Jean-Pierre Aumont

Tracy is a black girl with no financial resources who struggles to be able to afford fashion college. Her goal is to become an internationally famous fashion designer. Tracy, an aspiring designer from the slums of Chicago puts herself through fashion school in the hopes of becoming one of the world's top designers. Her ambition leads her to Rome spurring a choice between the man she loves or her newfound success. —Renee Ann Byrd <byrdie@wyrdbyrd.org> Tracy Chambers is a young, black woman living in run down south Chicago. She works as a secretary to Miss Evans at a downtown department store, while she takes design art classes at night school in a want to become a high fashion designer. Miss Evans allows her to do so on the stipulation that her designer goal not interfere with her work, which is sometimes difficult not to do as she is willing to forgo other things in life to reach that goal. Tracy's boyfriend, Brian Walker, is a neighborhood activist and aspiring politician. Unlike Tracy who wants to leave the neighborhood at any cost, Brian wants to stay to make life better for anyone who has no other option but to live there. Beyond their mutual physical attraction, Brian doesn't much like the vacuous life to which Tracy seems to aspire. While at work, Tracy catches the eye of renowned Rome-based American fashion photographer Sean McAvoy who sees Tracy as model material. Much like her fashion design has gone nowhere in Chicago not being even remotely close to being a major design center, Sean tries to convince her to try modeling in Rome, both seeing her as the next big thing in the industry and in his want to be with her. He also makes no guarantees as she first has to impress the agency boss. Due to circumstances, Tracy does decide to move to Rome, where she does impress and Sean transforms her into a supermodel with the stage name Mahogany. In this new world, Tracy still aspires to design and hopes to use her platform to advertise her own creations, which places her at odds with Sean. Within this new life, she has to decide if Brian still is a part of it, he who wants his woman to stand by him, and who still has issues with her world as a whole. —Huggo

During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his remote 10th Century castle hoping a battle against the advancing Germans will not lead to the destruction of the castle and all within. Toward the end of World War II, a small company of American GI's occupy an ancient castle. Their commander has an affair with the countess in resident. One guy falls in love with a Volkswagon. A baker among them moves in with another baker's wife. A group of shell shocked holy rollers wander the bombed out streets. A GI art historian tries vainly to protect the castle and its masterpieces. —Jim Sadur <jsadur@keyflux.com>

A crusty, eccentric priest recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony from a Pacific island menaced by a smoldering volcano.

An American OSS agent and the French underground attempt to rescue a Nazi general, who is awaiting execution by the Germans, and help him escape to London. Allan Lemaire, an American O.S.S. agent, masquerading as a Frenchman, in the Maquis underground during World War Two, is called on to assist the in the escape to London of the heinous Nazi General Bruger, responsible for, among other war crimes, the cold-blooded murder of Lemaire's fiancee and eleven other French hostages. Bruger has bought his escape with the promise of vital information to the Allies. However, it soon comes clear that he has been indulging in a counter-espionage plot, at which point Lemaire, unhappy at having to assist Bruger anyway, provides a vindictive solution. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

In Paris, a young woman runs away from a reform school, joins a pickpocket academy, and finds herself falling for the handsome diplomat she's been blackmailed into stealing from. A young female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is caught red-handed on her first attempt at stealing by an upper class man. He recruits her to do him a favor at a society party where she meets and falls in love with a young, handsome, rich diplomat. Whether or not she can land him is another story. —Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>