Deborah Raffin

Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) has arrived in Brooklyn to visit his longtime Korean war buddy friend Charley (Francis Drake), who is attacked by a gang in his apartment. The neighbors hear the commotion and call the police. Paul arrives as Charlie collapses dead in his arms. The police arrive and mistakenly arrest Paul for Charley's murder. At the police station, chief Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) recognizes Paul as "Mr. Vigilante". Shriker lays down the law on Paul, and the two get into a scuffle before Paul is taken to a holding cell. In the same cell Manny Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy), the leader of the gang who attacked and killed Charlie, is held. Fraker and Paul get in a fight before the police break it up. A few moments later, Fraker is released from the jail after his fellow gang members post his bail. Before walking out, he threatens Paul and states: "I'll tell you what, I'm gonna kill a little old lady, just for you. Catch it on the six o'clock news." Manny arrives back on his gang turf to take his place as leader, slashing fellow gang-member Hector (David Crean), possibly for betrayal (and later he and his gang kill either a resident or a member of a rival gang when he accidentally enters Manny's turf). Manny's gang is also responsible for the recent thefts in the apartment where Charley was staying. The police receive daily reports about the increased rate of crime. Shriker arranges to talk with Paul and offers him a deal: Paul can kill all the punks he wants to kill, but has to inform Shriker of any gang activity he hears about so the police can get a bust and make the news. Paul agrees and moves into Charley's apartment in a decaying building in the middle of a bombed-out gang war zone. The building is populated by a group of elderly tenants who are absolutely terrified by Fraker and his gang. Kersey befriends some of them: Bennett Cross (Martin Balsam), a World War II veteran and Charley's good buddy; Mr. and Mrs. Kaprov (Leo Kharibian & Hana Maria Pravda ), an elderly Jewish couple, and young Hispanic couple Rodriguez (Joe Gonzalez) and his wife Maria (Marina Sirtis). After a few violent muggings, Kersey decides to go into action: he uses money to buy a car from a used car shop as bait. When two gang members try to break into the car, Kersey protests, and they reply "What's it to you man?" Kersey says, "It's my car!" Whereupon they laugh and say, "now you're gonna die!" and advance towards Kersey. Kersey quickly pulls out a revolver and shoots them dead. Kersey protects Maria twice from Fraker's gang but is unable to save her a third time as she is raped (she later dies as a result of her injuries). Kersey orders an automatic gun for protection, a .475 Wildey Magnum, and spends the afternoon hand-loading ammunition for it stating "Nothing's good enough for our friends". He then tests the gun later that night when he kills another gang member, The Giggler (Kirk Taylor), who steals his camera bag and tries to make a clean getaway. He immediately becomes applauded in the neighborhood as Shriker and the police become involved in the violent acts. Kersey also throws a gang member off a roof (landing on the hood of a car) during a nightly chase sequence. There is also a subplot involving a possible love interest in public defender Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin) in which we learn why Kersey is hesitant to get back in the dating game. Kersey later goes back to say goodbye to her, as she is going out of the city to visit her sister. Kersey offers to take her out for dinner on her final night. While waiting in Paul's car, Kathryn is knocked unconscious by Fraker and the car is pushed into oncoming traffic. The car slams into another and explodes, killing Kathryn. The police arrive and Shriker places Kersey under protective custody because Kersey is now in too deep. Bennett takes matters into his hands, after his taxi shop is blown up, in an attempt to drive out Fraker's gang with one of Charley's machine guns, a MG-42. The gun gets jammed as the gang cripples Bennett. Shriker notifies Kersey and takes him to the hospital. Kersey escapes after Bennett notifies him of the one remaining gun. Kersey and Rodriguez spend the day collecting weapons. At the climax, both Kersey and Shriker attack a group of gathering gang members. They mow down many of the criminals with a Browning M1919 A4 machine gun before running out of ammo. Kersey then uses the Magnum while Rodriguez uses a zip gun, while many neighbors begin fighting back as Fraker sends in more reinforcements. Shriker decides to help Kersey and together they kill many criminals before Kersey runs out of cartridges for his Magnum. He goes back to the apartment to collect more ammo, with Fraker in pursuit. Fraker tracks Kersey down to the apartment and Shriker arrives just in time, resulting in Shriker getting wounded in the arm and Fraker shot (however, he wears a bulletproof vest). Kersey obliterates Fraker once and for all with a mail-ordered 66mm LAW rocket launcher. They both hear sirens, and Shriker gives Kersey a head start. Kersey gives a look of appreciation and leaves as the remainder of Fraker's gang retreats.

In northern Italy, a group of Roman Catholic clerics led by a shadowy robed figure (Jose Ferrer) meet and Monsignor Franchino (Arthur Kennedy) portends danger. Meanwhile, in New York City, elite fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) seeks her own apartment, but her boyfriend, lawyer Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon), wants to get married. In Baltimore, Maryland, Alison's father dies suddenly and she returns home, where she recalls being so traumatized from walking in on her father participating in an orgy that she attempted suicide. She collects a cross that her father tore from her neck during the incident. Alison's mother tells her she stayed with Mr. Parker because she had nowhere else to go. Back in New York City, Alison meets with real estate agent Miss Logan (Ava Gardner) who shows her a "perfect" apartment to rent. Alison rents a furnished apartment in Brooklyn Heights. On the top floor of the building lives a blind, senile priest named Father Halliran (John Carradine), who stares blankly out of his window. After fainting during a photo shoot, Alison is visited by an eccentric neighbor, Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith), who drops by with his pet cat and bird and tells Alison about the other tenants in the building. When he leaves, she notices a photograph of Charles in her apartment. That night, at a party in the apartment, Michael again presses Alison for marriage. In the morning, Alison meets two more neighbors, the wisecracking Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and the mute Sandra (Beverly D'Angelo), who are lovers. At a commercial shoot, Alison again collapses, frustrating Jack (Jeff Goldblum) the photographer. Charles throws a birthday party for his cat and Alison meets more of her strange neighbors. Later, she has a disturbing dream and is awakened by noise from the supposedly empty apartment above her. Alison meets with Miss Logan and learns that aside from the priest, the apartment building has been empty for years and the building is owned by the Holy Diocese of New York. Meanwhile, Father Halliran is visited by Monsignor Franchino. (In some versions, Franchino meets with a group of priests who are a secret order to protecting the world from evil to give them an update them on the events unfolding.) Elsewhere, Michael Lerman asks private investigator James Brenner (Hank Garrett) to check out Alison's building. Alone the next night, Alison hears more noises and investigates. She sees Chazen's cat eating the pet bird and is pursued by an apparition of her father, whom she stabs repeatedly. Alison flees into the street, where she is found, covered in blood, by residents of nearby buildings. The next day, two police detectives, the veteran Gatz (Eli Wallach) and his rookie partner Rizzo (Christopher Walken), visit Michael and question him about his dead wife Karen's suicide and a second suicide attempt by Alison, implying that he is involved in the previous night's incident. Meanwhile, police find nothing suspicious in Alison's apartment and match the blood type on her nightgown to her own. Michael discovers that Mrs. Clark, one of the supposed guests at Chazen's cat's birthday party, was the name of a convicted murderer, who was executed in 1949. Later, Brenner, the private eye, is found stabbed to death in his car and his blood type matches Alison's. Detective Gatz connects Brenner to Michael and suspects that Michael hired the investigator to kill Karen and is now trying to drive her insane. When the detectives arrive at Michael's apartment to confront him, Alison leaves her boyfriend's home for a walk and stops by a Catholic Church. There, she confesses to Monsignor Franchino that she has committed adultery, twice attempted suicide, and is feeling suicidal again. The monsignor assures her that if she embraces Jesus and returns to the church, the feelings will vanish. When Alison returns to Michael's apartment, he suggests that she may not have imagined the events and they visit her apartment in Brooklyn Heights. There is no evidence that Alison killed anyone there, but she says that some of the things in the room, such as the carpet, are different. In a book, Alison sees the same Latin phrase on every page, but Michael only sees English. When Alison writes the text, Michael takes it to Professor Ruzinsky (Martin Balsam), who reports that it is a passage from Milton's Paradise Lost. Alison returns to the church and meets the rector, who tells her he does not know of the priest she claims to have met there earlier. Meanwhile, Michael visits Monsignor Franchino under the pretense that he has a bequest for Father Halliran. Franchino tells him that Halliran has been retired since 1952, suffers from palsy and is unable to accept visitors. Michael shows Franchino the excerpt from Milton, but the monsignor claims not to recognize it. Franchino refuses Michael's request to make a copy of Father Halliran's file. That night, Michael asks Alison's friend, Jennifer (Deborah Raffin), to stay with her while he attends to business. Michael meets a man named Perry (William Hickey), an ex-convict that he represented in the past and bribes him some cash to assist with breaking into the diocese to look at the official files on Halliran. Michael discovers that Father Halliran was originally named Daniel O'Rourke, and, after a suicide attempt, disappeared and re-emerged as Halliran. Michael finds files on several more people who attempted suicide, gained new identities and became priests or nuns and all have lived and died in the very same apartment building in Brooklyn where Alison lives. When one dies, another takes his or her place. A file for Alison states that Halliran will die the very next day and Alison will become a woman named Sister Theresa. Meanwhile, detectives Gatz and Rizzo determine that the eight people Alison claims were at the birthday party for the cat were murderers executed long ago. Michael has Alison attend a party at Jennifer's while he investigates the apartment in Brooklyn Heights. At the party, Alison faints and her friends put her to bed, but at midnight she sneaks away. In Brooklyn Heights, Michael discovers a hidden portal behind a wooden wall of the building which reads: "Through me you go into the city of grief. Through me you go into the world of pain. Through me you walk among people lost. Abandon hope all yee who enter here". Father Halliran appears and tells him that this whole building is the entrance to Hell. Michael pursues the priest upstairs and demands answers as he attempts to strangle him. Alison arrives at the building and is met by Michael, who calmly explains that the Latin they found was a warning from the angel Gabriel to the angel Uriel, stationed at the Gateway to Eden. Since that time, a series of sentinels have stood watch, guarding the world against evil. Currently, it is Father Halliran, but that night, Alison is to become the next sentinel upon his passing. The people Alison met in the building, the murderers, were actually reincarnated devils, who could only stop her from becoming the next sentinel by driving her to suicide. Michael goes on to explain that he is dead, killed by Monsignor Franchino minutes earlier for trying to strangle Halliran. He is damned to eternal hell for his sins, including hiring Brenner to murder his wife, Karen. Michael turns his head, revealing a gaping wound, and his head splits open. Alison flees downstairs where Chazen and the demons confront her. She returns upstairs and sees Gerde and Sandra feasting on Michael's dead body. Just then, all of the demons of hell come forth from behind doors and walls. Among the demons, Alison sees her father and Chazen. Cornered by the deformed and hideous demons in Halliran's apartment, Chazen approaches Alison and urges her to join them by killing herself; he gives her a dagger. Franchino and Halliran appear bearing a cross and drive back the demons. Chazen exhorts the demons to fight, but Alison takes the cross. The devils fade back into the walls and the monsignor leads Father Halliran away. The next morning, Gatz and Rizzo arrive at the apartment building where Father Halliran is carried out of the building in a body bag, with the medical examiner's report that he just died of a heart attack. A search of the building leads to no other people around. The building is later demolished. Some time later, Miss Logan, the real estate agent who is still working for the shadowy priesthood in protecting the new apartment building, shows a young couple (Tom Berenger and Nana Tucker) an apartment in the new building. They ask about the neighbors and are told that there are only two: one is a musician and the other is a reclusive blind nun who lives on the top floor. In that apartment, the blind Alison, now known as Sister Theresa, sits silently, wearing a white habit and staring blankly out the window, holding the cross... now the new sentinel and protector of the entrance to Hell.

After former studio head Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas) is told he is too old to be a producer, he receives word that his 20-year-old daughter, January (Deborah Raffin), is about to undergo her fifth surgery. Mike flies to Switzerland, but is told that he will be a distraction during her recovery and to go home. Meanwhile, as January is anesthetized, she remembers two years earlier when she suspected her father of having an affair with his leading lady. Hoping to catch Mike in the act, January and her date raced on a motorcycle toward the hotel, only to crash into a stone wall. In the present, Mike flies to Italy, where he woos a wealthy widow, Deidre Milford Granger (Alexis Smith). Months later, Mike welcomes a healed January to New York City with champagne and a personal message in lights on the side of the Goodyear blimp. That night, January is unable to sleep, and she awakes to find Mike sneaking Deidre into the suite. He informs January that Deidre and he are married, and explains he married her so he could keep January living in luxury style. When January asks what Deidre gets out of it, Mike claims he dresses up her table. The next day, Mike is playing backgammon with Deidre's younger cousin, David Milford (George Hamilton), when January returns from shopping. After introductions, Mike informs January that her old school friend, Linda Riggs (Brenda Vaccaro), called. January visits her friend and does not recognize her. Linda brags about how much plastic surgery she has undergone and how she slept her way to being the youngest editor of Gloss magazine. Later that night, after dancing and drinking, David propositions January, but she turns him down. The next day, Linda is flabbergasted to hear that her friend rejected David until January admits she is still a virgin. Insisting that January has "daddy issues", Linda convinces her to move out on her own and hires her to work at Gloss. A few days later, Deidre is outraged to learn that David is dating Karla (Melina Mercouri), an aging Greek actress, and that January is moving out. When Mike stands up for January, Deidre emasculates him by reminding him he is a kept man. Hoping to please Deidre, January goes to David's apartment and they make love. Later, David is disturbed to realize he took January's virginity. On the ride home, January tells him that although she likes David, she does not want a relationship. The next day, Deidre travels to another apartment building where it's revealed that she is having a lesbian tryst with Karla. After making love, Deidre tells Karla about the fight with Mike and mentions she put $3 million in a trust fund for January. Afterward, Deidre meets Mike, January and Linda for drinks. They are interrupted when Tom Colt (David Janssen), a middle-aged, alcoholic famous writer, staggers to the table and demands to fight Mike for making a lousy movie out of his book, but Mike declines the offer. Later, when Tom and his friend, Hugh Richardson (Gary Conway), offer to buy January and Linda a drink, Linda invites them to her apartment. Hugh leaves, but Tom is game. At the apartment, January excuses herself so Linda and Tom can be alone. As Linda slips into her lingerie, Tom sneaks out the fire escape and goes to Januarys, where he apologizes for treating Mike so rudely. January kisses him, and tells him to call her when he is sober. Hours later, he calls to say he is sober. January and Tom begin dating. One night, she goes to Tom's hotel and realizes it is the same suite her father always rented when she came home from boarding school. She tries to seduce Tom, but he wants to wait until they are not in the room that January was raised in. Later, when January tells Mike about Tom, he begs her not to date older men like himself and reminds her that Tom is married with a six-month old baby. January goes to Linda for advice, who theorizes that January's hang ups are due to her oedipal cravings and suggests she sleep with Mike to get it out of her system. That weekend, Tom and January visit the Hamptons and, after they make love, Tom confesses he has been impotent for years and his wife was impregnated by artificial insemination. Tom explains his wife and he have their freedom, as long as they are discrete. The next morning, Tom gets an offer to go to Hollywood, California to adapt one of his books into a screenplay. He asks January to accompany him, but she has promised Mike she would go with him to Palm Beach, Florida. Tom talks her into telling Mike she is writing a story on Tom, and has to go to the west coast. A few days later, Mike arrives in California to find Tom and January in bed. Mike beats up Tom, and gives January 30 minutes to pack; but Tom tells January that, if she goes, she can never come back. Mike returns to Palm Beach alone and asks Deidre for a divorce, explaining that when he married her, he lost his daughter. Deidre complains she will be all alone, but Mike notes that she has Karla and that he is returning January's trust fund money to her. The two decide to split on friendly terms and board a plane to New York, however, the plane crashes (off-camera) killing both of them. After the funeral, January learns Tom is in New York. She finds him in a bar, where he explains he is breaking up with January because he is old and regrets getting between her and her father. Tom acknowledges they had something special once, but January pleads that once is not enough. Tom asks her to leave. January returns to her apartment and finds Linda in hysterics because, after sleeping with her boss, he fired her. January calms her down and gets her to bed, then wanders the New York City streets all night, thinking of Tom and Mike. In the final shot, January sits down on a bench and watches the dawn as it slowly rises over the George Washington Bridge, aware that this will be a brand new and hope-full new day.

40 carats is a diamond in the rough .... which centers around a 40's woman who goes on vacation in Greece finds love with a much younger man then abandons him to go back to her life in New York. However, she quickly finds out that her daughter is dating the same guy she left in Greece making for some awkward humorous and embarrassing moments . 40 Carats is not ha ha funny but the subtle adult humor in which it was handled makes it very funny. By todays standard, ullman would have just been passed of as silly sex starved cougar and the young male( albert) a stupid eye candy figure head. But 40 carats doesn't insult the audiences intelligence which would have been easy to do at that time. Instead it takes an intelligent and often funny look into age, gender double standards that still exist to this day to some extent. Gene kelly is so- so as Ullman's ex but the chemistry between liv Ullman and Edward Albert is what stands out. If you are into witty comedies with a dramatic flair 40 Carrats is definitely for you