Chuck Connors

There`s a mad bomber on board, the first lunar shuttle is about to self-destruct, the engines don`t work and they are out of coffee! It`s the high flying lunacy of Airplane! all over again.

In the year 2022, the population has grown to 40 million people in New York City alone. Most housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and the homeless fill the streets and line the fire escapes, stairways of buildings, abandoned cars, subway platforms, etc. Unemployment is at around 50%. Summers are oppressively hot and humid with temperatures over 90F degrees during the day and night due to Earth's recent climate change resulting from the Greenhouse Effect. Food, as we know it in this present time, is a rare and expensive commodity. Technology is at a standstill as most of planet Earth's natural resources are gone including most trees. Most of the World's population survives on processed rations produced by the massive Soylent Corporation, including Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, which are advertised as "high-energy vegetable concentrates". The newest product is Soylent Green: small green wafers which are advertised as being produced from "high-energy plankton". It is much more nutritious and palatable than the red and yellow varieties but, like most other foods, in short supply which often leads to weekly food riots. Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is a New York City Police Department detective from the 14th Precinct who lives in a dilapidated, cramped one-room apartment with his aged friend and roommate, Solomon "Sol" Roth (Edward G. Robinson). Roth is a former college professor whose job is to sort through the now-disordered remnants of written records and books to help Thorn's investigations. Roth and his like are known as "books." He tells Thorn about the time before the ecological disaster and population crisis of the early 2000s, when real food was plentiful, although Thorn is generally not interested in the stories, finding most of them too hard to believe. Thorn is assigned to investigate the murder of William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten), a 68-year-old wealthy lawyer living in a luxury high-rise apartment building called Chelsea Towers West. At the crime scene, Thorn first talks with the building superintendent Charles (Philip Stone) about discovering the body. Charles leads Thorn to the 22nd floor and to Simonson's apartment which is 22A. Thorn finds Simonson lying in a pool of blood after having been struck multiple times in the back of the head with a sharp object which is speculated to be a meat hook or an ax. Instead of looking for clues, the poorly paid detective helps himself to the wealthy man's food, liquor and books and even enjoys taking a shower (with real hot water and soap). He questions Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), an attractive 23-year-old "concubine" (euphemistically known as "furniture") who comes with the apartment, and Simonson's bodyguard, Tab Fielding (Chuck Connors), who claims that he was told to escort Shirl on a shopping trip when the attack took place. The sanitation crew led by Wagner arrives to take Simonson's dead body away, as Thorn leaves after collecting a written statement from Fielding. Returning to his apartment, Thorn gives Roth the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 to 2019, a two-volume work which he took from Simonson's apartment. Thorn returns to work at the 14th Precinct during that evening where they're hundreds of people lining up to collect death benefit money from recently diseased friends and family members. Thorn talks to his superior officer, Lieutenant Hatcher (Brock Peters), telling him that he suspects the Simonson homicide may have been an assassination, since nothing was stolen from the apartment and the murder seemed professional. Thorn also finds it odd that the luxury apartment's sophisticated alarm and monitoring electronics, including the building's security cameras, happened to be inoperative on the night of the murder, and Simonson's bodyguard just happened to be out of the apartment at the time. Thorn confides in Lt. Hatcher that he suspects that Fielding might have had something to do with Simonson's murder. The next day, Thorn stakes out Fielding's apartment building and sees him leave. Thorn lets himself into Fielding's apartment where he questions Fielding's live-in "furniture", Martha (Paula Kelly), about his work for Simonson. Thorn returns to his own apartment to eat an evening meal of the purloined food taken from Simonson's apartment that Roth prepares for them. Afterwards, Roth tells Thorn about the research he did on the murder victim and that Simonson was a member of the board of directors of the Soylent Corporation. When he presents Roth with a spoon of strawberry jam surreptitiously palmed from Fielding's apartment, Roth tastes it and declares that Fielding's "furniture" is eating some "$150-a-jar" strawberry jam, which is an out-of-place luxury for the mistress of a bodyguard. That evening, Thorn returns to the Chelsea Towers West to question Shirl, who tells him that Simonson became deeply troubled in the days before his death, even taking her to a local Catholic church. Shirl is throwing a party in Simonson's vacant apartment for the other "furniture" girls of the building. Just then, Charles arrives and begins yelling and hitting the women for slacking off until Thorn arrives back in the living room to stop Charles from hurting the girls anymore. After sending Charles and the rest of the furniture girls away, Thorn returns to Shirl and they make love. A little later that same evening, Thorn goes to a local Catholic Church (teeming with hundreds of homeless people) and attempts to question the priest (Lincoln Kirkpatrick) about Simonson's confession, but the priest is almost catatonic with exhaustion and has a hard time remembering Simonson, even though Simonson, as a rich man, would have stood out among the impoverished people who normally frequent the church. When the priest remembers Simonson, he tells Thorn the memory of what Simonson told him during confession which is haunting him, and he is unable to describe what Simonson said to him because it was "too horrible". The next day, Fielding goes to the church and murders the priest in the confessional booth to ensure he never talks again. The next morning, as Thorn begins uncovering more evidence as to why Simonson was murdered, New York State's Governor, Joseph Santini (Whit Bissell), who was once Simonson's partner in a high-profile law firm and who is running for re-election (as shown in the campaign posters on such walls as that of Hatcher's office), instructs Hatcher to close the investigation. However, Thorn continues his investigation into the murder. When Governor Santini learns that Thorn refuses to close the case of the Simonson murder, he orders his chief of security, Donovan (Roy Jensen), to have Thorn murdered. When Thorn is on riot duty during the Tuesday distribution of Soylent Green rations, Simonson's murderer, Gilbert (Stephen Young), a local assassin-for-hire whom was the one that Donovan contracted to murder Simonson, attacks Thorn and fires several shots at him with a silenced pistol as a food riot begins. Thorn chases his attacker into the thick crowd as large dump trucks called "scoops" designed by the NYC Riot Police, arrive to pick up closely packed rioters and "scoop" them into the trucks. But before Thorn can capture Gilbert, who manages to wound Thorn by shooting him in his right calf, the assassin is crushed to death under the "scoop" of one of the riot control vehicles. Thorn goes back to Fielding's apartment and beats him and his mistress Martha for the attempt on his life. Thorn then goes back to Shirl at Simonson's apartment where she removes the bullet and stitches his wound. Shirl tells Thorn that a new tenant will be arriving soon at the apartment and is hoping to move in, but she has romantic feelings for Thorn. Thorn tells Shirl that he will let her know if she wants to stay with him or the new tenant of Simonson's apartment. After resting for about an hour, Thorn leaves the apartment into the evening as sirens for the nightly curfew begin sounding. Sometime later a new potential tenant, a brash high-class businessman, arrives at the apartment and questions Shirl about herself and describes his daily details should he decide move in and want to keep her as "furniture". Meanwhile, Roth examines Soylent's oceanographic reports at the Supreme Exchange, a library and gathering place for fellow "books." The "books" and Roth finally realize that the reports indicate a "horrible" truth which, despite reading it for themselves, they find nearly impossible to believe; Soylent Green isn't made from plankton, it's made from human bodies. Unable to live with what he has uncovered, Roth opts for assisted suicide at a government clinic (in the former Madison Square Garden, which had been converted to a clinic for mass euthanasia), a process referred to as "going home". As Roth is dying, he watches video clips of Earth long ago when animal (sheep, deer, and horses) and plant life was thriving and there was no pollution, while listening to light classical music. Thorn returns to his apartment and finds a note from Roth that he is "going home". Thorn races to the clinic and forces one staff attendant (Dick Van Patten) to allow him to see and talk to Roth. During Roth's final moments, he tells Thorn the secret of Soylent Green, and begs him to follow his body to the processing center and report back to the Supreme Exchange so they can take the information to the Council of Nations to take action. Thorn sneaks into the basement of the assisted suicide facility, where he sees corpses being loaded onto waste disposal trucks. He secretly hitches a ride on one, which is driven to a heavily guarded waste disposal plant just outside the city. The black-clad sanitation drivers are escorted at gunpoint out of the truck where a white-clad plant worker takes over driving. The sanitation worker is escorted to another truck leaving the fortress-like facility to drive back to the city. Once inside the plant, Thorn sees how the corpses are processed into Soylent Green wafers. They are loaded onto a conveyor belt and driven through a large machine about several hundred yards long, and the Soylent Green wafers come out on the other end. But Thorn is spotted by two plant workers and is chased. Thorn kills one and subdues another before he escapes from the plant just when the alarm is sounded. Thorn returns to the teeming city and heads for the Supreme Exchange to report what he found, but is ambushed by Fielding and three other gunmen (all of whom presumably work for the government and are also aware and are trying to conceal the secret about Soylent Green). Thorn manage to get to a police payphone and call Shirl to tell her that he loves her and to stay with the new tenant whom wants to rent Simonson's vacant apartment. Thorn also manages to place a second call to Lt. Hatcher at the 14th Precinct to tell him where he is and that he is being attacked, but then gets cut off when the assassins close in. During a chase through the deserted streets and alleys (cleared of people because of the government-imposed dusk to dawn curfew), Thorn manages to kill all the gunmen chasing him except for Fielding who shoots Thorn in the back. He retreats into a cathedral filled with homeless people and Fielding follows him. After a desperate fight through throngs of sleeping homeless, Thorn kills Fielding by stabbing him with a rusted kitchen knife. When police backup arrives at the church, the seriously wounded and nearly hysterical Thorn confides to Lt. Hatcher the horrible secret behind Soylent Green, while Hatcher looks on with disbelief. As Thorn is being carried away by the police on a stretcher to a local hospital, he urges to Hatcher to spread the word and shouts out to the spectators: "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!! We've got to stop them... SOMEHOW!!!"

After an 11-year absence, a buffalo hunter returns home with lots of money in his saddlebags only to be robbed at gunpoint by a trio of no-good town citizens, prompting an eventual revenge quest. Jonas Trapp falls in love with the beautiful Jessie, a wealthy girl out of his humble class. Against the wishes of her snobbish aunt, she marries him, later faking a pregnancy to win her aunt's consent. But Jonas tires of living off of his wife's family, and eventually deserts her to become a buffalo hunter. 11 years later, with his self-made fortune ($17,000), he sets out to return home, only to be set upon by two marauders (a drunk and a sadistic hustler), for some reason in the company of a banker who manages to save Jonas's life but steals his money. Severely beaten and branded, Jonas is left for dead. Rescued by a farmer who nurses him back to health, Jonas becomes consumed by the desire for revenge. As fate would have it, all three men live close to Jonas' former home. Matters quickly get worse when Jonas reunites with his wife, only to discover that she is now engaged to the banker, one of the men upon whom Jonas now seeks vengeance. —phillindholm (updated by R.M. Sieger)

Sandy is distraught when, having saved Flipper by pulling out a spear, his father insists the dolphin be released. A grateful Flipper, however, returns the favor when Sandy is threatened by Sharks. The Florida Keys have been hit by hard times of late. First, a red plague kills off much of the fish in the area. And second, Hurricane Hazel unexpectedly changes course to hit the Keys. Regardless, the Ricks family - fisherman father Po (short for Porter), wife Martha, their preteen son Sandy, and Sandy's pet pelican Pete - live in all its aspects by the sea, even during these hard times. When Sandy witnesses the accidental spearing of a dolphin, he, on his own, decides to find the dolphin to put it out of its misery. Upon finding the injured dolphin, Sandy, not having the heart to shoot him, decides instead to tow the dolphin home. With some care and love, Sandy and Martha nurse the dolphin back to health. Sandy wants to keep the dolphin, who he's named Flipper, but Po ultimately releases Flipper, who he sees as "the enemy": a creature who is on the hunt for whatever short supply of fish there are around the Keys. But Po learns that friends - what Flipper and Sandy are to each other - help each other unconditionally. —Huggo

In 1880s Arizona, General Crook and his troops are trying to subdue the last tribe of Apache led by Geronimo. An Apache warrior who defies U.S. attempts to bring the Indians under control grapples with an array of U.S. soldiers sent to subdue his revolt. Sympathetic scouts seek to bring Geronimo back to the reservation before he is hunted down. —Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>

A New England sea captain in the 1880s arrives at his fiancée's sprawling Texas ranch, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between two families over a valuable patch of land. Retired, wealthy sea Captain James McKay arrives in the vast expanse of the West to marry fiancée Pat Terrill. McKay is a man whose values and approach to life are a mystery to the ranchers and ranch foreman Steve Leech takes an immediate dislike to him. Pat is spoiled, selfish and controlled by her wealthy father, Major Henry Terrill. The Major is involved in a ruthless land war, over watering rights for cattle, with a rough hewn clan led by Rufus Hannassey. The land in question is owned by Julie Maragon and both Terrill and Hannassey want it. —E.W. DesMarais <jlongst@aol.com> Retiring to the American West to marry his fiancée, Patricia Terrill, Captain James McKay enters a land-and-water feud between his future father-in-law, Major Terrill, and the rough and lawless Hannassey family, led by Rufus. McKay prefers peace between himself and the Hannasseys, who repeatedly attempt to provoke violence. But his steadfast demeanor only angers his fiancée and Major Terrill, who won't settle for truces. —Jwelch5742 Sailor James McKay (Gregory Peck), after accumulating wealth and experience sailing the world's seas, meets the beautiful and temperamental Pat Terrill (Carroll Baker) and decides to move to the vast expanse of the West to marry her. Arriving at the ranch of his future father-in-law, Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), he begins to confront the arrogant and inhospitable frontier, just like the ranch foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston), who, also in love with his employer's daughter, takes an immediate dislike to his new fiancé. The major himself is also strong-willed and domineering, controlling his daughter's life and demanding the same from his neighbors, with whom he wages a ruthless war over watering rights for their cattle on the estate inherited by the peaceful and tolerant Julie Maragon (Jennifer Jones), who, with great difficulty, tries to broker peace between the major and the family led by the crude and controversial Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). —Alessandro