Clifton James

A woman and her new husband returns to her hometown roots in coastal northern Florida, and must deal with family, business, and encroaching real estate development. Real estate developers descend upon a sleepy coastal Florida community with the promise of big money and bigger changes. Torn between honoring family obligations and the lure of quick cash, the locals greet the outsiders with a wildly mixed reception. Marly Temple is eager to give in and sell the family business to start over her life. As caretaker of her father's motel and cafe, she has grown resentful of missed opportunities. However, she finds a glimmer of hope in a tentative romance with a visiting landscape architect. Desiree Perry left town many years ago to escape a scandal and make a name for herself as an actress. Reluctantly returning home, she finds her strong willed mother unwilling to let go of the past. —Susan C. Mitchell <susanm@indirect.com> Ambitious land developers descend on a small Florida coastline community, inhabited mostly by local yokels and elderly African Americans. Many of them don't want to see their homes and businesses sacrificed in the name of progress (a.k.a. condos, hotels, strip malls, and so on). But the city council appears to be all too willing to let them come in and develop the land. In addition, one weary hotel owner is thinking about giving in and selling. Meanwhile, one prominent African American athlete suddenly becomes interested in buying out his aging neighbors. So now that the wheels of progress appear to be in motion, it seems that a minor miracle is the only thing that can stop it. —jgp3553@yahoo.com

The Bears, a ragtag San Fernando Valley youth baseball team, reconvene without their former coach and star pitcher (Note: no mention is ever made to the absence of Coach Morris Buttermaker or Amanda Whurlizer). A new, austere coach, Mr. Manning (Dolph Sweet), prepares the team for a big game to be played at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas; the winner will travel to Japan to play a Japanese team. Appalled by the team's lack of discipline, Manning fires catcher Mike Engelberg (Jeffery Louis Starr) before they take the field. The team's motorcycle-riding star, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), disrupts practice, leading the Bears to walk out and effectively ending Manning's tenure as coach. Three of the players, Engelberg, Ogilvie (Alfred Lutter), and Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) visit the home of teammate Timmy "The Big Looper" Lupus (Quinn Smith), who is laid up with a broken leg and will not be making the trip to Texas. Ogilvie points out that none of them will be going to Houston if they cannot find a competent coach and a decent pitcher. Later, Kelly finds a new pitcher, Carmen Ronzonni (Jimmy Baio), who has moved from the East Coast. Kelly rejoins the team and introduces the local park's elderly and senile groundskeeper, Lester Eastland (Fred Stuthman), claiming that the man is the Bears' new coach. The players trick their parents into thinking that Lester will accompany them to Houston, then depart without a chaperon in a possibly stolen van procured by Carmen Ronzonni and driven by 13-year-old Kelly. The team stops for the night at a motel where they pile into a double room. Kelly goes off to smoke cigarettes and pulls a photograph of a man from his pocket. When Kelly returns, Tanner is watching Knute Rockne-All American on television, just as Pat O'Brien delivers his "Win one for the Gipper" speech. The next day, the Bears reach New Mexico and a group of Native Americans kids challenge them to a game in a vacant lot. At first, pitcher Carmen cannot get the ball over the plate and then when he does, he cannot get the other team out, resulting in a disastrous loss. Arriving in Texas, the Bears spot the Astrodome and speculate that their opponents, the Toros, are dirt farmers. At a practice field, the Toros drill with military precision as the game's sponsor, Sy Orlansky (Clifton James), impatiently waits for the Bears to arrive. Morrie Slaytor (Pat Corley), the Toros' coach, instructs his assistant to see if the El Paso Falcons team is still available. Kelly sets the Bears up in a dirty hotel, but the police show up and inquire about the van parked out front. Plainclothes Officer Mackie (Lane Smith) wants to know who drove the van, who it belongs to, and who their chaperon is? Kelly says their coach is not there and leaves for a nearby plant, where he waits for the shift to end, and greets the man in his photograph, his divorced estranged father Mike Leak (William Devane). Kelly asks Mike to be the Bears' coach and he reluctantly agrees. At the hotel, Mike introduces himself to Mackie as 'Coach Leak'. Mackie says as long as the van checks out, everything is fine. On a practice field, the boys tell Mike that they do not need a coach, they just need an adult to go on the field with them, so Mike watches their inept play from the sidelines. When Carmen hits Tanner with a pitch, triggering a minor brawl, Mike takes the team for pizza and they read about themselves in the local newspaper. Sometime later, the Bears arrive at the field to find the El Paso Falcons are already there. Mike introduces himself to Sy, who mistakes the Falcons for the Bears, but Mike points out the real Bears. Sy challenges Slaytor over the confusion, telling him that he wants the team from the newspaper because they have a great story. After checking in at the Houston Hilton with expenses paid by Sy's company, the Bears head back to the practice field where Mike teaches the boys fundamentals and Ogilvie gets a detailed scouting report on the Toros from a local girl. Mike tells Carmen to stop impersonating major league pitchers and just throw like himself, which turns out to be pretty good. Mike confronts Kelly about his smoking and Kelly storms off. He bumps into some of the Toros and one of them repeatedly uses a gay slur to describe the Bears and their coach and a fight ensues, but Kelly is separated from his rival. Now angrier, Kelly runs away. Back at the hotel, the team cannot find Kelly, but watch themselves in a television news report. When Mike finds Kelly in a pool hall, his son is upset that Mike did not recognize him immediately at the plant. Mike left eight years earlier, when Kelly was five, after giving the boy a bicycle. Kelly tells Mike that he never rode the bike because he saw it as a bribe and never accepted the deal. Mike asks if Kelly would have looked him up if he had not needed a coach? On game day in the locker room, the team worries that Kelly will not return, but Tanner gives a "win one for the Big Looper" speech, and Kelly arrives at the last minute. Between games of the doubleheader, a scaled down field with shorter baselines is set up. The Toros quickly take a 5-0 lead, but due to a time limit an official calls the game after only two innings. Mike argues that they deserve to finish the game, as Tanner refuses to leave the field and is chased by two officials. A member of the Astros, Robert J. Watson, shouts "Let them play," and Mike and the Bears get the crowd to join in the chant. The officials reverse their decision and the game continues. The Bears chip away at the Toros' lead. With two out in the bottom of the fourth and the score at 5-2, Carmen steps to the plate and hits the ball to the fence for a bases-clearing double. He takes off for third, the Toros throw the ball away, and Carmen slides home safely as the Bears win, 6-5 and are going to Japan. Alone in the runway to the locker room after the game, Kelly tells Mike that he would have found him even if they did not need a coach. In the final scene back in California, Kelly stops by the ball field and gives Lester Eastland a silent nod of thanks.

An American gangster Rodney (Marc Lawrence) visits famed crack shot hit-man Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) (has a 'superfluous papilla', or supernumerary nipple) in order to try to kill him to collect a bounty, but he is directed into a fun-house section of the estate where there are mannequins of gangsters. Scaramanga attacks Rodney with an aim of sharpening his own assassination skills, eventually retrieves his golden gun and shoots the gangster. In London, a golden bullet etched with '007' is received by MI6; it is believed to have been sent by Scaramanga (He was trained by the KGB, but went independent in the 1950's. He charges $1MM per hit), but because no one knows of his appearance outside of having a third nipple, M (Bernard Lee) relieves Bond (Roger Moore) of his current mission involving tracking an energy scientist named Gibson. At a hint from Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) (she tells bond that an agent 002 was found dead in Beirut a few months ago, suspected hit by Scaramanga, but not confirmed since they couldn't locate the bullet), Bond sets out unofficially to locate Scaramanga, first by retrieving a spent golden bullet from a belly dancer (who was with 002 at the time of the shooting) in Beirut. He traces the bullet to a gun maker in Macau (from the Nicole content in the Gold), Lazar (Marne Maitland), and forces him to reveal how he ships the bullets. Bond follows the shipment carried to Hong Kong by Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), Scaramanga's mistress. At her Peninsula Hotel room, he coerces her to expose information about Scaramanga, his appearance and his plans. She directs Bond to the Bottoms Up Club where Scaramanga snipes Gibson when he steps outside, and Scaramanga's dwarf assistant Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize) steals a small device called the Solex Agitator (a revolutionary solar energy device) off his body. Bond, who had pulled out his pistol outside the club, is arrested by Hong Kong police lieutenant Hip (Soon-Taik Oh). But instead of going to the station, he is transported to the wreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeth in the harbor where he meets M and Q (Desmond Llewelyn), and is assigned to work with Hip to retrieve the Solex. Hip was at the club to make initial contact with Gibson, who wanted immunity in exchange for the Solex, a solar cell which he claims to be 95% efficient. Bond travels to Bangkok to meet Hai Fat (Richard Loo), a wealthy Thai entrepreneur suspected of arranging Gibson's murder. Posing as Scaramanga by showing off his fake third nipple, Bond is invited to dinner, but his plan backfires because unknown to him, Scaramanga himself is operating at Fat's estate. Bond is captured and placed inside Fat's martial arts academy, where the students duel to the death and then are instructed to kill him. Escaping with the aid of Hip and his nieces, Bond speeds away on a motorized sampan along the river, and reunites with his assistant, Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland). Scaramanga subsequently kills Fat with his golden gun and assumes control of his empire and the Solex. Anders reveals to Bond that she sent the bullet to London. She wants him to kill Scaramanga, and promises to give him the Solex. At a Muay Thai boxing event the next day, Bond finds Anders sitting and staring silently, dead from a bullet to the heart. Bond finds the Solex in Ander's bag. Scaramanga arrives and introduces himself to Bond, but Bond is able to smuggle the Solex to Hip, who passes it to Goodnight. When Goodnight follows Nick Nack to place a homing device on Scaramanga's car, Scaramanga traps her in the car's boot. Bond discovers Scaramanga driving off and steals an AMC Hornet from a showroom to give chase, coincidentally with the holidaying J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) (the American sheriff Bond encountered in Live and Let Die) sitting inside. The chase concludes when Scaramanga's AMC Matador hides in a building and then transforms into a plane that flies off. Tracking Goodnight's homing beacon, Bond flies a seaplane to Scaramanga's island in the Red Chinese waters. Scaramanga welcomes and shows Bond the solar power plant facility that he has taken over, the technology for which he intends to sell to the highest bidder. But while demonstrating the equipment, Scaramanga uses the solar-powered energy beam to destroy Bond's plane. After they dine together, Scaramanga proposes a pistol duel with Bond on the beach. With Nick Nack officiating, the two men take twenty paces, but when Bond turns and fires, Scaramanga has vanished. Nick Nack leads Bond into Scaramanga's manor and fun-house section. Bond eventually outwits and kills Scaramanga by posing as his mannequin. Goodnight kills Scaramanga's security chief Kra, but the latter's fall into a liquid helium vat causes the plant's temperature to spiral out of control. Bond retrieves the Solex unit just before the plant is destroyed, and they escape unharmed in Scaramanga's Chinese junk float. After Bond fends off a final attack by Nick Nack, he romances Goodnight.

One cold winter, at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval base, two seasoned petty officers, Navy lifers Signalman William "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson), and Gunner's Mate First Class "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), are assigned to escort a dishonorably discharged seaman, Lawrence M. Meadows (Dennis Quaid), to Portsmouth Military Prison near Kittery, Marines, where he will serve an eight-year sentence. When Badass jests that Meadows must have killed the base commander, the Master-at-Arms (Clifton James) explains that Meadows robbed forty dollars from the contribution box of the commander's wife's favorite charity, a polio foundation that annually awards her a plaque. Disregarding the men's stunned expressions, the chief congratulates them for getting assigned to a good detail, which allows a week to deliver Meadows and return, and warns that their careers are in jeopardy if they fail to complete the task. Neither officer is enthusiastic about their assignment, and Mule tells Badass that he hates the detail. However, Badass calculates that Portsmouth can be reached in two days and suggests privately to Mule that they rush Meadows to the prison. They can then return leisurely, spending the extra days and per diem on themselves. Upon meeting Meadows, they are surprised that he is just a cowering 18-year-old resigned to his fate, too timid to cause trouble, and on the bus to the train station, they remove his handcuffs. Later, on the train, the officers ask Meadows whether his lengthy sentence was really for stealing forty dollars, and the young man replies that he was actually caught before he was able to take the money. Badass later learns from Meadows that his only prior criminal record was a couple of arrests for shoplifting before he enlisted. Feeling sorry for him, Badass says the authorities might knock off two years for good behavior, to which Mule is skeptical, but Meadows brightens. Later, the officers discover that Meadows pilfered a candy bar at the station and, despite their lack of concern, the seaman panics and runs down the aisle. After they drag him back, he tearfully confesses that he is always stealing small things. In Washington, the sailors leave the train to allow Meadows time to calm down. Although the younger man has shown little interest in his situation, he mentions that he likes melted cheese on his hamburgers. At a restaurant, when the sandwich is served with a slab of cold cheese, Meadows meekly accepts it, but Badass insists on sending it back to the cook. Later, Badass confronts a bartender (Don McGovern) for refusing service to the underage Meadows, going so far as to pull out his gun, but Mule intervenes. Outside, Badass revels and proclaims loudly that he is a "bad ass," then buys beer from a liquor store, which they drink in a parking lot. By then they have missed their train, so they check into a hotel. There, the drinking continues, and Badass, proud of being a Signalman, demonstrates semaphore. When Meadows tells Badass that the bartender was only doing his job, Badass asks if he ever feels so enraged that he needs to get it out of his system. Meadows recalls being mad only once, when a Marine guard beat him up in the brig. He relates that the beating did not anger him, but when the guard claimed that he was Jesus Christ and told him not to forget it, Meadows became furious and hoped the chaplain would hear about it. Disturbed by Meadows' pathetic story, Badass smashes a lamp with his fist. To mollify him, Meadows asks Badass to teach him hand signals. The next day, at Badass' suggestion, they take Meadows to see his mother in Camden, New Jersey. Mule worries that he might try to escape, but Badass assures him that the kid is secretly glad to go to prison, because he is frightened of the world. Meadows' mother is not at home, and as they look inside at the slovenly manner in which she lives, Meadows says he would not know what to say to her. After returning to the train, Badass suggests that writing Meadows' mother's congressman might help, but Mule says that nothing will help Meadows. He says, they must either release him or he must live with the sentence, but then adds that they cannot release him. Although Mule feels sorry for the injustice of Meadows' sentence, he sternly tells Badass to stop thinking about the seaman's plight and recall that the Navy has been good to them. He points out that both of them are "lifers" and they have to do the job. When Badass says he wants to show the kid a good time before he is locked up, Mule counters that doing so will make his eight years harder. In the New York train station, Badass picks a fight with Marines in a men's room, and Mule and Meadows join in. Afterward they run out to the street and hail a taxi. Badass takes them to a food stand he knows that sells inexpensive but delicious Italian sausages, then introduces Meadows to Heineken beer. Badass then bets their traveling funds in a tavern darts game, winning $63, which he divides three ways. When they hear chanting, Meadows asks to investigate and they follow the sound to a meeting of young American Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists, where the followers testify that chanting changed their lives. Afterward, Meadows chants the phrase he learned, hoping that his situation will improve. The sailors proceed to an adult bookstore, where Meadows admits he is a virgin, then to a pinball arcade, where the seaman, emulating Badass, has a metal tag engraved that identifies him as a Chief Signalman. Later, at an ice rink, Mule and Badass watch paternally as Meadows skates. Claiming that chanting kept him from falling on the ice, Meadows continues to chant under his breath as they proceed to a bar, where Donna (Luana Anders), a Shoshu follower, hears and invites them to a party at her apartment. There, in clouds of marijuana smoke, Badass attempts unsuccessfully to seduce a woman with talk about the romance of the sea. A different woman questions Mule about Vietnam, and is reproachful when he says he simply goes where he is told. When Meadows confides to Donna that he is en route to prison, she suggests he take refuge in Canada with someone she knows, but he does not want to cause trouble for Mule and Badass, who are his "best friends." She then leads him to her bedroom, where, instead of offering him sex, as he hopes, she kneels before an altar and chants fervently. In a Boston diner the next day, Meadows arbitrarily sends his eggs back to the cook. The older men decide Meadows should experience sex before being incarcerated and take him to a brothel. As they wait for him, Badass explains to Mule that his marriage dissolved because his former wife wanted him to be a television repairman. Mule admits he never married but supports his mother, who is proud of his career. Upstairs, when Meadows ejaculates prematurely, the prostitute (Carol Kane) says her job is done. However, Badass and Mule pay for Meadows to have a second chance and this time he succeeds. Afterward, in the remaining time before Meadows is due at the prison, they go to a park to roast hot dogs in the snow, because Meadows suggests a picnic. After eating, Meadows chants, as Badass reminisces about his love of the sea. Badass remarks proudly on Meadows' transformation and when Mule announces they must now deliver him, Badass worries that he will not be able to survive the "sadistic" Marine guards. As they talk, Meadows slips away and, from across the park, uses semaphore to signal, "By By" then runs away. They chase him across the park and must use their combined strength to subdue him. During the rest of the trip, Badass and Mule must keep a sharp eye on the weeping Meadows, who now realizes how much his freedom means. Later, at the prison, Meadows is dragged away behind heavily barred, steel doors. The Marine in charge of admittance (Michael Moriarty), who saw scratches and bruises on Meadows that were caused when the officers apprehended him, accuses Mule and Badass of abusing the prisoner. However, when he asks if Meadows offered resistance or tried to escape, Mule and Badass state that he did not. The Marine continues to harass them and tells them that their orders to leave Norfolk had not been properly signed, but eventually permits them to leave after meak Mulhall challenges the arrogant Marine on his harassment by asking for his supervisor. Outside, Badass fumes about that disrespectful treatment and by others like him, while Mule again says how much he hates the detail. As they march off in unison, Badass talks about going to New York and Mule to Baltimore, before they report back at the base. Both hope their orders will have come through when they get back to Norfolk, Virginia.

Three British MI6 agents, including one "on loan" to the American government, are killed under mysterious circumstances within 24 hours while monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), the dictator of a small Caribbean island called San Monique. One is killed at a meeting of the United Nations. The second is stabbed on a street in New Orleans while observing a restaurant called Fillet of Soul; his body is secreted in the coffin of a passing funeral procession. The third agent is killed on the island of San Monique during a voodoo rites ceremony; the high priest uses a poisonous snake to kill the man. James Bond (Sir Roger Moore) is ordered by his boss, M (Bernard Lee), to investigate the deaths and their connections to Kananga. He is sent to New York City, where the first agent was killed where Kananga is currently visiting the UN. As soon as Bond arrives in New York City, his driver is killed while taking him to meet Felix Leiter (David Hedison) of the CIA and Bond narrowly escapes a potentially fatal car wreck. The driver's killer leads Bond to Mr. Big, a gangster who runs the chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants throughout the United States. It is during his confrontation with Mr. Big that Bond first meets Solitaire (Jane Seymour), a beautiful virgin Tarot expert who has the uncanny ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. Big orders his henchman to kill Bond, who, with the assistance of Felix Leiter, manages to escape unscathed. Bond follows Kananga to San Monique. In his hotel room, during a bath, a poisonous snake is set loose in an attempted assassination attempt. He subsequently meets Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), a CIA double agent, who is subsequently murdered after Bond suspects her of working for Kananga. Later he meets the boatman Quarrel, Jr. (Roy Stewart) who takes him to the home of Solitaire. Using a stacked deck of tarot cards only showing "The Lovers," Bond seduces her. Solitaire loses her virginity to Bond and also loses her foresight abilities and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga. After discovering heroin poppy fields, Bond and Solitaire commandeer a double-decker bus and are chased by Kanaga's henchmen and local police. They escape the island on Quarrel Jr's boat and heads for Louisiana. When they arrive, Bond escapes Kananga's men in a small craft airport with a student female pilot. Unfortunately, the plane never leaves the ground. Nevertheless, he meets up with Felix Leiter and the two go to the New Orleans Fillet of Soul restaurant. When Leiter leaves their table momentarily, the table drops down into the floor, where Mr. Big awaits Bond. Big harshly demands to know if Bond had slept with Solitaire. Bond says that the answer is a secret between himself and Solitaire and he'll only reveal the truth to Kananga himself. Big suddenly pulls prosthetic makeup from his face, revealing that he is actually Kananga. Kananga explains that he is producing two metric tonnes of heroin on San Monique and is protecting the poppy fields with camouflage and by exploiting locals' fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego, Mr. Big, Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free of charge on the market, which will drive all the other drug cartels out of business, increase the number of addicts, and give Kananga a monopoly of the heroin market. Using the serial number on Bond's watch, Kananga tests Solitaire's truth-saying powers. She fails but Kananga does not reveal the outcome in front of Bond; after Bond is escorted out of the room, he chastises Solitaire harshly for her betrayal and leaves her in the hands of Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder) to be sacrificed in ritual on San Monique. Kananga turns Bond over to Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris), a thug with a mechanical arm, who takes Bond to the Farm, a community in the Louisiana backwoods filled with alligators and crocodiles and housing one of Kanaga's heroin labs. Bond is left on a small island to be food for the gators but he jumps on the backs of the reptiles to reach the shore. He sets the Farm on fire, killing some of Kananga's men. He steals a speedboat leading to a furious chase with Kananga's men in pursuit and the local sheriff, J.W. Pepper (Clifton James), and the Louisiana state police trying to blockade Bond and his pursuers. Bond evades them all and is met by Leiter who informs him that Kananga, Samedi and Solitaire left for San Monique. Bond goes back to San Monique, ordering Quarrel Jr. to plant explosives in the poppy fields. Bond interrupts the voodoo sacrifice, rescuing Solitaire. While Bond holds the ritual attendees at bay, Baron Samedi pops up from a grave. Bond shoots him, finding he's a ceramic decoy, however, the real Samedi appears. Bond fights the man briefly and the villain ends up falling in a coffin full of poisonous snakes, seemingly bitten to death. Bond and Solitaire travel below ground into Kananga's lair. They find Kananga, who tells Bond that his wet suit was found and that the explosives he used on the poppy fields have done too little damage to interrupt production. Bond and Solitaire are lashed to a small crane over a shark pool; Kananga slashes Bond's forearm several times, drawing blood to bait the sharks. Using his magnetic watch, Bond retrieves a gas pellet from his shark gun and cuts the ropes holding him. After a brief fight with Kananga, he forces the gas pellet in Kananga's mouth, rapidly inflating the villain who floats to the top of the room and explodes. After the job is done, Felix leaves Bond and Solitaire on a train out of the country. Tee Hee makes a last attempt on Bond's life and is ejected from their train compartment at high speed. However Baron Samedi is seen perched on the nose of the speeding train in his voodoo ensemble and laughing heartily.

In 1905, a train rolls into a quiet and happy Mississippi town where Lucius (Mitch Vogell), a boy of 11, is about to begin his journey to manhood as his grandfather, Boss (Will Geer), has the town's first car delivered - a yellow Winton Flier. The family's handyman, Boon Hogganbeck (Steve McQueen), immediately takes the automobile under his eager care. His friend Ned (Rupert Crosse) steals it to try to impress a woman resulting in a fun chase and resulting in an innocent accident. Lucius' other grandfather dies requiring the family's attendance out of town. Boss leaves the young boy in the care of Boon - after cautious warnings of Boon's predilections of immoral tendencies. Boon immediately teaches Lucious how to smoke, drive and lie to his other relatives so he can go on the road trip. Boon talks of the benefits and beauty of a trip to Memphis and as they start Ned talks his way aboard. They get stuck in a muddy ditch where they must pay for a farmer to use his mules to free them, then they make it to the big highway - a two-lane dirt road. They make it to their first stop, a Memphis brothel where Boon's girlfriend Corrie (Sharon Farell) works, piquing Lucius pubescent curiosities. After Lucius gets into a manly brawl with another youngster regarding the reality of Corrie's adult profession, she is determined to change her path and quits to join Boon and the boys on the road. That same night, Ned drunkenly trades the automobile for a questionable racehorse leaving them all without transportation and a racehorse that doesn't race. In order to figure out how to get the horse to run they regroup at Mr. Possum's (Juano Hernandez) farm, a black man who's mortal enemy, Sherriff Lovemaiden (Clifton James), threatens racial calamity. Some of the ladies of the evening and other friends hear about the race and show up from Memphis to root for the cause. Lovemaiden comes back with his deputies and after a barnyard brawl he arrests the lot. Corrie arranges for their release with a private liaison with Lovemaiden, causing Boon to give her a black eye. Lucius, abhorred by the realities of adulthood, wants to quit and go home but after considering what his grandfather would do decides he will finish the task. Lucius will be the jockey and if they win they can get the car back. After the first race ends with controversy he wins the second race. Grandfather Boss shows up after witnessing the win and the return of the car. Lucius, Boon, Ned, Corrie and Boss go back to Mississippi. In lieu of corporal punishment from his father, Boss interrupts with and opportunity for Lucius to learn the valuable life lesson of accepting responsibility for one's actions regardless of cause - a large lesson indeed.

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son. Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a "line-rider" job on a vast cattle ranch requiring him to keep trespassers and squatters moving until they're off the property. Ironically, he discovers that the mountain cabin reserved for the line rider has been appropriated by Catherine Allen and her young son, Horace, whose guide has deserted them en route to Oregon to join Catherine's husband. Too soft-hearted and ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter Rocky Mountains winter sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; lonely man and woman soon forget their considerable dissimilarities and start developing a deep, if awkward and unstated, love for each another. Beyond this, Horace finds in Will the father he's never known, and Will finds in Horace the son he's never known he's wanted. The trio's little refuge is then invaded by Bible-quoting preacher Quint and his murderous family of "rawhiders", who'd earlier nearly killed Will over an imagined insult, forcing Will to defend his own "family". —Alfred Jingle Without a job the solitary middle-aged cowhand, Will Penny, is hired as a line-rider at a vast ranch to watch over the cattle and drive off trespassers from the land. However, the taciturn cowboy comes across the frontier widow, Catherine Allen, and her son, Horace, who have been abandoned by their guide and have taken refuge in his line shack. Much to their surprise, he takes pity on them and gives them a week to move out. But when Will is left for dead in the unforgiving desert by the wandering rawhider, Preacher Quint, and his boys, he will inevitably start rethinking his lonely life, as kind Catherine takes him in, and a quiet affection begins to bloom. Are those unfamiliar and restless feelings powerful enough to forsake a lifetime of solitude? —Nick Riganas

It is about May of 1948 in a small northern Florida town. As the film opens, Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) is using a pipe cutter to cut the tops off of parking meters. He is drinking, possibly drunk, but not violent. When the police arrive, he is peacefully arrested. Luke and three other men arrive at a rural Florida prison where they serve on a road gang performing hard labor. When he arrives at the prison, the warden reads his record. He remarks that Luke had been in the Army, attained the rank of Sargeant, was awarded several medals, but was discharged as a private. Something he did got him busted back down to the same rank at which he entered the Army. Luke is sentenced to two years. Dragline (George Kennedy) is clearly the leader of the prisoners. He is uneducated and illiterate, but smarter, stronger, bigger, and does not hesitate to exercise his power over them. Most of the prisoners willingly submit to Dragline, but Luke does not. There is no open opposition to Dragline, just a casual refusal to change his behavior in order to please others. Nevertheless, Dragline sees this as a threat to his power and dominance. The men leave at sunset and perform over 12 hours daily of grueling hard labor under intense heat and humidity on the side of the road cutting grass with a sickle or shoveling dirt. One of the new prisoners passes out the first day and another one tries to get out of the detail by sweeping, which was a trick played on him. Luke makes it the first day, but exhausted and barely able to get back into the truck. At the end of the first day for the new men, Alibi, the one who tried to get out of the hard labor by sweeping, is made to sleep in the box the first night, a cramped isolation unit outside to learn a lesson to not challenge the guards. After Luke says something that Dragline takes as a challenge to his authority, Dragline arranges for he and Luke to have a boxing match. Being much larger, Dragline simply pounds Luke into a pulp, but Luke will not give up, or stay down on the ground. What begins as a boxing match with enthusiastic prisoners and guards watching slowly turns into a sad spectacle. Prisoners begin to plead with Luke to lay down and refuse to get back up, and eventually Dragline himself pleads with Luke to simply stop fighting back, but Luke will not stop. The prisoners begin to walk away, unable to watch the sad scene any longer. Dragline himself wants the fight to end, and at one point has to catch the beaten and exhausted Luke from falling down, carrying him across his shoulder and gently setting him on the ground, only to have Luke use what little strength he has left to tap Dragline with one last punch. Finally, even Dragline cannot continue. The only men who are still watching are the guards and the warden, but the warden seems concerned about Luke's stubbornness and the guards remain indifferent. Luke becomes the prisoners' hero, and even Dragline is now respectful of Luke during a card game that night of having tricked a fellow opponent on betting with a bad hand dealt, giving him the name "Cool Hand Luke." On the chain gang, Luke encourages the other prisoners, by his own attitude and energy, to excel at their menial tasks. This not only encourages camaraderie among the prisoners, it deprives the guards of a stick to hold over the prisoners' heads. The prisoners are forced to shovel sand over a freshly tarred road, and they perform the job so quickly and with such a sense of competition that they complete the job early, and thus by default earn a few hours of relaxation, because there is no more road on which to work. On a Sunday, Luke's mother comes to visit him, visibly ill and dying of cancer or emphysema and still chain-smoking, and it is clear that Luke gets his independent streak from her. He admired her ability to live life on her own terms, and has tried to emulate that, but with much different results. During one very hot and rainy night, Luke decides out of the blue that he can eat 50 eggs. Most of the other prisoners oppose and that it's impossible or will kill him, but Dragline begins to take bets. Luke barely succeeds at it and collects all the money from bets. Soon after, Luke receives a telegram that his mother has died. The warden uses the death of Luke's mother as an excuse to lock him in "the box," solitary confinement in a hot wooden shed. The warden claims that men will often run away when their relatives die, so he locks Luke up until after Luke's mother is buried. This has the opposite effect, and Luke promptly escapes after being released from solitary. Luke is later caught, after mailing a picture and magazine back to his former fellow prisoners. He is double-chained, but escapes a second time. Again, he is recaptured. While Luke is becoming the "hero" of his fellow prisoners, it is a role he does not want. He admonishes them to "stop feeding off me," to stop living life vicariously through his acts. The guards and warden determine to break Luke's will. They force him to dig and bury, then re-dig and re-bury, a ditch. He is beaten and tormented, until he finally begs God to spare him from the warden and guards. They take this as a sign that he is finally a broken man, and Luke himself later admits that it did break him. A few days later, the guards have now made Luke a trustee. Nonetheless, when he is later given an opportunity, he seizes it and escapes again, stealing one of the prison trucks to make his get-away. This time, Dragline decides to go with Luke. Only later, after their escape, does Dragline weigh out the consequences. He had only two years left on his sentence, but now - if caught - will probably have many more years in prison. Dragline wants to team up with Luke, but Luke tells him that he wants to go alone. Luke has always been an individual, not a conventional leader, and does not want to take on that role now. Luke goes into a church, after being completely irreverent to God through the entire film, and asks God to help him escape. But the warden and guards arrive, and when Luke mocks them from the church window, he is shot. The local police want to take Luke to the hospital, but the warden insists that they take him back to prison instead. It is clear that Luke will not make it that far, but the warden heads off with Luke in his car. The one guard who always wears sunglasses is attacked by Dragline, and though Dragline is subdued, he managed to take off the guard's mirror-like sunglasses (and the warden runs over them with his car). In the final scene, Dragline is regaling the prisoners with stories of Luke's final moments, and it is clear that Luke is dead. He is the true anti-hero, never wanting to be anybody's role model, just wanting to live life on his own terms. But like the guard's sunglasses, Luke managed to unmask the injustice and hypocrisy of the system in which he was confined. Basically, he gave up his life over a parking meter, but in the final analysis he could not be broken by the system.

Coming home late one night Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) is accosted in her garage by an asthmatic thug Red Lynch (Ross Martin) who convinces her he knows of all her daily activities, particularly her schedule at the bank where she works. He terrorizes her into agreeing to help him rob the bank of 20,000 dollars or he says he will kill her and her sister Toby (Stefanie Powers) who lives with Kelly. Kelly agrees but out of fear calls the FBI and speaks with Agent Ripley (Glenn Ford) but the lines goes dead when Red comes into the house and overpowers Kelly. Eventually Agent Ripley connects with Kelly who has not been able to get a good look at Red to identify him, but because of his asthmatic breathing the FBI manages to track him down and set up men to catch him when Kelly takes the money from the bank but Red has kidnapped Toby and plans to kill her after he gets the money. Agreeing to meet Red at a baseball game at Candlestick Park for the money exchange Kelly goes there not aware that the FBI have located and saved Toby and are closing in for a final showdown with Red, if they can only get there in time.