C. Aubrey Smith

In the small town of Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War, the March sisters--Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth--live with their mother in a state of genteel poverty, their father having lost the family's fortune to an unscrupulous businessman several years earlier. While Mr. March serves in the Union Army, Mrs. March, affectionately referred to as "Marmee" by her daughters, holds the family together and teaches the girls the importance of giving to those less fortunate than themselves, especially during the upcoming Christmas season. Though the spoiled and vain Amy often bemoans the family's lack of material wealth and social status, Jo, an aspiring writer, keeps everyone entertained with her stories and plays, while the youngest March, the shy and sensitive Beth, accompanies Jo's productions on an out-of-tune piano. The spirited Jo, a tomboy in search of male companionship, strikes up a friendship with Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, the grandson of the March's wealthy, but cantankerous neighbor, James Laurence. Later that winter, Jo so impresses Mr. Laurence with her forthrightness and her beneficial effect on the brooding Laurie, that he invites the March sisters to a fancy dress ball at his sumptuous home. At the ball, Meg is courted by John Brooke, Laurie's tutor, and Jo consents to dance with Laurie while Amy and Beth breathlessly view the scene from their perch atop the staircase. Mr. Laurence's gruff demeanor is softened upon meeting Beth, who reminds him of the beloved granddaughter he lost, and when he learns of her musical talent, he offers her the use of his grand piano. The beautiful evening ends on a sour note, however, when Amy and Beth overhear the snobbish Mrs. Gardiner and her daughter gossiping about Marmee. As the weeks pass, Laurie's affection for Jo grows, but Jo rebuffs him as a suitor, claiming that although she loves him as a friend, she will never marry. Meanwhile, Jo attempts to discourage Meg's deepening feelings for Mr. Brooke, fearing that a marriage will break the bond between the sisters. Spring arrives, and Marmee receives word that Mr. March has been wounded and sent to an Army hospital in Washington, D.C. Jo asks her wealthy Aunt March for Marmee's train fare, but the two have a heated argument when the impatient Jo refuses to address Aunt March with the decorum the proud woman demands. As usual, Aunt March comes through for the family, but not before Jo has had her beautiful chestnut locks cut off and sold in order to pay for Marmee's trip. While carrying out Marmee's work for the poor in her absence, Beth contracts scarlet fever, and the distressed and frightened sisters realize how much they depend upon Marmee. Just as Marmee returns, however, Beth's fever breaks, and the entire family is reunited when Laurie arranges for the surprise return of Mr. March. A few months later, Meg marries Mr. Brooke and Laurie asks Jo to marry him, but she turns him down, explaining that she is uncomfortable in high society and wishes to devote her life to writing. Greatly disappointed, Laurie leaves for Europe, and Jo, saddened by the seeming loss of both Meg and Laurie, who she considers to be her best friend, moves to New York to pursue her career. While boarding at the home of the Kirke family, Jo meets Prof. Bhaer, the Kirke children's German tutor, who introduces her to art museums and the opera. Prof. Bhaer agrees to read Jo's stories, but Jo is devastated when he later criticizes her work, dismissing it as sensationalist. Bursting into tears, Jo reveals that she feels abandoned by Laurie and hurt that Aunt March, who had long promised her a trip to Europe, has taken Amy instead. After consoling Jo, with whom he has fallen in love, Prof. Bhaer advises her to write from her heart, and Jo decides to return home where she is needed, for Beth is again very ill. Upon her return to the now nearly empty March household, Jo learns that her beloved Beth is dying and spends the next few weeks caring for the courageous girl, who bears her suffering without complaint. After Beth's death, Jo assuages her grief by writing a novel entitled My Beth , which she sends to Prof. Bhaer for his opinion. Later, Meg, now the mother of twins, gently informs Jo that Laurie and Amy have fallen in love in Europe and are to be married. Although Jo is happy for the couple, she realizes for the first time how lonely she is and how much she wishes to be loved. A few weeks later, Laurie and Amy return as husband and wife, and the Marchs's joyfully celebrate the family's reunion. The festivities are interrupted when Prof. Bhaer arrives with Jo's novel, which he has had published. However, when Laurie answers the door, Prof. Bhaer mistakenly assumes that Jo has married her friend and politely declines Laurie's invitation to join the party. After Jo catches up to her departing suitor, the two embrace and Prof. Bhaer proposes marriage. Jo happily accepts, then leads her future husband back to the warmth of the house, where her family awaits them.

In London, in 1887, prominent physician Henry Jekyll incurs the ire of his older colleagues because of his experiments and views on the possibility of separating the good and evil aspects of man's nature. Hanry is deeply in love with Beatrix Emery, the daughter of Sir Charles Emery, who likes Henry, but is concerned over his radical ideas and open display of affection for Bea. Henry throws himself into his work and has enough success experimenting with rabbits and guinea pigs to make him confident that the serun he has developed will work for humans. Hoping to try the serum out on Sam Higgins, a man who went mad after being in a gas works explosion, Henry rushes to the hospital but discovers that Higgins has just died. Henry then decides to take the serum himself and is briefly transformed, in both thought and countenance, into an evil alter ego. After taking an antidote to turn himself back to normal, Henry tells his butler, Poole, that strange voice he heard was a "Mr. Hyde". Just then, Sir Charles, accompanied by Bea, comes for a visit and announces that he will be taking Bea to the Continent to give Henry time to consider his position. Despite his loneliness during Bea's absence, Henry refrains from further experimentation until he gets a letter from Bea explaining that their trip is being extended because of Sir Charles' health. After taking another dose of the serum, Henry again turns into Hyde and goes to a music hall, where hees a baramid Ivy Peterson, an beautiful, sensual young woman whom he rescued from an attacker some weeks before. When summoned to Hyde's table, Ivy does not recognize him as Henry, but becomes frightened and screams, causing a brawl to erupt among the customers. Hyde later secretly asks the proprietor to fire Ivy and, despite her reluctance, insists on taking her home in a carriage, where he forces himself on her. Some time later, Bea is concerned that Henry has not written to her in weeks, but hides her worries from her father, who decides that she and Henry may marry, after all. Meanwhile, Ivy, who has been set up in a flat by Hyde, lives in constant fear of him. Her friend Marcia is shocked when she accidentally sees welts on Ivy's back, and when Hyde suddenly comes to the flat, he behaves particularly cruelly toward Ivy. Soon Henry learns that Bea has just returned and determines never to take the serum again. He then sends an anonymous gift of fifty pounds to Ivy and melts down the key to the street entrance of his laboratory, which "Hyde" has been using. That afternoon, Henry meets Bea at a museum and is overjoyed that Sir Charles now agrees to their imminent marriage. When Henry returns home, Ivy is waiting in his patient's room because Marcia and her boyfriend had recommended him. Ivy recognizes Henry as the man who was once kind to her, but momentarily has an uneasy feeling about him. When she shows him her scars and he realizes what Hyde has done to her, Henry is ashamed and soothingly promises her that she will never see Hyde again. That night, as Henry happily strolls across the park toward Bea's house, he suddenly turns into Hyde, without having taken the serum. He then goes to Ivy's flat and finds her celebrating her freedom from him. He repeats words that she had spoken to Henry, she becomes hysterical with fright and screams, but he strangles her to death before the neighbors can summon the police. He then rushes to the outher door of the laboratory but realizes that the key was destroyed. Poole will not admit him through the front door, so, in desperation Hyde goes to Dr. John Lanyon, Henry's good friend. After demanding the medications that work as an antidote, Hyde transforms back into Henry, to John's shock and horror. Henry reveals everything to John, then goes to Bea to break their engagement. She refueses to accept that they cannot be married, and he leaves, then returns as Hyde. She faints, but her initial scream has roused Sir Charles, whom Hyde then beats to death with his walking stick. Now desperate, Hyde pushes past Poole at Henry's front door and goes to the laboratory to take more antidote. As Sir Charles's body is examined by the police, John sees Henry's cane and realizes what must have happened. He then takes the police to Henry's house where they break down the door of the laboratory just after Hyde has taken the antidote and turned back into Henry. Henry says that Hyde was there but left, but in his anxiety under John accusations that he, indeed, is Sir Charles's murderer, Henry quickly transforms back into Hyde. While attempting to fight off the police and flee, he is mortally wounded, and as he dies, his demeanor changes back into Henry.

The ghosts of three elderly industrialists killed in an airplane crash return to Earth to help reunite a young couple they initially brought together. Melton (Harry Carey), Chadwick (C. Aubrey Smith) and O'Brien (Charles Winninger), rich but lonely heads of an engineering firm, invite three strangers to dinner on Christmas Eve. Only two show up, James (Richard Carlson) and Jean (Jean Parker). They fall in love and become friends with their three benefactors, until the latter are killed in a plane crash and come back to their old home as ghosts. In the coming months, true love encounters some rough spots. Can ghostly O'Brien help the young folks? —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> Christmas Eve. Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger), George Melton (Harry Carey) and Allan Chadwick (C. Aubrey Smith) are three aging friends and millionaires businessmen that live alone in a mansion with Josef (Alex Melesh), the butler, and Madam Tanya (Maria Ouspenskaya), the innkeeper. After knowing that their party guests can't celebrate with them because one of them is sick, the three old men decide make a bet about the existence the goodness on the people, throwing by the window three wallets with ten dollars and a calling card, hoping that someone returns (the loser pays a dinner to the people that take back any wallet). Although the first wallet lost, the other two are found and returned in an independent way by two young ones, aspiring singer James Houston (Richard Carlson) and Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker), who works as teacher in a children's hospital. Meeting in the home of O'Brien, Melton and Chadwick, Houston and Lawrence fall in love, making a strong friendship with the old men and helping to these ones to recovery the joyful of life. But when the three travel to Pittsburgh by business reasons, their airplane crashes and they die, returning as ghosts to their former house. Josef and Madam Tanya ask Houston and Lawrence to live with them at the house, to have someone for whom to care. Having a chance to sing on the radio, Houston meets beautiful performer Arlene Terry (Helen Vinson), who put her eye on Houston, causing a distancing between he and Lawrence. It causes O'Brien, Melton and Chadwick try to help the innocent Houston to stay away from manipulative Terry and Jace Taylor (James Bush)--Terry's ex-husband and a singer in professional decline. Can the three old men save the situation and reunite Houston and Lawrence before the afterlife calls them to pass away from Earth? —Chockys It's Christmas Eve, and elderly Allan Chadwick (C.Aubrey Smith), George Melton (Harry Carey) and Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger), the partners of Chadwick, Melton and O'Brien Engineers located in Radio Center in New York City, are working late as usual before having a small dinner party at their home, which also serves as their office. While they treat their servants as friends, such as Josef (Alex Melesh) the butler and especially Madam Tanya (Maria Ouspenskaya) their housekeeper, she a deposed Russian countess (Josef her longtime servant before the two came to the US), they realize that they have lost many friends over the years in being workaholics when their dinner guests cancel at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances, George further believing their cancellation stemming from they learning of his attendance and not wanting to associate with him due to an unseemly issue from his past. Wanting to spend the evening with who they consider deserving people, Michael comes up with an idea to hold a lottery of sorts to find those replacement dinner guests with only the truly deserving who would come forward. Who shows up are James Houston (Richard Carlson), a Texas cowboy feeling emotionally lost in New York City, and Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker), a kindergarten teacher at a children's clinic. This entire collective end up as close friends, but that friendship is short-lived when the three partners are unexpectedly killed in an accident. Before they are called to their final afterlife resting place where they will spend eternity, Allan, George and Michael return as spirits to their home, Michael in particular who believes they sent back to ensure their friends are well taken care of, especially that there is a happily ever after for James and Jean who he could see were falling in love with each other. However, Michael may feel powerless, especially within the short time-frame he has before he goes to his final resting place, as he watches James, who becomes a singing star, take a wrong path in falling under the spell of his stage partner Arlene Terry (Helen Vinson), whom Michael considers a soulless woman. —Huggo The ghosts of three elderly industrialists (Harry Carey as George, C. Aubrey Smith as Allen, and (Charles Winninger as Michael) killed in an airplane crash return to Earth to help reunite a young couple (Richard Carlson as James, and Jean Parker as Jean) they initially brought together.

An American boy turns out to be the long-lost heir of a British fortune. He is sent to live with the cold and unsentimental lord who oversees the trust. After the death of Cedric's ('Ceddie') English father, he and his mother live together in Brooklyn. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, had disowned Cedric's father when he married an American, but when the Earl's remaining son dies, he accepts Cedric as Lord Fauntleroy, his heir, and sends for Cedric and his mother. Cedric uses the first of his newly-found wealth to do some favors for his old friends, then heads to England, where he must try to overcome the Earl's dislike for Cedric's mother. —Snow Leopard