Fred Astaire

In a small New England town, four elderly men form what they call the "Chowder Society," regaling themselves with the telling of scary "ghost stories." Membership in the club, in fact, requires that one present such a story. The four old friends consist of Ricky Hawthorne (Fred Astaire), a lawyer, and his partner Sears James (John Houseman), along with Dr. John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas) and Edward Charles Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), a successful businessman. When Edward's son, David, living in New York, falls from a window after the girl he's sleeping with turns suddenly into a hideous demon, Edward grieves. His other son, Don (Craig Wasson), a college professor who's fallen on hard times, shows up in town, not getting a great reception from Edward, who always preferred the other, more ambitious son. But now the four elderly gentlemen are unsettled, experiencing nightmares. Clearly, something is bothering them. Edward becomes so distraught, he wanders across a bridge in the snow. When he sees the same female apparition that caused his son to fall to his death, Edward, too, falls to his death from the bridge. Although his death is ruled a suicide, his son Don and Edward's three remaining elderly friends doubt it. Don approaches the remaining three friends, requesting membership in their group, offering up a bizarre "ghost" story of his own. Don's flashback: A few years earlier, then a promising junior professor in Miami, Florida, Don meets Alma (Alice Krige), a beautiful if mysterious secretary who comes to work at the university. They immediately become involved in a torrid sexual affair, which interferes with Don's job, causing him to miss work and earn the scorn of the Dean who previously championed him. But Don finds something strange about this strange, exotic woman -- a coldness, and he drops her. Later, he hears from his brother David that he has met the same girl in New York and intends to marry her. Don warns his brother that she's trouble, but to no avail. And indeed, Don suspects she caused his death - the fall from the building as seen earlier. Back in the present, the elderly friends react to Don's story. Sears dismisses it, but Ricky believes him. Elderly Dr. John Lafferty, after having a nightmare about the same woman - Alma - dies of a heart attack. This leaves only Sears and Ricky. Thus, they finally tell Don their own strange history with a woman who looked exactly like Alma. Their flashback: Back when the four friends were young in 1931, the beautiful Eva Galli (also Alice Krige) came to town, and, indeed, it's obvious that she's the same person as Alma in the present. The four friends are smitten with Eva, who encourages their sexual interest. It was Young Edward (Don's father) who first took her to bed, but he was impotent with her. When she mocked him later in front of his friends, Young Edward leaps to silence her, knocking her down, accidentally killing her when her head smashes into the stone fireplace. Horrified, the young men realize that she's dead. They consider calling police, but realize it would only mean wrecking their lives. Instead, they load her body into her car, then push it into the nearby lake. As the car descends, Eva stirs inside, looking out at them from the back window.... still alive! Back in the present, Ricky and Sears admit that the death has haunted them all these years. Whereas Sears is dubious, both Ricky and Don believe that Alma and Eva are one in the same and that her ghost has returned to seek revenge after 50 years. Don suggests they go to Eva's old house, now in ruins, to confront the past and her ghost once and for all. They go there, but Don falls on the rotting stairs and breaks his leg. Sears goes off in his car through the snow for help, leaving Don and Ricky behind, but one of Alma/Eva's evil accomplices, an evil boy, causes his car to crash off the icy road and he dies. Ricky nearly dies at the hands of one of Alma's the accomplices, an arrogant young Hod, but Ricky manages to get to the authorities, telling them to pull Eva's car up from the lake to reveal her body inside. This is intercut with Don, who confronts the rotting specter of Alma/Eva's ghost. Ricky and the authorities drag out the ancient car, opening the rusted, corroded door, finding the still-living rotting corpse inside. It falls out, disintegrating before their eyes. Don is spared from the monstrosity of her vengeful ghost, and the town is restored to peace.

In this disaster epic, 135 floors below the opening gala of the world`s tallest skyscraper, a fire ignites a conflagration that traps hundreds of partygoers in a Towering Inferno.

An impromptu fashion shoot at a book store brings about a new fashion model discovery in the shop clerk. Maggie Prescott, the Editor-in-Chief of New York based Quality, a fashion magazine that sets trends i.e. leads instead of follows, has come up with her latest brainchild: to feature a model to be the Quality Woman, complete with successful Paris-based designer Paul Duval to devise a new collection inspired by her. The Quality Woman is not only to embody beauty, but also intellect. Against Maggie's initial judgment, she relents to the vision of her head photographer Dick Avery in choosing Jo Stockton rather than one of their in-house models as the Quality Woman, Jo the clerk they met in an impromptu photo shoot they did against her will in the Greenwich Village bookstore where she works. The marks against Jo are not only that she isn't a professional, but that she has what she even considers a funny looking face, something that Dick instead calls interesting. Jo, who abhors all that the world of fashion represents in she being an intellectual, ultimately agrees as the job would take her to Paris where she hopes to meet her idol, Professor Émile Flostre, the leading philosopher on the concept of empathicalism. But in Paris, the two worlds for Jo begin to collide in more ways than one, arguably the most important in she falling for Dick, his actions solely to get her to exude the emotions he wants for the photos. —Huggo Fashion photographer Dick Avery, in search for an intellectual backdrop for an air-headed model, expropriates a Greenwich Village bookstore. When the photo session is over the store is left in a shambles, much to salesgirl Jo Stockton's dismay. Avery stays behind to help her clean up. Later, he examines the photos taken there and sees Jo in the background of one shot. He is intrigued by her unique appearance, as is Maggie Prescott, the editor of a leading fashion magazine. They offer Jo a modeling contract, which she reluctantly accepts only because it includes a trip to Paris. Eventually, her snobbish attitude toward the job softens, and Jo begins to enjoy the work and the company of her handsome photographer. —alfiehitchie

A Russian government official is sent to Paris to bring back her comrades; she soon gets a taste of Paris life and falls in love with an American movie producer. A musical remake of Ninotchka: After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from Paris, the beautiful, ultra-serious Ninotchka is sent to complete their mission and to retrieve them. She starts out condemning the decadent West, but gradually falls under its spell with the help of Steve Canfield, an American movie producer. —John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>

Famous showbiz trio breaks up, as crooner Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby) plans to take his fiancée Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) out to Connecticut to live on a farm and enjoy the lazy life. The problem is that suave dancer Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire) has stolen Lila from Jim and runs off with her to continue their showbiz careers. Farming does not prove as easy as Jim had hoped and after a year, he ends up having a nervous breakdown. In the sanitarium, Jim comes up with the idea to turn his old barn into a nightclub that is only open on holidays. Jim visits Ted and Lila in New York and tells his old agent Danny to send him any talented acts for his club. Danny encounters a young woman at a flower shop who is bent on a career as a dancer and singer. Her name is Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), and he gives her tickets to a show and tells her to audition at Holiday Inn. At the show she meets Jim and both pretend to be more important than they really are. When she arrives in Connecticut they are surprised to be caught in their lies. Linda auditions and Jim agrees to let her star in his shows beginning with the upcoming New Year's Eve performance. In the meantime, Lila leaves Ted for a Texas millionaire. This starts Ted to drinking, and sends him to his buddy who knows what it is to have the woman you love stolen away from you. When he arrives at the inn he is extremely drunk and ends up dancing with Linda. They dance an incredible improvised comic dance routine that is still a classic. Agent Danny arrives in time to see Linda's back as she walks up the stairs. In the morning when Ted wakes up, he can't remember anything about her but the way that she danced and he know he wants her to be his partner. He and Danny decide to come back to the club on Lincoln's birthday to scout for "the back of a woman they don't know." Meanwhile, Jim has fallen in love with Linda, who can really sing and dance, and he offers her a life at the Inn, and sort of proposes to her. She agrees to stay with him at the Inn and is excited to be sort of engaged. Of course, Ted has also fallen in love with his mystery dance partner who he rediscovers on Valentine's day. He decides to stay at the inn and dance with Linda there. In an elaborate plan to get Linda away from the inn and Jim, Ted arranges for men from Hollywood to watch the 4th of July performance. Jim learns of this plot and decides to sabotage their routine by preventing Linda from arriving that day and inviting Lila, whose millionaire was not who she hoped he would be, to come in her place. In her attempts to get to the inn, Linda meets up with Lila and learns of Jim's plot. When she finally does arrive she is furious with Jim and in her anger agrees to leave with Ted for Hollywood. Jim closes the inn and mopes around. His housekeeper gives him sage wisdom that sends him to Hollywood to get his woman back. He arrives on the day before Linda and Ted's wedding, and sneaks onto the set. Linda gradually picks up signs that he is there and when he finally reveals himself she joyously runs to meet him. The movie culminates with a rewrite of the opening number in which we learn that Jim and Linda will be staying together at the Inn to sing and Ted will resume his dancing career with Lila. Holiday Inn is a Christmas treasure that shows a simpler time in history in a warm and endearing light.

In order to cover up his philandering ways, a married Broadway producer sets one of his dancers up on a date with a chorus girl for whom he had bought a gift, but the two dancers fall in love for real. After his wife discovers a telltale diamond bracelet, impresario Martin Cortland tries to show he's not chasing after showgirl Sheila Winthrop. Choreographer Robert Curtis gets caught in the middle of the boss's scheme. Army conscription offers Robert the perfect escape from his troubles- or does it? —Diana Hamilton <hamilton@gl.umbc.edu>

An American jazzman and his buddy woo a Russian princess and a fake countess in Paris. Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie. —Diana Hamilton <hamilton@gl.umbc.edu> Huckleberry Haines and his band, the Wabash Indianians, arrive at Le Havre, in France, for a season in a Russian nightclub. However, there is a misunderstanding and the owner Alexander Petrovitch Moskovich Voyda expects the arrival of an Indian band and he calls off their contract with Haines. Haines and the band head to Paris, and his friend John Kent decides to visit his Aunt Minnie, who owns the fashion house Roberta, to use her influence to find a work for the band. John meets the manager Stephanie and they immediately feel attracted to each other. Huck Haines meets in the Roberta's salon his old friend Liz with the artistic identity of Comtesse Scharwenka and she helps him to get a job with Voyda. When Aunt Minnie passes away, John Kent is the heir of her fortune and also Roberta. However he decides to give the fashion house for Stephanie, but she proposes a partnership between them two. But when John's old passion, the gold digger Sophie Teale seeks out John, the infatuated Stephanie decides to leave the business and travel abroad with the Russian Prince Ladislaw. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil John Kent, visiting Paris with his bandleader friend, Huck Haines, suddenly inherits his aunt's fashionable dress shop in the city. Although clueless about the fashion world, John and Huck get help from designer Stephanie and the fiery Countess Scharwenka, whom Huck recognizes as his small-town sweetheart, Lizzie. But when John's snooty ex, Sophie, shows up, he must reconsider his new feelings for Stephanie. —Anonymous