Austin Pendleton

Riverside, Illinois couple Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) see their daughter, Blair (Julie Gonzalo) depart for a Peace Corps assignment in Peru on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, and their empty nest syndrome sets in. Blair had left for a year and had promised to come back for Christmas the following year. Nora is distraught that Christmas will not be the same without Blair. It is cold and wet in Riverside, and Nora forces Luther to get chocolate from a shop. While coming out, Luther is drenched and that's when he sees the advertisement for a warm and inviting Caribbean cruise. Luther calculates the couple spent $6,132 during the previous year's holiday season and, not looking forward to celebrating Christmas without their daughter, he suggests they invest the money usually spent on decorations, gifts, and entertainment and treat themselves to a ten-day Caribbean cruise instead. Luther insists that they completely boycott the holidays but Nora initially objects. Nora finally agrees when she realizes that the cruise is only $3000, and they would save money by skipping Christmas. Nora agrees under the condition that they still give a donation to the church and Children's Hospital amounting to $600. Luther tries to refuse but finally agrees and they begin planning the trip. They leave at noon on Christmas Day. The Kranks are amazed to discover they are considered pariahs as a result of their decision. Luther's co-workers think he has become Ebenezer Scrooge when he gives all his employees letters that state about his Christmas boycott (which includes no gifts, no participation in holiday rituals, no attendance at the office party or at the black tie Christmas dinner), local stationer Aubie (Patrick Breen) is distressed to lose the couple's order for their engraved greeting cards and Christmas Eve party invitations, the Boy Scout troop is upset and angered when the Kranks refuse to purchase one of their Christmas trees to help the scouts make enough money for a camp outing, and the police are stunned to discover they won't be buying this year's calendar from them. Nora even cancels her famous Christmas Eve party that her friends and the whole neighborhood looks forward to. Most vocal in their objections are neighbors Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd) and Walt Scheel (M. Emmet Walsh). Vic, who's the self-appointed leader of the street, organizes a campaign to force the Kranks to decorate their home (with Christmas lights, and a Frosty) so Hemlock Street won't lose the coveted award for best decorations. Walt doesn't seem to like Luther, so his efforts are primarily personal. However, it is revealed that Walt's wife Bev (Elizabeth Franz) is suffering from cancer, perhaps dampening his holiday spirits. Bev has had the cancer return for the 3rd time and this Christmas might be her last. Vic even offers to install Frosty himself, if Luther would just take him out of the basement and leaves it on the front lawn. But Luther still refuses, citing the principle of his stand. Father Zabriskie (Tom Poston) finds Luther and Nora in a tanning salon in a mall, in their beachwear, and admonishes them for trying to skip Christmas. Children picket, led by Vic's son Spike (Erik Per Sullivan), neighbors constantly call, and Christmas carolers try to revive the Kranks' holiday spirit by singing on their lawn which Luther stops them by freezing his front lawn. Even the newspaper gets into the act by publishing a front-page story complete with a photograph of the unlit Krank house and states that the Kranks' street has lost the prize and won sixth place because of how Luther and Nora refused to decorate their house. Still, Luther and Nora continue to stand their ground. Luther gets a Botox injection to get ready for his vacation with Nora. The two are in the process of packing on Christmas Eve morning when they receive a call from Blair, who announces she's at Miami International Airport, on route home with her Peruvian fiance as a surprise for her parents. She's anxious to introduce Enrique (Rene Lavan) to her family's holiday traditions, and when she asks if they're having their usual party that night, a panicked Nora says yes, much to Luther's dismay. Comic chaos ensues as the couple finds themselves trying to decorate the house and coordinate a party with only twelve hours to spare before their daughter and future son-in-law arrive. While Nora scrambles to find food, especially Blair's favorite ham, Luther buys a tree from the Boy Scouts, but they only have one left, which is a dead, ugly, non-green tree. Luther buys it anyway but rejects it by throwing it in his backyard. While Spike leads a picket at the Kranks', Luther arranges to borrow the tree of neighbor Wes Trogdon (Mark Christopher Lawrence) who is going away for a couple of days. Luther and Spike try to transport it across the street on Spike's Radio Flyer wagon, only for the neighbors to confuse this to be Luther stealing the family's Christmas tree, and to be stopped by the police, who assume they have stopped a robbery in progress. Spike comes to Luther's rescue. Nora comes home enraged at Luther for making the borrowed Christmas tree a "Disaster" and how she had to buy "Smoked Trout" to replace the honey ham (because the ham rolled into the street and got smashed by a truck). Nora tells Luther to put up Frosty on their roof, which fails when he and Frosty fall off, drawing the neighborhood's attention. Once it is established why Luther is trying frantically to decorate his home, the neighbors, led by Vic, come out full force to help him and Nora ready it for Blair. Blair calls to say she landed from Miami. The party starts off strong, with Blair having no idea of the earlier drama. Enrique thanks everyone for the warm welcome, and Nora thanks her neighbors for being a strong community. Luther, to everyone's disappointment, offers only a lukewarm toast. When Nora confronts Luther, he tries to convince her to still go on the cruise, but Nora refuses, disgusted that he is not happy that Blair is home. Luther sadly slips out of the house and goes across the street to the Scheel home. Bev's cancer, once in remission, has returned and, knowing this may be their last holiday together, Luther insists they take the cruise in place of him and Nora, going so far as to offer to take care of their hated cat, Muffles, who's always under Luther's foot. At first, they decline, but ultimately they accept his generosity. With his holiday spirit renewed, Luther finally admits to Nora that skipping Christmas was not a good idea until she suggests they should do it next year.

Molly Gunn (Brittany Murphy) is a carefree and fun-spirited girl, living like a princess in a fairy tale. Her father was a popular rock-and-roll guitar player, who died in a plane crash with Molly's mother when she was a little girl. On her birthday in a nightclub, she meets Larraine "Ray" Schleine (Dakota Fanning), a hypochondriac and uptight young girl in a bathroom. Ray turns out to be the daughter of Roma Schleine (Heather Locklear), a well-known record company owner. There she also meets an ambitious Australian singer Neal (Jesse Spencer), who is trying to get Roma to sign him a record deal. Molly immediately falls for him and invites him to her apartment after the party. When at her apartment, Molly shows an amazed Neal the collection of guitars that her father left behind when he died. Bored by Molly's strange behavior, which includes owning a pet pig named Mu, eating Pez, speaking French, and various other oddities, he eventually leaves her for his career, but she does not give up on him. When Molly's accountant vanishes with her US$100,000,000 inheritance, she is left with nothing but debts, and she needs to find work in order to survive. But she has no previous experience or skills. She moves in with her best friend, Ingrid (Marley Shelton), who tells her that in order to stay with her, she must find a job. She is hired to be Ray's babysitter. Ray, as it turns out, lives in a fancy uptown apartment with her mother, who is too busy with work and clubbing to pay attention to her. Ray's father is in a coma, and under the care of a private nurse in the apartment. Ray doesn't seem fazed by her father's state at all. When they first meet, Ray is extremely rude towards Molly and disapproves of her carefree attitude and tardiness. The two get in a fight while they wash the dishes, which leads to Molly attempting to leave the apartment. She is stopped by Ray, who says "When you work for me, you leave when I say you can leave". Molly informs her that she in fact doesn't work for her; that she is employed by her mother. Ray responds by saying that because of Roma's work schedule and Molly's status, she is technically working for her. Molly yells that she quits, and angrily storms out of the apartment, giving herself a bloody nose as she slams a swinging door. Ray attempts to maintain order in her life by stifling her emotions - she often quotes Mikhail Baryshnikov: "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun." She even feels this way about ballet, her beloved passion, leaving practice early when the class begins dancing freestyle. The day after the dish washing confrontation, Molly meets Ray at one of her ballet classes, apologizes for her behavior and asks for her job back. Molly gives Ray her pet pig Mu as a gift. Molly attempts to show Ray how to have fun, which at first causes them to fight. The two go to the amusement park Coney Island, only to find out that it is closed for the season. That night, as they ride back home on the subway, Molly tells Ray about the night her parents died. As Ray goes to bed, the two get into a conversation about Molly, in which Ray accuses her of being scared of growing up. Molly begins to talk about an incident in her childhood shortly after her parents' death in which she ran away to Coney Island and sat down in the Spinning Teacup ride, spinning round and round over and over again. Molly begins crying and tells Ray that she had hoped they could go to Coney Island together. Ray holds Molly as she cries, and the two fall asleep in Ray's bed. The next morning, Molly wakes up to find Ray gone. When she looks for her in the kitchen, she sees Neal there, and she finds out that he is sleeping with Roma in order to get a record deal. Later, Molly learns that Ray was in her father's room reading. She advises Ray to share her life with her father for his better recovery, telling her about a show she once saw about comatose people who recovered because their friends and relatives talked to them while they were still comatose. Ray does this, telling her comatose father all about Molly, ballet, and Mu. The next day, Molly arrives at Ray's house to find that Ray's father is gone from his room. She learns from the nurse that he had died that afternoon. Devastated, Molly rushes to Ray to offer her condolences. Ray is disturbingly emotionless, and calmly orders Molly to leave. Later that night, Molly is called to Roma's office, where she is informed that she is fired. Molly begins to criticize Roma on her relationship with her daughter, saying she doesn't "...give her respect, you give her whatever she asks so that you don't have to deal with her." She then asks Roma if she knows certain things about Ray, such as what stage she is at in ballet, or how she likes to drink her tea. Molly tears up the payment Roma had given her, and angrily leaves her office. Neal tries to get back together with Molly; since leaving her, he hasn't written a single song. But Molly refuses to be with him, as she now sees how selfish he is. She auctions her father's legendary guitar collection for financial support, and the whole collection is bought by a stranger on the phone. Days later, Molly gets a call from Roma, who tells her that Ray is missing and asks her for help. Molly searches desperately for Ray and eventually finds her in an amusement park sitting in the Teacup ride. The two ride the teacups for a bit, and afterward, as Ray vomits into a garbage can, Molly tries to comfort her. Ray at first reacts angrily and violently, but the two end up in a tearful embrace. Later, Molly attends Ray's father's funeral, where she reconciles with Ingrid, and sees that Roma is taking more of a part in Ray's life. Before Ray comes out to meet the rest of the guests at the funeral, she requests to speak to Molly alone. After they talk, Molly tells Ray that they are going to be best friends. Ray says that grown-ups are never friends with kids, to which Molly responds, "I don't see any grown-ups around here." Molly applies for Fashion Institute of Technology and gets positive reactions from them. She attends Ray's ballet recital. In the recital, Ray wears the tutu Molly made for her, and Neal makes an appearance as the lead singer, singing "Molly Smiles", a song Molly's father wrote for Molly. As he sings, he plays on one of her father's guitars, and some of the ballerinas hold his other guitars as they dance, proving that Neal was the one who bought the entire collection. Near the end of the recital, Ray does a freestyle dance, much to Molly's amusement. The scene fades with a shot of Molly smiling in the audience, and the credits roll as a voice of Ray is heard: "Every story has an end. But in life, every ending is just a new beginning."

A disadvantaged, abused, neglected, exploited but basically decent kid slips into criminality while trying to cope with his harsh, inescapable reality. A destitute 14-year-old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother. Petty thefts for food grow into more major takes until he steals a cash box from the diner where he works. Although Joe uses the money to pay off some of his father's debts and to replace his mother's records that his father smashed in a fit of temper, Joe gets no thanks. —John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>

Struggling to forge a financial career in white male dominated wall street society, taken for granted Laurel Ayers a black woman decided to change the playing field. Quickly realizing that only white males would ever achieve greatness she invents an elusive,Howard Hugh's like character Robert Cutty. Pretending to be Mr. Robert Cutty, Laural Ayers establishes a wealthy investment firm until events force Mr. Cutty to psychically materialize; as of this point he is never seen. Enlisting the help of her drag queen friend and her associate, Sally Dugan she is able to create a physical prosthetic entity. A chain of events mostly due to Laural Ayers adversaries force her to abandon her fictional character and deal her out once again. Down and out didn't necessary leave her out of the game. Laural Ayers is smart and proves she can have the upper hand. Striking back, she reveals who Robert Cutty really is to a group of her colleagues, proving it isn't who you are on the outside but who you are in the inside Check out my review at: www.dereksheldon.blogpsot.com

A former U.S. First Lady wants a particular Secret Service agent to head her bodyguard detail, even though he can't stand her. Doug is a Secret Service Agent who has just completed his stint in charge protecting Tess Carlisle, widow of a former U.S. President, and close personal friend of the President. He finds that she has requested that he not be rotated but instead return to be her permanent detail. Doug is crushed. He wants off her detail. She is very difficult to guard and makes her detail crazy with her whims and demands. Doug returns with no idea of how to continue dealing with her. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> After serving three years as the Secret Service Agent in charge of protecting the unbearable widow and former First Lady Tess Carlisle, Doug Chesnic is relieved to return to Washington. However, she asks to her friend, the President of the United States, that Doug stays as her bodyguard for unlimited time. Doug and his team are forced to return to protect Mrs. Carlisle, who wants to impose her whims to Doug, like leaving the guarding team alone with her driver Earl or playing golf in a very cold day. Tess has also an incurable brain tumor that nobody knows. One day, she invites Doug to go to a picnic with her and out of the blue, she is abducted with Earl. The CIA and the FBI arrive to investigate and find her car, Earl doped and a ransom message in the glove compartment requesting US 15 million. Doug and his men feel how much they like Tess and Doug takes an ultimate decision to find her. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Bob Newhart stars as President Manfred Link in this zany, wonderfully-cast comedy from veteran funnyman Buck Henry ("Heaven Can Wait", "The Graduate").

In New York City, Phil Potter (Burt Reynolds), a freelance magazine writer, tries once more to reconcile with his wife Jessica (Candice Bergen), but she wants a divorce and is ready to pursue an independent life as a singer-songwriter. Leaving their apartment with a single suitcase, Phil moves to Boston, Massachusetts, where his brother, Michael "Mickey" Potter (Charles Durning), resides. While Mickey, a psychiatrist, recommends a local support group for divorced men, and his wife, Marva (Frances Sternhagen), states that the end of marriage could be an exciting new beginning, Phil is too sad to consider their advice. Later, Phil rents an apartment in town and tries to make the place feel like a home, but longs for companionship. Walking to Mickey's house for dinner one night, Phil encounters a skittish woman, who believes Phil is following her. After cursing at him, she runs away. When Phil arrives at the house, Mickey introduces the same woman as Marilyn Holmberg (Jill Clayburgh), a nursery school teacher and friend, whom he and Marva invited to dinner, hoping she and Phil might be well matched. Realizing the mistake she made, Marilyn is overcome with embarrassment. At the end of the evening, Phil asks Marilyn for a date, but she is wary of recently divorced men and thinks they should wait. After learning his divorce is final, Phil joins the support group and has his first date in eight years with an overeager woman named Marie. As soon as he arrives home from the uncomfortable experience with Marie, he telephones Marilyn and persuades her to have dinner with him. The evening goes well, and Phil and Marilyn enjoy getting to know each other over the next two weeks. Phil, however, confides to the support group that he has avoided going to bed with Marilyn, and a fellow divorce suggests that he probably still feels married. One evening, Phil surprises Marilyn at her apartment and announces that he wants to have sex with her. Despite his abrupt declaration and her anxiety, they spend the night together. When Phil leaves before dawn, Marilyn angrily reminds him that she is not a one-night stand, but Phil reassures her. As his relationship with Marilyn progresses, Phil overcomes his fear of teaching for the first time and begins a new job educating college students about magazine writing. At Thanksgiving, Mickey and Marva notice how happy the couple appears. During the holiday dinner, Marilyn answers the telephone and tells Phil that Jessica is on the line. While everyone at the table overhears the conversation, Phil awkwardly informs Jessica that Marilyn is a friend of Mickey and Marva. Upset, Marilyn leaves the gathering. Phil follows her, explaining that he was nervous since he had not spoken to Jessica in awhile and felt as if he was cheating on her. Although Marilyn is more comfortable with Phil than any previous boyfriend, she believes he still has feelings for his former wife and says goodbye. Later, Phil approaches Marilyn while she volunteers at the nursery school's charity fair. In light of her outburst at Thanksgiving, Phil believes they need to define their relationship more clearly, then asks Marilyn to move in with him. With both nervousness and enthusiasm, she agrees. To celebrate their first evening of co-habitation, Marilyn makes a "Welcome Home Hotstuff" banner, while Phil is at work. On the way back to the apartment, Phil arranges for duplicate keys and adds Marilyn's name to the mailbox. Upon arrival, however, he is shocked to find Marilyn sitting on the couch with Jessica. To ease the awkward encounter, Marilyn enables the former spouses to visit in private. Dressed in a sexy blouse, Jessica explains to Phil that she impulsively decided to visit him and apologizes for her timing, but confesses she is disappointed to find he is not pining for her. As Phil drives Jessica back to her hotel, she flirts with him, while he admits that he is still mad at her. When they arrive at her hotel room, Jessica hangs the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and has a bottle of wine waiting. Phil is ready to give in to the seduction, but as she sings her song, "Better Than Ever," dedicated to their reconciliation, his desire dissipates, and he leaves. Jessica telephones later that evening to explain that her dramatic behavior was inspired by her love for him. During the support group meeting, Phil confesses that he desperately wanted to have sex with his former wife. While shopping for a couch with Jessica, Phil has an anxiety attack in the department store, and Mickey is summoned to calm him down. After he recovers, Phil reveals to Marilyn that he must return to Jessica. As Marilyn angrily moves back to her apartment, she persuades Phil to "swear on his brother's life" that he will never contact her again. In New York City, Phil attempts to resume his relationship with Jessica, but as they bicker, Phil is reminded that the connection with his former wife does not feel as "terrific" as the one with Marilyn. After six weeks, he arrives back in Boston. Phil, however, is unaware that Marilyn has been has been dating John Morganson, a professional basketball player with the Boston Celtics. At the department store, he buys the couch Marilyn wanted, then arrives outside her nursery school dressed for the Christmas season as Santa Claus. Marilyn does not immediately recognize him as she meets her new boyfriend and drives away. When Phil tries telephoning her, she pretends to be a voice on an answering machine. Next, Phil tracks down Marilyn at the Boston Garden arena while she watches her boyfriend practice with the Celtics. Seeing Phil arrive, Marilyn immediately claims she is no longer interested in their relationship, until Phil asks her to marry him. Shocked by the proposal, Marilyn cannot hide her feelings, and embraces him.

Chicago, Illinois, 1929. Outside a criminal courts building, police build a scaffold and bleachers for the public hanging of Earl Williams, who has been convicted of killing a policeman. Upstairs, reporters play poker in the press room. Newspaper editor Walter Burns (Walter Matthau) calls from the Chicago Examiner, looking for reporter Hildebrand 'Hildy' Johnson (Jack Lemmon) to put him on the story, but he's not there. Walter leaves word that Hildy should immediately come to his office. Later, Hildy wanders into Walter's office at a leisurely pace and informs the editor that he's in love. Walter tells Hildy he wants him to cover the hanging the next morning and snap an illegal picture of the hanged man with a hidden camera. Minutes after the execution, an ambulance will be waiting for Hildy outside so that he can type his story in the back and beat the other newspapers to press with a morning extra. Hildy tells Walter he's quitting to get married and move to Philadelphia. He plans to take an advertising job so that he can spend time with his future wife instead of continuing as a workaholic reporter. Walter resents Hildy for betraying him, insisting that he taught Hildy everything he knows. Determined to keep Hildy in town and on the Williams story, Walter tracks down Hildy's fiancee, Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon), an organist who works at a movie theater. Posing as Otto Fishbein, a probation officer, he tells Peggy that Hildy is on probation and cannot legally move to another city. Hildy then calls his fiancee, and, over the phone, realizes that Walter is playing a trick. Hildy explains to Peggy that Fishbein is actually Walter, and she sends him away. At the criminal courts press room, Hildy's replacement, Rudy Keppler (Jon Korkes), arrives and informs the others that Hildy has left the business. Mollie Malloy (Carol Burnett) arrives moments later, and yells at the reporters for writing lies about her, claiming she is Williams' girlfriend. Mollie confesses that she had befriended Williams but was not his girlfriend. Unlike the reporters, Mollie believes that Williams didn't intentionally kill anyone. As Mollie leaves, Hildy shows up with drinks to celebrate his new advertising job. Just then, the sheriff (Vincent Gardenia) visits the press room to hand out tickets to the hanging. Hildy accuses the sheriff and mayor of reprieving Williams twice so that the hanging would take place just before an election. The sheriff insists that Williams is a communist who is very sane and shot the policeman to make a political statement. Hildy disagrees, claiming that Williams is "just a screwball." At the jailhouse, Williams (Austin Pendleton), a diminutive, soft-spoken man, is escorted to the sheriff's office for his final psychological examination. Williams calmly explains to Dr. Eggelhofer (Martin Gabel) that he once sent a bomb to J. P. Morgan's office on Wall Street, then contradicts himself by saying he loves people and would never abuse anyone. Eggelhofer borrows the sheriff's gun to demonstrate his theory about why Williams shot at the police officer. Upstairs, Hildy's celebration is interrupted by gunshots. Sirens blare, more shots are heard, and the reporters realize Williams has escaped. Hildy gets on the phone to tell Walter the news. The editor laments that Hildy is no longer reporting, but Hildy promises he's "right on top of it." Downstairs, the sheriff tells reporters about Williams' escape, but insists he doesn't know where the prisoner got a gun. Hildy runs into Jennie (Doro Merande), the building's janitor, who overheard the incident. She tells Hildy she had better not reveal what she overheard, as the sheriff would fire her. Meanwhile, the injured Eggelhofer's stretcher falls out of an ambulance. As the stretcher speeds down the street, Eggelhofer yells repeatedly that Williams is a "fruitcake." Hildy phones Walter to tell him what he's learned from Jennie, that Eggelhofer used the sheriff's gun to reenact the crime, and Williams stole it, shot Eggelhofer, and made his escape. Hildy then informs Walter that Peggy is picking him up in 15 minutes and he can no longer follow the story. The Mayor (Harold Gould) addresses reporters in his office and tells them he has utter faith in the sheriff. After the reporters leave, the Mayor reprimands the sheriff for letting Williams get away. A man named Plunkett (Paul Benedict) arrives and delivers a reprieve for Williams, sent by the Governor. The sheriff receives a phone call that police have trapped Williams. The Mayor tells Plunkett that the reprieve is not applicable because Williams has escaped custody, but he may try to serve the reprieve again tomorrow. The Mayor then sends orders, via the sheriff, for the police to "shoot to kill," now that Williams is in their sights. Headed for a night train to Philadelphia, Hildy joins Peggy in a taxi outside the courthouse. However, when he realizes he left the wedding rings, he runs back inside. There, Hildy finds the rings moments before Williams falls through a window and points a gun at him. Hildy reminds Williams that he conducted an interview with the convict at his jail cell a few days ago. Williams then passes out, and Hildy drags him to the bathroom, draws the curtains, and calls Walter to tell him that he has Williams in his custody. Mollie shows up, and Williams emerges at the sound of her voice. Hildy sends Peggy to pick up their luggage while he finishes up some last-minute business. Hildy hides Williams inside a roll-top desk when the other reporters demand entry to the press room. The men suspect Hildy is hiding something. To cover for Hildy, Mollie claims to know where Williams is, then jumps out the window. The reporters run outside to see if she's still alive. As the room clears, Walter appears at the door. He orders a delivery truck and six large men to move the desk, with Williams inside, to the Chicago Examiner office. Hildy types up a story while Walter takes Williams' picture and sends Keppler to develop the negative. Just then, Peggy returns to find Hildy typing away with Walter at his side. Distracted, Hildy suggests Peggy go to the train station ahead of him, and she leaves, dejected. When he finishes the story, Hildy becomes frustrated with Walter's persistence and heads off to the train station. Before he can leave, however, the sheriff shows up with the other reporters, all of whom accuse Hildy of hiding something. A policeman holds Hildy, while the sheriff demands Williams' whereabouts. The sheriff finally realizes Williams is inside the desk. Police escort Williams away, and the sheriff arrests Hildy and Walter for hiding the convict. In a jail cell, Hildy blames Walter for keeping him from Peggy. In a neighboring cell, Plunkett, who has been arrested for drunkenness, overhears Walter and informs him that he has Williams' reprieve. The Mayor arrives at the jail, and Walter presents him with the reprieve, accusing him of ignoring it so that he could hang Williams before the election. The Mayor lets Walter and Hildy out, and Walter arranges for Hildy to be rushed to the train station to meet Peggy. Just before the train pulls away, Walter gives Hildy his pocket watch as a gift for service to his newspaper. After the train pulls out of the station, Walter (crafty and evil to the end) arranges for Hildy to be arrested at the next stop for stealing his watch! The film closes with a series of texts that say that some time later, Hildy returned to the Chicago Examiner to become Managing Editor. Walter retired, lecturing from time to time at the University of Chicago on the ethics of journalism. Williams, now freed, got married to Mollie, and the two run a health-food store together.