Forrest Tucker

After his father's death, an orphan goes to live with his free-spirited aunt in 1928 Manhattan. Conflict ensues when the executor of his father's estate objects to the aunt's lifestyle, as they deal with the difficulties of the Depression. Mame is an unconventional individualist socialite from the roaring 20's. When her brother dies, she is forced to raise her nephew Patrick. However, Patrick's father has designated an executor to his will to protect the boy from absorbing too much of Mame's rather unconventional perspective. Patrick and Mame become devoted to each other in spite of this restriction, and together journey through Patrick's childhood and the great depression, amidst some rather zaney adventures. —Ross Thompson <thompson@adobe.com> On September 15, 1928, the day after he executes his will, wealthy conservative Chicago businessman Edwin Dennis unexpectedly passes away. As stipulated in the will, his ten-year old son Patrick Dennis, who is the sole heir to the estate, becomes the ward of their only living relative, Edwin's equally wealthy New York residing spinster sister, Mame Dennis. Edward's will states that Mr. Dwight Babcock with the Knickerbocker Bank, will act as trustee. He will pay Mame for expenses incurred in raising Patrick, he to use his power of discretion to ensure that Patrick does not inherit any of "crazy" Mame's "damned eccentric" ideas, flamboyant and free wheeling Mame who can be considered anything but traditional or conventional. Patrick's longtime nanny, Norah Muldoon, is to accompany Patrick to New York and continue her services. Despite the disruption each provides in the other's life, Mame and Patrick form a loving, supportive relationship. Mame wants to provide her sense of guidance to Patrick, which means exposing him to a broad spectrum of all that life has to offer. That changes when Mr. Babcock learns what is going on, and the stock market crashes resulting in Mame losing all her money, the events in combination leading to Mr. Babcock taking Patrick away to enroll him in boarding school away from Mame's daily influence. Although not for herself, Mame realizes that she needs money to get Patrick back and support who she considers her entire family, which includes Norah and her faithful butler, Ito. She may get a little help in the matter from her best friend, Broadway actress Vera Charles, and a southerner she meets named Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside. Over the next several years, Mame's influence on those around her, including Patrick, is presented, although those relationships are not always smooth sailing, especially as Patrick grows into a man who has been largely influenced by conservative Mr. Babcock's direction for him. —Huggo Always armed with a colorful dress and an acerbic quip, the flamboyant, vibrant socialite Mame Dennis is the quintessential roaring 20's flapper, with a huge desire to live life to enjoy it and also just for the hell of it. Into this world comes her young orphaned nephew Patrick Dennis, whom she is appointed the guardian of. Immediately the two fall in love with each other, and she spends the rest of the movie, which takes us through the Great Depression and beyond, trying to rescue him from the stuffy, conventionalist people he's used to. There are a couple of bumps along the way, but there are plenty of fun adventures that prove that Mame is one hell of a woman. —Tommy Peter

Two brothers and one bride fight amid carpetbaggers in Texas. Former dance hall girl Lorna, masquerading as a lady, meets and marries Confederate ex-officer Colt Saunders, returning to his rich Texas ranch. Everyone there is enchanted with Lorna. But the carpetbag government is set to grab all the big ranches, unless the ranchers (led by Colt) decide to fight. And one of the carpetbaggers knows Lorna's secret. —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> After the American Civil War, Captain Colt Saunders returns to Texas to his homeland Bar S Ranch, which has belonged to his family for generations. While in town, he has an incident and meets the former gal from St. Louis Lorna Hunter and without knowing her past, he immediately proposes and gets married to her. When they arrive in Bar S, he meets his brother Beauregard 'Cinch' Saunders, the black-sheep of the family that lost one arm in his childhood and blames Colt for the accident. Colt has problems with the commissioner Harrison of the corrupt provisional government of Texas, and the situation gets worse when one of his men identify Lorna as "a flower of the Old South with whom he used to skip around with back in St. Louis". Colt has to deal with problems with the corrupt representative of the government that is collapsing, with his rancorous brother, with his pregnant wife and with his closest friend Innocencio Ortega. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock work to establish the Pony Express and fight Indians and California Separatists who seek to destroy it. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok join forces to establish a mail route that can get mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in ten days. Along the way they must battle bad weather, hostile Indians and outlaws intent on robbing the mail and shutting down the entire operation.

South Sea freebooters fight for hidden treasure and the love of the beautiful Luana. Hurricane Smith and his marooned sailors escape from a South Seas island by stealing the ship of Capt. Raikes who's come to the island in search of slaves. Smith sails the ship to Australia where he charters it to Harry Gorvahlsen and Dr. Whitmore who claim to be studying flora and fauna. To fill out his crew, Smith "shanghais" Capt. Raikes who, by this time, has also made his way to Australia. During the course of the voyage, it becomes clear that Gorvahlsen and Whitmore are actually in search of a cache of gold that's been hidden on a South Seas island. Smith also seeks this gold, which he considers his own, as does Capt. Raikes. Complicating this 3-way rivalry is a growing shipboard romance between Smith and Dr. Whitmore's beautiful daughter, Luana. Events reach a violent climax when the treasure-island is finally reached. —dinky-4 - Minneapolis

John Vickers joins Custer's cavalry regiment seeking private revenge. John Vickers finally tracks down one of the three men who killed his true love. Before he dies, the miscreant admits that his accomplices joined the cavalry. Vickers, a former officer himself, does likewise, after saving pretty Molly Quade from rowdy Sergeant O'Hara, who sets out to harass the new recruit. After incidents during a battle with the Sioux, Vickers is pretty sure O'Hara is one of his men. But can he reconcile his desire for vengeance with loyalty to the Army? —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Adventurer tries to recover gold from sunken plane. 'Jumbo' Johnson hires Steve Singleton (and his boat, the "Seeker") to search for pearls on the coast of New Guinea. Johnson tricks Singleton, however, by supplying him with phony permits. Singleton loses his boat and is sentenced to jail. When released, Singleton teams up with boat-owners Daubrey and Sykes to find a downed plane and its cargo of gold bullion. While searching, they rescue one of the plane's passengers, Katherine Shelley, who's been captured by headhunters. Johnson now appears on the scene. Shelley guides him, Singleton, and the others to the underwater crash site. The gold is removed from the plane and now various schemes emerge as each man tries to gain control of it. —dinky-4 of Minneapolis

A mysterious stranger crosses paths with an outlaw bank robber and a greedy rancher.

Feud between the long-established stagecoach and steamship lines and the emergent railway companies trying to expand into the Midwest. Loumas, president of the Rock Island Trail company, tries to expand his rails into the Midwest but finds resistance of the steamship and stage-coach lines. The malicious Kirby Murrow tries everything to slow down Loumas' progress and doesn't even stop before sabotage. Only Constanze, daughter of banker Strong, believes in his success strong enough to support him financially. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

1943. After his wife takes their son and leaves him, Sgt. John M. Stryker is an embittered man who takes his misery out on the men under his command. They're a bunch of green recruits who have a hard time dealing with Stryker's tough drills and thicker skin. Even his old friends start to wonder if he's gone from being the epitome of the tough Marine drill instructor to a man over the edge. One recruit in particular is a source of friction - Peter Conway. Conway's father was Stryker's CO at Guadalcanal and resented his son's seeming cowardice as a Marine, while Conway resents both Stryker's brutal leadership and seeming lack of sympathy for his men as well as the resentment he Conway feels is vented against him over his more relaxed conduct as a soldier. Another foe is Al Thomas, who was demoted by Stryker in previous action. The squad is assigned to take part in the November 1943 assault on the Japanese base at Tarawa. Stryker's brutal training regimen is now put to the test as the Marines must overcome a powerful underground bunker at the beach's edge; the bunker's machine gunners slaughter multiple Marines before Stryker succeeds in blowing up the position with satchel charges, and his bravery does not go unnoticed by his men. When Al Thomas and two other Marines, Charlie Bass and Hellenopolis, become separated from the main unit, Thomas runs to get fresh ammo for them - but rests for a moment when a Marine give him fresh hot coffee, a lapse that allows his two buddies to be jumped and bayoneted by Japanese Naval Landing troops. That night the beaten-up squad must guard the main approach to the beachhead, and they hear in the distance a man desperately calling for help. Stryker believes it to be a deception by the Japanese and he can't let anyone tip their position - which leads to an even grimmer dilemma when the voice calls out, "Stryker!" Peter Conway violently vows to find the man - but Stryker nearly shoots him dead to keep him from moving, and must sweat out the possibility of letting a fellow Marine die. The island is finally secured and wounded found and returned. Months later Charlie Bass returns to duty and queries about what happened to Al Thomas. Stryker then confronts Thomas and a fight erupts - broken up by a Marine Colonel. Thomas for his part profusely confesses he did wrong - and that he'd prefer to be dead himself than to have let his buddies die. Seeing Thomas' sincerity, Stryker is able to forge forgiveness. Turning to the bottle for comfort Stryker confronts his demons head on but then shows his soft side and helps out a widowed military wife and her child. Then the word comes down that they are being sent to Iwo Jima to do battle with 20,000 Japanese who've been dug into the most powerful island fortress of the war - a fortress so powerful that the largest continuing naval bombardment in history cannot dislodge the Japanese after three vicious days of combat, during which Conway saves Stryker's life when he is jumped by a Japanese soldier with sword. Finally Marines begin to advance up the island's largest rampart, Mount Suribachi, amid continuing fire from the US Fleet. The Marines reach the summit and Stryker sends four Marines to set up the US flag. But as Stryker now seems at peace, he is shot by a sniper, and Conway, Thomas, Bass, and the other Marines can only find and read an unfinished letter by Stryker to his son - just as the Marines raise the US flag atop the mountain.

Cavalry officer John Drum attempts to track down outlaw Whit Lacey, but finds he must join forces with Lacey to fight a Sioux war party. In the 1870s, fugitive outlaw Johnny Drum is confronted by Sheriff Sam Borden inside a general store. Drum shoots the sheriff in front of customers Lin Conner and Julie Ann McCabe. The two women are saloon dancers and Julie happens to be the girlfriend of another wanted outlaw, Whit Lacey. He's wanted for raiding Eben Martin's mining operations. After escaping the town, Drum takes to the trail where he's followed by the sheriff deputies and their posse. He manages to elude them but he's attacked by a band of Sioux. Fortunately, Drum is aided in the ensuing firefight by bandit Whit Lacey who happened by. The two outlaws become friends and partners. They plan various robbery schemes. Lacey needs the money to move to California with his sweetheart, Julie Ann McCabe. Unknown to Lacey, Drum actually is an undercover army officer who only pretended to kill the town sheriff in order to create a cover story in his quest to find and apprehend Lacey. Eventually, Lacey finds out the truth about Drum but allows him to leave their hideout unharmed. Later, Drum and the town's deputies capture Lacey and take him to the nearest army fort. They want Lacey tried but some angry citizens at the fort want to lynch him, despite Drum's fierce opposition. The lynching is interrupted by a major Sioux attack on the fort. Now, they all have to forget their differences and defend the fort until reinforcements arrive. Drum and Lacey find themselves fighting, once more, side by side. —nufs68

The Lone Wolf tracks down German spies in London during the German bombing.