Everett Sloane

A bumbling, yet loveable, med student leaves medical school because of his neurotic sympathy pains that he shares with his patients. He takes a job at an exclusive posh sanitarium as an orderly. While he makes great efforts to be a model orderly, his good natured innate ineptness makes a shambles of the institution and tries the patience of the hospital staff. The harder he tries, the worse he makes things with sidesplitting funny results. While at the hospital, a significant figure from his long ago teenage past resurfaces. The results will have you in a flight of emotions from drama to slapstick to pathos. Only Jerry Lewis could pull this off in one of his best film works. Look for the wonderful Alice Pearce ("Gladys Kravtiz" of Bewitched) in the role as the hilarious hypochondriac "Mrs. Fuzzybee." Her scenes with Jerry are the funniest in the entire film.

An incompetent bellhop is recruited to fill in for a deceased comedian. When a star comedian dies, rather than letting anyone know, his comedy writers decide to find and teach an unknown to fill his shoes for a big show the comedian had been schedeled for. But the man they choose - bellboy, Stanley Belt - can't do anything right, and time's running out.

An employee at Diner's Club issues a credit card to a well-known mobster and has to retrieve it in order to keep his job. Mobster Foots Pulardos, who operates a health gym as a front, plans to flee to Mexico to evade government tax officials. His girlfriend Sugar Pye suggests that he first arrange for the cremation of a man having his own peculiar identifying characteristic--feet of different sizes--then apply for a Diners' Club card to use to pay his fare. The credit-card request comes to the desk of timid clerk Ernie Klenk. Nervous about his forthcoming marriage to the boss' secretary Lucy, Ernie inadvertently OKs the application; when he discovers his mistake, he rushes to the health gym to recover the club card he had issued. —Canon y mus

A cynical American expatriate gets involved in smuggling and gun-running for the rebels during the 1925 Syrian insurgency against French occupation. In 1925 Damascus Harry Smith runs guns to the rebels under Emir Hassan. Harry meets and develops a relationship with Feroud's, a French intelligence officer's mistress. The French arrest him along with others and to save himself he agrees to arrange a meeting between Feroud and Hassan. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> In 1925, in Damascus, the patriotic rebels of Syria are fighting against the invading French forces. The weapons smuggler Harry Smith is an amoral businessman taking advantage of the situation. He meets Violette, the mistress of the idealistic French Col. Feroud in a restaurant. Feroud is trying to make a deal with the rebel leader Emir Hassan, and under threat of execution for weapons smuggling he forces Harry to be his liaison and arrange a meeting with Hassan. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A paralyzed war vet tries to adjust to the world without the use of his limbs. A war wound has left ex-GI Ken paralyzed below the waist. In the hospital back home, he passes through an initial period of depression with the help of sympathetic Dr. Brock and his faithful fiancée Ellen. Ken's bitter isolation is also overcome with the help of his fellow patients, especially intelligent young cynic Norm, witty Leo, and serious young Angel. Soon Ken throws himself into the work of rehabilitation and after a long period of physical therapy even suspects that he could regain the use of his limbs. With his doctor's approval and help, he and Ellen marry, but on their wedding night both have misgivings about the marriage: the full realization of Ellen's new responsibilities frightens her and makes her more uncertain than ever, and Ken reverts to self-pity. They have a violent argument and he returns to the hospital. But his blazing anger finds no sympathy from his buddies, and after a surprising conversation with Dr. Brock, Ken realizes that he must return to his wife, with whom he must try to build his new life in spite of all the difficulties. —alfiehitchie During World War II, U.S. Army Lieutenant Ken Wilocek (Marlon Brando) is shot in the back by a sniper, injuring his spinal cord. In the years that follow, he faces a series of ongoing struggles in accepting his condition, in rehabilitation and in re-entering society. The film also focuses on the challenges facing Ken and Ellen (Teresa Wright), his fiancée, as individuals and as a couple, before and after they marry. It also highlights events in the lives of the other men in the Veterans Administration hospital, from a wedding celebration to a sudden death from meningitis. Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane) heads the team of doctors, nurses and physical therapists. Near the end of the film, when Ken accuses him of not understanding the difficulties threatening his marriage, Brock tells Ken about his own frustration: "I can never see a patient walk out of here, never. I can keep a man alive, but in his heart he feels I failed him. You feel that way, don't you? Took me a long time to get used to that." He reveals that he began specializing in paraplegia 18 years ago, after his wife was injured in a car accident. "Paraplegia was a new field, then. At least she didn't have to suffer too long . . . I'd give anything I've got to know that when I go home I'd find her there, waiting for me, in a wheelchair." He can't promise that everything will work out with Ellen, but if she loves Ken, and he behaves, chances are good. Anyway, he says, Ken has a lot of living to do, and he has to do it for himself. Ken drives to Ellen's parents' home, some distance from the hospital, takes out his wheelchair and goes up the steep brick front walk until a step blocks him. Ellen comes out. "You've come a long way," she says. "Do you want me to help you up the steps?" He replies, "Please." The film ends in a long shot of Ellen helping him to push his wheelchair into the house.