..." ===== Set in the Old West in a desolate barren town, Sykes, an unscrupulous peddler, after selling the executioner some five-strand rope needed for a hanging, sells a bag of "magic" dust to Gallego, the condemned man's father. The condemned man, Luis, had been found guilty of accidentally causing the death of a child. Sykes collects ordinary dirt from the ground and insists to his mark that it will spread good will throughout the crowd and will make them feel love and sympathy for the man sentenced to be hanged. As the crowd gathers for the hanging, Gallegos cries out and starts sprinkling the dust everywhere. To his dismay, he hears the trapdoor drop behind him and turns... to see that the fresh and sturdy rope has snapped above the noose, and Luis is unharmed. When asked if another hanging attempt should be made, the girl's parents decide that it should not, that Luis has suffered enough and maybe they have had a sign from God. As father and son walk home, Sykes discovers that he is also affected by the "magic". He throws his gold pieces from the sale of the dust to the poor children of the town, laughing. ===== A Boeing 707 The episode takes place on Global Airlines Flight 33, en route from London to New York City. About 50 minutes from Idlewild (now Kennedy) Airport, Captain Farver and his crew notice that the ground speed of their Boeing 707 is rapidly increasing beyond all reason. Their true air speed remains constant, so there is no risk of the plane breaking up. They can no longer contact anyone by radio. Even one of the passengers seems to sense the increase in speed. A flash of light is seen, accompanied by severe turbulence, although the captain wonders if they have gone through the sound barrier. There is no apparent damage to the aircraft. Still unable to contact anyone on the ground, and at the risk of potential collision with other aircraft, Farver finally decides to descend below the clouds. The crew is able to identify the coastline of Manhattan Island and other geographic landmarks, but there is no city. The crew realizes that they have traveled far back in time when they see grazing dinosaurs. Their only hope of returning to the present day is to increase altitude and speed in an attempt to catch the same "freak jet stream" and to return to 1961. At first, it appears to work; after another flash of light and violent shaking, New York City is once again visible, and although they still cannot contact Idlewild, they are able to reach LaGuardia Airport. However, the air traffic controller on the radio does not understand references to Idlewild or to current aircraft technology such as VOR, ILS and jet aircraft. The controller eventually clears the aircraft to land at La Guardia, but orders the captain to report to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) office afterward; the captain remarks that they haven't called the Federal Aviation Administration by that name in years. The copilot spots the buildings and structures from the New York World's Fair of 1939 and 1940 below. They have come forward in time, just not far enough. The captain briefly considers using the 1939 LaGuardia to refuel before making another attempt to return to 1961, but he rejects the plan because LaGuardia's runway is too short to handle a Boeing 707. As he attempts one more ascent before the fuel runs out, he addresses the passengers, indicating that they have traveled back in time. "All I ask of you is that you remain calm", he tells the passengers over the P.A. system, "...and pray". ===== Liz Powell, a professional dancer, is hospitalized for exhaustion. She suffers a vivid recurring nightmare in which she is awakened in her hospital room by the loud ticking of a clock. She knocks a glass of water to the floor, shattering it, then follows the sound of footsteps into the hall. She sees a nurse, half hidden in shadow, descend to the basement in the elevator. She follows the nurse down and finds the hospital morgue, room 22. The nurse emerges from the room and says, "Room for one more, honey." Liz screams, flees to the elevator, and the dream ends. Liz insists the dream is really happening to her, although her agent, Barney, seems doubtful. Her doctor also tries to assure her that this is impossible. He produces the night nurse who attends the morgue, and the woman looks nothing like the figure from Liz's dream. The doctor suggests that Liz try an experiment in lucid dreaming, and alter one detail of the dream to undo its hold over her. Specifically, to not reach for the glass upon "waking". Barney is very encouraging of this approach, but Liz orders him to leave, seeing his behavior as patronizing. That night, the dream begins again. Liz visualizes a pack of cigarettes next to the glass of water on the nightstand. When she is awakened by the clock, she reaches for a cigarette instead of the glass. She drops the lighter, and while reaching to retrieve it, her other hand knocks the glass to the floor. The dream continues as before: Liz follows the footsteps into the hall, and follows the sinister nurse down to the morgue. The next morning, Liz is hysterical. A nurse is required to hold her down while the doctor injects a sedative. The doctor is not convinced that Liz's dream is anything other than the product of her exhaustion, but he comments to the nurse that it is odd that Liz, who has never seen the real morgue, knows that it is room number 22. After several days' rest, Liz is discharged from the hospital. She goes to the airport to fly to her next booking in Miami Beach. She buys her ticket and is told she will be on Flight 22. Terrified, she begins experiencing sensory details from the dream: she is thirsty, distracted by the loud ticking of a wall clock that only she can hear, and bumps into a woman carrying a vase. The vase drops to the floor and shatters. Footsteps in the hall seem magnified to her. She crosses the tarmac to her plane and climbs the boarding stairs. As she reaches the top, a stewardess identical to the nurse from the dream emerges from the cabin. She says, "Room for one more, honey." Screaming, Liz stumbles down the stairs and races back to the terminal. Concerned airport staff try to calm her. Outside the window, Flight 22 taxis to the runway, takes off--and explodes in midair. ===== In an experiment, a two-headed Martian scientist, who is invisible to Earthlings, gives vacuum-cleaner salesman and perennial loser Luther Dingle superhuman strength. After discovering his inexplicable powers, Dingle begins performing various feats of strength, from lifting statues to splitting boulders, and gains a great deal of publicity. The two-headed Martian returns and is disappointed to see that Dingle is using his strength only for show. The Martian takes his strength away just as Dingle attempts to lift a building before a live television audience. Unable to make good on his claims or repeat any of his previous feats, Dingle becomes a laughingstock. As the two-headed Martian scientist leaves, it meets two Venusians who are also searching for a suitable Earthling for an experiment. The two-headed Martian scientist recommends Dingle and the Venusians gives Dingle super-intelligence. Discovering his new powers, Dingle starts thinking aloud at an alarming rate and demonstrates incredible powers of prediction. ===== Small-time gambler Ace Larsen discovers that his partner, Jimbo Cobb, has telekinetic powers after a car overturns outside their café and Jimbo moves the car without touching it. Ace plans to use Jimbo's powers to win big in Las Vegas, and he takes his girlfriend Kitty with them. Ace wins many jackpots, disregarding Jimbo's headaches from the use of his powers and his growing moral concerns over what they are doing. Kitty is repulsed and leaves, so Ace uses his newly acquired cash to lure the attention of the casino's cigarette girl and bets the pile in a game of craps, just as Jimbo's powers appear to "run out". The loss awakens Ace to the reality of what he has become, and he and Jimbo have a good laugh over their misfortune. The three return home and, back at the café, Ace asks Kitty to marry him just as Jimbo drops his broom. She flips a coin, and Ace calls "heads". Kitty doesn't show Ace the coin or tell him the result of the coin toss; Kitty simply accepts his proposal. As they embrace, Jimbo picks up the broom telekinetically, revealing he faked his loss of power to snap Ace out of his greed. ===== Billy's beloved grandmother visits for his 5th birthday party, despite being deathly frail. She gives the boy a toy telephone, telling him that he can always talk to her on it. She then becomes gravely weak and delusional; she doesn't recognize her son Chris and imagines that Billy is her son, who was "taken" from her. Grandma then dies. Billy's parents, especially his mother Sylvia, become concerned when he spends all his time on the toy telephone talking to his grandmother. He says that she tells him she is lonely and misses him. While the parents are at her funeral, Billy runs out in front of a car. The driver, who barely manages to swerve out of the way, reports that Billy said someone told him to do it. When his father asks him why he did it, Billy says he does not know. Chris tries to explain that Grandma has died, and asks that he not use the toy phone in front of his mother. He discusses with Sylvia about how his mother had two children before him, both of whom died, which is why she was so attached to him and then to Billy, who reminded her of Chris and helped her forget years of loss. That night, Sylvia is awoken by the sound of Billy talking and laughing. Going to his room, she grabs the phone out of his hands, but is shocked when she hears Grandma on it. Billy runs out of the room. Chris and Sylvia look for him, and are horrified to find him face down in their garden pool. An ambulance attendant informs the parents that Billy's chances are not very good. Chris goes upstairs to Billy's room, picks up the toy phone, and begs his mother to give Billy back and allow him to experience life. He pleads that if she really loves him, she will let him live. Downstairs, the attendants' efforts to revive Billy succeed, and when Chris joins them, he and Sylvia embrace, relieved. ===== In the year 1847, Chris Horn is the leader of a small wagon train from Ohio attempting to reach California. Horn's wife and young son Christian are riding in one of the group's covered wagons. Christian is dangerously ill, and the others advise Horn the group wishes to turn back, as they're almost out of food and water, and they lack medicine for those who are sick, like young Christian. Determined not to turn back, Horn sets off alone in a desperate search for water and sustenance, which he tells himself he'll find over the rim of a nearby hill. Horn crosses the sandy rim and suddenly finds himself in 1961 New Mexico. He is perplexed to see power lines, a hard black road, and a large truck coming at him, horn blaring. As the loud, fast-moving "monster with a face" zooms past the unnerved Horn, he stumbles, accidentally firing his rifle and grazing his arm. He comes to a small café and gas station, owned by Joe and Mary Lou. The friendly Joe gives Horn water and Mary Lou tends to his injury, offering him penicillin, which she explains will ward off infection. They ask where he is from, curious about his old-fashioned clothes and "antique" (yet seemingly new) rifle; they don't believe his story of traveling by wagon from Ohio. When Horn says he was looking for water, Joe mentions the location of a nearby water source, which also attracts game for food. Horn is then shocked to see the year "1961" on a wall calendar, and the couple is convinced the desert heat has made him mentally unstable. Joe calls a local doctor to come check on Horn. The doctor finds Horn to be fit and seemingly rational, with only the implausibility of the man's biography giving him reason to think otherwise. He calls the sheriff as the appropriate authority to look after him. Meanwhile, Horn has found an encyclopedia containing a brief biographical entry for "Horn, Christian Jr., M.D.", who did great work with children's diseases in late 19th-century California. Horn proudly concludes this is his son, and believes that he's been brought to this place to save him. Taking the penicillin tablets with him, he bolts from the café and runs back toward where he came from. The sheriff arrives, and he and Joe go after Horn, nearly catching up to him. Horn stumbles, dropping his rifle before scrambling back over the rim. There he sees the wagon train where he had left it, then looks back over the rim to find the territory unsettled, with no power lines or highway. After giving his son a dose of penicillin, Horn leads the party toward the water and game he'd learned of, and onward to California. Meanwhile, Joe and the sheriff have returned to the café. Joe tells Mary Lou that Horn simply vanished; all they found was Horn's rifle on the ground where he dropped it. Looking at it, they see that it now shows the effects of more than 100 years of exposure to the sun, its metal corroded and its wooden parts falling to pieces at their touch. ===== Ed Lindsay, an embittered bachelor in his late fifties, living in a boarding house, is dismayed over the mindless programs and commercials on the TV set watched by the residents. He retrieves from the basement an old radio which, in his younger and happier days, he enjoyed as a source of relaxation and entertainment. Installing it in his room, he is pleased to hear the radio receiving 1930s/1940s music and programs, including live performances by Edward Bowes, Fred Allen, and Tommy Dorsey, all of whom are dead. He tells the others about the broadcasts, which they first assume are recordings. Unable to receive them on a modern portable radio, they come into his room--but hear only static. Ed now tries to contact the radio station ("WPDA", in fictional Cedarburg, New Jersey), but discovers it has been out of business for years. Ed has a confrontation with Vinnie Broun (Carmen Mathews), who has lived in the same boarding house with him for two decades. In an earlier era, they had intended to marry, but other things interfered until too much time had passed. She tells him that the past cannot be recovered and he should let it go, and that he is simply having a delusion. Ed is furious and he throws Vinnie out of his room. His obsession with his radio continues to grow. Worried about Ed's mental state, Vinnie and the other residents have the radio hauled away by a junk dealer. Ed rushes out and buys it back for $10. He takes it back to his room and, to his great relief, finds it still operational. He loses himself in an old Tommy Dorsey love song, the one he would share with Vinnie. He calls her to his room and the door swings open and Vinnie enters. Ed is suddenly transported back in time to 1940, and he and Vinnie are young again. Ecstatic, Ed professes his love for Vinnie and embraces her, determined to do things right this time around. ===== Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as impoverished nobility in the countryside of the Auvergne, to the cosmopolitan city of Paris, to becoming transformed by the Dark Gift into a vampire. After escaping his family and running off to Paris with his lover and confidante Nicolas de Lenfent, Lestat is kidnapped and bitten by the reclusive elder vampire Magnus, who kills himself that night but leaves Lestat with a tower fortress and a vast fortune. Lestat abandons Nicolas for fear of causing him harm and shuns contact with his loved ones. Instead, he decides to shower them with gifts and riches from his newfound wealth as a means to compensate his departure from their lives. Lestat's mother, Gabrielle, arrives to say goodbye to him, herself dying of consumption. In order to save her, Lestat transforms her into a vampire as well. The pair run afoul of the Children of Darkness, an ancient coven of devil-worshipping vampires led by Armand, who attack them and kidnap Nicolas to punish them for breaking vampire law. Lestat and Gabrielle rescue Nicolas. After a heated debate with Armand, Lestat causes the coven to dissolve by denouncing the old ways and encouraging the cultists to modernize. Lestat later turns Nicolas into a vampire, but the transformation drives him mad, and his resentment of Lestat quickly destroys their friendship. Severely depressed, Nicolas later commits suicide by exposing himself to the sun. Armand "shows" Lestat the history of how he was made by the powerful vampire Marius de Romanus. Compelled by the idea of Marius, Lestat leaves markings carved into rock in numerous places while traveling with Gabrielle, hoping that one day, Marius will see them and find Lestat. Whilst in Egypt, abandoned by Gabrielle, Lestat sleeps in the ground after being burned by the sun. He is recovered by Marius and is taken to his secret Mediterranean island. There, Marius shares his past with Lestat, and shows him Those Who Must Be Kept, Akasha and Enkil, who are the progenitors of all vampires. Once Marius has given his warning to Lestat not to go see them again, and leaves on a short outing, Lestat takes Nicolas's old violin and plays for the King and Queen, awakening them. Akasha feeds from Lestat as Lestat feeds from her. Then, Enkil, furious at the intrusion, attacks and nearly kills Lestat, who is saved by Marius and then sent away. ===== To escape the law after stealing $1 million worth of gold bricks (equal to $ million today) from a train on its way from Fort Knox to Los Angeles, a band of four thieves, led by scientist-mastermind Farwell, hide in a secret cave in Death Valley, California. Farwell explains to his three assistants that he has designed suspended animation chambers in which they will sleep for approximately 100 years, figuring that by 2061 the gold will no longer be "hot" and they can sell it without arousing suspicion. DeCruz has reservations about going along with the plan, but all four undergo the procedure simultaneously. When they wake up, all that remains of the mechanical engineer Erbie is his skeleton, his suspended animation chamber having been cracked by a falling rock. The demolitions expert, De Cruz, offers to guard the gold in the back of their truck while the firearms expert, Brooks, drives to civilization, but Brooks does not trust De Cruz and insists that he drive. De Cruz kills Brooks by running him over with the truck, then purposely ditches it in a ravine. Farwell and De Cruz now must walk through the desert in the summer heat, carrying as much gold as they can on their backs. Farwell loses his canteen, and De Cruz sells him a sip of water from his canteen, for the price of one gold bar. When the water is nearly gone and the fee goes up to two bars, Farwell strikes De Cruz with a gold brick, killing him. Farwell continues, gradually discarding gold bars as their weight becomes increasingly burdensome. Finally, weak and dehydrated, he collapses. Farwell regains consciousness and finds a man standing over him. Farwell feebly offers him his last gold bar in exchange for water and a ride to the nearest town, but dies before the man can respond. The man returns to his futuristic car and tells his wife the man is dead. He remarks about the oddity of Farwell offering him a gold bar as if it were valuable. She reminds him that people once used it for money, but he points out that was a long time ago, before they found a way to manufacture it. ===== A jury finds Adam Grant (Weaver) guilty of murder, and the judge sentences him to death. Grant laughs with despair, then exclaims that he refuses to die again. He frantically tries to tell those present – including district attorney Henry Ritchie (Townes) and newspaper editor Paul Carson (King) – that he is dreaming, and if he is executed they will all cease to exist. Locked up on death row, Grant describes the experience of dying in the electric chair, from the perspective of the condemned, to a fellow prisoner in chilling graphic detail. Later, a drunk Carson shows up at Ritchie's house. He has been speaking to Grant, and fears the convict might be telling the truth. He argues that their lives seem impossibly perfect, and encourages Ritchie to explore his own doubts. Ritchie's wife Carol, annoyed by Carson's outburst, goes to bed early, telling her husband that there are steaks almost ready in the oven. Back at the prison, Grant waits for Ritchie to arrive as usual, noting the implausibility of his fellow inmate Jiggs (Edmondson) having a watch to tell him the time. Ritchie comes, and they have a conversation Grant has had many times before with other DAs, enough times to mouth the man's words as he says them. He points out as an example the implausibility of the DA coming to visit like this. Ritchie asks him why he cares about dying if it's all a dream, and Grant explains that he's tormented by having this same incredibly realistic nightmare every night. As Ritchie leaves, Grant tries to prove that they're in a dream, by predicting that the steak Ritchie's wife had cooked for supper will now be something else. Ritchie rushes home, and finds a roast in the oven. Jiggs suggests to Grant that he try to get a psychiatric exemption from execution. To prove his sanity to Jiggs, Grant points out logical errors accepted as normal by those around him, such as the fact that his trial and execution are happening on the same day, and the fact that the prisoners perfectly fit the stereotypes Grant would come up with from movies. Meanwhile, at Ritchie's home, he and Carson watch the approach of midnight, debating the unlikelihood that the execution time matches the one shown in movies. As Grant waits to be taken to the electric chair, Father Beaman visits him. Grant vaguely recalls him as a real priest who died when he was a boy. He further remembers that Carson is really the young priest who replaced Beaman, but struggles to place Ritchie. Carson finally persuades Ritchie that either Grant is right or he's insane, so he calls the governor for a stay of execution. But the call comes seconds too late, Grant is executed, and the world blinks out. The lights come up and Grant finds himself back in the courtroom, just as at the beginning. He is being convicted and sentenced to death for murder, again. The same people surround him in the courtroom, but their identities and roles have changed (e.g., Jiggs is now the judge, Carson is the jury foreman, Phillips is Grant's public defender). The story begins to proceed as before. ===== Archibald Beechcroft has an insufferably crowded time getting to work, and becomes annoyed when errand boy Henry spills coffee all over his suit. Taking some aspirin in the bathroom, his boss Mr. Rogers lectures him about a proper lifestyle to maintain his health. Aggravated, Beechcroft says he's fed up with the crowded conditions at the office and wants to eliminate all the people of the world. In the cafeteria for lunch, Henry apologizes to Beechcroft further for spilling the coffee, saving him a seat and presenting him with a book titled The Mind and the Matter, which deals with the ultimate in concentration; Henry explains that his friend has learned how to make things happen with his mind. Beechcroft leafs through the book in the cafeteria, continues to read it on the subway ride home, and finishes it over supper in his apartment. Agreeing with the authors that concentration is the greatest power in the universe, it occurs to him that he can use it to realize his dream of eliminating people. When his landlady knocks to collect his rent, he tests the theory, and successfully makes her disappear. The next day, Beechcroft uses his concentration to make his crowded subway station empty of people. He rides an empty subway train to the office, which is totally empty, with doors opening for him. Though he takes satisfaction in his newfound peace and quiet, he soon grows bored. Reflections of himself appear, taunting him as bored and lonely. He tries diversions such as an earthquake and thunderstorm, but isn't entertained. He glumly rides the empty train subway home, where he is again taunted by his reflection. Arguing with it, he gets the idea of repopulating the world with people like himself. He does so, and the next morning the crowds in the subway and elevator are back, but now everyone has his face and unpleasant, antisocial personality. Dismayed, he returns the world to the way it used to be. Henry again spills coffee on him, and asks about the book. Beechcroft pretends to have found the book "totally unbelievable". ===== Two state troopers, investigating a report about a UFO, find evidence something has crashed in a frozen pond: footprints in the snow from the pond lead to a nearby, isolated late-night diner called the Hi-Way. Upon arriving, the troopers find a bus parked outside the Hi-Way Cafe. Inside the Hi-Way, the troopers find a cook behind the counter named Haley, a bus driver, and his passengers. The troopers, Dan Perry and Bill Padgett, announce a suspected alien from a nearby crashed UFO may be among them, and asks for everyone to identify themselves. The bus driver tells them his name is Olmstead, and states they were forced to stop at the Hi-Way Cafe due to the snow storm and could not go back to their previous destination because the diner was at the bottom of an icy hill. The troopers state they will have a long wait, perhaps until the morning, because the bridge ahead was closed due to the snow storm, adding the county engineer is currently examining the bridge. "Looks like you’re stuck here," Haley the cook says. The troopers ask the bus driver if he has a passenger manifest, at which the driver laughs and asks the troopers to take a look outside. "That’s a 14-year old bus, not a 707, and business is lousy." He claims when they boarded, it was snowing, and he didn't ask names. He counted "six" passengers. The company gave him six, and he's supposed to deliver six. The troopers make a quick count, and there are "seven" passengers: Connie and George Prince, a young married couple; Rose and Peter Kramer, an older married couple; Ethel McConnell, a professional dancer; an outlandish old man with a lazy eye named Avery, and Ross, a craggy businessman. Hayley the cook says the diner was empty due to the snow, before the bus had arrived, and these were the only customers he'd had in hours. The troopers then ask the group, "Who wasn't on the bus," to which Ross, the businessman, loudly responds, "We were all on the bus," and castigates the bus driver for causing this confusion by miscounting, and suggesting the troopers are from the Gestapo. After some initial debate on how to figure this out, Ethel suggests the couples be "cleared" on the grounds the spouses would surely know each other. Both couples readily agree but begin to eye each other with suspicion; Connie asking her husband, "George, I thought you had a mole on your chin," and Peter becoming irritated with Rose who'd been giving him a long look. The troopers then ask Ethel for her ID, but she claims her ID was sent ahead with her luggage. The bus driver vouches for her, admitting that he did at least notice her when she boarded. She smiles and thanks him. Avery, clearly enjoying the hilarity of this situation, cracks jokes and chides the businessman who complains about the bus company's unreliability; he must make an important meeting in Boston by 9 o'clock the next morning. The bus driver, not having it, shoots back to the businessman that the weather is not the bus company's fault and decrees the bus will in fact not be crossing that bridge until he believes it is safe. Throughout these exchanges tensions rise, and suspicions are confirmed that someone present must indeed be the Martian as the jukebox starts and stops on its own, the lights flash on and off, and the tabletop sugar dispensers explode. The troopers draw their weapons. The payphone then rings, bringing a report from the county engineer that the bridge is safe, and can be crossed. The bus driver asks the troopers, "Are you sure? I don't like that old bridge. She sways in the wind and is not a suspension." The troopers tell him that if the county engineer says she's safe, she's safe. Unable to hold them without evidence to the contrary, the troopers allow all seven people plus the driver to board the bus and be on their way. The troopers offer to drive ahead to make sure the bridge was safe. Everyone lines up at the cash register to settle-up with Haley, board the bus and leave. Sometime later, Ross returns to the diner alone, surprising Haley. "Hey," Haley says, "weren't you on that bus?" The businessman takes a seat, orders a coffee, and explains to the cook that the bridge had not been safe after all: it collapsed, and everyone – the bus, its passengers and the troopers – had all plunged into the river and drowned. Shocked, Haley asks the businessman, “Everyone but you? Why – how could that be? You aren’t even wet.” The businessman blinks and asks, "Wet? What is ... wet?" Haley says, “What do you mean what is wet?” The businessman then calmly explains who he really is, revealing a third hand from under his coat. He uses all three hands to stir his coffee and light a cigarette, off which he takes a drag and comments he'd taken "quite a liking as we don't have anything like these" on his planet. He then demonstrates, offhandedly, that everything which happened earlier – the jukebox, the lights and the sugar dispensers – had been illusions, including the call from the county engineer. "Now, before you faint dead away," the businessman says, "and you will," he tells Haley that he is in fact a Martian scout sent ahead of the Martian fleet which was on its way. Earth (or "this area"), he says, has been identified as a perfect spot for Martian colonization as it is "so remote", "so off-the- beaten path" – and he is awaiting their arrival. Haley smiles and says that he has some waiting to do himself. He agrees this planet is a prime spot for colonization, and that "we folks from Venus" determined this several years ago. Haley then informs the businessman that the Martian fleet will not be coming as the Venusian fleet has intercepted it. "Oh," the cook says, "a colony is coming, but it's from Venus ... and if you're still alive, you will see," the cook continues, reaching up to remove his hat to reveal a third eye in the center of his forehead, "just how much we differ." ===== In a future totalitarian state, Romney Wordsworth is put on trial for being obsolete. His professed occupation as a librarian is punishable by death as the State has eliminated books. He believes in God, also proof of obsolescence, as the State claims to have proven God does not exist. Following a bitter exchange, the Chancellor finds Wordsworth guilty and sentences him to death, allowing him to choose his method of execution. He requests that he be granted a personal assassin, who will be the only one who knows the method of his death, and that his execution be televised nationwide. Though televised executions are commonplace, the secretive method is highly unorthodox; the Chancellor nonetheless grants both requests. A television camera is installed in Wordsworth's study to broadcast his final hour live to the nation. He summons the Chancellor, who also agrees to this unusual request out of curiosity, arriving early in Wordsworth's final hour. The librarian reveals that the method of execution he chose is a bomb, set to go off in the room at midnight. The Chancellor expresses approval, until Wordsworth further explains that the door is locked, and the Chancellor will die with him, providing the viewers with a more interesting death than his own. He points out that, as the events are being broadcast live, the State would risk losing its status in the eyes of the people by rescuing the Chancellor. Wordsworth proceeds to read from his illegal, long-hidden copy of the Bible (in particular, Psalm 23 and Psalm 59) expressing his trust in God. Wordsworth's calm acceptance of death stands in sharp contrast with the Chancellor's increasing panic as the bomb ticks. At the last minute, the Chancellor breaks down and begs to be let go "in the name of God". Wordsworth agrees to do so in those terms, and immediately unlocks the door for him. Wordsworth stays, and the bomb explodes, killing him alone. Due to his cowardly display in Wordsworth's room and professed belief in God, the Chancellor is replaced by his own subaltern and declared obsolete. He protests pitifully that he is not obsolete, and tries to escape, but is overwhelmed by the attendants of the tribunal who then beat him to death. ===== Doug Masters, son of veteran U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Ted Masters, is a hotshot civilian pilot, hoping to follow in his father's footsteps. His hopes are dashed when he receives a notice of rejection from the Air Force Academy. Making matters worse is the news that his father has been shot down and captured by the fictional Arab state of Bilya while patrolling over the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the incident occurring over international waters, the Arab state's court finds Col. Masters guilty of trespassing over their territory and sentences him to hang in three days. Seeing that the U.S. government will do nothing to save his father's life, Doug decides to take matters into his own hands and come up with his own rescue mission. He requests the help of Col. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair, a Vietnam veteran pilot currently in the Air Force Reserve, who, while not knowing Col. Masters personally, had a favorable run-in with him years prior to meeting Doug and "knew the type." Chappy is skeptical at first; but Doug convinces him that, with his friends, he has full access to the airbase's intelligence and resources and can give him an F-16 fighter for the mission. To Doug's surprise, Chappy had already begun planning a rescue operation himself after he learned the outcome of Col. Masters' trial. The combined efforts of Chappy and Doug's team result in a meticulously planned mission and the procurement of two heavily armed F-16B jets, with Doug flying the second unit. On the day of Col. Masters' scheduled execution, Doug and Chappy fly their jets to the Mediterranean Sea and cross into Bilyan airspace. The Bilyan military responds, and in the ensuing battle Doug and Chappy take out three MiG-23 fighters and destroy an airfield, with Chappy's plane being hit by anti-aircraft fire. He tells Doug to climb to a high altitude and play the tape he made him the night before, then his engine fails and Doug listens as Chappy's fighter goes down. Chappy's recorded voice gives Doug encouragement and details that help him to complete the mission and rescue his father. Making the enemy believe he is leading a squadron, Doug threatens the enemy state into releasing his father for pickup. Before Doug lands his F-16, Col. Masters is shot by a sniper, causing Doug to destroy the airbase and engulf the runway with napalm to keep the army at bay while he lands and picks up his wounded father. Just as they take off, Doug and his father encounter another group of MiGs led by Col. Akir Nakesh, himself an ace pilot. The lone F-16 and Nakesh's MiG engage in a dogfight until a missile from Doug finishes off Nakesh. Low on fuel and ammunition, the F-16 is pursued by the other enemy MiGs when a squadron of U.S. Air Force F-16s appear, warding off the MiGs before escorting Doug and his father to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. While Col. Masters is being treated for his wounds, Doug is reunited with Chappy, who had ejected from his plane and was picked up by an Egyptian fishing trawler. The two are summoned by an Air Force judiciary panel for their reckless actions. Seeing that any form of punishment for the duo would expose an embarrassing lapse in Air Force security, the panel forgoes prosecution as long as Doug and Chappy never speak of their operation to anyone. In addition, Chappy convinces the panel to grant Doug admission to the Air Force Academy. Days later, a plane assigned by the President returns to the U.S., reuniting Doug, Chappy, and Col. Masters with family and friends. ===== Following his victory over Ivan Drago in Moscow, Rocky experiences physical complications from the fight. Rocky, his wife Adrian, his brother-in-law Paulie, and his trainer Tony "Duke" Evers return to the United States where they are greeted by Rocky's son, Robert. At a press conference, boxing promoter George Washington Duke attempts to goad Rocky into fighting his boxer, Union Cane, who is the top-rated challenger. Rocky declines. Paulie was fooled into signing a "power of attorney" over to Rocky's accountant, who squandered all of his money on real estate deals gone sour and failed to pay Rocky's taxes over the previous six years. His mansion has been mortgaged by $400,000. He cannot do commercials or endorsements to pay the debt due to the prosecution of the accountant and his past criminal records that involve assault and loan shark, but tells Rocky that it is fixable with a few more fights. Rocky considers accepting the fight with Cane, but Adrian urges him to see a doctor, and he is diagnosed with cavum septum pellucidum. Reluctantly, Rocky retires from boxing. His home and belongings are sold to pay the debt and the Balboas move back to their old working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia. Rocky visits Mighty Mick's Gym (willed to his son by his old trainer Mickey Goldmill) which has fallen into disrepair. Seeing a vision of himself and Mickey from years past, Rocky draws inspiration to become a trainer himself and reopens the gym. Rocky and Paulie meet a young fighter from Oklahoma named Tommy Gunn. Rocky agrees to become his manager. Training him gives Rocky a sense of purpose, and Tommy rises to become a top contender. Distracted with Tommy's training, Rocky neglects Robert, who is being bullied at school. After learning to defend himself, Robert falls in with the wrong crowd and becomes withdrawn from his family. Union Cane wins the vacant world heavyweight title. Still wanting to do business with Rocky, Washington showers Tommy with luxuries and promises him that he is the only path to a shot at the title. Rocky insists dealing with Washington will end badly. Tommy drives off in a huff. Adrian attempts to comfort Rocky. Rocky apologizes to Robert and they mend their relationship. Tommy defeats Cane for the heavyweight title with a first round knockout but is jeered by spectators for leaving Rocky and hounded by reporters after the fight. Tommy gives all the credit for his success to George Washington Duke, which only fans the flames of contempt for Tommy by the fans and media. They insist that Cane was nothing but a "paper champion", because Cane did not win the title from Balboa. Washington convinces Tommy that he needs to secure a title fight with Rocky to refute the notion that he is not the real champion. Washington and Tommy show up at the local bar with a live television crew to goad Rocky into accepting a title fight. Rocky declines and tries to reason with him, but Tommy calls him weak, prompting Paulie to stand up for Rocky. When Tommy punches Paulie, Rocky challenges Tommy to a street fight. Tommy accepts. Rocky knocks him to the ground with a flurry of punches, but Tommy gets up and attacks Rocky from behind. Rocky is beaten down before he hears the voice of Mickey urging him to get up and continue the fight. Rocky gets up and, with Robert, Paulie, and the neighborhood crowd cheering him on, he defeats Tommy. While Tommy is escorted away by the police, Washington threatens to sue Rocky if he touches him. After a brief hesitation, Rocky knocks him onto the hood of a car. Months later, Rocky and Robert explore the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Rocky gives his son Rocky Marciano's cufflink, given to him years ago as a gift from Mickey. ===== At the beginning of the story, Lestat grows depressed and becomes remorseful because of his vampiric nature. Although he tries to limit his victims to murderers, serial killers and other criminals, he nonetheless caves into temptation once in a while and kills an "innocent", or someone who he feels does not necessarily deserve to die. Lestat also suffers from constant nightmares concerning his late "daughter", Claudia, for whose death he blames himself. Since defeating Akesha, Lestat has become extremely lonely. Among his only remaining friends is David Talbot, the elderly mortal head of the Talamasca Caste. Although Lestat has repeatedly offered to turn David, he has always refused to become a vampire and keep Lestat company through eternity. Lestat goes to the Gobi desert at dawn in a half-hearted suicide attempt. When he does not die, he goes to David's home in England to heal. A mysterious figure, Raglan James, approaches Lestat with what seems to be a cure for his ennui and depression. James sends Lestat several messages hinting that he has the ability to switch bodies. Eventually, he proposes to Lestat that the two of them trade bodies for a day. Against the advice of David and other vampires, Lestat jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, James has no intention of ever switching back, and Lestat is forced to scheme to regain his body. Lestat nearly dies after becoming human again—his new body is wracked by pneumonia, which he ignores during a tour of Washington D.C. in the middle of winter. He is saved by the care of a nun named Gretchen. He enjoys a short love affair with Gretchen before she returns to South America, where she works in a convent, and Lestat sets out in search of his body. Lestat seeks help from other vampires but is completely ostracized. Marius is extremely angry at him for leaving such a powerful body to a thief. Likewise Louis turns Lestat away when he asks to turn his new body, arguing that Lestat ought to be happy to be human again and also calling him out for slandering him in previous writings. Lestat's only ally is David. David reveals that James was a gifted psychic who once joined the Talamasca, but was kicked out of the order for constant theft. James is a kleptomaniac who has stolen or schemed for literally everything he owns, from his house to his body. However, he also has major psychic problems, and his life is a series of cycles--he gets rich by theft, then often ends up in prison. Dying of cancer several years before, James tricked an inmate of a mental institution into switching bodies with him, allowing him a type of immortality. It is James's lack of imagination and petty thievery that allow Lestat and David to track him down. Despite his newfound wealth and powerful new body, James continues to steal jewelry from people. He also makes a conspicuous show of his wealth, boarding the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 and draining victims of their blood along the ship's path. The pattern allows his pursuers to easily find him aboard the ship. While Lestat manages to regain his body with David's help, he performs the switch during a sunrise and must immediately flee to a safe place during the day. When he awakes in the evening, he finds that both David and James have disappeared. Lestat finds David in Florida and is surprised to find that his friend, despite his earlier protestations, now wants to become a vampire. However, while taking his blood, Lestat discovers a final trick--when forced out of Lestat's body, James took over David's body instead of returning to his own. Lestat angrily attacks James, crushing his skull. The blow proves fatal--the injury damages James's brain and prevents him from either leaving the dying body or attempting another switch. David begins to enjoy life in the young body previously occupied by James. Lestat returns to New Orleans, reunites with Louis, and begins to renovate his old house in the French Quarter. However, Lestat regains his "evil" nature upon finally accepting his vampirism and decides to turn David against his wishes. David initially resists Lestat's aggressive advances, but eventually succumbs. Soon after David and Lestat admit their love for each other. David disappears again, prompting Lestat to fruitlessly search for him. Lestat returns to New Orleans and is surprised to find that David has already contacted Louis. David explains to Lestat that, in secret, this is what he always truly wanted. He tells Lestat that he is no longer angry with him, although he does usurp Lestat's position of leadership, despite the latter's protests. Having gotten rid of his old age and mortality, David plans to visit Rio de Janeiro with Louis, and asks Lestat to join him. At the end, Lestat realizes that, despite all that happened, he is still alone, has failed to regain his "humanity", and has thrown away his only chance to make amends for his past misdeeds. ===== After stalking and killing Roger, a ruthless but passionate mobster, Lestat is approached by Roger's ghost. Roger asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a devout and popular televangelist, whom he wants to spare from embarrassment. At the same time, Lestat has become increasingly paranoid that he's being stalked by a powerful force. Eventually, Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself Memnoch. He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven and Hell, and retells the entirety of history from his own point of view in an effort to convince Lestat to join him as God's adversary. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil. After the tour, Lestat believes himself to have had a major revelation. Among other things, he believes that he has seen Christ's crucifixion and has received Saint Veronica's Veil. Even though Lestat suspects the entire experience was some kind of deception, he tells his story to Armand, David Talbot and Dora, who have joined him in New York City. When Lestat produces the veil as proof of his experience, Dora and Armand are deeply moved upon seeing it. Dora reveals the veil to the world, triggering a religious movement. Armand goes into the sunlight and immolates himself in order to convince people that a miracle has occurred. At the end of the novel, Lestat and David go to New Orleans. There, Maharet returns an eye Lestat lost in Hell, along with a note from Memnoch that reveals he may have been manipulating Lestat to serve his own agenda. Lestat then loses control of himself and Maharet is forced to chain him in the basement of a vampire-controlled convent so that he will not hurt himself or others. Although the novel fits into the storyline of The Vampire Chronicles, the vast majority of it consists of Memnoch's account of cosmology and theology. The novel follows up on claims made by David in The Tale of the Body Thief that God and the Devil are on better terms than most Christians believe. It also reinterprets biblical stories to create a complete history of Earth, Heaven and Hell that fit neatly with the history of vampires given in The Queen of the Damned. ===== In 1558, the Dauphin Francis married Mary, Queen of Scots. When the young man became king after his father's death in 1559, the queen's uncles, the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, controlled French politics during his short reign. The House of Guise claimed descent from Charlemagne and harbored pretensions to the French crown. In the reign of Francis II they attained supreme power, and sought to convert it to true kingship by eradicating the House of Bourbon, the legal successors to the throne of France. The leading Bourbon princes, Antoine, King of Navarre and Louis, Prince of Condé, were Protestants. To oppose the Bourbons, the Guises made themselves champions of the Catholic faith and allied themselves with Philip II of Spain. Conflict with the Protestant movement prompted the Amboise conspiracy, in which the Huguenots and the Bourbons plotted to violently overthrow the power of the House of Guise. The Guise family brutally put down the conspiracy. Near the end of the year, the Prince of Condé was in their hands, destined for execution for treason, when the death of the king, Francis II, prevented the fulfillment of their plans. After King Francis' death they opposed the more tolerant policy of the Regent, Catherine de' Medici, and the actions of the duke at the Massacre of Wassy were the immediate provoking incident for the French Wars of Religion. The Duke Francis helped to defeat the Huguenots at the Battle of Dreux, but he was assassinated shortly afterwards at the Siege of Orleans, in 1563. His son, Henry of Guise, became the third Duke of Guise (1550–1588). He helped plan the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of the Huguenots and formed the Catholic League. The death of the royal heir-presumptive, Francis, Duke of Anjou, in 1584, which made the Protestant King Henry of Navarre heir to the French throne, led to a new civil war, the War of the Three Henries, with King Henry III of France, Henry of Navarre, and Henry of Guise all fighting for control of France. Guise began the war by declaring the unacceptability of Navarre as King of France, and his control of the powerful Catholic League soon forced the French king to follow in his wake. In 1588 Guise, with Spanish support, instigated a revolt against the king, taking control of the city of Paris and becoming the de facto ruler. After an apparent reconciliation between the French king and the duke, in December 1588 King Henry III had both the Duke of Guise and his brother, Louis of Lorraine, Cardinal of Guise (1555-1588), murdered during a meeting in the Royal Chateau at Blois. Leadership of the Catholic League fell to their brother, Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, who was commander of the armed forces of the Catholic League. The Duke of Mayenne's nephew, the young Duke of Guise, Charles, was proposed by the Catholic League as a candidate for the throne, possibly through a marriage to Philip II of Spain's daughter Isabella, the granddaughter of Henry II of France. The Catholic League was eventually defeated, but for the sake of the country King Henry IV bought peace with Mayenne, and in January 1596 a treaty was signed that put an end to the League. After this, the House of Guise receded from its prominent position in French politics, and the senior line, that of the Dukes of Guise became extinct in 1688. The vast estates and title were disputed and diverted by various relatives, although several junior branches of the family (Dukes of Mayenne, Dukes of Elbeuf, etc.) perpetuated the male line until 1825. Thereafter, the only surviving male branch of the House of Lorraine was the seniormost branch, which had exchanged the sovereign duchy of Lorraine for that of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, holding sovereignty as the Habsburg-Lorraine Emperors of Austria-Hungary into the 20th century. Their principal title, Duke de Guise in 1688 was awarded to a branch of the House of Bourbon and afterwards to the House of Orléans. The title, with one exception, was not used by pretenders to throne of France (that is, French throne but-for-the-French Revolution of 1848). One of its heads, Prince Jean, Duke of Guise (1874 – 1940) nonetheless took it as his title of pretence to the former crown of France, supported by some of the 19th century Orleanist activists. These formed for at the time the junior set of Legitimists - claimants to be senior, rightful descendants of the pre-1848 French Royal Family and supported by restorative movements before, during and after the Second French Empire of Emperor Napoleon III, the last undoubted monarch of France. By the end of the 1880s, a series of republican Presidents during the relatively young French Third Republic largely ended any hope of a restored monarchy. ===== The book starts with the statement about Crusoe's marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see "his island." He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that no one took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, "I will go with you, but I won't leave you." But in the middle of this felicity, Providence unhinged him at once, with the loss of his wife. ===== The 120 Days of Sodom is set in a remote medieval castle, high in the mountains and surrounded by forests, detached from the rest of the world, either at the end of Louis XIV's reign or at the beginning of the Régence. The novel takes place over five months, November to March. Four wealthy libertines lock themselves in a castle, the Château de Silling, along with a number of victims and accomplices (the description of Silling matches de Sade's own castle, the Château de Lacoste). Since they state that the sensations produced by the organs of hearing are the most erotic, they intend to listen to various tales of depravity from four veteran prostitutes, which will inspire them to engage in similar activities with their victims. The novel is notable for not existing in a complete state, with only the first section being written in detail. After that, the remaining three parts are written as a draft, in note form, with de Sade's notes to himself still present in most translations. Either at the outset, or during the writing of the work, de Sade had evidently decided he would not be able to complete it in full and elected to write out the remaining three-quarters in brief and finish it later. The story does portray some black humor, and de Sade seems almost light-hearted in his introduction, referring to the reader as "friendly reader". In this introduction, he contradicts himself, at one point insisting that one should not be horrified by the 600 passions outlined in the story because everybody has their own tastes, but at the same time going out of his way to warn the reader of the horrors that lie ahead, suggesting that the reader should have doubts about continuing. Consequently, he glorifies as well as vilifies the four main protagonists, alternately declaring them freethinking heroes and debased villains, often in the same passage. ===== In Burma during the Pacific War in 1945, a group of wounded Allied soldiers are at a makeshift British military hospital in the jungle. As they've all been there for some time, they have a strong bond. "Yank" (Ronald Reagan) is the lone American there, recovering from malaria, along with Tommy (Howard Marion-Crawford), the Englishman, Kiwi (Ralph Michael), the New Zealander, Digger (John Sherman), the Australian, and Blossom (Orlando Martins), the African. They are all under the care of Sister Margaret Parker (Patricia Neal). Lt Col Dunn (Anthony Nicholls), the senior doctor of the hospital, tells the men that they will be receiving a new patient soon, and that they should be extra kind to him. He is a Scot, and, while he seems to have recovered from his operation, his abnormal kidney means that he will die within a few weeks. Dunn tells the men that the Scot will be outwardly healthy until one day he will suddenly die when his kidney fails. When the Scot arrives, Cpl. Lachlan 'Lachie' MacLachlan (Richard Todd) is very gruff and mean. He is constantly suspicious of his fellow patients attempting to make friends with him. Margaret tries to convince Lachie to buy a regimental kilt, something he feels is too expensive to purchase because he recently bought a house in Scotland to which he intends to return. However, during Lachie's 24th birthday party, Margaret gives him a kilt, and the rest of his friends contribute something for his uniform. Lachie is proud, and they all have a photoshoot, with their trying to answer the question of whether he wears anything under his kilt. Lachie warms to the soldiers and opens up about his past, telling them "They say sorrow is born in the hasty heart." He reveals to Margaret that his aloof and suspicious behavior is the result of great cruelty inflicted on him in his youth as an illegitimate child. Later he confesses to Yank that he is in love with Margaret and will propose to her. Yank tries to convince him otherwise, but when Lachie does propose she accepts because that is what will make him really happy. Dunn comes to the ward and tells Lachie that he can return to Scotland immediately if he wishes. When Lachie asks why he is receiving special treatment, the doctor tells him the truth about his condition and that his death is imminent. Lachie explodes at his friends, thinking they befriended him only because he was sick and dying. He decides to return to Scotland, but as he is leaving he breaks down and says he does not want to die alone. Blossom offers him a necklace, but when Lachie rejects it, Yank explains that Blossom does not speak English and therefore could not have known that Lachie was dying. Once he realises that, Lachie softens and decides to stay on and have his picture taken in his uniform with the men, happy to be with true friends at last in his last few days. ===== The story is told from the viewpoint of Corporal Robert Dunne. Tough-as-nails career Marine Sergeant John Stryker (John Wayne) is greatly disliked by the men of his squad, particularly the combat replacements, for the rigorous training he puts them through. He is especially despised by PFC Peter "Pete" Conway (John Agar), the arrogant, college-educated son of Colonel Sam Conway, whom Stryker served under and admired, and PFC Al Thomas (Forrest Tucker), who blames him for his demotion. When Stryker leads his squad in the invasion of Tarawa, the men begin to appreciate his methods. The platoon leader, Lieutenant Baker, is killed seconds after he lands on the beach, and PFCs "Farmer" Soames and Choynski are wounded. The Marines are pinned down by a pillbox. Several more men are killed before Stryker is able to demolish the pillbox. Later on, Thomas stops for coffee when he goes to get ammunition for two comrades. As a result, he returns too late — the two Marines run out of ammunition, and Hellenopolis is killed, while Bass is badly wounded. On their first night, the squad is ordered to dig in and hold their positions. Alone and wounded, Bass begs for help. Conway considers Stryker brutal and unfeeling when he refuses to disobey orders and go to Bass's rescue. After the battle, when Stryker discovers about Thomas's dereliction, he gets into a fistfight with him. A passing officer spots this serious offense, but Thomas claims that Stryker was merely teaching him judo. Later, a guilt-ridden Thomas abjectly apologizes to Stryker for his dereliction of duty. Stryker reveals a softer side while on leave in Honolulu. He picks up a bargirl and goes with her to her apartment. He becomes suspicious when he hears somebody in the next room, but upon investigation, finds only a hungry baby boy. Stryker gives the woman some money and leaves. Later, during a training exercise, McHugh, a replacement, drops a live hand grenade. Everybody drops to the ground, except Conway, who is distracted reading a letter from his wife. Stryker knocks him down, saving his life, and then proceeds to bawl him out in front of the platoon. thumb Stryker's squad subsequently fights in the battle for Iwo Jima. The squad suffers heavy casualties within the first couple of hours. Stryker's squad is selected to be a part of the 40-man patrol assigned to charge up Mount Suribachi. During the charge, Eddie Flynn, Stein, and Fowler are killed. While the men are resting during a lull in the fighting, Stryker is killed by a Japanese soldier emerging from a spider hole. Bass kills the Japanese shooter. The remaining squad members find and read a letter on his corpse, a letter addressed to his son and expressing things Stryker wanted to say to him, but never did. Moments later, the squad witnesses the iconic flag raising. ===== ===== World War II veterans Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) recruit nine of their comrades from their unit in the 82nd Airborne to simultaneously rob five Las Vegas casinos: the Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands, and Flamingo. alt= The gang (the "eleven" of the title) plans the elaborate New Year's Eve heist with the precision of a military operation. Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.) takes a job as a sanitation worker driving a garbage truck while others get jobs at the various casinos. Sam Harmon (Dean Martin) entertains in one of the hotel's lounges. Demolition charges are planted on an electrical transmission tower and the backup electrical systems are covertly rewired in each casino. At midnight, New Year's Eve, the tower is blown up and the Las Vegas Strip goes dark as the inside men sneak into the cages and hold up the cashiers and then dump the bags of loot into the hotels' garbage bins. A garbage truck driven by Josh picks up the bags and passes through the police blockade. Everything appears to have gone off without a hitch. However, the gang's electrician, Tony Bergdorf (Richard Conte), drops dead of a heart attack in the middle of the Strip. This raises the suspicions of police, who wonder if there is any connection. Reformed mobster Duke Santos (Cesar Romero) offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a percentage. Since the robbery was well organized, he assumes it was a mob operation but his mob connections tell him they were not involved. But Duke is engaged to Foster's mother (Ilka Chase), who casually mentions that Foster and Ocean, who fought together in the army, are both unexpectedly in Las Vegas. He has also learned about Bergdorf's military record from the police. By the time Bergdorf's body arrives at the mortuary, Santos has pieced together the puzzle. Santos now confronts the thieves, demanding half of their take. In desperation, they hide the money in Bergdorf's coffin, setting aside $10,000 for his widow (Jean Willes). The group plans to take back the rest of the money, making no payoff to Santos, after the coffin is shipped to San Francisco. This plan backfires when the funeral director talks Bergdorf's widow into having the funeral in Las Vegas—where the body is cremated, along with all of the remaining money. ===== ===== ===== Kayako Kirishima, in her third year at a high school, feels a sense of isolation in school life and vague admiration and uneasiness about the future. One day she makes friends with Endō, who is isolated from her surroundings because she remained in the same class for another year. Kayako is strongly attracted by Endō, who shows her a world that she didn't know. ===== The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout, and killing all human and animal life in the Northern Hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy, and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the Soviet Union, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union by NATO. There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most, if not all, of the bombs included cobalt to enhance their radioactive properties. Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone, to the Southern Hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although they are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as well. Life in Melbourne continues reasonably normally, although the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes traveling difficult. People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from the American city of Seattle, Washington. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion, placed by its captain, Commander Dwight Towers, under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland, and Darwin, Northern Territory; no survivors are found. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Lieutenant Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, Professor John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne, named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines their growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy. The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city, it is referred to as being "out." One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to kill their baby and herself, by taking the suicide pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring and subsequently racing a Ferrari racing car that he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the war's outbreak. The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the "Jorgensen Effect", a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will decrease at a much greater rate than previously thought, aided by the weather effects, and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica. The submarine approaches San Francisco, observing through the periscope that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound area, from which the strange radio signals are emanating, is found to have avoided destruction because of missile defences. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town. The expedition members then sail to an abandoned navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor, the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Towers and his remaining crew choose to scuttle the Scorpion in the open ocean, fulfilling a naval duty to not leave the unmanned vessel "floating about in a foreign port", after her crew succumbs to suicide or radiation poisoning. Moira watches the submarine's departure in her car, parked atop an adjacent hilltop, as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies. ===== After a stirring opening on the eve of the coup d'état, involving an idealistic young village couple joining up with the republican militia in the middle of the night, Zola then spends the next few chapters going back in time to pre- Revolutionary Provence, and proceeds to lay the foundations for the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle, committing himself to what would become the next twenty-two years of his life's work. The fictional town of Plassans (loosely based on the real city of Aix-en-Provence, where Zola grew up) is established as the setting for the novel and described in intimate detail, and then we are introduced to the eccentric heroine Adelaide Fouque, later known as "Tante Dide", who becomes the common ancestor for both the Rougon and Macquart families. Her legitimate son from her short marriage to her late husband, a labourer named Rougon who worked on Dide's land, is forced to grow up alongside two illegitimate children -- a boy and a girl -- from Dide's later romance with the smuggler, poacher and alcoholic Macquart, while the ageing Dide slides further and further into a state of mental illness and borderline senile dementia. From this premise, the next nineteen novels all get their central protagonists and to a certain extent their themes. The narrative continues along double lines, following both "branches" of the family. We see Pierre Rougon (the legitimate son) in his attempts to disinherit his Macquart half-siblings, his marriage to Felicité Puech, the voraciously ambitious daughter of a local merchant, and their continued failure to establish the fortune, fame and renown they seek, despite their greed and relatively comfortable lifestyles. Approaching old age, the Rougon couple finally admit defeat and settle, crushed, into their lower middle class destinies, until by a remarkable stroke of luck their eldest son Eugène reports from Paris that he has some news that they might find interesting. Eugène has become one of the closest allies of the future Emperor Napoleon III and informs his parents that a coup is imminent. Having been effectively given insider information about which side to back in the coming revolution, the Rougons then make a series of seemingly bold moves to show their loyal and steadfast support for Napoleon III, winning the admiration of the most influential people in the town, mostly royalists who are themselves afraid of showing too much commitment for fear of backing the "wrong horse" and losing their standing and fortune. The narrative then switches over to the Macquart side of the family, whose grim working- class struggles to survive are juxtaposed keenly with the Rougons' seemingly trivial quest for greater wealth and influence in genteel drawing-room society. Descended from a drunken ne'er-do-well and a madwoman, Zola effectively predestines the Macquarts to lives of toil and misery. Zola's theories of heredity, laid out in the original preface to this novel, were a cornerstone of his entire philosophy and a major reason for his embarking on the mammoth Rougon-Macquart project in the first place in order to illustrate them. Largely discredited nowadays, the theories are largely "present but unseen" in most of the novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, allowing those books to be enjoyed without the overshadowing effect of Zola's somewhat suspect scientific ideas. Due to the original story nature of La Fortune des Rougon, the theories are placed much more to the fore, and can appear somewhat heavy-handed as a result. A third branch of the family, the Mourets, descended from Macquart and Dide's daughter, are then introduced before the novel's focus is brought back to the "present", the night of the coup, via a quite brilliantly told love story. The idealistic but naïve Silvère Mouret falls madly in love with the innocent Miette Chantegreil, and after a long courtship they decide to join up with the republicans to fight the coup. The rest of the novel then picks up from where the opening chapter left off, and from then on is basically a dual narrative telling the story of the old Rougon couple and their increasingly Machiavellian machinations to get themselves into a position of fortune and respect in Plassans, juxtaposed with Silvère and Miette's continuing love story and the doomed republican militia's disastrous attempt to take the town back. Eventually, the Rougons exploit their half- brother Antoine Macquart into inadvertently helping crush the republican threat, and they achieve their life's ambition, fortune and favour. For Silvère and Miette, who committed themselves so completely to a doomed cause, there can be no such happy ending and Zola wisely leaves their half of the story at a bleak dead end. ===== The novel opens in 1856 with Rougon's career at a low ebb. In conflict with the Emperor over an inheritance claim involving a relative of the Empress, Rougon resigns from his position as premier of the Corps législatif before he can be dismissed. This puts the plans and dreams of Rougon's friends in limbo, as they are counting on his political influence to win various personal favors. His greatest ally and his greatest adversary is Clorinde Balbi, an Italian woman of dubious background and devious intent. Clorinde desires power as much as Rougon does but, because she is a woman, she is forced to act behind the scenes. Rougon refuses to marry her because he believes two such dominant personalities would inevitably destroy each other. Instead, he encourages her to marry M. Delestang, a man of great wealth who can easily be wheedled, while he himself takes a respectable nonentity of a wife who will not hinder his ambition. Rougon learns of an assassination plot against the Emperor, but decides to do nothing about it. In consequence, after the attempt is made (the Orsini incident of 1858), the Emperor makes him Minister of the Interior with power to maintain peace and national security at any cost. Rougon uses this as an opportunity to punish his political adversaries, deport anti-imperialists by the hundreds, and reward his loyal friends with honors, commissions, and political appointments. Through his influence, Delestang is made Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. As Rougon's power expands, however, his cronies begin to desert him despite his fulfilling their personal requests. They feel that he has not done enough for them and what he has done either has not been good enough or has had consequences so disastrous as to be no help at all. Moreover, they consider him ungrateful, given all the work they claim to have done to have him reinstated as Minister. Eventually, Rougon is involved in several great scandals based on the favors he has shown to his inner circle. At the center of all this conflict is Clorinde. As Rougon's power has grown, so has hers, until she has influence at the highest level and on an international scale, including as the Emperor's mistress. Now having the upper hand, she is able to punish Rougon for his refusal to marry her. To silence political and personal opposition, Rougon decides to submit his resignation to the Emperor, confident that it will not be accepted. However, it is accepted, and Delestang is made Minister of the Interior, the implication being that both actions are founded on Clorinde’s authority over the Emperor. The novel ends in 1862. The Emperor has returned Rougon to service as Minister without Portfolio, giving him unprecedented powers in the wake of Italian unification. Ostensibly, the appointment is meant to reconfigure the country on less imperialistic, more liberal lines, but in reality Rougon has a free hand to crush resistance, curtail opposition, and control the press. ===== The novel takes place in 1864-1869, beginning a few months after the death of Saccard's second wife Renée (see La curée). Saccard is bankrupt and an outcast among the Bourse financiers. Searching for a way to reestablish himself, Saccard is struck by plans developed by his upstairs neighbor, the engineer Georges Hamelin, who dreams of restoring Christianity to the Middle East through great public works: rail lines linking important cities, improved roads and transportation, renovated eastern Mediterranean ports, and fleets of modern ships to move goods around the world. Saccard decides to institute a financial establishment to fund these projects. He is motivated primarily by the potential to make incredible amounts of money and reestablish himself on the Bourse. In addition, Saccard has an intense rivalry with his brother Eugène Rougon, a powerful Cabinet minister who refuses to help him after his bankruptcy and who is promoting a more liberal, less Catholic agenda for the Empire. Furthermore, Saccard, an intense anti-Semite, sees the enterprise as a strike against the Jewish bankers who dominate the Bourse. From the beginning, Saccard's Banque Universelle (Universal Bank) stands on shaky ground. In order to manipulate the price of the stock, Saccard and his confreres on the syndicate he has set up to jumpstart the enterprise buy their own stock and hide the proceeds of this illegal practice in a dummy account fronted by a straw man. While Hamelin travels to Constantinople to lay the groundwork for their enterprise, the Banque Universelle goes from strength to strength. Stock prices soar, going from 500 francs a share to more than 3,000 francs in three years. Furthermore, Saccard buys several newspapers which serve to maintain the illusion of legitimacy, promote the Banque, excite the public, and attack Rougon. The novel follows the fortunes of about 20 characters, cutting across all social strata, showing the effects of stock market speculation on rich and poor. The financial events of the novel are played against Saccard's personal life. Hamelin lives with his sister Caroline, who, against her better judgment, invests in the Banque Universelle and later becomes Saccard's mistress. Caroline learns that Saccard fathered a son, Victor, during his first days in Paris. She rescues Victor from his life of abject poverty, placing him in a charitable institution. But Victor is completely unredeemable, given over to greed, laziness, and thievery. After he attacks one of the women at the institution, he disappears into the streets, never to be seen again. Eventually, the Banque Universelle cannot sustain itself. Saccard's principal rival on the Bourse, the Jewish financier Gundermann, learns about Saccard's financial trickery and attacks, loosing stock upon the market, devaluing its price, and forcing Saccard to buy millions of shares to keep the price up. At the final collapse, the Banque holds one-fourth of its own shares worth 200 million francs. The fall of the Banque is felt across the entire financial world. Indeed, all of France feels the force of its collapse. The effects on the characters of L'argent are disastrous, including complete ruin, suicide, and exile, though some of Saccard's syndicate members escape and Gundermann experiences a windfall. Saccard and Hamelin are sentenced to five years in prison. Through the intervention of Saccard's brother Eugène Rougon, who doesn't want a brother in jail, their sentences are commuted and they are forced to leave France. Saccard goes to Belgium, and the novel ends with Caroline preparing to follow her brother to Rome. ===== In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in the (fictional) northern Californian village of Kinneret, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey, and her sessions with Dr. Hilarius, an unhinged German psychotherapist who tries to medicate his patients with LSD. One day, Oedipa learns of the death of an ex-lover, Pierce Inverarity, an incredibly wealthy real-estate mogul, who has left her as the executor of his massive estate. Inverarity appears to have owned or financed nearly all the goings-on in San Narciso, a (fictional) southern Californian city near Los Angeles. Oedipa goes to San Narciso to meet Inverarity's lawyer, a former child actor named Metzger, and they begin an affair, which fascinates a local teenaged rock band, The Paranoids, who begin following them voyeuristically. At a bar, Oedipa notices the graffitied symbol of a muted post horn with the label "W.A.S.T.E.", and she chats with Mike Fallopian, a right-wing historian and critic of the postal system, who claims to use a secret postal service. The novel's ubiquitous muted post horn symbol It surfaces that Inverarity had Mafia connections, illicitly attempting to sell the bones of forgotten U.S. World War Two soldiers for use as charcoal to a cigarette company. One of The Paranoids mentions that this strongly reminds him of a Jacobean revenge play he recently saw called The Courier's Tragedy. Intrigued by the coincidence, Oedipa and Metzger attend a performance of the play, which briefly mentions the name "Tristero". After the show, Oedipa approaches the play's director, Randolph Driblette, but he deflects her questions about the mention of the unusual name. After seeing a man scribbling the post horn symbol, Oedipa seeks out Mike Fallopian, who tells her he suspects a conspiracy. This is supported when watermarks of the muted horn symbol are discovered hidden on Inverarity's private stamp collection. The symbol appears to be a muted variant of the coat of arms of Thurn and Taxis: an 18th-century European postal monopoly that suppressed all opposition, including Trystero (or Tristero), a competing postal service that was defeated but possibly driven underground. Based on the symbolism of the mute, Oedipa theorizes that Trystero continues to exist as a countercultural secret society with unknown goals. She researches an older censored edition of The Courier's Tragedy, which confirms that Dribelette indeed made a conscious choice to include the "Tristero" line. She seeks answers through a machine claimed to have psychic abilities, but the experience is awkward and unsuccessful. As she feverishly wanders the Bay Area, the muted post horn symbol appears among an engineer's doodles, as part of children's sidewalk drawings, amidst Chinese ideograms in a shop window, and in many other places. Finally, a nameless man at a gay bar tells her that the muted horn symbol simply represents an anonymous support group for people with broken hearts: Inamorati Anonymous. She directly witnesses people referring to and using mailboxes disguised as regular waste bins marked with "W.A.S.T.E." (later suggested to be an acronym for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire"). Even so, Oedipa sinks into paranoia, wondering if Trystero actually exists or if she is merely overthinking a series of false clues with no definite connections. Fearing for her sanity, Oedipa makes an impromptu visit to Dr. Hilarius, only to find him having lost his own mind, firing a gun randomly and raving madly about his days as a Nazi medical intern at Buchenwald. She helps the police subdue him, only to return home to find that her husband Mucho has lost his mind in his own way, having become addicted to LSD. Oedipa consults an English professor about The Courier's Tragedy, learns that Randolph Driblette has mysteriously committed suicide, and is left pondering whether Trystero is simply a prolonged hallucination, an actual historical plot, or some elaborate practical joke that Inverarity arranged for her before his death. The book ends with Oedipa at an auction of Inverarity's possessions, waiting on the bidding of lot 49, which contains his stamp collection. Having learned that a particular bidder is interested in the stamps, she hopes to discover if this person is a representative of the Trystero secret society. ===== The Galactic Federation is concerned about the number of wars on the Planet Earth. It sends three agents to determine if the planet is a potential threat to the universe, and whether it should be destroyed. The instrument of destruction is a device resembling a large black ball with two antennae that is variously called an anti-proton bomb, a solar bomb, and a neutron bomb. The agents (Captain Bokko, Nokko, and Pukko) are originally humanoid in appearance, but upon arrival on Earth they take on the appearances of a rabbit (Bokko), a horse (Nokko), and a duck (Pukko) that they had captured as examples of Earth life forms. While on Earth they travel in a tire-shaped vehicle capable of enormous speeds called the Big Wheel, which can travel on both land and water (and, with modifications, through the air). After landing, they are befriended by Shinichi Hoshi, a young boy who becomes their ally throughout the series. The series also features Shinichi's older brother Koichi who is a member of the secret intelligence agency "Phoenix", formed to protect the peace of the world. The Wonder 3 are initially repulsed by the violence of the earthlings, especially Pukko, but gradually change their thinking after being touched by the kind personality of Shinichi. In the final episode of the series the decision is made by the galactic council that mankind is irredeemable and that the Earth is to be destroyed. Although Pukko is in favor of this as much as ever, Bokko puts off the order as long as possible, and eventually decides to disobey the council's decision. However, prior to Bokko's decision to disobey her orders, Shinichi is appalled at the likelihood that his friends would obey the order and runs to Koichi to ask Phoenix to intervene. Although dozens of Phoenix agents fight the Amazing 3 in their saucer, they are unable to destroy it, and Shinichi appeals to Bokko, Nokko, and Pukko to take him back to their home planet to plead Earth's case. During the trip Bokko, Nokko, and Pukko revert to their humanoid forms for the first time, much to the surprise of Shinichi, who had never seen their true appearances before (perhaps not clearly, anyway – he had also seen them through the window of their saucer in the first episode, though it's suggested in the episode that he could only see their silhouettes). Shinichi is particularly surprised by Bokko's beauty in her actual form. A3 are presented to the galactic council on charges of disobeying orders. Shinichi is given a chance to plead Earth's case and the council offers him the opportunity to stay on their planet with all the rights and privileges of other citizens. Shinichi becomes angry and attacks a guard, thus proving mankind's inherently violent nature to many there. The order is given to wipe out Shinichi's memories, but before this can be done Bokko pleads for him to be released, and for the Earth to be given more time to develop. The council eventually decides to return A3 to the Earth and re-examine the matter when Shinichi reaches adulthood. Upon their return to Earth Pukko is ashamed of his attitude toward humans before that point, Shinichi is reunited with Koichi, and Bokko is transformed by Nokko and Pukko into an Earth girl so she'll have a chance to be with Shinichi as the human girl she really wants to be – for a short time, anyway. The closing shot of the series is of the now- human Bokko walking towards Shinichi's home to find him. ===== The novel is set in a world that is tidally locked. Thus one side of the planet is always in light, and the other in darkness. Science rules on the dayside, while magic holds sway in the night. Powerful magical entities live on the night side of the planet, and for the most part the entities' magical powers emanate from distinct loci. Jack of Shadows (also known as Shadowjack), the main character, is unique among the magical beings in that he draws his power not from a physical location but from shadow itself. He is nearly incapacitated in complete light or complete darkness, but given access to even a small area of shadow, his potency is unmatched. Jack's only friend, the creature Morningstar, is punished by being trapped in stone at the edge of the night, to be released when dawn comes. His torso and head protrude from the rock, and he awaits the sun that will never rise. Jack seeks "The Key That Was Lost", Kolwynia. The Key itself and the consequences of its use parallel Jack's progress in his own endeavors. Ultimately, the Key will be responsible for Jack's salvation and his doom. Fleeing the dark side, Jack gets access to a computer and uses it to recover Kolwynia. This makes him unbeatable, but not all-powerful. Having made a mess of ruling with his new powers, he seeks the advice of Morningstar, who advises him to destroy The Machine at the Heart of the World, which maintains the world's stability, and set it rotating. ===== Goofy is the single father of his 14-year-old son Max Goof, although the two have a tense relationship. On the last day of school before summer vacation, Max and his best friends P.J. and Robert "Bobby" Zimuruski hijack the auditorium in the middle of Principal Mazur's speech, creating a small concert where Max performs, while dressed as the pop singer Powerline. The performance succeeds in making Max a school celebrity and impressing his love interest, Roxanne, but he, P.J., and Bobby are sent to Mazur's office. While waiting outside of the office, Roxanne speaks with Max and agrees to go with him to a party where Powerline's concert will be viewed live on television. However, Mazur calls Goofy and forewarns him that Max's behavior may result in him facing capital punishment. Oblivious to Max's plans with Roxanne, Goofy decides to take Max on a fishing trip to Lake Destiny, Idaho, following a cross-country map route he and his father took years ago. Before they leave town, Max manages to stop by Roxanne's house to call off their date, but when the heartbroken Roxanne mentions going with someone else, Max panics and instead fabricates a story about his father knowing Powerline, telling her he will be on stage at the concert. Despite his son's objections, Goofy plans his own trip, with initially disastrous results. Max hurts his father's feelings after Goofy inadvertently humiliates Max at an opossum-based theme park. Later, Pete and P.J. happen to meet up with them while camping by a lake. While P.J. informs Max of how all their peers back home anticipate seeing him onstage at the Powerline concert, Pete advises Goofy to keep Max under control. Goofy takes his son fishing and shows him the Perfect Cast fishing technique, accidentally luring Bigfoot to their camp. Pete and P.J. flee, leaving Goofy and Max to spend the night with Bigfoot. At night, while Goofy sleeps, Max alters the map's route to Los Angeles, where the concert is taking place. The next morning, Goofy decides to make Max the navigator of the trip. The two go to different locations that satisfy both of them. Eventually, they stop by a motel where they meet Pete and P.J. again. When Pete overhears a conversation between the boys, he tells Goofy that Max has tricked him into traveling to Los Angeles. The next day, Goofy and Max come to a junction: one leading to Idaho, the other to California. Max chooses the route to California, making Goofy stop the car at the Grand Canyon and storm off in anger. With the brake loose, the car drives off on its own; Goofy and Max chase after it and end up in a river. After a heated argument, Goofy solemnly declares that no matter how old Max gets he will always be his son, and the two finally reconcile with each other. After learning of Max's promise to Roxanne, Goofy decides to take him to the concert in Los Angeles. The two nearly plummet to their deaths down a waterfall, but Max saves Goofy using the Perfect Cast technique. Goofy and Max make it to the concert, and while attempting to sneak backstage, they end up onstage and dance with Powerline, watched by Pete, P.J. and Roxanne on separate televisions. Goofy and Max later return to Roxanne's house in their damaged car. Max tells the truth to Roxanne, though she accepts it and admits she always had feelings for him, ever since the first time she ever heard him laugh, "Ah-hyuck!"; thus, a relationship starts between them. Goofy's car suddenly explodes because of damage it had sustained, ejecting Goofy in the process, who then falls through the porch roof of Roxanne's house, and Max proceeds to introduce him to Roxanne. ===== After Max Goof goes to college with his friends P.J. and Bobby, Goofy's empty nest syndrome causes him to falter at work, causing a massive explosion at the toy-assembly factory and resulting in him getting dismissed. At the unemployment office, Goofy is told that he needs a college degree to get another job. Max and his friends meet Bradley Uppercrust III, the leader of the Gamma Mu Mu fraternity and a veteran skateboarder. Bradley is impressed by Max's own skateboarding talent and invites him to join the Gamma team and take part in the college's X Games. Max declines the offer due to the condition that he cannot bring his friends along. Following a skirmish, the two parties place a bet in which the loser becomes the other group's towel boy. To Max's horror, Goofy begins attending the same college and interrupts the group's down-time with chores. Max decides to distract his father by introducing him to the college librarian, Sylvia Marpole, with whom he has much in common. Goofy accidentally impresses Bradley with his clumsy attempt at skateboarding and is invited to join the Gamma team, which he accepts upon Max's encouragement. During the first qualifiers for the X Games, Bradley discreetly blinds Max with a pocket mirror during his performance and installs a rocket booster on Goofy's skateboard. Goofy beats Max and Max's team barely makes the semi-finals. Eventually, Max lashes out at Goofy and storms off in anger. A depressed Goofy ultimately fails his first round of midterm exams and he leaves for home after quarreling with Sylvia. Back at home, Pete gives Goofy advice about love. Goofy goes back to college and reconciles with Sylvia, who helps him ace the next terms. As Goofy decides to quit the Gamma team, he overhears the group plotting to cheat for the semi-finals, but Max, still angry with his father over beating him in the qualifiers, does not listen to his warnings. At the semi-finals, all teams but Max's and the Gamma's are eliminated. Just before the final triathlon, Bradley eliminates P.J. from the games, leaving Max's team short one player and spurring Max to recruit and apologize to Goofy via jumbotron. Throughout the race, Bradley and his team attempt to hinder Max's team, but only manage to eliminate Bobby. Bradley's final trick results in Max and Gamma member, Tank, getting trapped underneath a flaming collapsed X logo. As Bradley passes them by, Max and Goofy rescue Tank, who assists Max in winning the race. Afterwards, Bradley concedes his defeat. Max calls off the bet, but allows a vengeful Tank to slingshot Bradley into the X Games blimp overhead. During graduation day, Max gives Goofy his grand-prize trophy engraved with an affirmation of their bond, and Goofy drives away with Sylvia for their next date. ===== In 1893 London, popular writer Herbert George Wells displays a time machine to his skeptical dinner guests. After he explains how it works (including a "non-return key" that keeps the machine at the traveler's destination and a "vaporizing equalizer" that keeps the traveler and machine on equal terms), police constables arrive at the house searching for Jack the Ripper. A bag with blood-stained gloves belonging to one of Herbert's friends, a surgeon named John Leslie Stevenson, leads them to conclude that Stevenson might be the infamous killer. Wells races to his laboratory, but the time machine is gone. Stevenson has escaped to the future, but because he does not have the "non-return" key, the machine automatically returns to 1893. Herbert uses it to pursue Stevenson to November 5, 1979, where the machine has ended up on display at a museum in San Francisco. He is deeply shocked by the future, having expected it to be an enlightened socialist utopia, only to find chaos in the form of airplanes, automobiles and a worldwide history of war, crime and bloodshed. Reasoning that Stevenson would need to exchange his British money, Herbert asks about him at various banks. At the Chartered Bank of London, he meets liberated employee Amy Robbins, who says she had directed Stevenson to the Hyatt Regency hotel. Confronted by his one-time friend Herbert, Stevenson confesses that he finds modern society to be pleasingly violent, stating: "Ninety years ago, I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur." Herbert demands he return to 1893 to face justice, but Stevenson instead attempts to wrestle the time machine's key from him. Their struggle is interrupted by a maid and Stevenson flees, getting hit by a car during the frantic chase. Herbert follows him to the San Francisco General Hospital emergency room and mistakenly gets the impression that Stevenson has died from his injuries. Herbert meets up with Amy Robbins again and she initiates a romance. Stevenson returns to the bank to exchange more money. Suspecting that it was Amy who had led Herbert to him, he finds out where she lives. Herbert, hoping to convince her of the truth, takes a highly skeptical Amy three days into the future. Once there, she is aghast to see a newspaper headline revealing her own murder as the Ripper's fifth victim. Herbert persuades her that they must go back – it is their duty to attempt to prevent the fourth victim's murder, then prevent Amy's. However, they are delayed upon their return to the present and can do no more than phone the police. Stevenson kills again, and Herbert is arrested because of his knowledge of the killing. Amy is left alone, totally defenseless, and at the mercy of the "San Francisco Ripper". While Herbert unsuccessfully tries to convince the police of Amy's peril, she attempts to hide from Stevenson. When the police finally do investigate her apartment, they find the dismembered body of a woman. Now aware of Herbert's innocence, the police release a now-heartbroken Wells. However, he is contacted by Stevenson, who has actually killed Amy's coworker (revealed to be the dead body in Amy's apartment) and taken Amy hostage in order to extort the time machine key from Wells. Stevenson flees with the key – and Amy as insurance – to attempt a permanent escape in the time machine. Using Amy's car, Herbert follows them back to the museum. While Herbert bargains for Amy's life, she is able to escape. As Stevenson starts up the time machine, Herbert removes the "vaporizing equalizer" from it, causing Stevenson to vanish while the machine does not. As Herbert had explained earlier, this causes the machine to remain in place while its passenger is sent traveling endlessly through time with no way to stop; in effect, he is destroyed. Herbert proclaims that the time has come to return to his own time, in order to destroy a machine that he now knows is too dangerous for primitive mankind. Amy pleads with him to take her along. As they depart to the past, she jokes that she is changing her name to Susan B. Anthony. The film ends with the caption: "H.G. Wells married Amy Catherine Robbins, who died in 1927. As a writer, he anticipated Socialism, global war, space travel, and Women's Liberation. He died in 1946." ===== ===== Thipps, an architect, finds a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath of his London flat. Lord Peter Wimsey—a nobleman who has recently developed an interest in criminal investigation as a hobby—resolves to investigate the matter privately. Leading the official investigation is Inspector Sugg, who suggests that the body may be that of the famous financier Sir Reuben Levy, who disappeared from his bedroom in mysterious circumstances the night before. Sir Reuben's disappearance is in the hands of Inspector Charles Parker, a friend of Wimsey's. Although the body in the bath superficially resembles that of Sir Reuben, it quickly becomes clear that it is not him, and it appears that the cases may be unconnected. Wimsey joins Parker in his investigation. Thipps's flat is near a teaching hospital, and Wimsey considers the possibility that the unexpected appearance of a body may have been the result of a joke perpetrated by one of the medical students. However, that is excluded by evidence given at the inquest by the respected surgeon and neurologist Sir Julian Freke, who states that there was no subject missing from his dissecting room. A prostitute's chance encounter with Levy on the night of his disappearance, on the road leading to the hospital and to Sir Julian Freke's house next door, provides Wimsey with the clue that allows him to link the two cases. Freke maintains that he was discreetly being consulted by Levy about a medical problem, and that Levy left at about 10pm. Freke's manservant reports that Freke was inexplicably taking a bath at about 3 o'clock the following morning, judging from the noise of the cistern. Wimsey ultimately discovers that Freke murdered Sir Reuben after luring him to his house with the promise of some inside financial information. Freke smuggled the body out onto the roof under cover of the cistern noise, took it into the hospital, and substituted it for that of a pauper who had been donated for dissection by the local workhouse. He then visited Sir Reuben's home to stage his disappearance, returned, carried the pauper's body over the flat roofs of the nearby houses and placed it in Thipps' bath, entering via a bathroom window that had been left open. As a joke, he added a pair of pince-nez that had by chance come into his possession. Returning to the hospital, he prepared Sir Reuben's body for dissection, giving it to his medical students for that purpose the next day. Freke unsuccessfully attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey. When it becomes clear that his actions have been discovered, he prepares a written confession of his long-held desire for revenge: many years earlier, he hoped to marry the woman who later became Lady Levy, but she chose Sir Reuben in preference to him. He also intended to substantiate his own theory of mind, in which conscience, a sense of responsibility and so on are merely "surface symptoms" which arise from physical irritation or damage to the tissues of the brain. As he completes the confession the police arrive to arrest him, preventing his suicide just in time. ===== Lord Peter Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver, has taken a shooting lodge at Riddlesdale in Yorkshire. At 3 o'clock one morning, Captain Denis Cathcart, the fiancé of Wimsey's sister Lady Mary, is found shot dead just outside the conservatory. Mary, trying to leave the house at 3 am for a reason she declines to explain, finds Denver kneeling over Cathcart's body. Suspicion falls on Denver, as the lethal bullet had come from his revolver and he admits having quarrelled with Cathcart earlier, after receiving a letter (which he says has been lost) informing him that Cathcart had been caught cheating at cards. He maintains that he stumbled across the body after returning from a walk on the moors, but will say no more. Wimsey arrives to investigate, along with his friend Inspector Charles Parker, who will find himself becoming increasingly attracted to Lady Mary throughout the novel. They find a series of unidentified footprints and a discarded jewel in the form of a cat. It is clear that both Denver and Mary are hiding something: Denver refuses to budge from his story that he was simply out for a walk, while Mary is feigning illness to avoid talking to anyone. Wimsey investigates several false leads. The footprints turn out to be those of Mary's secret true fiancé, Goyles, a socialist agitator considered 'an unsuitable match' by her family. He had crept into the grounds for a pre-arranged rendezvous at 3 am, when the couple had intended to elope. Mary assumed that he was the killer and has been covering for him, but when she learns that he had fled in terror after discovering the body, she breaks off their engagement in disgust at his cowardice. Wimsey's investigations lead him to a violent local farmer, Grimethorpe, with a stunningly beautiful wife. Wimsey finds the lost letter that was sent to Denver wedged in the window of the Grimethorpes' bedroom, proving that Denver had been visiting Mrs Grimethorpe on the night of Cathcart's death. This is what he has refused to admit, being determined to shield his mistress even at the price of being wrongfully convicted of murder. Eventually, the jewelled cat leads Wimsey to Cathcart's mistress of many years, who had left him for an American millionaire. Wimsey travels to New York to find her, makes a daring and dangerous transatlantic flight back to London, and arrives just in time to present his evidence at Denver's trial in the House of Lords. Wimsey brings a letter that Cathcart had written to his mistress on the night of his death. After hearing that she was leaving him, Cathcart had written back stating his intention to commit suicide. He had then taken Denver's revolver from the study and gone out into the garden to shoot himself. The confounding factor in the investigation had been the coincidence of Denver returning from Mrs Grimethorpe's, just in time to find the body, at the same time that Mary had emerged from the house for her rendezvous with Goyles. Denver is acquitted. As he is leaving the House of Lords, Grimethorpe appears, shoots at him, flees, and is knocked down and killed by a passing taxi. Mrs Grimethorpe, finally free of her husband, declares that she has no interest in continuing her affair with Denver. In the final scene of the book, Inspector Sugg finds Wimsey, Parker, and a friend on the street after midnight, hopelessly drunk, celebrating the end of the case. Sugg assists them into cabs, and reflects, "Thank Gawd there weren't no witnesses". ===== Lord Peter Wimsey and his friend Chief Inspector Parker are told about the death, in late 1925, of an elderly woman named Agatha Dawson who had been suffering from terminal cancer. She was being cared for by Mary Whittaker, her great-niece and a trained nurse. Miss Dawson had an extreme aversion to making a will, believing that Miss Whittaker, her only known relative, would naturally inherit everything. Wimsey is intrigued in spite of the fact that there is no evidence of any crime (a post-mortem found no sign of foul play), nor any apparent motive (on Miss Dawson's death her estate did indeed pass, as she had expected and wished, to her great-niece). Wimsey sends his private investigator, Miss Katharine Climpson, to the village of Leahampton to investigate. She discovers that shortly before her death Miss Dawson had dismissed her maids, the sisters Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed. Wimsey places advertisements in the press asking them to get in touch. A few days later, Bertha is found dead in Epping Forest. On the body is a £5 banknote, originally issued to a Mrs Muriel Forrest who lives in an elegant flat in South Audley Street, Mayfair. Wimsey and Parker visit her. She claims not to remember the banknote, but thinks she may have put it on a horse. Wimsey tricks her into providing her fingerprints on a wineglass. In a drawer he finds a hypodermic syringe with a doctor's prescription "to be injected when the pain is very severe". Evelyn Gotobed tells Wimsey of an episode shortly before the sisters were dismissed in which Miss Whittaker had tried to get them to witness Miss Dawson's will, without the latter's knowledge. A mysterious West Indian clergyman named Hallelujah Dawson had also turned up, claiming to be an impecunious distant relative. Mrs Forrest asks Wimsey to visit her at her flat in London where she clumsily makes advances to him. Wimsey suspects blackmail. He kisses her and realises that she is physically revolted by his caress. Wimsey discovers a motive for Miss Dawson to be killed before the end of 1925: a new 'Property Act' coming into force on 1 January 1926 will change the law of inheritance, resulting in an intestate's property no longer passing to a closest-relative great-niece but being forfeit to the Crown. Much play is made of a fictionalised uncertainty in the meaning of the word "issue". Mary Whittaker – who Miss Climpson has concluded "is not of the marrying sort" – disappears from Leahampton along with Vera Findlater, an impressionable young woman who is besotted with her. Several days later Miss Findlater's body is found on the downs, apparently killed by a blow to the head. Mary Whittaker has it seems been kidnapped. There are indications that the culprit is a black man, and a distinctive cap found nearby is linked to Hallelujah Dawson. However, a post- mortem finds that Vera Findlater was already dead when she was struck, and Wimsey realises that the whole scene has been faked in order to frame the entirely innocent clergyman. Tyre tracks from Mrs Forrest's car are found nearby, and Wimsey suspects her and Mary Whittaker of acting in collusion. Wimsey's manservant, Bunter, realises that the fingerprints on Mrs Forrest's wineglass are identical to those on a cheque written by Miss Whittaker. Wimsey at last understands that Muriel Forrest and Mary Whittaker are one and the same person, and that she carried out the murders by injecting air into her victims' bloodstream with a hypodermic syringe, causing blockage and immediate death through heart failure. Meanwhile Miss Climpson, unable to contact Wimsey, heads to South Audley Street where she is attacked by Mary Whittaker. Wimsey and Parker arrive just in time to save Miss Climpson from becoming the final victim. Whittaker is arrested, and commits suicide in prison. ===== On the afternoon of 10 November, ninety-year- old General Fentiman is called to the deathbed of his estranged sister, Lady Dormer, and learns that under the terms of her will he stands to inherit most of her substantial fortune – money sorely needed by his grandsons Robert and George Fentiman. However, should the General die first, nearly everything will go to Lady Dormer's companion, Ann Dorland. Lady Dormer dies the next morning, Armistice Day, and that afternoon the General is found dead in his armchair at the Bellona Club. Dr Penberthy, a Club member and the General's personal physician, certifies death by natural causes but is unable to state the exact time of death. As the estate would amply provide for all three claimants, and as it is unknown whether the General or his sister died first, the Fentiman brothers suggest a negotiated settlement with Ann Dorland, but she surprisingly and vehemently refuses. Wimsey is asked to investigate. Unusually, nobody saw the General arrive at the Club at his usual time of 10 am. His manservant reports that the General did not return home after visiting his sister the day before. An unknown man by the name of Oliver telephoned to say that the General would be spending the night with him. Robert Fentiman says that he knows of Oliver, and much time is spent chasing the elusive individual though several countries before Robert admits that he does not actually exist. Wimsey discovers that after seeing his sister the General had felt ill and had consulted Dr Penberthy. He then travelled to the Club, meeting George Fentiman en route. There he informed Robert of the terms of the will and very shortly afterwards was found dead in the library, apparently of natural causes. Piqued at losing his inheritance, Robert concealed the body overnight, and invented Oliver to cover up the death. The next day, while the Club members had stepped outside to observe the usual two minutes' silence at 11 am, Robert moved the body to an armchair to be found later. Wimsey is still unsatisfied as to the cause of death, and has the body exhumed and re- examined. The General had been poisoned with an overdose of the heart medication digitalis. When this becomes known, Ann Dorland, who has an obvious motive, suddenly and suspiciously agrees to the proposed compromise with the Fentimans. Wimsey finds Ann Dorland distressed by the callous and humiliating behaviour of Dr Penberthy, to whom she had been secretly engaged. It was he, with an eye on her expected inheritance, who had insisted she should refuse the compromise and fight for the whole estate. However, as soon as it became known that the General had been poisoned he broke the engagement off, ensuring Ann's embarrassed silence by giving highly insulting reasons. Wimsey works out what had happened. When the General had consulted Dr Penberthy after seeing his sister, he had mentioned the will, and Penberthy realised that if the General did not die at once his fiancée would not inherit. He gave the General a massive dose of digitalis, to be taken later that evening when Penberthy would not be in attendance. He was however present next day when the body was discovered and, in spite of Robert's intervention which confused the time, was able without raising suspicions to certify a natural death. Penberthy writes a confession publicly exonerating Ann Dorland, then shoots himself in the Club library. In an epilogue, it is revealed that the three original claimants to the estate have divided it equitably, and that Robert is now dating Ann. ===== The novel opens with mystery author Harriet Vane on trial for the murder of her former lover, Phillip Boyes: a writer with strong views on atheism, anarchy, and free love. Publicly professing to disapprove of marriage, he had persuaded a reluctant Harriet to live with him, only to renounce his principles a year later and to propose. Harriet, outraged at being deceived, had broken off the relationship. Following the separation, the former couple meet occasionally, and the evidence at trial points to Boyes suffering from repeated bouts of gastric illness at around the time that Harriet was buying poisons under assumed names, to demonstrate – so she says – a plot point of her novel then in progress. Boyes spends a holiday in North Wales, and returns in better health. He dines with his cousin, the solicitor Norman Urquhart, before going to Harriet's flat to discuss reconciliation, where he accepts a cup of coffee. That night he is taken fatally ill, apparently with gastritis. Foul play is eventually suspected, and a post- mortem reveals that Boyes died from acute arsenic poisoning. Apart from Harriet's coffee and the evening meal with his cousin (in which every item had been shared by two or more people), the victim appears to have taken nothing else that evening. The trial results in a hung jury. As a unanimous verdict is required, the judge orders a re-trial. Lord Peter Wimsey visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence and promises to catch the real murderer. Wimsey also announces that he wishes to marry her, a suggestion that Harriet politely but firmly declines. Working against time before the new trial, Wimsey first explores the possibility that Boyes took his own life. Wimsey's friend, Detective Inspector Charles Parker, disproves that theory. The rich great-aunt of the cousins Urquhart and Boyes, Rosanna Wrayburn, is old and senile, and according to Urquhart (who is acting as her family solicitor) when she dies most of her fortune will pass to him, with very little going to Boyes. Wimsey suspects that to be a lie, and sends his enquiry agent Miss Climpson to get hold of Rosanna's original will, which she does in a comic scene exposing the practices of fraudulent mediums. The will in fact names Boyes as principal beneficiary. Wimsey plants a spy, Miss Joan Murchison, in Urquhart's office where she finds a hidden packet of arsenic. She also discovers that Urquhart has abused his position as Rosanna's solicitor, embezzled her investments, then lost the money on the stock market. Urquhart realises that he will face inevitable exposure when Rosanna dies and Boyes comes forward to claim his inheritance. However, Boyes is unaware of the will's contents and Urquhart reasons that if Boyes were to die first nobody could challenge him as sole remaining beneficiary, and his fraud would not be revealed. After perusing A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (in which the poet likens the reading of serious poetry to King Mithridates' self-immunization against poisons) Wimsey suddenly understands what had happened: Urquhart had administered the arsenic in an omelette which Boyes himself had cooked. Although Boyes and Urquhart had shared the dish, the latter had been unaffected as he had carefully built up his own immunity beforehand by taking small doses of the poison over a long period. Wimsey tricks Urquhart into an admission before witnesses. At Harriet's retrial, the prosecution presents no case and she is freed. Exhausted by her ordeal, she again rejects Wimsey's proposal of marriage. Wimsey persuades Parker to propose to his sister, Lady Mary, whom he has long admired. The Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and stock market contact, finds a long-delayed domestic bliss with Rachel Levy, the daughter of the murder victim in Whose Body? ===== Significant locations in the novel – a sketch map. The novel is set in Galloway, a part of Scotland popular with artists (Kirkcudbright Artists' Colony) and fishermen. Sandy Campbell is a talented painter, but also a notoriously quarrelsome drunkard. When he is found dead in a stream, with a still-wet half-finished painting on the bank above, it is assumed that he fell in accidentally, fracturing his skull. Lord Peter Wimsey, who is in the region on a fishing holiday, suspects murder when he realises that something is missing from the scene which makes it impossible for Campbell to have worked on the painting. Sayers includes a parenthetical note at this point: "Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant what he was looking for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details for himself, they are omitted from this page". A local doctor believes that the degree of rigor mortis suggests that Campbell died during the previous night. Whoever killed Campbell also executed the painting in Campbell's distinctive style, to contrive the appearance of an accident. Six artists in the area are talented enough to achieve this: Farren, Strachan, Gowan, Graham, Waters and Ferguson. All had recent public brawls with Campbell. One of the six is the criminal, and five are red herrings. All the suspects behave suspiciously: some leave the district without explanation, others give obviously inaccurate statements or conceal facts. Wimsey investigates with some assistance from his manservant Bunter and his friend in London, Charles Parker. The task of identifying the culprit is made more difficult because of the complexities of the local train timetables, the easy availability of bicycles, and the resultant opportunities for the murderer to evade notice. All six suspects are eventually traced and give statements in which they deny killing Campbell, but none are entirely satisfactory. The Procurator Fiscal, the Chief Constable and the investigating police officers meet with Wimsey to review the evidence. The police put forward several theories, implicating all of the suspects either as killer or as accessory. Asked for his opinion, Wimsey finally reveals that the true killer was in fact Ferguson, the only one of the artists who while painting often kept spare tubes of paint in his pocket and who absentmindedly pocketed a tube of white while creating the faked painting. It was the absence of that tube that Wimsey had noted at the start. The police are sceptical but Wimsey offers a reconstruction, and over the course of twenty-four hours demonstrates how the killer contrived the scene above the stream and also established a false alibi. Ferguson confesses, but states that Campbell's death happened accidentally during a fight, and was not murder. When the case is tried, the jury brings in a verdict of manslaughter, with a strong recommendation to mercy on the ground that "Campbell was undoubtedly looking for trouble". ===== During a hiking holiday on the South West coast of England, the detective novelist Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man lying on an isolated rock on the shore, not far from the resort of Wilvercombe; his throat has been cut. Harriet takes photographs and notes that death must have been very recent as the man's blood is still liquid. There are no footprints in the sand other than hers and those of the victim. Unfortunately, the corpse is washed away by the rising tide before she can summon help. Alerted to the discovery by a friend, Lord Peter Wimsey arrives, and he and Harriet start their investigations. The victim is identified as Paul Alexis, a young man of Russian extraction, employed by a Wilvercombe hotel as a professional dancing partner. The police tend to the view that Alexis's death was suicide and that he had cut his own throat. Wimsey and Harriet discover that in the period leading up to his death Alexis, an avid reader of Ruritanian romances, had believed himself to be a descendant of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. A series of cipher letters received from an unknown source convinced him that he was being called to return to Russia to take his place as the new rightful Tsar. Alexis had been engaged to a rich widow in her fifties, Mrs Weldon. Her son, Henry Weldon, ten years older than his mother's lover and by all appearances a simple and brutish man, is appalled at the prospect of his mother's remarriage to a gigolo, and at his potential loss of inheritance. He travels to Wilvercombe to monitor the investigation while ostensibly comforting his mother after her loss. Weldon appears to be a likely murder suspect, but he has an unshakeable alibi for the time of Alexis's death – as do a large number of other possible suspects. Alexis's death, staged to look like suicide, is gradually revealed to be the result of an ingenious murder plot that played upon Alexis's fantasies. He had been lured to the rock by his anonymous correspondent who urged him to be ready to meet a 'Rider from the Sea', a rider who it was said would be carrying instructions for his onward journey to Warsaw. Once at the rock, Alexis met his death at the hand of the murderer who had ridden his horse along the beach through the incoming tide to avoid leaving tracks. Wimsey and Harriet ultimately realise that Weldon is not the simple character he has been presenting, but a criminal who has been living under two different identities. Weldon was himself the rider, and had been provided with his alibi by two co-conspirators, a friend and his wife. Although his alibi was secure for the believed time of death, the investigators discover that Alexis had died far earlier than had been thought. The still-liquid and unclotted blood noted by Harriet when she found the body had been the result of Alexis's haemophilia. Weldon and his co-conspirators are undone by their unsuccessful attempts to reshuffle their alibis to match the new information about the time of death. Even as Wimsey and Harriet solve the case, Mrs Weldon has already moved on to another gigolo at the hotel, a sympathetic French dancer named Antoine. ===== Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Hertfordshire which he has bought her as a present. The honeymoon is intended as a break from their usual routine of solving crimes (him) and writing about them (her), but it turns into a murder investigation when the seller of the house is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with severe head injuries. ===== After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of Gaudy Night, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Harriet's native Hertfordshire which Wimsey has bought for her, and they abscond from the wedding reception, evading the assembled reporters. Arriving late at night, they are surprised to find the house locked up and not prepared for them. They gain access and spend their wedding night there, but next morning they discover the former owner, Noakes, dead in the cellar with head injuries. The quiet honeymoon is ruined as a murder investigation begins and the house fills with policemen, reporters, and brokers' men distraining Noakes' hideous furniture. Noakes was an unpopular man, a miser and (it turns out) a blackmailer. He was assumed to be well off, but it transpires that he was bankrupt, owed large amounts of money, and was planning to flee his creditors with the cash paid for Talboys. The house had been locked and bolted when the newly-weds arrived, and medical evidence seems to rule out an accident, so it seems he was attacked in the house and died later, having somehow locked up after his attacker. The suspects include Noakes' niece Aggie; Mrs Ruddle, his neighbour and cleaning lady; Frank Crutchley, a local garage mechanic who also tended Noakes' garden; and the local police constable, who was his blackmail victim. Peter's and Harriet's relationship, always complex and painfully negotiated, is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. In a final scene, in which almost the entire cast of characters is gathered in the front room of Talboys, reflecting the novel's origin as a work for the stage, the killer turns out to be Crutchley. He planned to marry Noakes' somewhat elderly niece and get his hands on the money he had left her in his will. He set a booby trap with a weighted plant pot on a chain, which was triggered by the victim opening the radio cabinet after locking up for the night. Wimsey's reaction to the case – his arrangement for the defendant to be represented by top defence counsel; his guilt at condemning a man to be hanged; the return of his shell-shock – dominates the final chapters of the book. It is mentioned that Wimsey had previously also suffered similar pangs of conscience when other murderers had been sent to the gallows. His deep remorse and guilt at having caused Crutchley to be executed leave doubt as to whether he would undertake further murder investigations – and in fact Sayers completed no further Wimsey novels after this one. The 1942 short story Talboys, the very last Wimsey fiction published by Sayers, is both a sequel to the present book, in having the same location and some of the same village characters, and an antithesis in being lighthearted and having no crime worse than the theft of some peaches from a neighbour's garden. ===== It is 1936. Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey, returned from a European honeymoon, are settling into their new home in London, where daily life is affected by the illness and then death of the king. The couple are personally happy, having resolved many of the problems in their relationship caused by character and circumstance, but must now tackle the practical details of bringing their lives together, including domestic and working arrangements, and social and family obligations. The couple become slightly acquainted with Laurence Harwell, a wealthy theatrical "angel", and his beautiful wife, whom he has rescued from poverty following her rich father's disgrace and imprisonment. After two years' marriage the Harwells are famously still devoted to one another, and when she is found dead at their weekend cottage in the country Wimsey is asked to help interview the distraught husband, and becomes involved with the investigation. (He is also asked to undertake sensitive diplomatic duties connected with the problematic behaviour of the new king, and as the 1936 abdication crisis looms, he gloomily predicts the coming war with Hitler's Germany.) Suspicion falls on a writer known to have been in love with Mrs Harwell, and a talented but bohemian painter who had been working on portraits of both Harriet and the murdered woman. Two men who knew Mrs Harwell's father in prison, and who have been blackmailing him with threats to harm her, are also suspected. Meanwhile, Harriet straightens out her domestic situation, learning how to fulfill her new role whilst keeping her own identity, and finds a practical solution to allow Wimsey's devoted manservant Bunter to marry without having to leave the household. Harriet's unorthodox approach infuriates her sister-in-law (who believes Harriet has an obligation to abandon her career, do her duty to the family and produce an heir) but it allows her to solve most of the practical difficulties that might have stood in the way of a successful and happy marriage. She also discovers she is expecting a baby. After some plot twists, a second murder and a scene involving the hidden rivers and Victorian sewers that run under London, it is revealed that Harwell unintentionally killed his wife in a jealous rage, in the belief she was preparing to entertain a lover, although ironically her preparations had really been for him. Harwell might have gotten off with a manslaughter conviction, except that he later committed the premeditated murder of an actress who was in a position to disprove his alibi and tried to blackmail him. Harriet visits Harwell in prison to comfort him with the knowledge that his wife had not, after all, been unfaithful. In doing so, she finally banishes the lingering ghosts of her own imprisonment and murder trial, and the effect they have had on her relationship with her own husband. ===== During the summer holidays, 15-year-old Harry Potter and his cousin Dudley are attacked by Dementors. Forced to use magic to fend them off, Harry is expelled from Hogwarts, but his expulsion is postponed pending a hearing at the Ministry of Magic. Harry is eventually whisked off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, the childhood home of Sirius Black, by a group of wizards belonging to the Order of the Phoenix. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger explain that the Order is a secret organisation led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny Weasley and Fred and George Weasley learn that Voldemort is seeking something he lacked prior to his defeat. The Ministry, led by Cornelius Fudge, refuses to accept Voldemort's return, and are running a smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore. At the hearing, Dumbledore speaks on Harry's behalf, leading to him being cleared of all charges. At Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge, a senior Ministry employee, becomes the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She refuses to believe in Voldemort's return, and clashes with Harry, punishing him by having him magically carve "I must not tell lies" into the back of his hand. She also refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive magic, prompting Harry, Ron, and Hermione to form their own Defence group with other students. Umbridge, empowered by the Ministry to interfere in Hogwarts, bans unapproved clubs, forcing the group, now called Dumbledore's Army, to meet in secret in the Room of Requirement to practice under Harry's instruction. Rubeus Hagrid is absent for the first part of the school year. Upon his return, Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that he was unsuccessfully trying to prevent the last giants from joining Voldemort. Umbridge amasses power at the school, inspecting other teachers, such as Hagrid, clearly intending to sack him, as she is prejudiced against half- breeds. One night, Harry has a vision of Voldemort's snake Nagini seriously injuring Arthur Weasley. Harry tells Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore, and Arthur is rescued. Dumbledore arranges for Harry to take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, another member of the Order, to protect his mind against invasions by Voldemort. Umbridge is eventually given a tip-off about Dumbledore's Army by Marietta Edgecombe, a friend of Harry's crush Cho Chang. To prevent Harry's expulsion, Dumbledore takes responsibility for the group, and goes into hiding. Umbridge becomes headmistress. Harry's Occlumency lessons go poorly. During one, Snape is called away, leaving behind Dumbledore's Pensieve. Harry uses the Pensieve, and sees a memory of Snape being bullied by his father, James Potter, and Sirius. Snape catches Harry and ends his lessons in a fit of rage. Distraught at his father's character, Harry sneaks into Umbridge's office and uses Floo powder to speak with Lupin and Sirius in her fireplace. Wary of Umbridge, Hagrid confesses to Harry and Hermione that he hid his giant half-brother, Grawp, in the Forbidden Forest, intending to civilize him. Hagrid asks them to look after Grawp if he is forced to leave. During the student O.W.L exams, Umbridge attacks Hagrid with Aurors. Hagrid overpowers them and flees the school. McGonagall, trying to assist Hagrid, is badly injured and put in St. Mungo's Hospital. On the last O.W.L. exam, Harry has a vision of Sirius being tortured by Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. Harry uses Umbridge's fireplace to contact Grimmauld Place and check if the vision was real, which Kreacher, Sirius' house elf, seemingly confirms. Umbridge catches Harry and asks Snape for Veritaserum, to question Harry, although Snape denies having any left. Harry covertly warns Snape of Sirius, which Snape claims to not understand. Umbridge reveals she had ordered the Dementor attack on Harry, and decides to interrogate him with the Cruciatus Curse. Hermione intervenes, convincing Umbridge that they are hiding a weapon of Dumbledore's in the Forbidden Forest. Harry and Hermione lead her there, into an area inhabited by centaurs. Umbridge provokes them, and they take her captive. With Grawp's help, Harry and Hermione escape the centaurs. Luna, Ron, Ginny, and Neville join them, and they fly to the Ministry on Thestrals, to rescue Sirius. Once in the Department of Mysteries, they fail to find him, instead finding a glass sphere bearing Harry's and Voldemort's names. Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy attack them, to secure the sphere, which is what Voldemort has been trying to obtain – a recording of a prophecy concerning Harry and Voldemort. As only the subjects of prophecies can safely acquire them, Harry was lured here with a fake vision planted by Voldemort. Harry and his friends, soon joined by members of the Order, battle the Death Eaters. During the fight, Neville accidentally destroys the prophecy, and Bellatrix Lestrange kills Sirius. Harry chases after her, but is no match. Voldemort arrives to kill Harry, but Dumbledore arrives as well, dueling Voldemort to a stalemate. Unable to kill Dumbledore, Voldemort possesses Harry, in an attempt to get Dumbledore to kill Harry. Harry fights off the possession, and Voldemort escapes just as Fudge arrives. Having seen Voldemort, Fudge accepts the truth. In his office, Dumbledore explains that Snape had understood Harry's warning, and had alerted the Order. Dumbledore also reveals that Kreacher had informed Lucius' wife of Harry and Sirius's closeness, which Voldemort had then exploited. Dumbledore also reveals that Harry is safe from Voldemort with the Dursleys, as by taking Harry into her home, Petunia, Lily's sister, seals the protection Harry's mother gave him when she died. Furthermore, Dumbledore reveals the contents of the prophecy. The prophecy had foretold the birth of someone with the power to defeat Voldemort. One of Voldemort's followers had overheard part of the prophecy, and informed Voldemort. Although the prophecy pointed to either Harry or Neville, Voldemort believed it to refer to Harry, and had tried to kill him as a baby. The rest of the prophecy, which Voldemort did not hear, hinted that Voldemort would mark his opponent as an equal, and that eventually, one would have to kill the other. Overwhelmed by the prophecy and mourning the loss of Sirius, Harry grows sullen, although the wizarding community, now knowing of Voldemort's return, affords him great respect. Motivated by his friends and loved ones, Harry returns to the Dursleys once more. ===== A female soldier (Elizabeth Montgomery) wearing a tattered uniform stumbles into a deserted city. She looks into some of the shop windows before spying what was a restaurant. She finds a can of chicken in the kitchen, but before she can open it, a man (Charles Bronson) wearing a worn uniform tunic walks in. She attacks him. The man knocks her out and begins to ravenously eat the chicken. He leaves the restaurant and goes to a newsstand. A newspaper reveals that the city was evacuated during the war. He returns to the kitchen and wakes the woman by dumping a pot of water on her face. He says there is no reason to fight anymore, as there are no more armies, only tattered rags that once resembled uniforms. He says that she can have the leftover chicken, but eventually realizes that she cannot understand him and departs. The woman is wary, but eats the chicken. She then follows him into a barber shop and watches as he shaves. He tosses a bar of soap to her, then a towel, which she uses to wash her dirty face. They wander down the street, coming to a movie theater. He stares at a poster for a wartime romance film and turns to smile at her. They find the skeletal remains of soldiers at the theater entrance and suddenly grab the rifles of the dead owners, simultaneously aiming at each other. After a tense moment, the man turns and walks away, slinging his weapon over his shoulder. The woman follows him, and the two walk along the city street. They stop in front of a store with a dress in the smashed display window and she mutters "pryekrasnyy" (прекрасный), the Russian word for "beautiful". He hands the dress to her and tells her to go and put it on. She enters the building next to the department store, which turns out to be a recruiting office. As she prepares to change into the dress, she notices the jingoistic enlistment posters on the wall. She grabs her rifle, exits the office and angrily shoots at him twice, but misses. The man gets up, looks at her incredulously, and walks away. As night falls, she returns to the barber shop to sleep in the barber's chair, gun in her arms, staring at the dress. The next morning, the man has changed out of his uniform into a makeshift tuxedo and has found two jars of peaches. He sees the woman waiting, peeking at him from behind a truck in the street below. He yells at her to leave, to "take your war to more suitable companions". She emerges from behind the truck wearing the dress. He tosses one of the jars to her and says "pryekrasnyy". She smiles, and they walk away together. ===== After Flight 107, a propeller-driven Douglas DC-3 from Buffalo, lands safely with no crew or passengers aboard, the FAA sends Grant Sheckly, an inspector with 22 years of experience and proud of his flawless record of solving cases, to investigate the matter. He is assisted by the airport staff — vice president Bengston, PR man Malloy, mechanic Robbins, and ramp attendant Cousins — but despite their combined efforts, no one can explain how an empty plane could safely land and taxi to a stop. Sheckly is nagged by the familiarity of the pilots' and passengers' names. The investigation continues to prove fruitless until Robbins remarks about the plane's blue seats, which puzzles Sheckly, who remembers them from when he entered the plane as being brown. Bengston further says they were red. When they examine the plane's tail and each see different registration numbers, Sheckly claims the plane is not real, merely an illusion each of them has imagined somehow. To prove his hypothesis, as well as to break the illusion, Sheckly proposes a simple, yet potentially fatal, test: he will put his arm in the arc of the plane's turning propeller. Despite their objections, he convinces the staff to go along with it, and Robbins starts the plane's engines. After some hesitation, Sheckly places his arm directly into the spinning propeller; just as he predicted, his arm remains unharmed, and the plane vanishes. However, when Sheckly successively turns to the others, he is met only with silence as they each disappear, just as the plane did. Calling out for the staff, Sheckly makes his way back to the Operations room where he finds Bengston and Malloy, only to discover that they have no recollection of the empty plane or Sheckly's investigation. When asked, Bengston states that Flight 107 landed safely with full crew and passengers and shows him a newspaper article to prove it. But as Sheckly continues to press them about losing "Flight 107", Bengston remembers that the only plane the airline ever lost was a Flight 107, 17 or 18 years previously. The case had been investigated by Sheckly but was never solved, the only case he never figured out, closed as "presumed crashed for reasons unknown" at sea. Sheckly staggers away and wanders through the airfield he calls out, demanding to know the fate of Flight 107, then slumps onto to the ramp as the sound of an aircraft's jet engine is heard passing overhead. ===== A 20-year-old man named Joseph "Jody" Summers lives with his 36-year-old mother Juanita in South Central Los Angeles. He spends most of his time with his unemployed best friend Sweetpea, and does not seem interested in becoming a responsible adult. However, he is forced to mature as a result of an ex-con named Melvin, who moves into their home. Another factor is his children—a son Joseph "JoJo" Summers Jr. with his girlfriend of five years, 22-year-old Yvette, and a daughter with a 17-year- old girl that he cheated on Yvette with named Peanut who also lives with her mother. The movie opens with Jody waiting for Yvette at a clinic. It is revealed that she has just had an abortion that he compelled her to undergo. Jody and Yvette have a heated argument about his lack of commitment and selfishness in their relationship but they have hot and heavy makeup sex. Yvette constantly asks Jody if he will ever come live with her and their son so they could be like a family, but Jody avoids the subject and comes and goes as he pleases. Jody also continues seeing and having sex with other women, including Peanut. Jody also nearly has sex with 23-year-old Pandora, Yvette's colleague and co-worker, but manages to rebuff her advances. This becomes an issue between him and Yvette as well, especially since Yvette doesn't get along with Peanut or Pandora. When she discovers his cheating, they get in another heated argument which results in Yvette punching Jody in the face and Jody slapping Yvette in the face. After this, Yvette changes the locks on the door. This infuriates Jody and they get into an argument, which JoJo witnesses. Yvette's gangster ex-boyfriend Rodney is released from San Quentin State Prison and returns to the neighborhood to move in with Yvette, much to her dismay. Rodney doesn't care for JoJo and wants to impregnate Yvette himself. Rodney attempts to rape Yvette in front of her son, but reconsiders after being guilted by Yvette and JoJo. Despite their previous differences, Yvette begins to realize she is still in love with Jody. For the next couple of days, Yvette lives in fear and disgust of Rodney being there. Juanita finds marijuana in her garden and blames Jody for planting it. Jody becomes angry at his mom and blames Melvin for the marijuana. Melvin comes home and admits to Juanita that he planted it and apologizes for it. Juanita docilely accepts Melvin's confession, causing an argument between her and Jody who feels wrongfully blamed. Jody and Melvin then get into a heated argument, which results in Melvin punching him in the face and breaking the table. Jody leaves the house to see Sweetpea. After this, Yvette kicks Rodney and his friends out of her apartment. Eventually, after some more bickering, Yvette and Jody reconcile at Sweetpea's house, and Yvette tells Jody that Rodney attempted to rape her in front of JoJo. Rodney steals the money and keys from her wallet and takes off in her car to go and find Jody. Rodney tries to kill Jody in a drive-by shooting; however, he is unsuccessful. Later that night, Jody and Sweetpea confront Rodney, and as he attempts to escape, Jody shoots him in the back of the legs. Sweetpea urges Jody to kill Rodney, but he refuses, at which point Sweetpea shoots Rodney anyway. Horrified by Rodney's death, Jody prepares to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, but Melvin catches him in the nick of time and takes the gun. After reflecting on the death of Rodney and how he put Yvette and his son in danger by not being around consistently, Jody finally moves out of his mom's house and in with Yvette. Jody has now become a mature man, realizing that Juanita's relationship with Melvin is a stable one and that he has a family of his own that he needs to protect and take care of. Afterward, Jody and Yvette get married and look forward to the birth of their unborn child. Sweetpea decides to turn over a new leaf and gets baptized, putting his old life as a thug behind him. ===== At the end of the Civil War, a Confederate Army Sergeant (James Gregory), apparently wounded in battle, walks down a road aided by a wooden crutch. He carries with him a dirty bed roll and a homemade guitar. The limping Sergeant comes across a ruined antebellum mansion which belongs to Lavinia Godwin (Joanne Linville), whose husband had gone off to fight in the war and whose bitterness towards the Union still survives. The Sergeant receives permission from Lavinia to refresh himself at the well, and then to sit on a bench under a dead tree in her front yard. He plays his guitar, singing a song that Lavinia identifies as one that her husband used to sing. The two watch as a steady stream of soldiers, belonging to both the Union and the Confederacy, pass by the house and continue on down the road. The Sergeant learns that Lavinia has been very ill, and that her husband was killed in battle. The Sergeant begins to realize that this is not a normal road, and these are not just wounded soldiers. He tells Lavinia that there is something at the end of the road, and that he has to find out what it is. As the Sergeant turns to leave, Lavinia moves in front of him and tries to persuade him to stay. Suddenly they hear a man's voice singing a familiar song. The man is Lavinia's husband, Jud. Jud tells Lavinia that everyone on the road is indeed dead—including her. The Sergeant, understanding now, walks down the road, but Lavinia refuses to believe that it is true. Jud tells her that there is nothing left for him in that house. Insisting that she is alive, Lavinia pleads with Jud to stay. Jud refuses and continues his journey, disregarding her pleas. As he leaves, Jud tells Lavinia that he will be waiting for her at the end of the road. Lavinia cries out to her husband, imploring him to stay. Then she hears a soft voice trying to comfort her. It is a lone passerby who turns out to be Abraham Lincoln, who, as the final casualty of the war, is the last man on the road. Frightened, Lavinia backs away from him, but finally accepts her fate and runs to join her husband, with Lincoln following behind her. ===== It is after hours at Lister's Pool Room in Chicago, and once more pool shark Jesse Cardiff (Jack Klugman) is alone, polishing his game. Jesse bitterly muses that he would be considered the greatest pool player of all time, if it were not for the memory of the late James Howard "Fats" Brown (Jonathan Winters) overshadowing him. He says he would give anything to play one game against Fats, prompting Fats himself to wearily rise from a pool table in the afterlife to respond to Jesse's implied challenge. Jesse is then stunned to find Fats himself standing in the corner of the room. Even though Fats has been dead for 15 years, he has returned from the afterlife to grant Jesse's request and offer a bet. If Jesse wins, he will be acknowledged as the greatest pool player ever; if he loses, he forfeits his life. Jesse accepts the bet and the two begin to play. Throughout the game, Fats laments that Jesse has done nothing with his life but play pool, explaining that he himself lived a full life in addition to becoming a great player. Jesse ignores Fats, convinced that he is just trying to distract him. With one ball left on the table and both men needing to sink it in order to win, Fats misses his shot, leaving Jesse with an easy approach to the pocket. Fats warns Jesse that he may get more than he bargained for if he wins the game, but Jesse disregards this advice and sinks the ball. He revels in his victory, now secure in his status as the best pool player of all time. Fats thanks Jesse for beating him, leading Jesse to angrily call him a sore loser. While he is ranting at Fats, the now-former champion disappears. Some time later, long after his own death, Jesse is summoned from the afterlife, just as Fats was before him, to travel to Mason's Pool Hall in Sandusky, Ohio, to play against a challenger. Known even in death as the greatest pool player ever, he must spend eternity defending his title against an endless series of opponents, unable to stop until a challenger beats him and relieves him of his title. Meanwhile, Fats has gone fishing, relieved of his obligation. ===== During World War II, Larry Nevins, an American sergeant, is blinded by a German sniper while fighting in North Africa. He is taken to a Pennsylvania hospital for other blinded soldiers, where he struggles to accept and come to terms with his disability. After initial despondency, Larry is taught to orient himself and walk through the grounds and in town by memorization and use of a cane. He befriends Joe Morgan, another blinded veteran, and Judy, a local bank teller who also volunteers at socializing with disabled soldiers. One day Larry, unaware that Joe is black, utters a racial slur. This causes a huge rift between Larry and others. Meanwhile, he progresses well in his recovery, passing a crucial test to see how well he can handle himself on the street. He is cleared for furlough, so Judy takes him to spend a weekend at her sister's nearby cabin, where he goes fishing and is entertained by her family. From Judy's brother-in-law, Larry learns of a very successful blind lawyer, giving him hope for the future. After dinner, Judy reveals her love for him. Larry tells her he needs more security and family support and already has a fiancée in his Florida hometown. Somewhat dispirited, he goes home and has a rough time dealing with the racial attitudes of his Southern parents and friends. His fiancée's family is having doubts about his fitness as a son-in-law, and his parents are downcast because of his disability. Larry is happy to see his fiancée, Chris, though he still thinks of Judy. After a bad experience at his homecoming party, he tells Chris the difficulties they can expect with his disability, and that he wants to relocate rather than be patronized with a menial local job her successful father has offered him. After some thought, Chris tells Larry that she doesn't feel strong enough to marry and move far away with him while he struggles to make a new life for both of them. Returning to the hospital, Larry takes a side trip to Philadelphia and meets the successful blind lawyer played by Frank Wilcox who had given him hope. The lawyer tells him that life is difficult but worth it and that his wife was an invaluable helper to him in his career. At the train station en route to begin a more advanced rehabilitation course, Larry is unexpectedly reunited with Judy. They joyfully declare their mutual love. Boarding the train, he hears Joe Morgan's name called. He catches Joe's arm, apologizes for all the hurt he caused and asks if they can be friends. Joe accepts the apology. They board and sit together as the train pulls out of the station. ===== In Hollywood, director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), movie star Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) each refuse to speak by phone to Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) in Paris. Movie producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon) gathers them in his office and explains that Shields was calling them because he has a new film idea and he wants the three of them for the project. Shields cannot get financing on his own, but with their names attached, there would be no problem. Pebbel asks the three to allow him to get Shields on the phone before they give their final answer. As they await Shields' call, Pebbel assures the three that he understands why they refused to speak to Shields. The backstory of their involvement with Shields then unfolds in a series of flashbacks. Shields is the son of a notorious former studio head who had been dumped by the industry. The elder Shields was so unpopular that his son had to hire "extras" to attend his funeral. Despite the industry's ill feelings toward him because of his father, the younger Shields is determined to make it in Hollywood by any means necessary. Shields partners with aspiring director Amiel, whom he meets at his father's funeral. Shields intentionally loses money he does not have in a poker game to film executive Pebbel, so he can talk Pebbel into letting him work off the debt as a line producer. Shields and Amiel learn their respective trades making B movies for Pebbel. When one of their films becomes a hit, Amiel decides they are ready to take on a more significant project he has been nursing along, and Shields pitches it to the studio. Shields gets a $1 million budget to produce the film, but betrays Amiel by allowing someone with an established reputation to be chosen as director. The film's success allows Shields to start his own studio, and Pebbel comes to work for him there. Amiel, now independent of Shields, goes on to become an Oscar-winning director in his own right. Shields next encounters alcoholic small-time actress Lorrison, the daughter of a famous actor Shields admired. He builds up her confidence and gives her the leading role in one of his movies over everyone else's objections. When she falls in love with him, he lets her think that he feels the same way so that she does not self-destruct and he gets the performance he needs. After a smash premiere makes her a star overnight, she finds him with a beautiful bit player named Lila (Elaine Stewart). He drives Lorrison away, telling her that he will never allow anyone to have that much control over him. Crushed over being jilted by Shields, Lorrison walks out on her contract with his studio. Rather than take her to court, Shields releases his rights to her, freeing her to go to another studio, which makes a fortune from her films as she becomes a top Hollywood star. Finally, Bartlow is a contented professor at a small college who has written a bestselling book for which Shields has purchased the film adaptation rights. Shields wants Bartlow himself to write the film's script. Bartlow is not interested, but his shallow Southern belle wife, Rosemary (Gloria Grahame) is, so he agrees to do it for her sake. They go to Hollywood, where Shields is annoyed to find that her constant distractions are keeping her husband from his work. Shields gets his suave actor friend Victor "Gaucho" Ribera (Gilbert Roland) to keep her occupied. Freed from interruption, Bartlow is able to make excellent progress on the script. Rosemary, however, runs off with Gaucho and they are killed in a plane crash. When the script is completed, Shields has the distraught Bartlow remain in Hollywood to help with the production as Shields takes over directing duties himself. A first-time director, Shields botches the job, which leads to his bankruptcy. Then Shields lets slip a casual remark that reveals his complicity in Rosemary's affair with Gaucho, so Bartlow walks out on him. Now able to view his late wife more objectively, Bartlow goes on to write a novel based upon her (something Shields had previously encouraged him to do) and wins a Pulitzer Prize for it. After each flashback, Pebbel sarcastically agrees that Shields "ruined" their lives, making his true point that each of the three, despite feeling betrayed, is now at the top of the movie business, thanks largely to Shields. At last, Shields' telephone call comes through and Pebbel asks the three if they will work with Shields just one more time; all three reject the plea. As they leave the room, Pebbel is still talking to Shields. Out of Pebbel's sight, the three eavesdrop using an extension phone while Shields describes his new idea, and they become more and more interested. ===== Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) is dining with a fellow Briton in a posh restaurant in Rio de Janeiro where he is well known. He relates a story explaining his presence in Rio. It seems he was an apparently unambitious London bank clerk in charge of gold bullion deliveries for over 20 years. He had a reputation for fussing over details and suspecting all cars he observed following the bullion van, but all in all appeared to be a man dedicated to his job and the gold's security. In fact, he had hatched the "perfect" plot to steal a load of bullion and retire. The one thing stopping him had been that selling the gold on the black market in Britain was too risky, and he was at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad. One evening a new lodger – artist Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) – arrives at Holland's boarding house in Lavender Hill. Pendlebury owns a foundry that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in many resorts, including foreign ones. Noticing how similar the foundry is to the place where the gold is made into ingots, Holland decides that the ideal way of smuggling the gold out of the country would be as Eiffel Tower paperweights sold in Paris, and puts this hypothetically to his new friend: "By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men." "It is indeed, Pendlebury." When Holland suddenly finds that he is about to be transferred to another department at the bank, he and Pendlebury quickly move into action. They recruit two petty crooks, Lackery Wood (Sidney James) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass), to help them carry out the robbery. The plan is simple but clever, and it succeeds: Wood and Fisher carry out the hijack of the bullion van and switch the gold to Pendlebury's works van. Holland, who is supposedly assaulted and almost drowned in the robbery, becomes the hero of the hour. The police find themselves running around in circles, unable to track down the "master criminal" who is in fact right under their noses giving them false statements and misleading clues. Meanwhile, Holland and his associates melt the gold in Pendlebury's foundry and export it to France disguised as miniature Eiffel Towers. The plan goes wrong when the woman running the souvenir kiosk in Paris misunderstands her instructions due to a language mixup - the box of gold towers is marked with an 'R' (for 'Reserve') but she assumes she has to keep back any boxes marked 'A', which in French sounds like the English pronunciation of 'R'. Instead of holding back the specially-marked box of Eiffel Towers, she opens it and puts them out for sale. Pendlebury and Holland, who have adopted the names of "Al" and "Dutch", arrive to retrieve their disguised bullion only to find that six of the towers have been sold to a party of British schoolgirls. A wild chase back to Calais and the Channel ferry Canterbury follows but hold-ups to buy tickets and negotiate passport, customs and currency controls prevent them from boarding the ship carrying the girls in time. If just one of those towers is found to be gold then the game is up. Pendlebury and Holland therefore track down the schoolgirls and, in exchange for a similar tower and ten shillings apiece, recover most of the loot. One girl however refuses to return hers since she intends to give it to a friend who is a policeman. The girl delivers the souvenir to the officer, who is at an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College. Also attending is a police inspector who is investigating the robbery. As part of the case he checked up on Pendlebury's foundry and was told that many souvenirs bought in foreign places are actually made in Britain. A sudden thought occurs to him and he orders the souvenir to be tested. At that moment Pendlebury snatches it and he and Holland make their escape in a police car. A confused pursuit then takes place through London, with Holland using the radio in the police car they have stolen to divert the pursuers to a different car. Eventually, though, an officer succeeds in stopping their car and arresting Pendlebury. Holland escapes to Rio de Janeiro with the six gold towers, worth "£25,000, enough to keep me for one year in the style to which I was, ah, unaccustomed." But now, he finishes telling his visitor, the money is mostly gone. As they leave the restaurant, Holland is seen to be handcuffed to his countryman. ===== Stalag 17 begins on "the longest night of the year" in 1944 in a Luftwaffe prisoner-of-war camp somewhere along the Danube River. The story is narrated by Clarence Harvey "Cookie" Cook. The camp holds Poles, Czechs, Russian women and, in the American compound, 640 sergeants from bomber crews, gunners, radiomen, and flight engineers. Manfredi and Johnson try to escape through a tunnel, but are shot by waiting guards when they emerge outside the barbed wire fence. The other prisoners conclude that one of their own must have told the Germans. Suspicion falls on Sefton, an enterprising cynic who barters openly with the German guards for eggs, silk stockings, blankets and other luxuries. He also organizes rat races and various other profitable ventures. Sefton tells the men it is foolish to try to escape. The lives of the prisoners are depicted: they receive mail, eat terrible food, wash in the latrine sinks, and collectively do their best to keep sane and defy the camp's commandant, Oberst [Colonel] von Scherbach. They use a clandestine radio, smuggled from barracks to barracks, to pick up the BBC and the war news. One German guard, Feldwebel [Staff Sergeant] Schulz, confiscates the radio in another success for the "stoolie." "Animal" Kuzawa is infatuated with movie star Betty Grable, and becomes depressed when he learns she has married bandleader Harry James. Harry "Sugar Lips" Shapiro gets seven letters at mail call and makes Animal think they are from women. When Kuzawa sees a finance company letterhead, Harry admits they repossessed his Plymouth. Sefton bribes the guards to let him spend the day in the Russian women's barracks. The other prisoners conclude that this is his reward for having informed the Germans about the radio. When he returns, he is accused of being a spy. Then von Scherbach takes Lieutenant James Schuyler Dunbar, a temporary inmate, away. Dunbar admitted to the other prisoners that he had blown up a passing German ammunition train while he was being transported to the camp. Sefton resents Dunbar for coming from a wealthy Boston family. The men are convinced that Sefton betrayed Dunbar, so they beat him up and ostracize him. Sefton then decides to uncover the identity of the real spy. During a fake air raid, he remains unnoticed in the evacuated barracks and overhears the barracks security chief, Price, talking with Schulz in German and divulging the means by which Dunbar destroyed the train (a matchbook with a lit cigarette tucked into the edge to create a time delay). Sefton considers what to do. If he exposes Price, the Germans will simply remove him and plant him in another camp. Killing him could expose the entire barracks to retaliatory execution. On Christmas Day, the men find out that SS men are coming to take Dunbar to Berlin for his sabotage. They create a diversion, free Dunbar, and hide him in the Water Tower. Nobody but Hoffy, the compound chief, knows where he is. The Germans, despite extensive efforts, are unable to find Dunbar. After von Scherbach threatens to raze the camp if necessary, the men decide one of them must get Dunbar out. Price volunteers, but then Sefton accuses him of being a spy. Sefton asks him, "When was Pearl Harbor?" Price knows the date, but Sefton quickly asks what time he heard the news. Without thinking, Price answers 6 o'clock and that he was eating dinner — the correct time in Berlin, but not in Cleveland, Ohio, his claimed hometown. Sefton then reaches into Price's jacket pocket and extracts the "mailbox" used to exchange messages with the Germans, a hollowed-out black chess queen. Sefton decides to take Dunbar out himself because he likes the odds and the expected reward from Dunbar's family. The men give Sefton enough time to get Dunbar out of the water tower above one of the latrines, then throw Price out into the yard with tin cans tied to his legs. The ruse works: Price is killed in a hail of bullets, creating a diversion that allows Sefton and Dunbar to cut through the barbed wire and escape. A pleased Cookie whistles "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". ===== MI6 agent James Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base where Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is illegally trading weapons for African conflict diamonds. After Moon's right-hand man Zao is contacted by an unknown source who reveals Bond's true identity, Moon attempts to kill Bond and a hovercraft chase ensues, ending with Moon's apparent death. Bond survives but is captured by North Korean soldiers and imprisoned by the Colonel's father, General Moon. After fourteen months of captivity and torture at the hands of the Korean People's Army, Bond is traded for Zao in a prisoner exchange. He is sedated and taken to meet M, who informs him that his status as a 00 Agent has been suspended under suspicion of having leaked information under duress to the North Koreans. Bond is convinced that he has been set up by a double agent in the British government. After escaping MI6 custody, he discovers that he is in Hong Kong, where he learns from Chang, a Chinese agent and old colleague, that Zao is in Cuba. In Havana, Bond meets NSA agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson. Bond follows her to a gene therapy clinic, where patients can have their appearances altered through DNA restructuring. Bond locates Zao inside the clinic and attempts to kill him, but Zao escapes, leaving behind a pendant which leads Bond to a cache of diamonds, identified as conflict diamonds, but bearing the crest of the company owned by British billionaire businessman Gustav Graves. Bond learns that Graves only appeared a year prior, apparently discovering a vein of diamonds in Iceland leading to his current wealth, celebrity, and philanthropy from its assets. At Blades Club in London, Bond meets Graves along with his assistant Miranda Frost, who is also an undercover MI6 agent. After a fencing battle, Bond is invited by Graves to Iceland for a scientific demonstration. Shortly afterwards, M tells Bond of MI6's doubts about Graves, restores Bond's Double-0 status and offers assistance in the investigation. At his ice palace adjacent to the diamond mine site in Iceland, Graves unveils a new orbital mirror satellite, "Icarus", which is able to focus solar energy on a small area and provide year-round sunshine for crop development. Frost seduces Bond and Jinx infiltrates Graves' command centre, but is captured by Graves and Zao. Bond rescues her and discovers that Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is still alive; Moon has used the gene therapy technology to change his appearance, creating the identity of Gustav Graves and amassing his fortune from sale of the conflict diamonds as a cover for his true plans. Aston Martin V12 Vanquish and Bombardier MX Rev Ski-Doo used in the film|alt= Bond confronts Graves, but Frost arrives to reveal herself as the traitor who betrayed Bond in North Korea, forcing Bond to escape from Graves' facility. Bond returns in his Aston Martin V12 Vanquish to rescue Jinx, who has been recaptured in the palace. As Graves uses Icarus to melt the ice palace, Zao pursues Bond into the palace using his Jaguar XKR. Bond kills Zao by causing a giant ice chandelier to fall onto him, and revives Jinx after she has almost drowned. Bond and Jinx pursue Graves and Frost to the Korean peninsula and stow away on Graves' cargo plane. Graves reveals his identity to his father, and the true purpose of the Icarus satellite: to cut a path through the Korean Demilitarized Zone with concentrated sunlight, allowing North Korean troops to invade South Korea, defeat the United Nations Command forces of both U.S. and South Korean troops, and unite the peninsula under the flag of the DPRK and the Kim family. Horrified that it would result in potentially triggering World War III with the United States, General Moon tries to stop the plan, but Graves murders him. Bond attempts to shoot Graves, but he is prevented by a soldier. In their struggle, a gunshot pierces the fuselage, causing the plane to descend rapidly. Bond and Graves engage in a fist fight, and Jinx attempts to regain control of the plane. Frost attacks Jinx, forcing her to defend herself in a sword duel. After the plane passes through the Icarus beam and is further damaged, Jinx kills Frost. Graves attempts to escape by parachute, but Bond opens the parachute, pulling Graves out of the plane and into one of its engines, killing him and disabling the Icarus beam. Bond and Jinx escape from the disintegrating plane in a helicopter from the cargo hold, carrying away Graves' stash of diamonds. ===== An alien race known as the Oni arrive on Earth to invade the planet. Instead of taking over the planet by force, the Oni give humans a chance to fight for the rights to the planet by taking part in a competition. The competition is a variant of the game of tag (known as "the game of the Oni" in Japanese), in which the human player must touch the horns on the head of the Oni player within one week. The computer-selected human player is Ataru Moroboshi, a lecherous, unlucky and academically unsuccessful high school student from the fictional in Nerima, Japan, and the Oni player is Princess Lum, daughter of the leader of the alien invaders. Despite his initial reluctance to take part in the competition, Ataru becomes interested in the game when he meets Lum. When the competition begins, Lum surprises everyone by flying away and Ataru finds himself unable to catch her. Before the last day of the competition, Ataru's girlfriend Shinobu Miyake encourages Ataru by pledging to marry him if he wins. On the final day of the competition, Ataru wins the game by stealing Lum's bikini top, which prevents her from protecting her horns in favor of protecting her modesty. In celebrating his victory, Ataru expresses his joy at being able to get married; however, Lum misinterprets this as a proposal from Ataru and accepts on live television. Despite the misunderstanding, Lum falls in love with Ataru and moves into his house. Despite Ataru's lack of interest in Lum and attempts to rekindle his relationship with Shinobu, Lum frequently interferes and Shinobu loses interest in Ataru. Still, Ataru's flirtatious nature persists despite Lum's attention. Lum attempts to stop him from flirting, which results in Ataru receiving powerful electric shock attacks from Lum as punishment. Two characteristics of Ataru are particularly strong: his pervertedness and his bad luck that draws to him all weirdos of the planet, the spirit world and even galaxy. Later Lum begins attending the same school as Ataru despite his objections. Lum develops a fan base of admirers among the boys of the school, including Shutaro Mendo, the rich and handsome heir to a large corporation that all the girls from Tomobiki have a crush on. Despite their romantic interest, none of Lum's admirers will risk upsetting Lum by trying to force her and Ataru apart, although this does not stop them from trying to get Ataru punished due to his bad behavior, and interfering every time they get close to him. ===== Edward Lewis, a high-powered corporate raider from New York, buys and dismantles struggling companies, selling off the assets for profit. He wants his girlfriend to accompany him during a business trip, but fed up with being his "beck and call girl," she ends their relationship. Leaving a business party in the Hollywood Hills, Edward takes his lawyer's Lotus Esprit sports car and accidentally ends up on Hollywood Boulevard in the city's red-light district. There he encounters prostitute Vivian Ward. As he is having difficulties driving a manual transmission car, he pays Vivian to drive him to the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Edward then hires her for the night. The next day, he asks Vivian to play his girlfriend, offering $3,000 for six days and a new wardrobe. Prior to an important business dinner, Barney, the hotel's helpful concierge, tutors Vivian in proper etiquette and arranges for her to buy a cocktail dress after several snooty shop clerks had refused to wait on her. Edward is impressed by Vivian's transformation and opens up to her, revealing details about his personal and business lives. At a polo match, Edward's attorney, Phillip, suspects Vivian is a corporate spy until Edward reveals how they met. Phillip later propositions Vivian for her services after Edward is finished with her. Vivian is hurt and furious at Edward for exposing her. Edward apologizes and realizes Vivian's straightforward personality is rubbing off on him. Edward takes Vivian by private jet to see La Traviata at the San Francisco Opera. The story of the prostitute who falls in love with a rich man moves Vivian. She breaks her "no kissing" rule while having sex with Edward. After, mistakenly believing Edward is asleep, Vivian admits she loves him. Edward later offers to help get her off the streets, but she declines, saying that is not her childhood "fairy tale" ending of being rescued by a Knight on a white steed. Edward meets with a shipbuilding tycoon, but rather than dismantling the company, he instead proposes they work together to save it. Phillip, furious that Edward's new direction means making less money, goes to the hotel to confront him but finds only Vivian. Blaming her for Edward's changing character, he attempts to rape her. Edward arrives and punches Phillip, then fires him. With his business in L.A. complete, Edward asks Vivian to stay with him one more night, but only because she wants to, not because he will pay. She refuses and leaves. Edward re-thinks his life, and while being driven to the airport, he has the chauffeur detour to Vivian's apartment building. He climbs out through the white limousine's sun roof and ascends the fire escape to where Vivian is waiting. ===== Eleven-year-old Kevin has a vivid imagination and is fascinated by history, particularly that of Ancient Greece; his parents ignore his activities, having become more obsessed with buying the latest household gadgets to keep up with their neighbours. One night, as Kevin is sleeping, an armoured knight on a horse bursts out of his wardrobe. Kevin is scared and hides as the knight rides off into a forest setting where once his bedroom wall was; when Kevin looks back out, the room is back to normal and he finds one of his photos on the wall similar to the forest he saw. The next night he prepares a satchel with supplies and a Polaroid camera but is surprised when six dwarves spill out of the wardrobe. Kevin quickly learns the group has stolen a large, worn map and is looking for an exit from his room before they are discovered. They find that the bedroom wall can be pushed, revealing a long hallway. Kevin is hesitant to join until the apparition of a floating, menacing head—the Supreme Being—appears behind them, demanding the return of the map. Kevin and the dwarves fall into an empty void at the end of the hallway. They land in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. As they recover, Kevin learns that Randall is the lead dwarf of the group, which also includes Fidgit, Strutter, Og, Wally and Vermin. They were once employed by the Supreme Being to repair holes in the spacetime fabric, but instead they realized the potential to use the map to steal riches. With the map and Kevin's help, they visit several locations in spacetime and meet figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Robin Hood. Kevin uses his camera to document their visits. However, they are unaware that their activities are being monitored by Evil, a malevolent being who is able to manipulate reality and is attempting to acquire the map himself so that he can remake the universe to his design. Through Evil's actions, Kevin becomes separated from the group and ends up in Mycenaean Greece, meeting King Agamemnon. After Kevin inadvertently helps Agamemnon kill an enemy, the king adopts him. Randall and the others soon locate Kevin and abduct him, much to his resentment, and escape through another hole, arriving on the ill-fated RMS Titanic. After it sinks, they are forced to tread water while they argue with each other. Evil manipulates the group and transports them to his realm, the Time of Legends. After surviving encounters with ogres and a giant, Kevin and the dwarves locate the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness and are led to believe that "The Most Fabulous Object in the World" awaits them, luring them into Evil's trap. Evil takes the map and locks the group in a cage over an apparently bottomless pit. While looking through the Polaroids he took, Kevin finds one that includes the map, and the group realises there is a hole in the Fortress near them. They escape from the cage, steal the map again and split: Kevin must distract their pursuers while the others go through the hole. Evil confronts Kevin and takes the map back from him. The dwarves return with various warriors and fighting machines taken from across time, but Evil has no trouble overpowering them all. As Kevin and the dwarves cower, Evil prepares to unleash his ultimate power. Suddenly, he is engulfed in flames and burned into charcoal; from the smoke, a besuited elderly man emerges, revealed as the Supreme Being. He reveals that he allowed the dwarves to borrow his map and the whole adventure had been a test of his creation. He orders the dwarves to collect all the pieces of concentrated Evil, warning that they can be deadly if not contained, recovers the map and allows the dwarves to rejoin him in his creation duties. The Supreme Being disappears with the dwarves, leaving Kevin stranded behind as a missed piece of Evil begins to smoulder. Kevin awakes in his bedroom to find it filled with smoke. Firefighters break down the door and rescue him as they put out a fire in his house. One of the firemen finds that his parents' new toaster oven caused the fire. As Kevin recovers, he finds one of the firemen resembles Agamemnon and discovers that he still has the photos from his adventure. Kevin's parents discover a smouldering rock in the toaster oven. Recognizing it as a piece of Evil, Kevin warns them not to touch it. Ignoring him, they touch it and explode, leaving only their shoes. Kevin tentatively approaches the smoking shoes and is seen from above as his figure grows smaller, revealing the planet and then outer space, before being rolled up in the map by the Supreme Being. ===== In an ornate baroque hotel, populated by wealthy couples who socialise with each other, a single man approaches a woman. He claims they met the year before at Marienbad and she asked him to wait a year before deciding on a future together. The woman insists they have never met. The man tries to rekindle what he claims is the tenderness they shared, while she rebuffs him and contradicts his account. A second man repeatedly asserts his dominance over the first man, including beating him every time at a mathematical game (a version of Nim). Through ambiguous flashbacks and disorienting shifts of time and location, the film explores the relationships between the three characters. Conversations and events are repeated in several places in the building and grounds, and there are numerous tracking shots of the hotel's corridors, with ambiguous and repetitive voiceovers. No certain conclusion is offered. ===== The play begins with Strepsiades suddenly sitting up in bed while his son, Pheidippides, remains blissfully asleep in the bed next to him. Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep – his wife (the pampered product of an aristocratic clan) has encouraged their son's expensive interest in betting on horse races. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get out of debt, wakes the youth gently and pleads with him to do something for him. Pheidippides at first agrees to do as he's asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for wastrels and bums that no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be associated with. Strepsiades explains that students of The Thinkery learn how to turn inferior arguments into winning arguments and this is the only way he can beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age. There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea's foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made by a gnat (its rear end resembles a trumpet) and a new use for a large pair of compasses (as a kind of fishing-hook for stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Strepsiades begs to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries. The wish is soon granted: Socrates appears overhead, wafted in a basket at the end of a rope, the better to observe the Sun and other meteorological phenomena. The philosopher descends and quickly begins the induction ceremony for the new elderly student, the highlight of which is a parade of the Clouds, the patron goddesses of thinkers and other layabouts. The Clouds arrive singing majestically of the regions whence they arose and of the land they have now come to visit, loveliest in all being Greece. Introduced to them as a new devotee, Strepsiades begs them to make him the best orator in Greece by a hundred miles. They reply with the promise of a brilliant future. Socrates leads him into the dingy Thinkery for his first lesson and The Clouds step forward to address the audience. Putting aside their cloud-like costumes, The Chorus declares that this is the author's cleverest play and that it cost him the greatest effort. It reproaches the audience for the play's failure at the festival, where it was beaten by the works of inferior authors, and it praises the author for originality and for his courage in lampooning influential politicians such as Cleon. The Chorus then resumes its appearance as clouds, promising divine favours if the audience punishes Cleon for corruption and rebuking Athenians for messing about with the calendar, since this has put Athens out of step with the moon. Socrates returns to the stage in a huff, protesting against the ineptitude of his new elderly student. He summons Strepsiades outside and attempts further lessons, including a form of meditative incubation in which the old man lies under a blanket while thoughts are supposed to arise in his mind naturally. The incubation results in Strepsiades masturbating under the blanket and finally Socrates refuses to have anything more to do with him. The Clouds advise Strepsiades to find someone younger to do the learning for him. His son, Pheidippides, subsequently yields to threats by Strepsiades and reluctantly returns with him to the Thinkery, where they encounter the personified arguments Superior (Right) and Inferior (Wrong), associates of Socrates. Superior Argument and Inferior Argument debate with each other over which of them can offer the best education. Superior Argument sides with Justice and the gods, offering to prepare Pheidippides for an earnest life of discipline, typical of men who respect the old ways; Inferior Argument, denying the existence of Justice, offers to prepare him for a life of ease and pleasure, typical of men who know how to talk their way out of trouble. At the end of the debate, a quick survey of the audience reveals that buggers – people schooled by Inferior Arguments – have got into the most powerful positions in Athens. Superior Argument accepts his inevitable defeat, Inferior Argument leads Pheidippides into the Thinkery for a life-changing education and Strepsiades goes home happy. The Clouds step forward to address the audience a second time, demanding to be awarded first place in the festival competition, in return for which they promise good rains – otherwise they'll destroy crops, smash roofs and spoil weddings. The story resumes with Strepsiades returning to The Thinkery to fetch his son. A new Pheidippides emerges, startlingly transformed into the pale nerd and intellectual man that he had once feared to become. Rejoicing in the prospect of talking their way out of financial trouble, Strepsiades leads the youth home for celebrations, just moments before the first of their aggrieved creditors arrives with a witness to summon him to court. Strepsiades comes back on stage, confronts the creditor and dismisses him contemptuously. A second creditor arrives and receives the same treatment before Strepsiades returns indoors to continue the celebrations. The Clouds sing ominously of a looming debacle and Strepsiades again comes back on stage, now in distress, complaining of a beating that his new son has just given him in a dispute over the celebrations. Pheidippides emerges coolly and insolently debates with his father a father's right to beat his son and a son's right to beat his father. He ends by threatening to beat his mother also, whereupon Strepsiades flies into a rage against The Thinkery, blaming Socrates for his latest troubles. He leads his slaves, armed with torches and mattocks, in a frenzied attack on the disreputable school. The alarmed students are pursued offstage and the Chorus, with nothing to celebrate, quietly departs. ===== The Knights is a satire on political and social life in 5th-century BC Athens, the characters are drawn from real life and Cleon is clearly intended to be the villain. However it is also an allegory, the characters are figures of fantasy and the villain in this context is Paphlagonian, a comic monstrosity responsible for almost everything that's wrong with the world. The identity Cleon=Paphlagonian is awkward and the ambiguities aren't easily resolved. This summary features the real-world names Cleon, Nicias and Demosthenes (though these names are never mentioned in the play). See Discussion for an overview of the ambiguous use of characterization in The Knights. Short summary: A sausage seller, Agoracritus, vies with Cleon for the confidence and approval of Demos ('The People' in Greek), an elderly man who symbolizes the Athenian citizenry. Agoracritus emerges triumphant from a series of contests and he restores Demos to his former glory. Detailed summary: Nicias and Demosthenes run from a house in Athens, complaining of a beating that they have just received from their master, Demos, and cursing their fellow slave, Cleon, as the cause of their troubles. They inform the audience that Cleon has wheedled his way into Demos's confidence and they accuse him of misusing his privileged position for the purpose of extortion and corruption. They advise us that even the mask-makers are afraid of Cleon and not one of them could be persuaded to make a caricature of him for this play. They assure us however that we are clever enough to recognize him even without a mask. Having no idea how to solve their problems, they pilfer some wine from the house, the taste of which inspires them to an even bolder theft – a set of oracles that Cleon has always refused to let anyone else see. On reading these stolen oracles, they learn that Cleon is one of several peddlers destined to rule the polis and that it is his fate to be replaced by a sausage seller. As chance would have it, a sausage seller passes by at that very moment, carrying a portable kitchen. Demosthenes informs him of his destiny. The sausage seller is not convinced at first but Demosthenes points out the myriads of people in the theatre and he assures him that his skills with sausages are all that is needed to govern them. Cleon's suspicions meanwhile have been aroused and he rushes from the house in search of trouble. He immediately finds an empty wine bowl and he loudly accuses the others of treason. Demosthenes calls upon the knights of Athens for assistance and a Chorus of them charges into the theatre. They converge on Cleon in military formation under instructions from their leader: ::Hit him, hit him, hit the villain hateful to the cavalry, ::Tax-collecting, all-devouring monster of a lurking thief! ::Villain, villain! I repeat it, I repeat it constantly, ::With good reason since this thief reiterates his villainy!The Knights lines 247–50 Cleon is given rough handling and the Chorus leader accuses him of manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain. Cleon bellows to the audience for help and the Chorus urges the sausage- seller to outshout him. There follows a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage seller with vulgar boasts and vainglorious threats on both sides as each man strives to demonstrate that he is a more shameless and unscrupulous orator than the other. The knights proclaim the sausage-seller the winner of the argument and Cleon then rushes off to the Boule to denounce them all on a trumped-up charge of treason. The sausage seller sets off in pursuit and the action pauses for a parabasis, during which the Chorus steps forward to address the audience on behalf of the author. The Chorus informs us that Aristophanes has been very methodical and cautious in the way he has approached his career as a comic poet and we are invited to applaud him. The knights then deliver a speech in praise of the older generation, the men who made Athens great, and this is followed by a speech in praise of horses that performed heroically in a recent amphibious assault on Corinth, whither they are imagined to have rowed in gallant style. Returning to the stage, the sausage seller reports to the knights on his battle with Cleon for control of the Council – he has outbid Cleon for the support of the councillors with offers of meals at the state's expense. Indignant at his defeat, Cleon rushes onto the stage and challenges the sausage-seller to submit their differences to Demos. The sausage seller accepts the challenge. They call Demos outdoors and compete with each other in flattering him like rivals for the affections of an eromenos. He agrees to hear them debating their differences and he takes up his position on the Pnyx (here represented possibly as a bench).Aristophanes:Birds and Other Plays by D. Barrett and A. Sommerstein (eds.), Penguin Classics 1978, page 64 The sausage-seller makes some serious accusations in the first half of the debate: Cleon is indifferent to the war- time sufferings of ordinary people, he has used the war as an opportunity for corruption and he prolongs the war out of fear that he will be prosecuted when peace returns. Demos is won over by these arguments and he spurns Cleon's wheedling appeals for sympathy. Thereafter the sausage seller's accusations become increasingly absurd: Cleon is accused of waging a campaign against buggery in order to stifle opposition (because all the best orators are buggers) and he is said to have brought down the price of silphium so that jurors who bought it would suffocate each other with their flatulence. Cleon loses the debate but he doesn't lose hope and there are two further contests in which he competes with the sausage seller for Demos's favour – a) the reading of oracles flattering to Demos; b) a race to see which of them can best serve pampered Demos's every need. The sausage seller wins each contest by outdoing Cleon in shamelessness. Cleon makes one last effort to retain his privileged position in the household – he possesses an oracle that describes his successor and he questions the sausage seller to see if he matches the description in all its vulgar details. The sausage seller does match the description. In tragic dismay, Cleon at last accepts his fate and he surrenders his authority to the sausage-seller. Demos asks the sausage seller for his name and we learn that it is Agoracritus, confirming his lowly origin. The actors depart and the Chorus treats us to another parabasis. The knights step forward and they advise us that it is honourable to mock dishonourable people. They proceed to mock Ariphrades, an Athenian with a perverse appetite for female secretions. Next they recount an imaginary conversation between some respectable ships that have refused to carry the war to Carthage because the voyage was proposed by Hyperbolus, a man they despise. Then Agoracritus returns to the stage, calling for respectful silence and announcing a new development – he has rejuvenated Demos with a good boiling (just as if he were a piece of meat). The doors of Demos's house open to reveal impressive changes in Demos's appearance – he is now the very image of glorious 'violet-crowned' Athens, as once commemorated in a song by Pindar. Agoracritus presents his transformed master with a "well-hung" boy and with the Peacetreaties – two girls that Cleon had been keeping locked up in order to prolong the war. Demos invites Agoracritus to a banquet at the town hall and the entire cast exits in good cheer – all except Cleon, who is required to sell sausages at the city gate as punishment for his crimes. ===== The play begins with Praxagora emerging from a house on an Athenian street before daybreak. She is wearing a false beard and men's clothing, and she carries a walking stick and a lit lantern. The chorus of Athenian women enter one by one, all dressed in similar costume. In order to be more convincingly masculine, some women have developed tans and stopped shaving their armpits. One woman brings a basket full of yarn in order to get some work done as the assembly fills up, to which Praxagora chastises her for this decision as it will ruin their cover. The women are wary of the plan and Praxagora attempts to rally them as they practice speaking as men before the assembly. Praxagora is frustrated by the women's inability to pretend to be men, as they swear to Demeter and Persephone rather than Apollo, address the assembled women as ladies, and complain about the discomfort of their disguises and their thirst. Praxagora decides that she alone is capable of speaking to the assembly and practices a speech decrying the corrupt leaders of the city as selfish and unpatriotic through their acts of war and personal enrichment through public funds. She proposes that the men turn control of the government over to the women because "after all, we employ them as stewards and treasurers in our own households." She further explains that women are superior to men because they are harder workers, devoted to tradition and do not bother with useless innovations. As mothers, they will better protect the soldiers and feed them extra rations, as shrewd negotiators, they will secure more funds for the city. Praxagora impresses the women with her rhetorical skills, and explains that it was learned from listening to orators while living with her husband on the Pnyx, where the Athenian assembly was held. They discuss how they plan to handle opposition and practice how to raise their hands to vote before leaving to attend the assembly by dawn in order to receive pay and a complimentary meal. The chorus of women reiterate their intentions before exiting the stage. Praxagora's husband Blepyrus emerges from their house wearing Praxagora's nightgown and slippers. He is old and desperately had to relieve himself but could not find his clothing in the dark. As he squats in the street lamenting his constipation, his neighbor arrives and both men realize that their wives and clothing are missing from their homes. Chremes, returning from the assembly, comes upon Blepyrus and his neighbor and explains that he was not paid because of the unprecedented turn- out of pale faced shoe-makers (referring to the women in disguise.) He relayed the events of the assembly and Praxagora's speech. Believing she was a "good- looking young man," Chremes explains how he argued women were better at keeping secrets, returning borrowed items without cheating, that they don’t sue or inform on people or try to overthrow the democracy, all points that Blepyrus agreed upon. Now free of attending the assembly, the men are pleased to finally sleep in, but are not excited about having to provide sex to receive their breakfast. The chorus enters, still in disguise and on their way home from the assembly, trying not to draw attention to themselves. Blepyrus accuses Praxagora of sneaking off with a lover when he finds her returning his cloak. She explains that she was only helping a friend in labor and had to wear his cloak for warmth. She feigns surprise when he explains to her the decision from the morning's assembly, but immediately begins listing the reasons the decision was wise. Praxagora then goes on to explain the details of the new government to Blepyrus. She proposes banning all ownership of private wealth and establishing equal pay for all and a unified standard of living. She further explains that people will no longer have a need for personal wealth as all basic needs will be met by the common fund. She further adds that men and women will be free to sleep with anyone they want, so long as they first sleep with the uglier members of the opposite sex. Parental responsibilities will be shared by the community as children will no longer know their fathers. Slaves will work the fields and new clothes will be made when they are needed. Praxagora elaborates that there will be no more lawsuits, since there can be no debt in a society without private wealth. Punishments for assault will come out of the offender's bread ration and theft will be obsolete as all men will be given their fair share. Walls within homes will be knocked down and all will live in a common living space, courthouses and porticos will be turned into communal dining halls. Prostitutes will be put out of business, but slaves will be banned from sleeping with free men. In the next scene, Blepyrus’ neighbor is laying his household objects out in front of his house to be contributed to the common fund as the Selfish Man enters. The Selfish Man calls the neighbor a fool for following the new laws. He plans on waiting to see if everyone else gives up their property before he does it himself, citing failed decrees from the assembly in the past. The town Herald enters and announces a lavish feast for all to attend. The Selfish Man acts entitled to the feast, but the neighbor points out his reluctance to donate possessions to the common fund disqualifies him from communal events. After the neighbor leaves to donate his possessions, the selfish man explains that he intends to keep his belongings and enjoy the free dinner at the same time. In a different scene, a young girl waits for her boyfriend Epigenes to arrive as an old woman is out looking for a date. They exchange vulgar insults and go inside their homes as Epigenes enters the scene, lamenting the new laws governing sex. He and the girl both speak of their desire for one another, but are interrupted by the old woman. Citing the new law, the old woman attempts to force Epigenes to sleep with her first. As the young girl and the old woman fight over the boy, two more old women enter and drag him away against his will. In the final scene, a drunken maid enters praising Thasian wine and the new laws. She is looking to bring Blepyrus to dinner at Praxagora's request. She finds Blepyrus passing by, already on his way to dinner with two girls in his arms. They all go to dinner together while the chorus sings of the lavish feast they are about to have. ===== James Bondagent 007pursues Ernst Stavro Blofeld and eventually finds him at a facility where Blofeld look-alikes are being created through surgery. Bond kills a test subject, and later the "real" Blofeld, by drowning him in a pool of superheated mud. While assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd systematically kill several diamond smugglers, M suspects South African diamonds are being stockpiled to depress prices by dumping, and orders Bond to uncover the smuggling ring. Posing as professional smuggler and assassin Peter Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet contact Tiffany Case. The real Franks shows up, but Bond intercepts and kills him, and switches IDs to make it seem like Franks is Bond. Case and Bond then go to Los Angeles, smuggling the diamonds inside Franks' corpse. At the airport Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter, then travels to Las Vegas. At a funeral home, Franks' body is cremated and the diamonds passed on to another smuggler, Shady Tree. Bond is nearly killed by Wint and Kidd when they put him in a casket to be burned in a cremation retort, but Tree stops the process when he discovers that the diamonds in Franks' body were fakes planted by Bond and the CIA. Bond tells Leiter to ship him the real diamonds. Bond then goes to the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. Bond discovers there that Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd, who did not know that the diamonds were fake. At the craps table Bond meets the opportunistic Plenty O'Toole, and after gambling, brings her to his room. Gang members ambush them, throwing O'Toole out of the window and into the pool. Bond spends the rest of the night with Tiffany Case, instructing her to retrieve the real diamonds at the Circus Circus casino. Tiffany reneges on her deal to meet back with Bond and instead flees, passing off the diamonds to the next smuggler. However, seeing that O'Toole was killed after being mistaken for her, Tiffany changes her mind. She drives Bond to the airport, where the diamonds are given to Professor Metz, a laser refraction specialist, who is followed to a remote facility. Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds; a research laboratory owned by Whyte, where a satellite is being built by Metz. When Bond's cover is blown, he escapes by stealing a moon buggy and reunites with Tiffany. That night, they elude police officers who had been sent after Bond for the commotion caused at the laboratory. Bond scales the walls to the Whyte House's top floor to confront Whyte. He is instead met by Blofeld who is alive along with his double, who use an electronic device to sound like Whyte. Bond kills one of the Blofelds, which turns out to be a look-alike. He is then knocked out by gas, picked up by Wint and Kidd, and taken out to Las Vegas Valley, where he is placed in a pipeline and left to die. Bond escapes, then calls Blofeld, using a similar electronic device to pose as Whyte's assistant Saxby. He finds out Whyte's location and rescues him after battling his bodyguards, Bambi and Thumper. Soon after, Saxby attempts to assassinate Whyte, but is killed. In the meantime, Blofeld abducts Case. With the help of Whyte, Bond raids the lab and uncovers Blofeld's plot to create a laser satellite using the diamonds, which by now has already been sent into orbit. With the satellite, Blofeld destroys nuclear weapons in China, the Soviet Union and the United States, then proposes an international auction for global nuclear supremacy. Whyte identifies an oil platform off the coast of Baja California as Blofeld's likely base of operations. After Bond's attempt to change the cassette containing the satellite control codes fails due to a mistake by Tiffany, a helicopter attack on the oil rig is launched by Whyte, Leiter and the CIA. Blofeld tries to escape in a midget submarine, but Bond gains control of the submarine's launch crane and crashes the sub into the control room, causing both the satellite control and the base to be destroyed. Bond and Tiffany then head for Britain on a cruise ship, where Wint and Kidd pose as room-service stewards and attempt to kill them with a hidden bomb, but Bond discovers their plan and kills the two henchmen instead. As they immediately reconcile afterwards, Tiffany asks Bond "How the hell do we get those diamonds down again?" ===== One of the greatest achievements of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the extreme complexity of its stories and characters. The novel contains numerous subplots. The following consists of a summary of the central plot and some well-known highlights in the novel. Three Heroes of Three Kingdoms, silk painting by Sekkan Sakurai (1715–1790), depicting Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. ===== In 1560, several scores of Spanish conquistadors, and a hundred enslaved Indigenous people, march down from the newly conquered Inca Empire in the Andes mountains into the jungles to the east, in search of the fabled country of El Dorado. Under the command of Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés), the men, clad in half armor, pull cannons down narrow mountainous paths and through dense, muddy jungle. On New Year's Eve, reaching the end of his supplies and unable to go on without more information, Pizarro orders a group of forty men to scout ahead by raft down river. If they do not return to the main party within one week with news of what lies beyond, they will be considered lost. Pizarro chooses Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) as the commander of the expedition, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) as his second- in-command, fat nobleman Don Fernando de Guzmán (Peter Berling) representing The Royal House of Spain, and Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro) to bring the word of God. Also accompanying the expedition, against Pizarro's better judgment, are Ursúa's mistress, Doña Inés (Helena Rojo) and Aguirre's teenage daughter, Flores (Cecilia Rivera, in her only film role). Traveling through rapids, one of the four rafts gets caught in an eddy, and the others are unable to help free it. That night, gunfire erupts on the trapped raft; in the morning the men on board are found dead, with two missing. Ursúa wants the bodies to be brought back to camp for proper burial. Knowing this would slow down the expedition, Aguirre hints to Perucho (Daniel Ades) to "keep the rust off the cannon". Perucho proceeds to fire the cannon at the raft, destroying it and throwing the bodies into the river. During the night, the remaining rafts are swept away by the rising river. Time has run out for the scouting mission, and Ursúa decides to return to Pizarro's group. Aguirre leads a mutiny against Ursúa, telling the men that untold riches await them ahead, and reminding them that Hernan Cortez won an empire in Mexico by disobeying orders. Ursúa attempts to put Aguirre in chains, but he and a soldier loyal to him are shot. Inés cares for Ursúa. Aguirre coerces the soldiers to elect the fat, lazy Don de Guzmán as the new leader of the expedition. Aguirre proclaims de Guzmán emperor of the new country and declares Philip II dethroned. A farcical trial of Ursúa results in his being sentenced to death, but de Guzmán surprises Aguirre by granting Ursúa clemency. Aguirre proves to be an oppressive leader, so terrifying that few protest his leadership. Only Inés has the courage to speak out against him. Knowing that some of the soldiers are still loyal to Ursúa, Aguirre simply ignores her. The expedition continues on a single, newly built, large raft. An Indigenous couple approaching peacefully by canoe are captured by the explorers, and when the man expresses confusion when presented with a Bible, Brother Carvajal kills them for blasphemy. De Guzmán dines on the low food supplies while the men starve, and has the expedition's only remaining horse pushed off the raft because it annoys him. Soon afterwards he is found garotted near the raft's outhouse. After de Guzmán's death, Aguirre proclaims himself leader. Ursúa is then taken ashore and hanged in the jungle. The group attacks an indigenous village, where several soldiers are killed by spears and arrows. The distraught Inés walks into the jungle and disappears. On the raft again, the group of slowly starving, feverish men begin disbelieving everything they see, even when shot with arrows. The group stares in disbelief at a wooden ship perched in the highest branches of a tall tree, which Aguirre orders be brought down and refurbished, but Brother Carvajal refuses. In a series of final attacks by unseen assailants, the remaining survivors including Aguirre's daughter are killed by arrows. Aguirre alone remains alive on the slowly drifting raft. The raft becomes overrun by monkeys. The crazed Aguirre tells them: "I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter, and with her I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen. Together, we shall rule this entire continent. We shall endure. I am the Wrath of God... who else is with me?" The final shot is of him waiting for the monkeys to respond. ===== The novel is set in a distant future when humans are part of an interstellar civilization called the ConSentiency composed of many species. One, the Taprisiots, provide instant mind-to-mind communication between two sentient minds anywhere in the universe, and the Caleban provide "jump-doors" (which allow instantaneous travel between any two points in the universe). This is the glue that holds the far-flung ConSentiency together. Unfortunately, one consequence of jump-door technology is the possibility that large numbers of unsuspecting sentients can be diverted to destinations unknown for nefarious purposes. A government saboteur attempts to expose one such plot. Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary, one of the principals of the Bureau of Sabotage, and the only human admitted to practice law before the Gowachin bar as a legum (lawyer). While meditating in a park in the Bureau's headquarters, McKie is mentally contacted by the Caleban Fannie Mae, a female member of a multidimensional species of unparalleled power whose visible manifestation in this universe is the star Thyone in the Pleiades cluster. Generations ago, a secret, unauthorized experiment by the Gowachins was carried out with the help of a contract with the Calebans. They isolated the planet Dosadi behind an impenetrable barrier called "The God Wall". On the planet were placed humans and Gowachin, with an odd mix of modern and old technology. The planet itself is massively poisonous except for a narrow valley, containing the city "Chu", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions. It is ruled by a dictator, many other forms of government having been tried previously, but without the ability to remove such things as the DemoPol, a computer system used to manipulate populaces without their consent or knowledge. The culture of ordinary day-to-day power in Dosadi is very violent. Among other tools, addictive psychotropes are used for handling power among hierarchies in organisations. Senior Liator (or Liaitor) Keila Jedrik starts a war that will change Dosadi forever. Jorj travels to Dosadi and escapes with Keila after engaging in ego sharing. This gives them the ability to swap bodies and thus by using a hole in the contract sealing Dosadi they can escape via jump gate. Once free, by legal manoeuvring the Dosadi population is unleashed upon the ConSentiency for good or ill, while the people who set the project in motion try to deal with the consequences, having sent McKie there hoping a solution more in their interest could be found. ===== ===== In Dune, Duke Leto Atreides, his Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica , and their son Paul arrive on Arrakis to take control of melange mining operations there. The mysterious Fremen housekeeper at the palace of Arrakeen is known as the Shadout Mapes, and when Paul saves her life from a deadly hunter-seeker intended to kill him, Mapes warns of a traitor in the Atreides household. She is killed by that same traitor, Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, as the Harkonnens attack. Leto is killed, and Paul and Jessica flee into the deep desert and find shelter with the Fremen of Sietch Tabr. Paul is immediately called out by the Fremen warrior Jamis, and when he kills Jamis in a ritual fight to the death, Paul is faced with the Fremen custom of taking responsibility for Jamis's wife Harah and her children. A key to Fremen survival in the harsh conditions of Arrakis is their ritualistic conservation of water. Paul rises as a leader among the Fremen, learning their ways while he and Jessica train them in the Bene Gesserit weirding way fighting discipline. Paul also becomes close to Chani, the daughter of Imperial Planetologist Liet-Kynes and his Fremen wife. Harah tries to explain to the superstitious and wary Fremen the unique nature of Paul's younger sister Alia, who was changed in the womb as Jessica underwent a Fremen/Bene Gesserit ritual to replace the Fremen Reverend Mother Ramallo. Paul leads the Fremen to take back Arrakis from the Harkonnens and Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, placing himself on the throne. In Dune Messiah (1969), a religion has arisen around Paul, and a jihad is being fought in his name across the universe. Korba, one of Fedaykin death commandos in Dune, has become one of the chief priests the religion of Muad'Dib. Another Fedaykin, Farok, is one of many Fremen disillusioned by the changes Paul's regime brings to their culture, and he joins the conspiracy to unseat Paul initiated by the Spacing Guild, Tleilaxu, and Bene Gesserit. Lichna, the daughter of Paul's trusted Fedaykin Otheym, is killed and impersonated by the Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale as a means to infiltrate Paul's household, which ultimately fails. Chani dies giving birth to Paul's twin heirs, Leto II and Ghanima, and a blinded Paul follows Fremen tradition and walks into the desert to die. As regent for Leto II and Ghanima, Alia struggles to control Paul's virtually uncontrollable religion in Children of Dune (1976). As she succumbs to Abomination, Sietch Tabr leader Stilgar, his wife Harah, and Princess Irulan flee with Leto II and Ghanima to escape Alia's worsening tyranny. Though married to Duncan Idaho, the possessed Alia takes Fremen warrior Buer Argarves as a lover, promising him leadership of Sietch Tabr in return for killing Stilgar. In the clandestine Sietch Fondak, Jessica tasks Fremen Namri to administer an overdose of melange to Leto II as a test of his resistance to Abomination, but Namri has secretly been instructed by Alia to kill Leto no matter the result. Leto recognizes a potential mate in the Fondak woman Sabiha, but recognizes this as an alternate path he should not take. A blind preacher emerges from the desert, guided by teenage Assan Tariq, son of Muriz from a cast out tribe of Fremen. ===== The series takes place in the year 2196. Earth is at war with a race of alien invaders called the "Jovian Lizards". A company called Nergal designs a space battleship, the ND-001 Nadesico. While the ship is powerful and its crew consists of the top civilian experts in their fields, these individuals tend to have "some slight personality disorders". The primary protagonist, Akito Tenkawa, is a boy with a mysterious past; once a resident of Mars' Utopia colony, he escaped its destruction by the Jovian Lizards and arrived on Earth, with no memory of how he got there but a terrible fear of the invaders. He hates fighting and only wants to be a chef. However, he is constantly called on to act as a pilot of one of the Nadesico's Aestivalis - humanoid combat robots. While on board the Nadesico, Akito has more problems to deal with than just the Jovians; nearly all the female members of the crew, especially the vessel's captain Yurika Misumaru, seem to be head over heels in love with him, though all he wants to do is cook and watch his favorite anime, Gekiganger III. ===== Yu Yu Hakusho follows Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year-old street-brawling delinquent who, in an uncharacteristic act of altruism, is hit by a car and killed in an attempt to save a young boy by pushing him out of the way. His ghost is greeted by Botan, a woman who introduces herself as the pilot of the River Styx, who ferries souls to the "Underworld" or where they may be judged for the afterlife. Botan informs Yusuke that his act had caught even the Underworld by surprise and that there was not yet a place made for him in either heaven or hell. Thus Koenma, son of the Underworld's ruler King Enma, offers Yusuke a chance to return to his body through a series of tests. Yusuke succeeds with the help of his friends Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwabara. After returning to life, Koenma grants Yusuke the title of , charging him with investigating supernatural activity within the . Soon Yusuke is off on his first case, retrieving three treasures stolen from the Underworld by a gang of demons: Hiei, Kurama and Goki. Yusuke collects the three treasures with the aid of his new technique, the "Rei Gun", a shot of aura or fired mentally from his index finger. He then travels to the mountains in search of the aged, female martial arts master Genkai. Together with his rival Kuwabara, Yusuke fights through a tournament organized by Genkai to find her successor. Yusuke uses the competition as a cover to search for Rando, a demon who steals the techniques of martial arts masters and kills them. Yusuke defeats Rando in the final round of the tournament and trains with Genkai for several months, gaining more mastery over his aura. Yusuke is then sent to Labyrinth Castle in the , a third world occupied solely by demons, where Kuwabara and the newly reformed Kurama and Hiei assist him in defeating the Four Beasts, a quartet of demons attempting to blackmail Koenma into removing the barrier keeping them out of the human world. Yusuke's next case sends him on a rescue mission, where he meets Toguro, a human turned into a demon. In order to test his strength, Toguro invites Yusuke to the , an event put on by corrupt, rich humans in which teams of demons, and occasionally humans, fight fierce battles for the chance to receive any wish they desire. Team Urameshi, consisting of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei and a disguised Genkai, traverse through the strenuous early rounds to face Team Toguro in the finals and win the tournament. They learn that Team Toguro's owner, Sakyo, was attempting to win in order to create a large hole from the human world to the Demon Plane and allow countless demons through. With his loss, Sakyo destroys the tournament arena, killing himself in the process. After the tournament, Yusuke returns home, but has little time to rest as he is challenged to a fight by three teenagers possessing superhuman powers and who end up taking the detective hostage. Kuwabara and the others rescue him and learn that the whole scenario was a test put on by Genkai. It is disclosed that Shinobu Sensui, Yusuke's predecessor as Underworld Detective, has recruited six other powerful beings to help him take over where Sakyo left off, opening a hole to the Demon Plane in order to cause genocide of the human race. Yusuke and his friends challenge and defeat Sensui's associates one-by-one, culminating in a final battle between the two detectives. Sensui kills Yusuke then retreats into the newly opened portal to the Demon Plane. Yusuke is reborn as a partial demon, discovering that his ancestor passed down a recessive gene that would hide until an heir with sufficient power surfaced, when his demonic lineage would be revealed. Yusuke travels to the Demon Plane and defeats Sensui with the aid of his ancestor who takes control of Yusuke's body to finish the fight. As they return to the human world, Yusuke is stripped of his detective title in fear that Yusuke's demon blood could cause him to go on a rampage in the human world. Yusuke, unsettled at having been controlled by his ancestor Raizen, accepts an offer by Raizen's followers to return to the Demon Plane. Raizen, desiring a successor to his territory, is on the brink of dying of starvation, a death that would topple the delicate political balance of the three ruling powers of the Demon Plane. Hiei and Kurama are summoned by the other two rulers, Mukuro and Yomi, respectively, to prepare for an inevitable war. The three protagonists train in the realm for one year, during which time Raizen dies and Yusuke inherits his territory. Yusuke takes initiative and proposes a fighting tournament to name the true ruler of the Demon Plane, which is agreed upon by Mukuro and Yomi. During the tournament, Yusuke and Yomi meet in the second elimination round where Yusuke is defeated. Yusuke hopes a similar competition will be held every so often to determine the Demon Plane's ruler. Yusuke stays in the Demon Plane for a while longer, but eventually returns to the human world and is reunited with his friends. ===== One of the most unusual, and possibly unique, features of the book is that, while it appears at first sight to be an expanded version of Berkeley's short story "The Avenging Chance", the eventual solution of the crime in the full-length novel is quite different from that in the short story. (In fact, the solution of "The Avenging Chance" is one of the suggested explanations in the novel which turns out to be false.) =====