Carl Reiner

Sometimes you find out that the love you left is the only one you really want -- no matter what.

While on a stakeout at an amusement park in Los Angeles, California, police detective Ned Ravine (Armand Assante) is approached by a flirtatious, sultry blonde woman (Sean Young). However, he must leave her to pursue culprit Milo Crumley (Blake Clark), known as the "pantyhose bandit." After arresting Milo, Ned, who is also a defense attorney, offers to represent him in court. At his law office, Ned relies on his devoted secretary, Laura (Sherilyn Fenn), who is always efficient except when tortured by flashbacks of her abusive husband. After successfully defending Milo in court, Ned receives a surprise visit from Lola Cain, the blonde woman from the amusement park. The beautiful seductress asks Ned to meet her the following evening to look over some papers that she cannot understand. While workaholic Ned is on police duty at night, his wife, Lana Ravine (Kate Nelligan), has been having an affair with auto mechanic Frank Kelbo (Christopher McDonald). Lana asks Frank's advice about her husband's accident insurance policy, and learns that it contains a triple indemnity rider worth $9 million, if Ned is shot with a pistol, falls from a northbound train, and drowns in a freshwater stream. Undaunted by the complications, Lana plots to murder Ned that weekend while he travels to a legal symposium in Santa Barbara, California, and agrees to share the insurance payout with her lover. She instructs Frank to tamper with Ned's car, so he will be forced to take the train. At his office, Ned receives instructions to meet Lola at Le Hot Club and from there, the two proceed to her mansion. After looking over her "papers," a laundry receipt and a lottery ticket, Ned succumbs to Lola's sexual advances and engages in various erotic scenarios with her throughout the house. In the morning, Ned reminds Lola he is married and cannot continue their affair. The rejection shocks Lola, and she gives Ned a deranged look. Meanwhile, criminal Max Shady (James Remar) is released from prison and is determined to take revenge on Ned for losing his case seven years ago. Laura shows Ned the multiple death threats Shady has faxed to the office, but the attorney believes the criminal just needs to vent his anger and is not concerned. At home, Ned wants to make amends with his estranged wife and buys her a pet skunk, but she is unimpressed and remains focused on killing him. When Ned treats Laura to shopping and dinner for her birthday, she looks at her handsome boss with affection, hoping he will take an interest in her. At the restaurant, an obsessive Lola interrupts them and threatens Ned with an ice pick, giving Laura another reason to worry about her boss's safety. Unable to use his car after the engine goes missing, Ned initially considers flying to Santa Barbara. He is fearful about taking the train since several members of his family have been killed in train wrecks, but Lana persuades him and advises that he stand in the vestibule between cars to calm his nerves. Lana and Frank secretly get on the train with Ned, who is also being followed on board by Max Shady. As the train leaves the station, Ned is anxious and sweating. After he gets up from his seat and walks toward the vestibule, Lana follows. She enters the area and shoots a man in the back, who is standing by the exit door and wearing a suit similar to Ned's. She believes she has shot her husband, but the man who falls out of the train, riddled with bullets, is Max Shady. Ned appears from the adjacent bathroom and is grateful to his wife for risking her life to protect him. However, as a police officer, he must arrest her for Shady's murder, but agrees to serve as her defense attorney. At the murder trial, Ned succeeds in convincing the jury that his wife should be acquitted. As soon as she is free, Lana kills her accomplice Frank over concerns he might betray her. Lola witnesses the deed and blackmails Lana. Ned walks in the house as Lola is talking to his wife, and denies knowing the blonde woman. Later, an angry Ned goes to Lola's mansion and warns her to stay out of his life. During their altercation, Lola reveals that Lana is her identical twin sister, who stole her boyfriend Dwayne, the love of her life. When a confused Ned remarks that the two women look completely different, Lola explains that Lana destroyed her original face with a shovel and she had to endure fifty-three plastic surgery operations. Ned is amazed at the beautiful result, but Lola disagrees, calling herself "ugly." She says Dwayne abandoned her for Lana after he saw her transformation. Lola's attempt to destroy her sister's marriage to Ned was part of her revenge. She also tells Ned that Lana murdered the mechanic. When Ned informs Lola that the mechanic's name was Frank Kelbo, she is devastated, realizing that Frank was the son of Dwayne, whose last name was Kelbo. Returning home, Ned finds hot water running in the bathtub, but his wife is absent. Laura, who has been conducting her own investigation, arrives to alert Ned that his wife and Frank were plotting to murder him so they could collect on his insurance policy. She also confides about her difficult past and fleeing from her obsessive-compulsive, abusive husband. As Ned and Laura talk in the kitchen, Lana saws a break in the upstairs handrail, but Lola surprises her sister and drowns her in the bathtub. When Ned goes to investigate the faucet noise, he discovers his wife's dead body and is assaulted by Lola. Meanwhile, downstairs, Laura's sadistic husband sneaks into the house and confronts his wife. After Ned and Laura subdue their attackers, they embrace and share a passionate kiss. Suddenly, the two apparently dead sisters recover and rush at Ned and Laura with sharp objects. However, Laura proves to be a skilled sharpshooter as she simultaneously kills Lana and Lola with two pistols, but blowing out Ned's eardrums when she fired the guns close to his head. In the final scene, Laura and Ned propose marriage and spend their first night together, as the pet skunk watches from his hiding spot in the dresser.

At Ocean Front High School in Los Angeles, it is the last day of school before summer vacation. The gym teacher, Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon), could not care less about his job and is ready to vacation in Hawaii with his young girlfriend, Kim. Students get called to the office by the Vice Principal, Phil Gills (Robin Thomas) whom are told to attend summer school. The original remedial English teacher (Carl Reiner) wins the lottery and immediately quits his job. Gills has no choice but to give the job of teaching summer school to Shoop. Gills implies that not taking the job could keep him from getting tenure. As a result, Shoop has little choice but to stay in California, and Kim goes off to Hawaii without him. On the first day, Shoop meets Robin Bishop (Kirstie Alley), who is teaching next door. Shoop falls head over heels for her, but she is already dating Gills. Shoop's first day is a disaster. Most of the students ditch and one hulking student named Jerome (Duane Davis) "goes to the lavatory" and is never seen again along with most of the others who ditch. Yet, a small group stays behind whom include: the day-dreaming and easily distracted Pam (Courtney Thorne-Smith); "nocturnal" Larry, who happens to be a male stripper (Ken Olandt); football jock Kevin (Patrick Labyorteaux)' pregnant Rhonda (Shawnee Smith); geeky Alan (Richard Steven Horvitz), whose older siblings are all straight-A students ("There must have been a baby mix-up at the hospital"); dyslexic Denise (Kelly Jo Minter) and two horror-film-obsessed underachievers, Dave (Gary Riley) and Francis, a.k.a. 'Chainsaw' (Dean Cameron) whom all are required to take remedial English. That same day, Gills brings in a beautiful Italian transfer student, Anna-Maria (Fabiana Udenio), who will be learning English as well, much to the delight of Dave and Chainsaw. After the leftover students attempt to ditch as well, Shoop admits he has no idea how to teach. They spend their first few days having fun and going to the beach, a theme park and the petting zoo until Gills finds out. Gills threatens to fire Shoop unless his students pass the end-of-term test. Shoop promises each kid a favor if they study. The kids agree, so Shoop agrees to give Denise driving lessons as well as help with her dyslexia; he accompanies Rhonda to Lamaze classes; he gives Kevin football lessons; he allows Dave to throw a party in his house (destroying his couch in the process); he gives Larry a bed in the classroom; he lets Chainsaw arrange a screening of the original 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' in his class; and he allows Pam to move in with him for the summer since she is neglected at home. However, the laid back Shoop has no idea how to teach. Robin tells him to make teaching fun. Over the next few weeks, Shoop begins to grow closer to his kids. They study hard to write their English basic skills exam, they are still worried that Gills is going to fire Shoop unless all his students pass. One day, Shoop is arrested and sent to jail when he covers for Chainsaw and Dave after they are found in possession of alcohol while hanging around the beach. Robin and Gills bail him out. At his court hearing, a sympathic judge, seeing that Shoop was willing to go to jail for his students, drops all the charges against him. Afterwords, Gills then inadvertently exposes his true self to Robin when he states that he cares nothing for Shoop or his students and she overhears him. She storms off angrily. A few days later, Larry is fired from his stripper job when he is found out first by his aunt (who kisses him... with tongue) and then by his mother (after she puts five dollars in his g-string) whom apparently attended one of his shows. The students make more demands on Shoop and he quits his job in anger. He is then convinced to come back when his students start feeling guilty about what they did and they scare off Shoop's replacement with a series of stunts eerily reminiscent of 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' thanks to the makeup and prostetic gore effects that Chainsaw and Dave throw to show themselves off. Shoop and his students then begin preparing for the test in earnest. Finally, the day arrives, and Shoop is suprised when Jerome, the student who "went to the lavatory" six weeks earlier, finally returns to the class to take the test, with his only explanation being, "My zipper got stuck." He ends up getting the highest score in the class with a 91%. The exam goes smoothly despite Rhonda going into labor near the end (at least now she has grounds for a makeup). Not all pass, so Gills is ready to follow through with his firing threat. However, the parents of the students come to Shoop's defense when they arrive at the school to protest to Gilles not to fire Shoop. Because of the students' great improvement, Principal Kelban (Francis X. McCarthy) grants Shoop tenure for his positive effect. Shoop and Robin end up happily together; a la 'From Here to Eternity', they kiss in the surf.

An overworked and exhausted air-traffic controller takes his family on a long-awaited beach vacation but is soon beset by a series of mishaps. Jack Chester, an overworked air traffic controller, takes his family on vacation to the beach. Things immediately start to go wrong for the Chesters, and steadily get worse. Jack ends up in a feud with a local yachtsman, and has to race him to regain his pride and family's respect. —Rob Hartill

At the law offices of Schuylar Mifflin, Roger Cobb (Steve Martin) is a lawyer with eleven years behind him, and no future ahead of him. He is running himself ragged working into the evening, and his cases are of no consequence because he has not committed to the practice. His true passion is playing guitar in the Fulton Norris (Gailard Sartain) Orchestra, and after falling asleep at his desk he comes to just in time to rush to a nightclub gig and perform his solo, but he eventually falls asleep again onstage. On the morning of his 38th birthday, his girlfriend Peggy Schuyler (Madolyn Smith) brings him an African grave post for a present. They discuss "the m word" briefly, but Roger seems disinterested in marriage. He is late to work at the law firm, which is her father's, and he was hired as a favor, in spite of being perceived as carrying on his family's misguided standards. On the way to the office, Roger and his canine companion Bix stop by a corner where their blind musician buddy Tyrone Wattell (Jason Bernard) is playing his saxophone for tips. Roger tells Tyrone he has decided to quit his gig and work on law full time. Tyrone tells him it is a mistake to give up his music, but wishes him well. At a palatial estate, Doctor Betty Ahrens (Peggy Feury) informs her frail millionaire patient Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) that after years of disability because of her chronic heart trouble, she is finally and truly dying. Edwina calls Schuyler Mifflin to speak with senior partner Burton Schuyler (Dana Elcar) to put her final affairs in order. Burton is having an affair with Gretchen (Neva Patterson), and he interrupts their merrymaking to take her call, as Gretchen informs him that his wife subpoenaed her to appear at the divorce hearing. Roger arrives at his office and his secretary Margot (Selma Diamond) reads off his client phone messages before he is summoned to Burton's office. Roger asks Burton for a partnership, saying he has quit the band and is buying a vest later in the day. Intrigued by his attitude, Burton sends him to the Cutwater estate to test his mettle, noting that if Roger is up to the task, his future in the firm is secure. Roger arrives to see Edwina in her wheelchair ordering her staff around, and she treats him as if he were a hired hand. When she learns who he is, she tells Roger she plans to leave her entire multi-million dollar estate to Terry Hoskins (Victoria Tennant), the vibrant daughter of the stable hand Fred Hoskins (Eric Christmas), and Roger will handle the paperwork. He also learns that Terry will actually inherit nothing, as Edwina has hired a guru named Prahka Lasa (Richard Libertini) to transport her soul into Terry's healthy body so she can have a chance at a normal life. Prahka speaks only parroted English and carries a metal bowl with him which will be a vessel for Edwina's soul when her death is imminent. Roger suggests that her will would be contested if she is not considered of sound mind, and Edwina, spoiled and used to getting her way, insults him. He declares her and her companions crazy, and Edwina slaps him, threatening to tattle to Burton about his undesirable behavior. When Roger talks back to her and leaves, Edwina issues orders to the staff for her car and jewelry to wear as she plans to go out. Terry tells Roger she is willing to give up everything to become one with the universe, but he scoffs. When Roger returns to the firm, Margot reveals that Edwina is already there in a board meeting with Burton and the firm's other partner Mr. Mifflin (Michael Ensign). The doctor, Terry and Prahka stand by as Edwina's attitude goads Roger into more arguing, but when Burton pulls him aside and they step out of the office, he laughs off the conflict and agrees that she must be out of her mind to believe in reincarnation. After Roger leaves, Edwina suddenly says she sees a bright light and collapses, while the doctor makes futile attempts to revive her and Prahka sets up the bowl on its stand and he and Terry begin chanting. The bowl spins atop its pole, then settles as if something were inside. During the confusion, the doctor pushes Burton and he bumps the vessel, which goes out the window. As the doctor declares they have lost Edwina, the bowl lands on Roger as he emerges from the building, hitting him in the head. He tries to get up from the pavement as Edwina's voice says she feels different. He stumbles as if his body were not his own. Looking in a car's side mirror, Roger is horrified to see Edwina staring back at him, and they realize that her soul has entered his body by accident. Bix barks at Roger, perceiving the change in his human companion. They struggle to walk properly, and it appears that Edwina is in control of his right side and he his left. Finally they manage to coordinate their gait and return to the building, but before they can go to the office to find Prahka and reverse the error, Roger realizes he needs to use the restroom. Mifflin sees that Roger seems to be acting strangely. The newly merged pair make their way to the men's room. At the urinal, Roger has to coordinate the act of relieving himself with Edwina, who has trouble using his right hand under her control, unfamiliar as she is with men's clothing and genitals. Her grip sends him staggering and in pain, but with coaching from Roger and resignation on Edwina's part, they manage the task. Behind them a curious Mifflin observes Roger speaking in a feminized mashup of Edwina's and his own voice, before she finally tells him that she can read his thoughts and they successfully and quietly finish their bathroom break. In the hallway, Roger admits to Mifflin he was talking to himself. Terry approaches as Mifflin leaves, and says Prahka has left. Burton calls Roger into his office to handle his own divorce case. He confesses that he originally cheated on his wife to comfort a grieving widow, but then so many women found him attractive that he could not stop, and he wants defense from somebody he can trust. Roger reluctantly agrees to take the case. Returning to his office, Edwina tells Roger to look for the phone number to the Ambassador Hotel where Prahka is staying. At the hotel, Prahka is out of his element, having lived his entire life in Tibet with no luxuries, but he discovers the toilet and flushes it just as Roger places the phone call, and the phone in the other room rings. Believing the flush causes the ringing, the curious Prahka operates the lever until the ringing stops when Roger hangs up. Peggy arrives at the office and overhears Roger as he and Edwina resume the argument aloud about the bathroom episode. Believing he is cheating on her, Peggy storms in and demands an explanation. Edwina overrides Roger and throws in her opinion as he tries to tell her what happened, and she mishears Roger as saying he had sex with the dead body of Edwina. She is also mad that he is siding with her father in the divorce case and gives him the ultimatum of either herself or his manhood. He picks the latter and Peggy leaves, saying their relationship is over. Determined to find Prahka, Roger tries to drive with Edwina, while Bix shows hostility toward her being in Roger's body, so he decides to not inconvenience his canine friend and drops the dog off with Tyrone for safekeeping. When Tyrone questions Roger, he relates what happened, and incredibly he believes him. Roger introduces Edwina to Tyrone, and she offers her right hand, forgetting it belongs to Roger. Tyrone kisses it and says he is happy to help because, though he considers Roger a bit strange, he is a true friend. At the memorial service for Edwina, the church is empty but for the presiding cleric and choir, but her oxygen provider and other health aid companies sent mail-grams of condolence. Roger falls asleep in the pew, and Edwina with him. After midnight Terry arrives, and he realizes that he has full control of his body while Edwina sleeps, and he tells Terry everything. She says that if she is going to surrender her body for Edwina, Roger could do her the favor of a last memorable night of passion, so they go to his place and start making love. Suddenly Edwina wakes up and is stunned to see what is happening, but Terry enjoys her retorts as a form of rough foreplay, even enjoying Edwina's attempts to spank her. Despite pleas from Roger, Edwina puts an end to the evening. Terry leaves, realizing that Edwina is indeed inside Roger. When Roger mentions that it was unfair to deprive him of happiness since nobody likely wanted to have sex with Edwina, she says she was always proud to have saved herself. She then breaks down and confesses that she had no friends in her lifetime, which explained the lack of attendees at her memorial. She tells a sad childhood story of a cruel clown who refused to perform for her, and of watching Terry doing all the things she could not as she watched from bed, miserable to be on the sidelines. They reach an understanding, and Roger lets her sleep while he studies the case for Burton. Next morning, after no sleep, Roger tries the hotel again, but Prahka simply ignores the phone and resumes flushing the toilet. Edwina exercises for a groggy Roger and helps him perform his morning routine, saying she looks forward to having a new body. Roger's court appearance is at 8:30 and the funeral is at 10:30, but Roger says he will work it out. At court Burton appears to be losing his case, and Roger falls asleep with Edwina unable to wake him, so she improvises, trying to speak in a lower voice and adapt male mannerisms, but she chooses rude behaviors like hawking and spitting, scratching his crotch and blowing a snot rocket, to the discomfort of the courtroom. She asks Burton about the expensive gifts he gave to the women he was accused of cheating with on his wife, saying that gifting clients was a commonplace business expense. The attorney for his wife says the money was from his personal and not the firm's account, placing the testimony in danger, so a stymied Edwina screams mentally to Roger to wake him up, and he startles back to consciousness. When he asks for and hears the repeat of the court clerk's notes, Roger triumphantly equates Burton's gifts to a perpetual gratuity based on the firm's success and his own salary, which equally supported his own wife in a consistently grand manner. The judge overrules the objection by the other attorney, but when Roger brags mentally to himself that none of Burton's women were clients, Edwina realizes the defense is unfair and blurts it out to the judge before Roger can stop her. Burton fires Roger, the judge fines him for contempt and has him tossed out of the room. Edwina says he is better off not being a lawyer who works against the ideals his family instilled in him, and while married to a woman like Peggy, but he is furious at his unraveled life. Terry puts Prahka into a taxi and pays the driver $200 to stay with him until he is aboard his late night flight back to Tibet. Roger meets her at the funeral, and Edwina sees that Roger has arranged for Tyrone and the orchestra to follow her hearse in an old fashioned New Orleans style procession. When Roger borrows a compact mirror from Terry he sees Edwina is crying with happiness, grateful for what she says is the best gift from the best friend she ever had. Terry demurs when Roger asks if Prahka will show up, and they go to the hotel to check on him. They end up trying again to make love until Edwina thinks of old nuns to kill the mood. Stepping into the restroom, Edwina says she doesn't want to sit in on their sexual exploits, but Roger convinces her to enjoy herself as she starts to pick up on the arousal that is starting to overwhelm their shared body. Prahka then returns from the airport unexpectedly, and upon seeing that Edwina is in Roger's body, he readies the bowl, but Terry dresses to leave, saying Roger must be crazy to think she will give up her body and the inheritance that she now owns. Upset that she made a mistake with Terry, Edwina asks Prahka to give Roger his body back, saying he can put her soul into another creature, but Roger is determined to help her, because his family instilled that sense of justice in him, and refuses. She enjoys being selfless for the first time in her life. Back at the Cutwater estate, Terry orders her father to shower and dress in a tuxedo for her party as the orchestra arrives with two new members-Roger and Prahka--and Bix in a guide harness with Tyrone. At rehearsal, Edwina admires Roger for being such a good musician, and says he should play full time, but she has trouble letting him play his guitar solo, and the rehearsal breaks up. Near the stables, Roger and Prahka wait for Terry to ride in and dismount her horse, and ambush her as Prahka puts Edwina in the bowl. Terry struggles with them, the horse kicks the bowl and it lands in a bucket of water. The bowl is dented, so Prahka needs to fix it before he can get Edwina out of the water, so Roger escapes and creates several distractions as Terry sends guards to pursue him. He puts the water into a glass pitcher, gives it to Tyrone, and refills the bucket with tap water, pausing sadly to see his own reflection in the mirror as Edwina is not with him, then runs with the guards in pursuit until he feigns clumsiness and dumps the bucket into some flowers. He then sees Terry with the pitcher. She pours the contents into a nearby flower bed and calls off the guards, saying Roger is no longer a threat. A sad Roger meets up with Tyrone, who apologizes for not being able to see when the pitcher was taken. Roger relates that he misses the old girl, and Tyrone answers with a retort in Edwina's voice, revealing that he drank the water with her in it. They find Prahka, who has fixed the bowl, and Roger asks Prahka to move Edwina out of Tyrone into him again, as he is the only safe place. The trio and Bix then approach the house after the party and try to sneak in, but Terry prepares a pistol when she hears noises and surprises them, leading them to another room while she tries to concoct a story before she does away with them. The room she chooses has Burton and Gretchen in it, and in the unexpected discovery a scuffle ensues and Roger wrests the gun from her. When Burton says she will be arrested for attempted murder, she says she refuses to surrender as it will be her third conviction and she will go to jail, so she bargains with Edwina. With Fred looking on, Prahka succeeds in placing Edwina into Terry's body, while Terry takes over the body of her favorite horse, whom Fred promises to look after for the rest of her life. In the grand hall, Edwina, now in Terry's body, tells Roger she is scared that now she has no excuses and has what she has always wanted. Roger says he has decided to give up law, and as they enter the ballroom floor he offers to teach her to dance. The mirror reflects the real Edwina sharing her first dance and new life with her new best friend.

John Hay Forrest (George Gaynes), noted scientist and cheese-maker, dies in a single-vehicle car accident. Private investigator Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is approached by Forrest's daughter, Juliet (Rachel Ward). She hires Rigby to investigate the death, which she thinks was murder. In Dr. Forrest's lab, Rigby finds two lists, one titled "Friends of Carlotta" and the other "Enemies of Carlotta", as well as an affectionately autographed photo of singer Kitty Collins, whose name appears on one of the lists. His search is interrupted by a man posing as an exterminator (Alan Ladd, in This Gun for Hire), who shoots Rigby in the arm and frisks the lists from the supposedly dead investigator. Rigby manages to find his way to Juliet's house, where she sucks out the bullet, snakebite-style, and points Rigby to the club at which Kitty sings. Juliet also reveals a note to her father from her alcoholic brother-in-law, Sam Hastings, which in turn reveals that Dr. Forrest gave him a dollar bill "for safekeeping". Despite warnings that the mentally disturbed Leona will not be of much use, Rigby calls Leona, who after a rambling discussion, hangs up (Barbara Stanwyck, in Sorry, Wrong Number). On the way out, Juliet asks Rigby to leave further news with her butler or cleaning woman. Mention of the latter causes Rigby to go berserk (a homage to the old Slowly I Turned vaudeville routine), due to his own father running off with the cleaning woman and his mother dying of a broken heart. Rigby tracks down alcoholic Sam (Ray Milland, from Lost Weekend) and gets Dr. Forrest's dollar, which has "FOC" (Friends of Carlotta) names scrawled on it - including Kitty Collins and Swede Anderson (Kitty's boyfriend). Rigby tracks down Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner, from The Killers) at the Brentwood Room. He asks if she's one of Carlotta's friends, which causes her to leave abruptly. He trails her to a restaurant, where she ditches her brooch into her soup. Rigby subsequently retrieves the brooch, which contains an "EOC" list, on which all names are crossed out, except Swede Anderson's. Rigby visits Swede (Burt Lancaster, from The Killers) but while Rigby prepares a "java", Swede is killed. Rigby calls Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart, from The Big Sleep), his mentor, for assistance. Juliet hands over a key from Dr. Forrest's desk, a key to a train station locker. The accompanying note, "most recent rat", tells Rigby to look for locker 1936, the last Chinese Year of the Rat. Upon exiting, she asks Rigby to call with any progress. Marlowe arrives, and picks up the EOC list to check against unsolved murders. Rigby goes to the train station to collect the contents of locker 1936, which contains more lists. A "handsome" guy (Cary Grant, from Suspicion) follows him onto a train but, Rigby puts him to sleep with the help of his harmonica. Rigby finds F.X. Huberman, whose name he found on one of the lists and who turns out to be a "classy dame", throwing a party (Ingrid Bergman, from Notorious). She flirts with Rigby (represented by Cary Grant's silhouette), then drugs his drink and steals the locker key (represented by Claude Rains' wine cellar key). Rigby wakes up back up at his office, where Juliet informs him that Sam Hastings fell out of a window to his death. She also has a New York Times reference for him from her father's office. The reference is to an article about a South American cruise ship called Immer Essen (German: Always eating) on whose last voyage Sam Hastings was a passenger. When Marlowe (Bogart, from The Big Sleep) calls, Rigby questions him about Walter Neff, the ship's owner, and learns that Neff cruises supermarkets looking for blondes. Juliet offers to dye her hair to serve as bait, but Rigby is protective of her as more than a client. He first tries to recruit Monica Stillpond (Veronica Lake, from The Glass Key), but she's not as willing. Next, he tries Doris Devermont (Bette Davis, from Deception), but he ruins his chances with her by strangling her for saying "cleaning woman". Then he successfully recruits Jimmie Sue Altfeld (Lana Turner, from Johnny Eager) and unsuccessfully attempts to make peace with her father (Edward Arnold, from Johnny Eager) by giving him a puppy. He then is beaten up by four thugs (Kirk Douglas and others, from I Walk Alone). After this, Rigby disguises himself as a blonde and meets Neff (Fred MacMurray from Double Indemnity). Rigby drugs him and finds documents about the Immer Essen, including a passenger list identical to an EOC list, and articles about the ship's imprisoned captain, Cody Jarrett, who refuses to talk to anyone about it but his mother. Rigby then dresses up as Jarrett's mother to visit Jarrett in prison without arousing the prison guards' suspicion (James Cagney from White Heat). He tries to win Jarrett's confidence by explaining the Friends of Carlotta are after him. Rigby doesn't learn anything from Jarrett though, so he cashes in a favor with the warden to act as a prisoner for a few days. Jarrett turns out to be a Friend of Carlotta after all, kidnaps Rigby on a jail break, and shoots him while he's still in the trunk of the getaway car. After sucking out a third bullet, Juliet leaves for the drugstore for medicine. On her way out, a call comes in from an old flame (Joan Crawford, in Humoresque). Juliet overhears parts of it, takes it to be a double dating by Rigby and closes the case. While Rigby is drinking, thinking himself betrayed by Juliet, Marlowe calls and tips Rigby off that Carlotta is an island off Peru (the island in The Bribe and also perhaps a nod to The Man Who Knew Too Much). At a cafe, Rigby finds Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner, from The Bribe) there. Carlos Rodriguez, a local policeman from Rigby's gun-running past, warns Rigby of the locals, including Kitty's new boyfriend, Rice. The next day, one of the characters Rodriguez warned Rigby of (Charles Laughton, from The Bribe) approaches him and tries to bribe Rigby into leave the island. Next, Kitty drops by Reardon's room. Carlos calls to tell him Rice is in town with a group of Germans when the telephone line is cut. Kitty then drugs Rigby's drink, causing him to pass out. He wakes up to see Rice (Vincent Price, from The Bribe) trying to suffocate him. After exchanging shots and chasing through the "Fiesta De Carlotta" fireworks celebration (much of it archived footage from The Bribe), Rigby shoots Rice and frisks the corpse for instructions leading him to a hideout where he finds Juliet, her father (actually still alive), and her butler, who introduces himself as Field Marshal Wilfried Von Kluck (Carl Reiner). Rigby and the Field Marshal compete about the right to explain what happened. It turns out that Dr. Forrest had been tricked into divulging a secret cheese mold by Nazis posing as a humanitarian organization. Once he discovered their true intent, to use the mold's corrosive properties to destroy America, he assembled a list of Nazi agents, the "Friends of Carlotta". Before he could divulge the names to the FBI, he was abducted, and his death faked to prevent a police investigation. The Immer Essen, a cruise ship passing by, witnessed the corrosive effects of the mold tests, making all passengers "Enemies of Carlotta" and targets for murder. Rigby is captured but Juliet gets the Field Marshal to say, "cleaning woman", causing Rigby to go berserk, break his chains and overpower the Nazis. While Juliet gets Rodriguez, the Field Marshal manages to pull one of the switches, destroying Terre Haute, Indiana, before being shot dead by Rigby. Rodriguez rounds up the other Nazis while Rigby shares a long kiss with Juliet.

Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), a homeless bum, directly addresses the camera and tells his story. Navin is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers in Mississippi, who grows to adulthood naively unaware of his obvious adoption. The large family lived in a small shack. The family includes mother (Mabel King), father (Richard Ward), brother Taj (Dick Anthony Williams), sister Elvira (Ren Woods), Grandma Johnson (Frances E. Williams) and many more. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color, but also because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited blues music. He is unable to dance in rhythm to the spirited folk songs played by the family, but finds that he can do so perfectly to a champagne-style song on the radio. One night, he hears the staid and starchy Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and his feet spontaneously begin to move with the urge to dance. He sees this as a calling (and believes that this is the kind of music that inspires him to go out into the world and be somebody) and decides to hitchhike to St. Louis, from where the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire and decides to name the dog "Lifesaver." He wakes up all the other hotel guests to rescue them, but when everyone realizes it was a false alarm, one Asian man angrily suggests he call the dog "Shithead," which Navin takes literally. Navin takes a lift from several motorists and eventually reaches St. Louis. Navin gets a job (and a place to sleep) at a gas station owned by Mr. Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason). Harry pays Navin $1.10 per hour. Navin makes it a habit of sending his savings back home at regular intervals. Over a period of time Harry starts to trust Navin and even leaves him in charge of the gas station when he goes out on date with his wife. A car full of thieves rolls in to buy some gas. Navin says that they have to pay by credit card as he is all alone and the owner has asked him not to expose the cash at the gas station to customers. Navin realizes that the credit card is stolen. Navin calls the cops but then attaches a thick rope to the axle of the car and the other end to the wall of a nearby church. When the thieves realize that they have been made, they try to drive away, bringing down the church wall. He's thrilled to find that he's listed in the local phone book, as his name is "in print" for the first time. Not long after, a gun-wielding lunatic (M. Emmet Walsh) randomly flips through the phone book and picks "Johnson, Navin R." as his next victim. As the madman watches through his rifle scope, waiting for a clear shot, Navin fixes the slippery glasses of a customer, Stan Fox (Bill Macy), by adding a handle and a nose brake. The customer, Stan Fox, is an inventor who promises to try to market the device to split the profits 50/50 with Navin, then departs. Seizing his chance, the crazed sniper tries to kill Navin, but fails, hitting the oil cans in the station window and a soft-drink machine. The lunatic chases Navin to a traveling carnival, where Navin hides out, eventually getting a job with SJM Fiesta Shows as a weight guesser. While employed there, Navin meets an intimidating daredevil biker named Patty Bernstein (Catlin Adams) and has a sexual relationship with her, finally realizing what his "special purpose" (his euphemism for his penis) is for. Later, while operating a miniature railway, he meets a cosmetologist named Marie Kimble (Bernadette Peters) and arranges a date with her. Patty confronts them, but Marie knocks her out. While courting, Navin and Marie walk along the beach and sing "Tonight You Belong to Me", with Navin playing the ukulele and Marie on the cornet. Navin and Marie fall in love, but Marie reluctantly decides to leave him because of his lack of financial security. She writes a note and slips out while Navin is in the bath. Devastated, Navin takes Shithead and travels to Los Angeles. There, the gunman who tried to kill him-now sane and working as a private investigator-tracks him down and gives him a letter from Stan requesting a meeting. His glasses invention, now called the Opti-Grab, is selling big and he's entitled to half of the profits. Stan gives him a check for $250,000 as the first installment on his share of the profits. Now extremely rich, he finds and marries Marie, and they buy an extravagant mansion. Their life becomes one of splendor and non-stop partying. However, motion-picture director Carl Reiner (playing himself) files a class action lawsuit against Navin, claiming that the invention caused his eyes to be crossed and as a result, the death of a stunt driver in the film he was making. Nearly ten million other people have the same complaint (including the judge and prosecution) and are awarded $10 million in damages. Bankrupt, depressed, and now homeless, he abandons Marie and is soon living on the streets. He storms out into the street after yelling at and blaming Marie. Seeing how callous and superficial they've become, Marie wears her tattered dress from the beach, and regrets requiring Navin to be rich. His story now told, he resigns himself to a life of misery and memories of Marie, but to his amazed joy, she suddenly appears, along with Navin's family, and some more good news: Having carefully invested the small sums of money he sent home throughout the film, they've become wealthy themselves. They pick him up off the street, and he and Marie move back home into the Johnsons' new house - a much larger but identical version of their old, small shack. Once again Navin dances on the porch to folk songs, this time with perfect rhythm.

Henry Winkler portrays an outrageously self-confident but out-of-work actor, a young man who dreams of stardom and leaves college to pursue fame and fortune. In 1951, Andy Schmidt is in his last year of college. Taking life easy, always with a saucy joke on his lips, he manages to win fellow student Mary's heart, although she's already otherwise engaged. But getting a job after college turns out to be much harder than he expected. Most directors take offense at his free interpretation of his roles. Desperate, he gives wrestling a try; to avoid getting beaten up, he stages the fights--and incidentally invents show-wrestling. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Jerry Landers (John Denver), an assistant manager at a Food World grocery store in Burbank, California, receives a letter at his home after work summoning him to a meeting with God the following day. Jerry and his wife, Bobbie (Terri Garr), dismiss it as a practical joke and he tears the note up and throws it away. However, the next day, the note turns up in a head of lettuce at the store and Jerry feels compelled to honor the request. Jerry goes to the appointment meeting place in downtown Los Angeles, California, and finds an office with nothing but a chair and an intercom. He is greeted by a voice on the intercom. The voice attempts to convince the dubious Jerry that He really is God by demonstrating that Jerry is on the 27th floor of a building that actually has only 17 floors. After Jerry leaves the building completely spooked, the voice begins talking to him through Jerry's supposedly broken car radio. God informs Jerry that He wants him to spread the word that God exists. At home, Jerry tells his wife all about the meeting and encounter. But naturally Bobbie does not believe Jerry and suggests that they go on vacation and visit his brother-in-law, who is a therapist, but Jerry insists that he is not crazy, which fuels her suspicions about Jerry and his mental health. The following day, God speaks to Jerry in the shower and then appears to him in the guise of an elderly man (George Burns). When Jerry asks him how He can permit so much suffering in the world, God explains that the world is based on luck and free will. God tells Jerry that it is up to him to inform the world to heed His message, treat one another better, and look after the Earth's natural resources. God urges him to go to the press. Jerry visits Briggs (George Furth), a Los Angeles Times reporter, that God asked him to be His messenger, but the journalist is skeptical. Later, God appears to Jerry at the grocery store and asks him to go for a drive. Jerry asks for a sign and God makes it rain inside the car. When Jerry is pulled over by a policeman to inquire about the water leaking from the moving car, Jerry lies to the motorcycle cop by claiming that he left the car windows down while driving through a car wash. After the policeman lets Jerry go with a warning, God is somewhat disappointed that Jerry lied to the policeman to avoid getting in trouble and insists that Jerry spread His word with truth and no more lies. Jerry returns to the newspaper office (still soaking wet) and again tries to convince Briggs. The next day, the newspaper runs a story that includes Jerry among tales of various religious fanatics and Bobbie is mortified. Jerry explains that he has now seen God and needs her to believe him. She allows that Jerry believes that he spoke to God, and they attempt to explain the situation to their children, Adam and Becky, but the boy and girl hope their father is just going through a phase and also think that he may be crazy. Later, a television news program picks up the story and the media surrounds the Landers' Tarzana, California, home. A Food World executive warns Jerry not to make any more claims that he has spoken to God if he wants to keep his job. In another meeting, God tells Jerry that there are no guarantees in life, and his job is a small price to pay for saving the world. When Jerry picks up Adam at school, his son is embarrassed to be seen with him, and Becky refuses to speak to him as well. At home, Bobbie pleads with Jerry not to jeopardize his career or their lives, as their neighbors are now avoiding her. Later, Jerry appears as a guest on the Dinah Shore Show, on which a Los Angeles Police Department sketch artist produces a drawing of God based on Jerry's description. After the show airs, people begin to recognize Jerry wherever he goes. Bobbie is extremely upset when a crowd of religious zealots gathers outside the Landers' house. A committee of religious leaders of various faiths calls Jerry before them to verify his story. The committee sequesters Jerry in a hotel with 50 questions written in ancient Aramaic, which he is to answer with God's help. God appears as a room service waiter, dictates the answers to Jerry and instructs him to take them directly to Reverend Willie Williams (Paul Sorvino), an evangelical preacher, whom God calls a fraud. Jerry attends Reverend Williams' revival meeting at the Shrine Auditorium and tells Williams' followers what God said, which leads to a riot at the auditorium and Jerry getting thrown out by the hostile bouncers. Reverend Williams then sues Jerry for slander. In court, Jerry acts as his own attorney and calls God to the witness stand. The judge threatens Jerry with contempt of court, but God enters the courtroom and testifies. Everyone in court can see and hear Him and He performs a card trick and makes himself disappear to prove his legitimacy; however, when the audio recording made by the court clerk is played back, God's voice cannot be heard and His testimony has disappeared from the stenographer's transcription. The judge dismisses the slander charge against Jerry, but rules that there is no evidence that God appeared despite their mutual experience of the phenomena. Nevertheless, Jerry and Bobbie reconcile as she now believes him and his encounters with God. As the film comes to an end, Jerry loses his job at Food World, collects his final paycheck, and says goodbye to his co-workers. As he drives away, Jerry hears a pay phone ringing in a park and stops to answer it. God materializes in the adjacent phone booth. Jerry asks if they failed to spread His message due to him losing his job and all of his friends and neighbors still ostracizing him. God assures Jerry that they succeeded in getting His word out and now they just have to see what happens. With Jerry's work complete, God bids him good-bye and fades away.

The Soviet naval submarine Sprut (which means "octopus" or "kraken" in Russian) draws too close to the New England coast when its captain wants to take a good look at America and runs aground on a sandbar near an island off Cape Cod. Rather than radio in for help and risk an embarrassing international incident, the captain (Theodore Bikel) sends a nine-man landing party headed by his second-in-command Lieutenant Rozanov (Alan Arkin) to find a motor launch to help free the sub from the bar. The men arrive at the house of Walt Whittaker (Carl Reiner), a vacationing playwright from New York City. Whittaker is eager to get his wife Elspeth (Eva Marie Saint) and two children, obnoxious six-year-old Pete (Sheldon Collins) and three-year-old Annie (Cindy Putnam), off the island now that summer is over. Failing to convince the Whittakers that his group are Norwegians (all of the Russians are conspicuously dressed in sinister all-black clothing), Rozanov draws a gun and promises no harm if the family provides information about military on the island (none) and police force (small), and gives them the keys to their car. Walt and Elspeth provide the answers and the keys, and the Russians depart, leaving behind a young sailor, Alexei Kolchin (John Phillip Law), to guard the Whittakers and, subsequently, their attractive 18-year-old neighbor and babysitter, named Alison Palmer (Andrea Dromm) when she stumbles upon them. The Whittakers' station wagon quickly runs out of gasoline on a rural coastal road, forcing the Russians to walk. They make it to another group of houses where they steal an old sedan from Muriel Everett (Doro Merande), the postmistress; she calls Alice Foss (Tessie O'Shea), the gossipy telephone switchboard operator, and before long, wild rumors throw the entire island into confusion. As level-headed Police Chief Link Mattocks (Brian Keith) and his bumbling assistant Norman Jonas (Jonathan Winters) try to squelch the inept vigilante movement of blustering Fendall Hawkins (Paul Ford). Meanwhile, Walt and Elspeth manage to overpower Kolchin, who flees, but when Walt and Elspeth along with Pete leave the house to find help, Kolchin returns and takes Alison and Annie hostage. Trying to find the Russians on his own, Walt is re-captured by them. After subduing Mrs. Foss and disabling the island's telephone switchboard, seven of the Russians manage to steal a motorboat and head back to their sub, which is still high and dry. Back at the Whittaker house, Kolchin is by now falling in love with Alison. Walt manages to free himself, and he and Elspeth return to the house and almost shoot Rozanov who arrives there just after they do. With the misunderstandings cleared up, the Whittakers, Rozanov and Kolchin decide to head into town together to clear the air with everyone over just what is going on. With the rising tide, the Sprut frees itself, and the Russian captain sets out in search of his missing men. He finds Rozanov and Kolchin in the harbor and threatens to blow up the town unless the other seven are returned to him. Chief Mattocks arrives with the rest of the armed villagers who threaten action against the sub's crew on deck with rifles and pistols. As tension mounts, a small boy (Johnny Whitaker) falls from his perch on the church steeple and hangs perilously from a gutter. Forgetting their differences, islanders and Russians unite to form a human pyramid and rescue the child. With peace and harmony established, the Sprut heads out of the harbor with a convoy of villagers in small boats protecting it. The boat with the seven Russians reaches the group shortly thereafter, and the seven board the submarine, just before two U.S. Air Force F-101B Voodoo jets arrive. They break off after seeing the convoy, and the Sprut is free to sail away to safe waters.