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The old grandmother Tina arrives in town to attend the wedding of his nephew Alberto with his girlfriend Ileana. Upon arrival she discovers that she has been stolen of a medallion that her late husband had given her. He goes to the police station to file a complaint and get the dear object back, but given the length of the investigation, he decides to carry out the search for the thief himself, combining a great deal of mess. Eventually, by chance, he finds the thief, who lives in the same hotel, also managing to have an entire gang of criminals arrested. The grandson Alberto can marry the beautiful Ileana and the grandmother Tina will be appointed, by merit, an honorary colonel of the female police.
The nano-plague that poisoned Earth's water supply has reached its 60-year critical mass. The Unlight enemy forced the first exodus to the moon where the outlawed banished population was supposed to die. But now the Unlights have launched from Earth and are amassing on the south-west sector of the darkside of the moon for a massive ice-mining operation. It is the last Great War and lunar troops are sent into battle for the precious resource. However, one squad is shot down and the five surviving soldiers find themselves stranded. Cut off and behind enemy lines, they start a dangerous journey through snipers and minefields back to their extraction point with only 36 hours of oxygen left. As their numbers dwindle and nerves fray, they make an amazing discovery about the moon that just might save their lives.
The book follows an international organization named the Ministry for the Future in its mission to act as an advocate for the world's future generations of citizens as if their rights were as valid as the present generation's. Beginning in 2025, the organization, established as a subsidiary body under the Paris Agreement and based in Zurich, is led by protagonist Mary Murphy, a former foreign minister of Ireland and a composite character based on diplomats Mary Robinson, Christiana Figueres, and Laurence Tubiana. Climate change is established as a threat that compromises the safety and prosperity of the future. While the narrative includes chapters of nonfiction history and descriptions of events from the perspectives of other characters and objects, the plot follows Murphy as she seeks to convince central banks of the threats to currency and market stability posed by the effects of climate change. Specifically, a coordinated global round of unconventional quantitative easing through the issuance of a complementary currency, called the carbon coin, to be issued in proportion to the mass of carbon that is mitigated. The monetary concept, called carbon quantitative easing, is based on a specific real-life policy proposal, called a Global Carbon Reward, and an academic paper referred to throughout the book as the "Chen Paper". In Antarctica, various countries cooperate in a geoengineering project to drill to the bottom of glaciers and pump meltwater up to slow basal sliding while the program incentivizes multiple other simultaneous efforts like carbon farming, sail-driven container ships for cargo and airships for personal transport.
Bill Babbitt supported the death penalty, until it came knocking at his door. Bill fondly recalls early life with his brother Manny, but a childhood car accident leaves Manny forever changed. Two tours in Vietnam only compound Manny's mental health issues. After the war, bouts of paranoia leave him living on the streets. Concerned about his brother, Bill and his family invite Manny to come live with them in Sacramento. One day, however, Bill makes a shocking discovery that leaves him with an impossible choice: cover for his brother, or turn him in. Bill explores his attempt to do the “right” thing as familial bonds, mental illness and murder tug a close relationship in conflicting directions.
A white-collar suburban father Kyle (Fran Kranz) is surprised at his office by long-lost college buddy Zack (Adam Goldberg). Zack is as wild and crazy as ever, brimming with excitement about the self-actualization program he's just finished called Rebirth. He talks Kyle into going on a weekend-long Rebirth retreat, handing over his keys, wallet, and phone. Thus begins his journey down a bizarre rabbit hole of psychodrama, seduction, and violence.
Glenn Tyler (Elvis Presley), a childish 25-year old, gets into a fight with and badly injures his drunken brother. A court releases him on probation into the care of his uncle in a small town, appointing Irene Sperry (Hope Lange) to give him psychological counselling. Marked as a trouble-maker, he is falsely suspected of various misdemeanors including an affair with Irene. Eventually shown to be innocent, he leaves to go to college and become a writer.
Sid, Russ and Jerry are three wannabe criminals looking for easy money to break out of their nowhere lives. Despite a bungled jewelry store heist that exposes their incompetence, they are convinced they can pull off an armored-truck robbery. While plotting their caper, their dysfunctional families spin out of control all around them.
Brendan Byers III is a rich playboy who enlists to fight in the war against the Axis powers, but is classified 4-F. He really wants to fight, so he enlists other 4-Fs and some loyal volunteers from his own service staff and forms his own army, financing their training and equipment. Once completed, they travel to the front in Italy, with Byers impersonating a Nazi general named Eric Kesselring. The plan is to pull back the German lines, since the front has remained static for too long, enabling the Allies to push forward again. The mission does not go smoothly and they must overcome several obstacles, including the fiery wife of the local mayor who is the real Kesselring's lover, and the real Kesselring's involvement in an assassination attempt on Hitler. Afterwards, they face their next mission: infiltrating the Imperial Japanese command to influence the outcome of the Battle of Kwajalein.
Signaller Charles Plumpick (Bates) is a kilt-wearing French-born Scottish soldier caring for war pigeons, who is sent by his commanding officer to disarm a bomb placed in the town square by the retreating Germans. After the townspeople learn about the booby trap, its inhabitants—including those who run the insane asylum—abandon it. The asylum gates are left open, and the inmates leave the asylum and take on the roles of the townspeople. Plumpick has no reason to think they are not who they appear to be—other than the colorful and playful way in which they're living their lives, so at odds with the fearful and war-ravaged times. The lunatics crown Plumpick the King of Hearts with surreal pageantry as he frantically tries to find the bomb before it goes off.
Eddie Quinn's unruly wife Maureen drinks and smokes to excess, even though she is pregnant. Eddie has troubles of his own, disappearing for days at a time. When she is physically and sexually assaulted by Kiefer, a neighbor, it is more than Eddie can handle. He shoots someone and lands in a psychiatric hospital. Ten years go by. Eddie finally returns, only to find Maureen is now a clean, sober, solid citizen, married to a new man, Joey, and a mother of three children, one of whom is Eddie's own daughter. Eddie's return complicates and endangers all of their lives.
Jerome Littlefield is an orderly at a hospital. His dream is to be a doctor, but he has a problem that prevents it from becoming a reality: when he hears of a problem that a patient is having, psychosomatically he begins to suffer those symptoms as well. Susan Andrews, an old high school friend, is brought to the hospital after a suicide attempt. Littlefield recognizes her as the girl he has had a crush on since then. Eventually Andrews falls for Littlefield and they kiss. Littlefield later realizes that his problem with suffering from other people's symptoms was a direct result of his obsession with Andrews. Now that he has overcome that, his problems go away and he finally becomes a doctor.
Barbara is married to the distinguished professor of medicine Georg Bertram who once saved her father's life. When they have a mentally handicapped child together his clinical coldness comes to the fore and he wants to commit euthanasia on the child. She stops him and takes the child away to Brittany in the hope that a change of location and nursing will help them to improve. While there she encounters a much more sympathetic doctor.
Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) arrives in a village of the Valli di Comacchio area where he has been employed to restore a fresco depicting what appears to be the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, which has been painted on a rotting wall of the local church by a mysterious, long-dead artist named Legnani. While temporarily taking up residence in the house that had been previously owned by the two sisters of the deceased painter, Stefano begins a romance with a new, beautiful schoolteacher, Francesca (Francesca Marciano), meanwhile learning from various townspeople that the painter had been a madman who had derived his art from real life. Specifically, Stefano learns that the artist — assisted by his two equally-insane sisters — had been a killer who brutally tortured people to death as inspiration for his horrific paintings — a practice that had likely been used for the very painting he is in process of restoring. As Stefano is discouraged for his task throughout the town, some of the villagers are brutally killed — including his employer — and he comes to suspect that their murderer is trying to deter him from discovering the full truth behind the artist and his ominous legacy within the sleepy community.
A wealthy widower locks up his two grown-up children, afraid that they will go mad, as did his wife. He then invites a doctor of dubious reputation to supervise their mental health and cure them of the unnatural attraction they have for each other. Meanwhile, in the vicinity of the mansion, murders are happening in the local village and a travelling priest arrives to help drive out any local demons.
Birthright spans a timeline of nearly 17 millennia, beginning at a very early stage of expansion from Earth and ending with the death of the last humans. In between, it chronicles a slow but (despite some set-backs) steady conquest of the entire galaxy - inhabited by thousands of sentient alien races, which are overpowered and oppressed using whatever tool it takes: economic pressure, diplomatic finesse, or simple military power. Not all chapters deal with humanity's treatment of aliens; some also cover the "internal" politics that result in a development of the growing human empire from a democracy to a monarchy. But the biggest theme is undeniably the search for the elusive quality that allows humanity to overcome all opposition and manage the unique feat of conquering the entire galaxy. It is never clearly defined but manifests perhaps most succinctly when it also results in the failure of an attempt to cross the void between galaxies. Then, after there is no more room for conquest, the only way left is down: internal struggles as well as deep-seated resentment of aliens result in a decline of human power that takes nearly as long as the rise, but is described far less extensively. Somehow, despite whatever enabled humans to achieve total power, they were unable to keep it. Displaying a particular brand of irony, one of the chapters reveals the "literary genre of fiction" as another of humanity's peculiarities, not shared by any alien race.
A Soviet scientific expedition is being prepared as the world's first mission to planet Mars. Their space ship Homeland has been built at a space station, where the expedition awaits the command to start. An American ship Typhoon experiencing mechanical problems arrives at the same space station, secretly having the same plans for the conquest of the Red Planet. Trying to stay ahead of the Soviets, they start without proper preparation, and soon are again in distress. The Homeland changes course to save the crew of Typhoon. They succeed, but find that their fuel reserves are now insufficient to get to Mars. So Homeland makes an emergency landing on the asteroid Icarus passing near Mars, on which they are stranded. After an attempt to send a fuel supply by unmanned rocket fails, another ship Meteor is sent with a cosmonaut on a possibly suicidal mission, to save the stranded cosmonauts.
The protagonist Richard Avery reaches down to touch an object, and is whisked 79 light years away from Earth where he finds himself and three other people in a battle-to-the-death situation against alien humanoids, the "Golden Ones", who have been deposited in the same place, and are equally confused why they are there. When the protagonist finally reaches the "Golden Ones", they are of the opinion that it is merely a game, with the killing of human beings the prime objective. In fact, the combat had been set up by transcendental elder aliens. Their objective was to pick the future rulers of the sector, by means of a small contest, sparing both races an inevitable long and bloody large scale war. Albeit the "Golden" seem stronger and swifter, the humans eventually prevail because they are able to show compassion.
Jane Falbury (Judy Garland) is a farm owner whose actress sister, Abigail (Gloria DeHaven), arrives at the family farm with her theater troupe. They need a place to rehearse, and Jane and her housekeeper, Esme (Marjorie Main), reluctantly agree to let them use their barn. The actors and actresses, including the director, Joe Ross (Gene Kelly), repay her hospitality by doing chores around the farm. Although Joe is engaged to Abigail, he begins to fall in love with Jane after Abigail leaves him in an angry fit. Similarly, although Jane is engaged to Orville (Eddie Bracken), she falls in love with Joe.
Harold Hall, a young man with little or no acting ability, desperately wants to be in the movies. After a mix-up with his application photograph, he gets an offer to have a screen-test, and goes off to Hollywood. At the studio, he does everything wrong and causes all sorts of trouble. But he catches the fancy of a beautiful actress, and eventually the studio owner recognizes him as a comic genius.
May, a single mom, wants to become an actress. Her next-door neighbor August, a bodybuilder, wants to become a worthy successor to his hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. They live in a district of Los Angeles known as Echo Park, not far from Dodger Stadium, and dream of a better life. Jonathan, a pizza delivery boy, arrives at May's door and is immediately smitten with her. As he entertains her young son, Henry, she goes out to pursue an acting opportunity that has come along, only to discover that it involves disrobing in private residences, delivering "strip-o-grams." May gives the strip-o-grams a try and August tries to meet his idol at a reception at the Austrian embassy, while Jonathan worries that the two are more than mere neighbors.
Karl Renn, a Hamburg shipyard worker, is a member of the Communist Party of Germany and is commissioned by the Soviet Union to organize a general strike and exert pressure on employers. When the strike comes, several fights take place with the police. After a month of strike, many workers are already so exhausted that they become strike-breakers. There arises an armed conflict that even Karl's wife goes to; but he stays at home because of his cowardice. Nevertheless, as a delegate of the party, he is sent together with four comrades to a meeting in the Soviet Union. He stays there, works in a blast furnace and is enthusiastic about the communist system. After a few weeks the news reaches him that his Party Chief in Hamburg had been slain. He then travels back to Germany to continue the struggle of the workers.
A long economic slump causes a major war that leaves Europe devastated and threatened by the plague. In decades of chaos with much of the world reverting to medieval conditions, pilots and technicians formerly serving in various nation's air forces maintain a network of functioning air fields. Around this nucleus, technological civilization is rebuilt, with the pilots and other skilled technicians eventually seizing worldwide power and sweeping away the remnants of the old nation states. A benevolent dictatorship is set up, paving the way for world peace by abolishing national divisions, enforcing the English language, promoting scientific learning and outlawing religion. The enlightened world-citizens are able to depose the dictators peacefully, and go on to breed a new race of super-talents, able to maintain a permanent utopia.
It is a novel expanded from four short stories: The story focuses on Lewis Orne, an agent for a government agency which develops 'lost planets.' After correctly identifying a warlike civilization on the planet Hamal, he is drafted into Investigative Adjustment (I-A), which manages dangerous planets. Under the auspices of I-A, he travels to various planets in order to maintain peace throughout the galaxy. At the same time, the priests of the planet Amel, who practice 'religious engineering', set about creating a god, something they have done numerous times before: "'We do not know from what creature or thing the god will be born', the Abbod said. 'It could be one of you.'" After resolving a number of dangerous situations, Lewis is injured and has a near-death experience. Following this, his psychic powers develop, and after passing a series of tests he becomes a god.
Synopsis from Doomed Marathon: "A group of tourists travel to an island to see its exotic botanicals. There they meet Baron von Weser (played by Cameron Mitchell), a reclusive scientist studying esoteric horticulture and experimenting with crossbreeding dangerous varieties of plants. One of the Baron’s creations is draining the blood of human beings (through a small hole in their cheek) and the tourists are dying one by one."
The embattled mixed martial arts expert, Eddie Castillo, is released from jail after swearing to never enter the pit fighting ring again. However, after his brother is killed in the ring by a vicious new fighter, Eddie goes on a quest for revenge. His journey takes him through the depths of the underground pit fighting circuit, where he finds people like Lucky, who help him; while others, such as the nefarious Argento will stop at nothing to see Eddie fail.
The film takes place in an unidentified city (presumably New York City) in the modern day, and follows the characters of Rufus King (Thomas Downey) and Jacob Van Helsing (Rhett Giles), both of whom have been observing recent attacks made upon young teenagers in the city at night. Van Helsing correctly identifies that the attacks are being made by a group of vampires residing in the city. The vampires are led by a foreign seductress named Countess Bathory (Christina Rosenberg), who hopes to use the humans to feed her growing vampire clan and to eventually seize control of the city, while at the same time using her growing power to gain the powers of "the Master". Discovering Bathory's plan, Van Helsing and King begin to hunt down and destroy the vampires one by one, until they finally face the Countess herself and try to kill her once and for all, before her evil consumes the city and allows Dracula's curse to consume the human race.
1940 The Great Depression is over and World War II had just begun. King of the con men Fargo Gondorff is released from prison and reassembles his cronies for another con, out to avenge the murder of his lifelong pal and fellow con artist Kid Colors who was kidnapped, beaten, and then shot. Gondorff's young protege Jake Hooker attempts to pull a scam on wealthy "Countess Veronique," who instead pulls one on him and turns out to be a grifter herself named Veronica. Coming up with a boxing con, Gondorff's goal is to sting both Lonnegan, the notorious banker and gangster who wants revenge from a previous con, and Gus Macalinski, a wealthy local racketeer. One or both of them is behind Kid Colors' death. Hooker pretends to be a boxer who is about to throw a big fight. Macalinski is not only hoodwinked into losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, but he is also talked into changing his original wager by Lonnegan. While one gangster takes care of the other, Gondorff and Hooker head for the train station with a bag full of money, tickets out of town and a final twist from Veronica.
As the film opens Ahmad (Babak Ahmadpour), a grade schooler, watches as his teacher (Khodabakhsh Defai) berates a fellow student, Mohammad Reza, for repeatedly failing to use his notebook for his homework, threatening expulsion on the next offense. When Ahmad returns home, he realizes he's accidentally taken Mohammad Reza's notebook. Against his mother's orders, he sets out in search for Mohammad Reza's house, encountering false leads, dead ends, and distractions as he attempts to enlist adults in his search, most of whom ignore him or cannot answer his questions. When night falls and he has been unable to find his friend's house, Ahmad goes home and does the homework for his friend. The next day the homework is deemed excellent by the teacher.
Dave Anderson (Bill Cosby) and Manny Durrell (Sidney Poitier) are two high-class sneak thieves who have never been caught. Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones) is a retired detective who has enough evidence on the both of them to put them behind bars. Instead, he offers to maintain his silence if the crooks will go straight and do work at a youth center for delinquents. At first, the crooks are reluctant and unwilling (and so are the kids). As time goes by they gain the trust and admiration of the kids and they start to enjoy the job. All goes well until a past heist comes back to haunt them and they have to make up for it or else.
The anarchist group "Nada" decides to kidnap the United States Ambassador to France and demand a ransom for his release. Although some group members are reluctant to the plan, teacher Treuffais alone refuses to participate in the venture. During the operation, carried out in a brothel which the Ambassador regularly visits, a police officer and an undercover agent are killed. The Minister of the Interior orders Commissioner Goémond to find the hideout of the group, implying that the death of the hostage could be useful to the state as it would turn the public's opinion against the Left. During the attack on the group's refuge, all members except Diaz are killed, who executes his hostage before he flees. Goémond, who had arrested and violently interrogated Treuffais, waits for Diaz in Treuffais' apartment, convinced that Diaz will show up sooner or later. During the final shootout, both Goémond and Diaz are killed. Treuffais rings up a newspaper, offering to tell the full story of the Nada group.
Marie (Gina Manès) was an orphan adopted by a bar-owner and his wife in the port of Marseille, and now she is harshly exploited by them as a servant in the bar. She is desired by Petit Paul (Edmond van Daële), a thuggish layabout, but is secretly in love with Jean (Léon Mathot), a dockworker. Marie is forced to leave with Petit Paul, but Jean follows them to a fairground where the two men fight. In the brawl a policeman is stabbed and, while Petit Paul escapes, Jean is arrested and gaoled. A year later, Jean rediscovers Marie, now with a sick baby and living with Petit Paul, who spends all their money on drink. Jean tries to support Marie, aided by a crippled woman (Marie Epstein, credited as "Mlle Marice"), who lives next door; but Petit Paul, warned by gossiping neighbours that Jean is seeing Marie, returns for a violent confrontation, this time armed with a gun. In the ensuing struggle, the crippled woman obtains the gun and kills Petit Paul. In an epilogue, we see Jean and Marie finally free to love each other, though their faces suggest that experience has taken its toll on their lives.
Antonio, a brazen, individualistic ETA terrorist, travels with two fellow cell members, Carlos and Lourdes to Madrid, where they intend to carry out a terrorist attack on a police station. Just like Lourdes, with whom he shares a complex romantic liaison, Antonio is caught in a downward spiral of disenchantment and despondency with respect to the organization and the life he has led so far. He moves into the area under the guise of an unassuming photographer for the press, and finds himself falling for his neighbor, Charo, a naive prostitute with an impending drug problem who is unaware of Antonio's activities. She reciprocates, and Antonio uses her whimsical desire to have their first tryst in Granada as an excuse to flee Madrid right after he shoots a police officer. Meanwhile, matters become complicated when Antonio's identity as a terrorist is made public and Charo's sleazy, drug-addicted acquaintance Lisardo, incidentally an informant, gives Antonio's identity away to corrupt police officer Rafa. The film ends on a tragical note as the car bomb (containing 100 kg worth of explosives) and the police car carrying Charo haplessly converge in front of the police station. Fuelled by his love, a self-destructive streak, or both, Antonio follows the car to the station gate right as Carlos presses the detonator.
During a long stay in Paris, the young Callimaco learns from his friend Cammillo Calfucci of the beauty of Lucrezia, who has been married for four years with the rich and silly notary Nicia Calfucci, from whom she cannot have children. Returning to Florence, he sees for the first time and falls in love with the woman, who tries to meet and seduce but without success. To help him in the enterprise, in addition to his servant Siro, is Ligurio, who has a great influence on Nicia; Ligurio advises Callimaco to pretend to be a doctor and to convince the notary to let his wife drink an infusion of mandragola, capable of curing her presumed sterility (in fact it is Nicia who is sterile: according to a belief then widespread, a man who was not impotent must necessarily have been able to procreate). However, this magical cure has a contraindication: whoever has the first sexual relationship with the woman will be infected with the poison of the mandragola and will die within eight days. To remedy the problem and at the same time protect Nicia's honor, all you have to do is meet her secretly with the first street "boy" who will absorb all the deadly poison. Persuaded Nicia, all that remains is to convince Lucrezia, who will never consent given her pious and devoted character. This time also the mother Sostrata and the friar Timothy will intervene, who playing on her Christian devotion - dramaturgically important the biblical quotation of Lot and the daughters - will convince her to "cure". That night Callimaco will disguise himself as a beggar and will be carried by the husband himself into the arms of his wife, who will not be satisfied with this fleeting encounter but will want to reiterate it in the time to come.
Three sisters living in Switzerland hear their father is going to marry a younger woman in New York. They travel there to stop it. Their plan involves getting a man to seduce her father's fiancée. They accidentally hire a genuinely rich man who falls for one of the sisters.
The original Italian La viaccia is the name of the family farm which motivates the plot. The death of a wealthy patriarch in 1885 sets off an interfamily power struggle. Son Ferdinando buys out his other relatives in order to gain full control over the dead man's property. But Ferdinando's country-bumpkin nephew Amerigo holds out. Amerigo's stance is weakened when he heads for the city and meets prostitute Bianca. To support her in the manner in which she is accustomed, Amerigo steals from his uncle. Disgraced in the eyes of his family, Amerigo decides to stay near his beloved Bianca by becoming a bouncer in her brothel.
Conman Raymond Fernandez (Jared Leto) defrauds rich women through personal ads, and meets Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) who joins Raymond in his schemes, posing as his sister. They begin traveling the country, murdering over a dozen women who respond to their ads. Homicide detectives Robinson (John Travolta) and Hildebrandt (James Gandolfini) track them down and bring them to justice.
Hans is a Canadian sailor docked in Marseilles who is having an affair with cabaret owner Dolores. When he is robbed and left for dead, he awakens to discover that Dolores has disappeared. He takes on a job as a nightclub bouncer and has a fling with gypsy girl Tania.
The story centers on Diana "Sugar" Hill (Bey), a photographer in Houston whose boyfriend, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson), has been killed by mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry) and his men when he refused to sell the club to Morgan. Sugar seeks the help of a former voodoo queen named Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to take revenge on Morgan and his thugs. Mama summons the voodoo lord of the dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who enlists his army of zombies to destroy the men who killed Langston and now want the club. Investigating the killings is Sugar's former boyfriend, police Lt. Valentine (Richard Lawson).
The story revolves around Sonny Wexler, an aging and washed-up veteran film producer, who is burdened with a wife struggling with pill addiction. While Sonny had once produced an Oscar-nominated film during his prime, he now grapples with being a "has-been" in a Hollywood industry dominated by a younger generation, exemplified by the studio executive Damon Black and foreign investors. Aware that his time in the limelight is dwindling and fearing he will be forgotten, Sonny decides to make one last bid for relevance by creating a memorable movie. His opportunity emerges when he comes across a remarkable screenplay from a promising young writer. However, Black interferes with the deal and edges Sonny out, leaving Sonny with just seventy-two hours to secure enough funds to acquire the script himself. Facing desperation, Sonny resorts to seeking assistance from the mafia to borrow the necessary $50,000 he needs to make his dream a reality.
Betty, a young alcoholic woman, is caught cold while cheating on her bourgeois husband. Wasting no time, he and his family arrange a quick divorce settlement, ousting her from home and keeping her away from the two children the couple have. One night she ends up in a restaurant called Le Trou (The Hole), where she meets Laure, an older woman, an alcoholic herself. Laure decides to take care of Betty after hearing the heart-breaking stories of her being a victim of her husband's rich and ruthless high society family. Betty receives care and friendship from Laure, who's in a relationship with Mario, the restaurant's owner. Betty's envy toward Laure, especially regarding her relationship with Mario, grows each day and eventually drives Betty to contrive the means to conquer her new friend's lover. Laure realizes she has made a mistake by trusting Betty, and things soon begin to fall apart between them. Betty's true colors are now visible and she sees her life at a point of no return, as she has selfishly stomped on the last chance she had of being a better person.
Ellie Parker is the story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still go to auditions back and forth across Los Angeles, changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise". She lives with her vacuous musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity". Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he is a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance playing Ellie's agent.
Napoleon is imprisoned on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Here he, ostensibly, dreams of how to escape from his captivity in his last "battle". In essence, the story is as convoluted as any of the escape myths that have surfaced at various times. There is plenty of intrigue around the former Emperor, with the poisoning of a trusted aide, the possible double-cross of a trusted officer, the frivolous relationship with a gold-digger lady of the entourage and the uncomfortable role of the British military authorities and especially, the new governor of the island prison. All this is witnessed and narrated through a British officer tasked with shadowing Napoleon until the final twist of the plot is revealed.
Manfred Link is the president of the United States. He and the usually tipsy First Lady have a 28-year-old, sex-starved daughter named Gloria. The president is surrounded by a number of eccentric staffers and allies, including Vice President Shockley, Ambassador Spender, Press Secretary Bunthorne and a presidential aide named Feebleman. He also is advised by General Dumpston, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The administration needs the support of the (fictional) African nation of Upper Gorm for an upcoming vote and must deal with Longo, that country's United Nations ambassador. Unfortunately, it can find only one American who knows how to speak the Upper Gormese language, a man named Alexander Grade. As best they can understand it, the ruler of Upper Gorm wants, in exchange, a number of Americans sent to his land so that his country, like the United States, can know what it's like to have an oppressed minority. Gloria is kidnapped and Americans are transported to Africa like slaves.
A former Texas lawman. Shadrach Jones (William Elliott) sets out to discover who killed his brother and stole their combined savings. While at the saloon run by the beautiful Adelaide (Marie Windsor), Jones becomes convinced that the thieving murderer is one of a group of cowboys on a cattle drive led by Captain MacKellar (Walter Brennan). Determined to find justice, Jones joins the cattle drive and slowly gets closer to uncovering the identity of the killer.
The Blue brothers (Kane, Johnny and Frank) try to lead a free and independent life by robbing banks. They are pursued by a local sheriff Hillmann, who tries in vain to capture them. When the brothers finally get enough money, their life turns up into bright and rather dangerous adventure.
John Fairbanks' water company refuses to allow free water for the farmers and ranchers. When Roy Rogers and his men overpower the dam's guards and release the valve on the water, a sympathetic judge fines Roy one dollar and convinces him to follow in his father's footsteps and run for the United States House of Representatives. Roy wins the election and fights his best to have the Federal Government step in to solve the dire situation. Roy is encouraged and secretly helped by John Fairbanks feisty daughter, Eleanor.
Paramutual Pictures decide that they need a spy to find out the inner workings of their studio. Morty S. Tashman, (the 'S' stands for 'scared'), is a paperhanger who happens to be working right outside their window. They decide that he is the man for the job and hire him on the spot. He bumbles his way through a series of misadventures, reporting everything back to the corporate executives. The Paramutual Studio President eventually has to fire Morty for incompetency. But secret film taken of his bumbling becomes public and everybody wants to know who the terrific new comedy star is. Paramutual is forced to beg Morty to come back and rescue the studio from bankruptcy; which he does.
Ivan Warding is a thief who specializes in stealing art from the elite of Los Angeles. He is obliged to a crime boss and wants to get out of the art heist business. Elyse Tibaldi is an in-debt aspiring actress who is also a con-woman. Together they plot one last heist and con that will set both free from their obligations.
The film starts with James Bond being shot and killed in a parody of the James Bond gun barrel sequence. Queen Elizabeth II (Huguette Funfrock) is then kidnapped by a wealthy American megalomaniac (Mickey Rooney). Since their best agent is dead, the British secret services ask for help from their French counterparts, the SDECE. The Les Charlots group are tasked with hiding the queen's disappearance while the investigation continues to Spain, then to Hong Kong. In the meantime, a parisian concierge, who is a dead ringer for Elizabeth II, impersonates the Queen in public.
A Chinese immigrant skilled in martial arts arrives in America and travels to Texas looking for honest work. Wherever he goes he encounters racism. He soon impinges on the interests of a slave trader called Spencer, which results in a price being put on his head. "Shanghai Joe" uses his martial arts expertise to free the Mexican slaves from their cruel master. Spencer and his friends then hire the four most terrifying bounty hunters of the West, among them a cannibal, a scalp hunter, a killer who skins his victims, and another martial arts champion, his old friend Mikuja.
When Jane, a beautiful but troubled American backpacking her way through Hong Kong, successfully fends off three thugs trying to rob her, it draws the attention of Shu, a female fighting champion. Shu recruits and trains Jane to fight in the vicious, all-female underground martial arts tournament known as The Kumite. After months of rigorous training, Jane is ready to face off against her killer rivals, including the apprentice of Shu’s nemesis, a Shaolin master. As other nefarious forces emerge from the shadows, Jane’s journey through The Kumite turns deadly as she risks everything to become the best female fighter in the world.
Marc St. Clair wins a medal at a kendo tournament in Tokyo, which he gives to his American friend Clyde for good luck. As an airplane pilot, Clyde accompanies a C.I.A. agent, Finn, on a secret mission to fly over China to investigate a supersonic bomber. In Clyde's absence, Marc begins an affair with Jennifer, his girlfriend, before learning of the plane's disappearance. Remorseful, Marc leaves for Hong Kong to find Clyde where he confronts the powerful Black Dragons.
Andrei Dubrovsky is an old poor nobleman whose land is confiscated by a greedy, rich and powerful aristocrat, Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov. His young son Vladimir, determined to venge his father and to get justice one way or another, gathers a band of serfs and goes on the rampage, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Vladimir Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov's daughter, and lets his guard down, with tragic results.
A wealthy heiress falls in love with a middle-class worker of romantically quaint disposition. In part one, the woman's father hires a hypnotist to program his daughter to instead choose a more appropriate suitor selected by him. When that plot is unraveled, the couple secretly marry and flee into the abandoned countryside and attempt to live off the land. After being driven back into the city, the couple live a modest middle-class lifestyle until their money runs out. At that point, they move to the "underneath" area of London to toil in physical labour as lower-class workers. Finally, their issues are resolved through the machinations of her spurned would-be suitor, and they resume a middle-class lifestyle.
Anna, a young, innocent country girl (a Sudeten German), whose mother drowned in the swamp, dreams of visiting the golden city of Prague. After she falls in love with a surveyor, she runs away from the countryside near České Budějovice to Prague to find him. She is instead seduced and later abandoned by her cousin (a Czech). She attempts to return home, but her father rejects her, so she drowns herself in the same swamp where her mother died.
The film tells the story of two Shinsengumi samurai. Saitō Hajime (played by Kōichi Satō) is a heartless killer. Yoshimura Kanichiro (played by Kiichi Nakai) appears to be a money-grabbing and emotional swordsman from the northern area known as Nambu Morioka. The main storyline is set during the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, but it is told in a series of flashbacks as Saitō and another man reminisce. The themes include conflicting loyalty to the clan, lord, and family. More than just swordplay, it is the story of a man willing to do anything for the good of his family, even if it means never being able to see them.
Vishal (Pankaj Dheer) is a respectable and honest officer. One day Vishal is abducted and killed in the presence of his younger brother, Jugnu (Salman Khan), who is missing and considered to be dead. In reality, he is taken in by a jungle tribe, where the chief (Puneet Issar) trains him. Honest and diligent Gandhian Raghunath gets very angry by seeing this situation, and demands from the Chief Minister, Omiji, to step into the picture. When Omiji attempts to inquire into this, his son is incriminated for selling tainted glucose in hospitals, which caused several deaths. Powerless to act, Omiji hesitates, and as a result, Raghunath is killed. Thereafter, Jugnu returns, now a one-man army, willing to avenge his brother's death.
The story of the forty-seven rōnin has been depicted in many ways, with each version focusing the emphasis on different parts of the story—the rivalry of Lords Asano and Kira, Asano's assault on Kira, Asano's sentence of seppuku immediately afterward, and the revenge attack 21 months later against Kira by the forty-seven loyal retainers. Oishi Kuranosuke, Asano's chamberlain and the head of the 47 samurai, is often the primary character, and his actions are often held up as the epitome of bushido, the honor code of the samurai. In this telling, the emphasis is on the preparation for and the attack on Kira's castle. The immediate reactions to Lord Asano's assault on Lord Kira are shown in flashback, and Lord Asano and the actual assault are barely shown at all. Unlike other versions of the story, Oishi Kuranosuke does not pretend to descend into a life of debauchery, and Kira is shown as expecting the attack.
Nick Naylor receives an order to take a picture of the camera-shy millionaire A.K. Wellington. As the millionaire is traveling with his daughter, Nick follows them to Lake Placid, Palm Beach and even Havana. In Havana, he is then able to shoot the photos of the millionaire. There, they are both kidnapped.
Frank Warren is a treasury agent assigned to put an end to the activities of a powerful mob crime boss. The agent struggles to put together a case but is frustrated when all he finds are terrified witnesses and corrupt police officers. Although most informants end up dead, Agent Warren gets critical information about the mob from an unlikely source.
One of six travellers who catch the bus from Casablanca airport to Marrakesh is carrying $2 million to pay a powerful local man (Herbert Lom) to fix United Nations votes on behalf of an unnamed nation. But not even the powerful man knows which of them it is - and his background checks reveal that at least three of them aren't who they claim to be. As agents from other nations may be among them, he and his henchmen have to be very careful until the courier chooses to reveal himself - or herself...
Poor soldier, Ludvig Kahlen, arrives in 1755 on the barren Jutland heath with a single goal: to follow the king's call to cultivate the land and thereby achieve wealth and honor himself. But Kahlen quickly makes an enemy. The merciless landowner, Frederik De Schinkel, who is sole ruler of the area, believes that the heath belongs to him and not the king. When De Schinkel's serf runs away with his wife Ann Barbara and seeks refuge with Kahlen, the landowner does everything to drive Kahlen away and at the same time exact a cruel revenge. Kahlen does not bow, but stubbornly takes up the unequal battle and now risks both his life, but also the bond with the small, troubled family that has arisen around him on the heath.
Albert Loriflan, a waiter in a Paris cafe, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money from a wealthy relative. His unscrupulous boss, Philibert, refuses to release him from his long-term contract in the hope that Albert will buy him off with a large payment. But Albert refuses, and continues to work at the cafe even though he is now very rich. Before long he falls in love with Philibert's daughter Yvonne.
Prussia, 1750. After the end of the Silesian Wars, Frederick II returns to Sanssouci exhausted from the events of the war. But the mill of the miller Casper, once the noblest and most expensive construction in the world rattles so loudly, that his majesty feels very disturbed during the time of rest. He issues an edict which should silence the miller and his mill from functioning during the time of peace, but Casper is beyond stubborn. He confronts the king's decree, insisting that all people are equal before the law in Prussia. Soon the dispute escalates, and Casper decides to even obtain a court ruling in this matter (of which Frederick knows that he can only lose before Justice in view of the equality requirement he had established). Eventually, the two parties decide to seek an out-of-court solution that enables reconciliation. Under various pretenses, His Majesty can promote the marriage of two couples, including two of his soldiers (Lieutenant von Bärenfels and Corporal Jobst) by following in the footsteps of French writer Voltaire, and eventually move things forward in his own amorous affair – his relationship with the dancer Barberina.
After sustaining a head wound in combat, decorated World War II veteran Eddie Rice (John Payne) is treated at a San Francisco military hospital for a permanent form of amnesia. This leaves him with no knowledge of his life, family and friends prior to his enlistment, a void that the army intelligence unit is unable to fill as they cannot find any information about him, other than the fact he enlisted in Los Angeles. Doctors tell him that no medical cure exists for his case, but that if he returns to Los Angeles he might run into people who know him and could help him fill in the blanks. Rice follows this advice and he promptly runs into people who recognize him. However, he is recognized not as Eddie Rice, but as Eddie Riccardi, a dangerous gangster gone missing, whose past behavior generates mistrust among the police and all those who knew him in the past. Furthermore, ruthless crime boss Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts), who was betrayed by Eddie before he left the town, is now out for revenge.
The novel revolves around a woman named Susan Thorton, who wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of her past or how she got there. Her physician, Dr. McGee, helps Susan recover some of her memory, including that of an anti-Semitic hate crime she witnessed years earlier that led to the death of her fiance, but she can't seem to recall anything related to the company where she works or her recent past. Phone calls from her colleagues do nothing to jog Susan's memory. In the meantime, Susan begins having dreams and vivid hallucinations connected to her fiance's murder. The men responsible for the crime show up at the hospital, although they claim not to recognize her and none of them appear to have aged at all, despite the fact that over a decade has passed. The men begin tormenting Susan, who must decide whether or not she can trust Dr. McGee as she tries to discover if the men are ghosts, doppelgangers, or if these horrific experiences only exist in her mind.
A young woman, Joana Prats, suffers from agnosia, a strange, primary visual disease that is one of the neuropsychological disorders of perception. Although her eyes and ears are in perfect condition, her brain is not able to correctly interpret the stimuli it receives. Joana is the only person to know an industrial secret left behind by her late father and becomes the victim of a sinister plan to extract this information. Her captors plan to use her sensory condition to help extract the information that they so desperately want.
During the closing stage of the Second World War Willi Kluge and Maria got married, but only got to spend a few hours together before they were separated by wartime events. Maria finally returns home having spent eight years in Soviet captivity. She also brings a small child she had conceived during the difficult time of her imprisonment. Her husband is devastated by this betrayal and files for divorce. Ultimately he is able to overcome this reaction, and the couple reconcile.
For six years Jean has been having an affair with Catherine. At the beginning she hoped he would divorce his wife and marry her. But disillusion with the lack of progress in his life and in their relationship, together with growing despair at the waste of her life, has set in. She meets a divorced man with a good job who likes foreign travel, and agrees to marry him. Her family, who supported her through her deepening unhappiness, are delighted. Her rival gone, Jean's wife hints at reconciliation.
Vicky Lowndes (Jean Arthur) loses her first husband, Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray), when he is lost at sea, presumed drowned, and declared legally dead. The lonely widow is comforted by Bill's best friend and publishing business partner, Henry Lowndes (Melvyn Douglas). Six months later, she marries him. Six months after that, Bill shows up, after having been stranded on a uninhabited island and then rescued. Vicky has a tough choice to make.
Michele, a shepherd of Orgosolo unfairly charged with rustling and murder, is forced to take to the hills. In his flight into the inaccessible areas of Barbagia, where there is neither water nor pastures, he loses every sheep in his flock. One night, desperate because he is full of debts, and with impending trials up ahead, he goes into the sheepfold of another shepherd and, at gunpoint, steals every sheep. Michele has become a bandit.
The quiet town of Sammaeri near Mount Jiri has been crime-free for a decade until now. Bodies of villagers begin turning up, making the village leaders nervous just ahead of an organic food fair expected to be a financial windfall. Chun Il-man (Jang Hang-sun), whose granddaughter was one of the victims, is sure that a man-killing boar is behind the crimes. He joins forces with detective Shin (Park Hyuk-kwon) and Kim Kang-soo (Uhm Tae-woong), a reassigned cop from Seoul whose mother has gone missing in the woods. With Byun Soo-ryun (Jung Yu-mi), a biologist studying wild animals, and glory-seeking hunter Baek Man-bae (Yoon Je-moon) on the team to fight the giant killer beast, the five start up the mountain to face their enemy.
A boy named Jacob who suffers from zoanthropy, believing he is a wolf, is committed to a mental asylum following an attack on his brother. There he meets and befriends the other patients, who also believe themselves to be animals, including Rufus, who believes he is a German Shepherd. He forms a close bond with Cecile, an enigmatic patient nicknamed "Wildcat", and together they roam the hallways at night. After witnessing the brutal methods of treatment performed by the head of the asylum, Dr. Mann, the Zookeeper, Jacob becomes frustrated and attacks an orderly, resulting in him being caged and gagged. Cecile sneaks into the room where he is caged one night and makes love to him, but they are caught by Dr Angeli and Jacob is punished with a cattle prod, causing the other patients to lash out at the Zookeeper. Disgusted by Zookeeper and Angeli, Cecile frees Jacob from his cage, allowing him to escape into the forest where he can live in freedom as a wolf.
Encolpius and Ascyltus are two corrupt boys roaming the mean streets of Rome at the time of the empire of Nero. Both boys constantly engage in conflict with each other for the love of the young Gitone, who often prefers Ascyltus, infuriating lover Encolpius. Due to a misunderstanding, the three end up in the house of a rich freedman: the crude Trimalchio, who in his rich dinner amazes guests with exuberant courses. Escaping from the house of the crude man, Ascyltus and Encolpius continue to fight for Gitone until Encolpius makes friends with the poet Eumolpus, while Ascyltus dies of diseases. Gitone is now only in the company of Encolpius, who cannot satisfy Gitone's amorous pleasures because of a curse hurled at him by the god Priapus, the protector of the cocks. After inheriting a rich mansion by chance by a senator named Pomponius, Encolpius, Eumolpus and Gitone go in a city where their troubles do not end because of the magic spells of a witch, soothsayer of the god Priapus.
In pre-revolutionary France, the canine Marquis de Sade sits in jail working on his writing and having conversations with his penis which has a face and is named Colin. When Colin is not whining about his need for stimulation and espousing his impulsive philosophies, he is "telling stories" that make up the Marquis' work (some of which is illustrated via clay animation). The Marquis was imprisoned for allegedly defecating on a cross, however he is also accused of raping and impregnating the bovine Justine. The latter is a plot by the camel-headed priest Don Pompero and the cocky Gaetan De Preaubois try to keep secret the fact that Justine's rapist was actually the King of France. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries prepare to stage a coup and depose the king, under the lead of Juliette de Titane, an equine noble. Several of the inmates are also political prisoners leading to several failed escape attempts which land the inmates in the Bastille dungeon. They are eventually freed, however, by the revolutionaries. Colin eventually falls in love with Juliette and runs away with her to continue the revolution, leaving the Marquis to continue his writing and to muse about his life in peace.
Prof. Walter Forrester (Ángel Menéndez) is a British scientist working in the Akasava jungle in South America. His assistant finds a mysterious stone but it is stolen and Forrester vanishes, leaving him as the sole suspect. However, after a Scotland Yard detective is murdered while entering Forrester's office in London, the Scotland Yard chief Sir Philipp (Siegfried Schürenberg) hands the case to Jane Morgan (Soledad Miranda), an attractive agent, while given its international priority, Secret Intelligence Service will be on the case. Now, on a secret mission and with double identity as the young stripper wife of the British consul Irving Lambert (Alberto Dalbés), Morgan arrives in South America. Meanwhile, she meets Rex Forrester (Fred Williams), professor's nephew who is also concerned of his fate and arrives in the country for further investigation.
Prior to his discovery and death, an American intelligence officer working undercover at a Soviet Naval base sends proof of the Russians filming American submarines off a joint US-Spanish naval base in San Juan, on the coast of Spain. American intelligence "Super Agent" Jeff Larson (Ray Danton) is sent to San Juan to investigate where he meets up with his former colleague Bob Stuart (Roger Hanin), and his Spanish contact, Pilar Perez (Pascale Petit). Larson (code name "Jaguar"), helps the American military discover remote controlled video cameras being used by the Soviets. These cameras are boobytrapped using sophisticated landmines, killing two Spanish sailors who tried to disarm one. Larson skin dives to clandestinely board a Soviet spy ship to discover that not only are they monitoring American submarines, but they are intercepting radio transmissions from the US-Spanish naval base as well as having a mole on the base. Larson successfully disarms a landmine protecting another video camera, saves the camera for analysis and hatches a plan to convert the landmine into a limpet mine and "return [it] to sender." Throughout the escapade Larson survives several assassination attempts.
Steve Daggett (Cameron Mitchell) fights to protect Fidel Castro from dangerous pro-Batista counterrevolutionaries. Steve comes to Cuba to find his friend Hank Miller (Logan Field) who has been missing for a while. It turns out that he has been captured by Fernando (Eduardo Noriega), the leader of the pro-Batista forces, who needs Hank to convert their airplanes into bombers. Steve's former girlfriend Monica (Allison Hayes) is now Mrs. Hank Miller. 'Pier 5, Havana' was filmed in the Los Angeles area just after the Cuban Revolution. The Errol Flynn semi-documentary Cuban Rebel Girls and the black comedy Our Man in Havana were shot on location on the island in the same post-revolution period.
Roland, the narrator, begins the story after he becomes an English professor years after the central action takes place. Roland explains that he was a poor student and how he would end up intoxicated on the streets of Berlin. His father then sends him off to university in the country. Confusion is the account of [...] Roland, who has become enamored of the intellectual, bewildering, and isolated world of his greatest idol — his college professor. Roland gravitates toward the secluded home of his professor, the seclusion prompted by the fear of having his secret revealed. The novella, referencing the Greats (writers and philosophers alike) blurs all three of the greatest distinctions of love of the Ancient Greeks: Philia, Èros, and Agápe, although the novella does not address them explicitly.”
Reisiger travels over the world, in search of news stories. He meets and marries Franziska, after her pregnancy, but continues to leave her. One colleague, dying, tells him to go home, and he returns. When World War II breaks out, he must leave again for war, and Franziska waits for him.
In his work, Heinrich Heine describes his journey as a student from Göttingen, where he had attended the Georgia Augusta University in 1820/21, through the Harz range and over its highest mountain, the Brocken summit, to the small town of Ilsenburg. During the trip he meets well known and unknown contemporaries, who he sometimes describes in detail and compares with other people, sometimes historical protagonists. For example, he meets in Göttingen the physician and (like Heine) Jewish Burschenschaft member, Karl Friedrich Heinrich Marx and recounts their exchange about medicine as well as Marx' treatise, Goettingen in medicinischer, physischer und historischer Hinsicht ("Göttingen From a Medical, Physical and Historic Perspective"). Nature is also a subject of this travel account: In the work, he mentions all the rest points and overnight stops made by this group of travelling poets: The route, which took Heinrich Heine about four weeks, has become a trail that tourists can follow in and which, as the Heinrich Heine Way (Heinrich-Heine-Weg) is described in several travel guides. A duel, which was illegal at the time, between students is also a subject of his writings. Heine himself had to leave Göttingen University due to a duel affair after antisemitic hostilities; the Göttingen chapter reflects his bad experiences.
A heavy metal music band must do a performance to impress a record company scout. They do a concert in a town that outlaws rock and roll music. The town counsel is influenced by a murderous Nazi cult. The band is slain by the cult, but later returns to life as zombies by a song recording that the bass player wrote using lyrics from a medieval spellbook. Fresh out of the grave, the band thirsts to take their revenge and give a new music performance. The mysterious song causes an outbreak of zombie ghouls.
A young woman from the country comes to work as a maid in a wealthy household. She develops a relationship with the unreliable son of the family who gets her pregnant. He reforms and they marry.
Music by Prudence tells a self-empowering story of one young woman's struggle who, together with her band, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds and, in her own voice, conveys to the world that "disability does not mean inability." Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhena was born severely disabled. The society she was born into considers disabilities to carry the taint of witchcraft. Because of this, many disabled children are abandoned. But Prudence and the seven young members of the band she has formed called Liyana, all disabled, have managed to overcome stereotypes and inspire the same people that once saw them as a curse. The main subjects of Music by Prudence, and members of the band "Liyana", are:
In 1857, after their attempts to smuggle contraband goods land them with a heavy fine from the British Customs, Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his crew of Manx sailors from Peel are forced to offer their ship for charter. The vessel is quickly hired by a party of Englishmen headed by an eccentric Vicar, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden is located in Tasmania and wants to mount an expedition there to find it. However, unbeknownst to the clergyman, one of his fellow travellers has an entirely different reason for journeying to the island. Dr Thomas Potter is a renowned surgeon who is developing a thesis on the races of man and hopes to find some interesting specimens there. Running parallel with this story, but starting some 30 or so years earlier, are the recollections of Peevay, one of Tasmania's natives, who describes the devastating impact the white settlers had on his people, and the Aboriginal people's struggle to adapt to the cultural changes which were forced on them. Many of the chapters alternate between the two different time periods, but when the Manx ship eventually docks in Tasmania, both strands of the story are brought together for the book's conclusion.
A British policeman travels to France in 1938, to investigate the death of one of his colleagues. He becomes interested by a family of wealthy Britons who live in luxury in a French coastal resort, and who were heavily involved with the dead man. He soon uncovers a number of dark secrets which the family has tried to conceal.
The extraordinary novel tells the story of a French silkworm merchant-turned-smuggler named Hervé Joncour in 19th century France who travels to Japan for his town's supply of silkworms after a disease wipes out their African supply. His first trip to Japan takes place in the Bakumatsu period, when Japan was still largely closed to foreigners. During his stay in Japan, he becomes obsessed with the concubine of a local baron. His trade in Japan and his personal relationship with the concubine are both strained by the internal political turmoil and growing anti-Western sentiment in Japan that followed the arrival of Matthew C. Perry in Edo Bay.
In a rural village, the tyrannical Jonas Lauretz intimidates his family, mistress and neighbours. After he disappears one night, it is widely believed that his eldest daughter, Silvelie, has murdered him. A new investigating judge arrives in the village, he falls in love with Silvelie. He becomes torn between his love for her and his duty to investigate the potential crime. Eventually it emerges that it was not Silvelie who murdered Jonas Lauretz but the village innkeeper Bündner. He is forgiven by everyone because they all shared his desire to murder him.
Germain, a middle-aged literature teacher, bonds with his 16-year-old student, Claude Garcia, while tutoring him to improve his writing skills. This leads the precocious and disdainful student to be increasingly transgressive and antisocial, demonstrating a flair for manipulating relationship dynamics and for finding ways to satisfy his needs. The student seduces his friend's mother and the teacher's wife. He inadvertently causes the teacher to be dismissed but they remain in touch due to their mutual passion in finding stories that excite them.
Angela is studying in the school where her father teaches. She is a beautiful girl and despite her boyfriend Tonino's lack of physical charms, she insists to be faithful to him. But when she discovers that she had been repeatedly betrayed, she decides to take revenge allowing herself to Carlo, who has been in love with her for a lifetime.
In 1917 Mexico, the new government has commenced a war against the Church. Priests are rounded up and executed, churches burned down and religion outlawed. A carefree happy priest has to go on the run but returns to his nation to perform his priestly duties.
In 1919, after just a few months of communist rule, the Hungarian Republic of Councils was dissolved by a nationalist counter-revolution. Admiral Horthy, leader of the nationalists, assumed power as the Regent of Hungary. Hungarian Red Army soldiers were relentlessly pursued by the secret police and Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie and faced summary execution. One, István Cserzi, has fled to the Great Hungarian Plain and taken refuge on a farm run by two women. Due to their help and that of a childhood friend who is a commandant of the local Gendarmarie, István is relatively safe if he keeps out of sight. However, discovering that the women are slowly poisoning the husband of one of them and his mother, the farm's owners, István must decide whether to denounce them to the authorities at the likely cost of his own life.
The East Is Red depicts the history of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong from its founding in July 1921 to the establishment of "New China" in 1949. Detailed in the musical are several key events in CCP history such as the Northern Expedition (taken up by the Kuomintang (KMT) National Revolutionary Army with Chinese Communist and Soviet support), the KMT-led Shanghai massacre of 1927, the Nanchang Uprising and the formation of the People's Liberation Army, the Long March, guerrilla warfare of the PLA during the Second United Front (during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression), the subsequent overthrow of the National Government of the Republic of China on Mainland China by the PLA in the decisive phase of the Chinese Civil War, and the founding of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949. The East Is Red is divided into the following named stages: The prelude "Sunflowers Face the Sun", followed by "Dawn of the East", "A Spark Ignites a Prairie Fire", "Ten Thousand Crags and Torrents", "Beacon of Anti-Japanese Resistance", "Bury the Chiang Family Dynasty", and "The Chinese People Have Stood Up". Two additional scenes from the end of the play, "The Motherland Moves Forward" and "The World Moves Forward", were omitted from the film adaptation during filming under Mao's suggestion.
Pine Cove suffers a major crisis when the town psychiatrist, Val Riordan — who has been haphazardly issuing prescriptions instead of dealing with the real mental problems of her patients — suffers a sudden bout of guilt and substitutes all of her patients' anti-depressants with placebos. At this same time, by coincidence, human-generated environmental activity stirs a prehistoric sea-beast from its underwater keep to come ashore. In addition to its ability to change form, the beast exudes a pheromone that inspires uncontrollable lust among the residents of Pine Cove and also lures some of them as prey. After mistakenly trying to mate with a fuel truck (causing an explosion), the beast hides in a trailer park, attracting the curiosity of local crazy lady and former B-movie star Molly Michon, who builds a rapport with the injured beast. Meanwhile, Theophilus Crowe, the town constable, investigates a strange suicide, the activities of his corrupt boss, and his adversely affected marijuana habit. When the beast (whom Molly has named "Steve") starts eating residents of Pine Cove and interfering with Theo's boss's methamphetamine business, Molly (who has become romantically involved with the beast) and Theo band together to make possible the beast's safe escape and to take down the boss at the same time.
In the early 1970s, while the majority of Americans were focused on events in Vietnam, the United States Army was secretly developing a way to resurrect and control dead bodies. Their intention was to have the dead fight instead of the living, but the experiments were shut down when the reanimated corpses were unable to control their hunger for human flesh. Thirty years later, the army decides to reopen the project. Grover City, because of its remote location, would be the home of their main testing facilities. Without warning, the Grover City experiments go horribly wrong and the reanimated corpses go on a rampage, eating everyone in sight. With the town overtaken by zombies, a group of High School seniors takes it upon themselves to fight back and find a cure for the disease.
In New York City, a hospital worker is found to have been devouring bodies in the morgue. Morgue assistant and anthropology expert Lori discovers he was from the Asian Molucca islands where she grew up. Dr. Peter Chandler investigates, and he and Lori discover that similar corpse mutilations have occurred in other city hospitals, where immigrants from this region are working. Peter leads an expedition to the islands to investigate, where he liaises with Doctor Obrero. Included are his assistant George, George's eager journalist girlfriend Susan, Lori, local boatsman Molotto assigned by Obrero, and three guides. The crew is hunted by cannibals and zombies, the latter created by the sinister Doctor Obrero, who is experimenting with corpses. Lori is accepted as queen of the cannibals and sends them off against the mad scientist and his zombie army.
Benny Martin leaves his small town of Pantera and joins the Army after getting in trouble with the police. While he is away, his girlfriend (Lolita) is romanced by Joe. Although she has not heard from Benny in months, she refuses Joe’s advances, wanting to stay loyal to Benny. She eventually falls for Joe and agrees to marry him but then finds out that Benny was killed in action and has been awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. Meanwhile, the Pantera mayor plans a rally for the medal presentation to Benny’s father and intends to use a beautiful house for the event so as not to embarrass the town by having the medal presented at the modest Martin residence. However, Benny’s father Charley, refuses to go along with the ruse and instead the medal ceremony takes place at his home. In his speech, Charley says that Benny will live on in his and Lolita's hearts. Lolita then tells Joe that she cannot marry him yet, because it might break Charley's heart.
Joseph Megessey (known to most as Megs) is a Vietnam war veteran suffering post-Vietnam stress syndrome who is having trouble fitting in with society. He takes on the responsibility of drawing Dave, a fellow veteran who has become an alcoholic, out of his shell by coaxing him to enjoy life again, as well as urging him to face up to some of his darker memories. Megs finds himself attracted to Dave's meek sister Martha, who lives with Dave and looks after him. This attraction leads to a love affair, much to Dave's disapproval. Dave eventually vents his anger and frustration at a high school prom where Martha is a chaperone being accompanied by Megs. This leads to Dave finally facing his demons and acknowledging Megs and Martha for being there for him. Afterwards, despite initially ending what was a promising romance, Megs returns to Martha.
Three young men (Jacques, Pierre and Michel) share an apartment in Paris having many girlfriends and parties; during the film, they have signed a contract never to allow a girl to spend more than one night at their place. During one party, a friend of Jacques' tells him he has a compromising package (which turned out to be heroin) to deliver, and asks Jacques if he can leave it discreetly at their place. Jacques agrees and, as he works as a steward, flies away for a one-month trip in Japan telling Pierre and Michel about the package. One of Jacques' former girlfriends drops a baby before their door, making Pierre and Michel believe it is the package they are waiting for. Their lives change completely. The movie follows the bachelors as they deal with angry gangsters, suspicious cops, and the overwhelming responsibility of fatherhood.
Iris and her older sister Rose are left parentless when their mother dies from a brain tumor. Their father lives in Australia, which he left for ten years ago. 24-year-old Rose, who is married and pregnant, manages to cope with the situation, but 19-year-old Iris dumps her boyfriend Gary and spirals out of control, engaging in risky behaviors. Iris quits her job and moves out of the flat she shared with Gary and into a run-down apartment that she decorates with flowers. The tension is compounded by the siblings’ dynamics, as Iris has always thought Rose to be her mother's "favorite." Among Iris’ behaviors are picking up anonymous men for a string of sexual encounters.