Jeremy Kagan

In 1940 New York City, a man known as Kid Colors (Burt Remsen) is tortured and killed as retribution for his role in swindling $500,000 from Doyle Lonnegan (Oliver Reed), a crooked banker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His lead henchman, Carlos (Jose Perez), spreads the rumor that Brooklyn, New York, nightclub owner and pimp Gus Macalinski (Karl Malden), known as "the Wolf" for his reputation as a womanizer, is responsible for the Kid's killing, while Lonnegan plans the murder of confidence man Jake Hooker. Elsewhere in the city, con artist Jake Hooker (Mac Davis) and his friend, Eddie (Ron Rifkin), attempt to swindle Countess Veronique Le Fleur (Teri Garr) and her companion, Lady Dorsett (Frances Bergen), who turn the tables on them. Jake receives a telegram from his old con artist friend, Fargo Gondorff (Jackie Gleason), inviting him to Florida. After boarding the train, Jake and Eddie raise train fare by stealing off-duty police officer Francis O'Malley's wallet. Meanwhile, Carlos trails the two men and informs Lonnegan of their plans. After arriving in Miami, Florida, Jake and Eddie discover that Fargo is serving a two-year sentence in a federal prison and will be released within a few days. Fargo tells them about Kid Color's murder, placing blame on Gus Macalinski. A few days later, the three men return to New York City and meet with business associates "Handicap," (Larry Hankin) "Big Ohio," (Michael D. Alldredge) "Doc Brown," (John Hancock) and "Tuxedo" in the back room of a Chinese laundry, where they concoct a "sting" to cheat Macalinski out of a fortune. While Fargo establishes headquarters at Golding's gymnasium, Jake purchases boxing equipment at a department store, where he encounters Countess Veronique Le Fleur. Jake accuses her of being a pickpocket and alerts the store manager, who discovers O'Malley's wallet in the countess's handbag, and her coin purse in Jake's pocket. After both are ejected from the store, the countess introduces herself as Veronica Sherman... a con artist herself. Jake is sufficiently impressed with her skills and offers her a job as a member of the team to exploit Macalinski's weakness for the opposite sex. The next day at Golding's Gym, Jake receives his boxing license and his alias, Bobby Florian. He tells Fargo about Veronica, sheepishly revealing that she "reverse conned" him two weeks earlier. At Fargo's urging, Veronica admits to her real surname, Crinklaw. The next evening, she enters Macalinski's Ocean Club and draws the owner to her table. Fargo appears within seconds and introduces himself as Trevor Plantagenet. Veronica, who calls herself Elizabeth Windsor, pretends to be enamored with Fargo. He opens a bottle of champagne and the spray removes Macalinski's toupee. Attempting to overcome his humiliation, Macalinski challenges Fargo to a game of pool, then to a game of Three Card Monte. Fargo wins both, and Macalinski leaves the club in a fit of anger. Outside, Jake tells Macalinski he has information on "Trevor Plantagenet." Macalinski invites Jake, posing as "Bobby," to join him for a roller coaster ride. As the coaster speeds along the track, Jake explains that Fargo is his manager, and wants him to intentionally lose his upcoming fight against boxer Chico Torres. Jake intends to win the fight, and asks Macalinski for protection against a reprisal from Fargo in exchange for half of the $6,000 prize. After Macalinski promises to consider the offer, Jake encounters O'Malley. He eludes the officer and takes refuge in the Chinese laundry, where Fargo and his team are waiting for him. Fargo assures Jake that Macalinski will accept the offer, and advises him stay in hiding to avoid O'Malley. When Carlos updates Lonnegan on Jake's activities, the banker happily anticipates the murder of his adversaries by Macalinski. Meanwhile, Jake trains with Big Ohio, but shows little promise. However, when Macalinski visits the gym, they stage a sparring match and Jake knocks Big Ohio out of the ring. That evening, Jake informs Macalinski that Fargo is betting on Torres, and has arranged with bookmaker Tuxedo to increase the odds of Jake winning to attract more bets. Though Macalinski is intrigued, he refuses to commit until he sees Jake fight a professional boxer, which he arranges for the following day at the 8th Street Gymnasium. Jake leaves the meeting and evades O'Malley a second time. Carlos intercepts the policeman and takes him to see Lonnegan, who pays O'Malley to leave Jake alone until the sting is completed. After learning of Jake's dilemma, Fargo devises a plan to evacuate the gym, staff it with his own people, and drug Jake's competitor. When Jake wins, Macalinski agrees to protect him, and places a $400,000 bet with Tuxedo. Jake returns to Golding's and has a romantic interlude with Veronica. Confident of a victory by Torres, Lonnegan bets $1 million with a bookmaker named King Rafferty. Lonnegan directs O'Malley to the Chinese laundry, where he is expected to kill Jake and Fargo if Macalinski fails. The banker also introduces O'Malley to his informant, Samantha Scanlon, alias Veronica Crinklaw. On the night of the boxing match, Fargo instructs Jake to feign defeat in the sixth round, although Jake doubts he will last that long. While the fight is underway, Lonnegan informs Macalinski that Torres is the predetermined winner. On their boss's instructions, Macalinski's thugs reassign the bet to Torres and bring Tuxedo to the stadium at gunpoint. Believing their friend's life is in danger, Fargo instructs Jake to knock out Torres in the sixth round. Jake wins, despite his self-doubt, and is equally puzzled by Veronica's sudden absence. Fearing revenge from Macalinski, Lonnegan and Carlos run from the stadium, only to be ambushed in their car. O'Malley leads a police raid on the Chinese laundry and is greeted by a messenger, who delivers a bouquet of flowers and a derisive message from Fargo. On their way to the train station, Fargo explains that he hired Veronica to infiltrate Lonnegan's gang several months earlier. King Rafferty and Torres are also members of the organization. Fargo and his team board a westbound train, but Jake waits on the platform, hoping for Veronica's arrival. Moments after leaving the station, the train stops and Veronica disembarks. She tells Jake that she will be taking care of him from now on, as instructed by her father, Fargo.

A Vietnam veteran suffering from post traumatic stress disorder breaks out of a VA hospital and goes on a road trip with a sympathetic traveler to start a worm farm in California with his fellow veterans. It's 4 years since Jack is back from Vietnam, but he still has nightmares. In a bus on his way to California he meets Carol, who just left her fiancée - only 4 days before their wedding, allegedly just for a few days of vacation. Jack happily tells her about his plans to set up a worm farm for fishing baits together with four of his Vietnam ex-comrades. Although he gets on her nerves at the beginning, she starts to care. When one after the other of his friends steps out and Jack looses his optimism, Carol remains as the last support that keeps him from despair. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de> Deemed "crazy" from the effects of combat in the Vietnam War, Jack Dunne has been in and out of the same VA Hospital in New York City for the last four years since he completed his tour of duty, the times out only when he's been able to escape. With the help of his fellow ward patients, most with who he fought in the war, they striving for the bright future that he offers, Jack is again able to escape, his mission, with limited funds, to make three stops across the country in Sedalia Missouri, Albuquerque New Mexico and ultimately Eureka California - those funds insufficient to make the entire trip by conventional means - to connect with three other vets with who he was in combat. Along the way, he meets Carol Bell, a young woman trying to make her way to Kansas City Missouri, only to turn around as she needs to be back in New York City within four days. While Carol initially wants nothing to do with Jack, she eventually needs to rely on him for financial reasons, then ultimately for emotional reasons. As Jack and Carol make the trek across the US together to try to get to their respective destinations, they get into one predicament after another, they both realizing that they cannot get the police involved in anything that happens as it means a one way trip back to the VA hospital for Jack. In the process, they will find just how much they will need each other emotionally, from Jack's side from how damaged he really is by the war. —Huggo

Ragtime music publisher John Stark (Art Carney) watches Scott Joplin (Billy Dee Williams) walk down the back stairs of the Grand Opera House in New York City and recalls events from the composer's life. Joplin grows up in a musical family led by his mother, who washes clothes to pay for her son's piano lessons. When she dies, Scott's father considers music an activity for home and church and expects his son to labor for the railroad. Instead, Scott leaves home and finds work playing piano in a bordello. On his last day before leaving for Sedalia, Missouri, in 1899, Scott meets his replacement, Louis Chauvin (Clifton Davis), who decides to go with Scott and enter a "cutting contest," a head-to-head piano competition. The two agree to share the earnings if either one wins. In Sedalia's Maple Leaf Club, Scott tells the piano tuner that the A-flat key on one of the pianos is flat and introduces himself as a budding composer. The man advises him to seek out John Stark. Later, Chauvin informs his friend that the piano-tuner is Stark. During the competition, flashy performers eliminate one another, but Scott and Chauvin are the last men standing and Chauvin wins. However, the original tune by Scott catches the attention of Stark, who asks to see the music in his office the next day. Stark offers Scott $50 for the composition, called "Maple Leaf Rag," with ten percent royalties. Scott is ordered to demonstrate the tune by playing all day in Stark's store-front window, and to deliver the written composition that afternoon. Back at the Maple Leaf Club, the other piano players warn Scott that Stark is cheating him. Chauvin suggests they take their $100 prize money and move downriver to New Orleans, Louisiana. As Scott works on another song, he is seduced by a young woman and misses his appointment with Stark, who finds Scott at the Maple Leaf. When Scott announces that he can earn more playing saloons and brothels than by taking Stark's deal, Stark accuses the composer of fearing the challenge and Scott changes his mind. After signing with Stark, the sheet music to "Maple Leaf Rag" and other songs sell briskly, and ragtime music becomes popular. In 1901, a beautiful woman admires Scott's playing at Stark's store, so Scott follows her to a cemetery. He learns she is a widow named Belle Hayden (Margaret Avery) and they spend the day together. Scott tells her that Stark is moving his business to St. Louis, Missouri, and asks her to accompany him as his wife. They marry, move to St. Louis, and his publishing success continues. Later, Scott experiences some loss of control in his hand. Meanwhile, Sam Bundler (David Healy), the arts and music critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, comes to Stark's offices to interview Scott, wanting to write a piece decrying ragtime as the commercialization of a fad. Later, Scott sees a doctor who informs him that he has a secondary stage of syphilis. Scott has not yet infected Belle, but the disease could affect the child she is carrying, and the third stage could be debilitating for Scott. At the Joplin home, Chauvin visits with a prostitute on each arm. He teases Scott for his conservative appearance while Scott chides Chauvin for playing his music in ways other than it was written. Chauvin bears an invitation for Scott to play a gala gathering of madams at Tom Turpin's (Godfrey Cambridge) club and Scott dismisses the idea, despite longing for his raucous youth. When Belle says she does not mind if Scott plays at the club, he makes a surprise appearance and receives an ovation. As he plays, however, he remembers the woman who seduced and infected him in Sedalia and his hands begin to tremble. He recovers, but Chauvin observes the difference in his friend's performance. Sometime later, Stark notices that something is bothering Scott, who says he wants to distance himself from the past. Stark assures Scott that he is a great American composer and that he is proposing Scott to a committee staging the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. However, the committee, including Bundler, describes ragtime as crude and is reticent to feature Scott's music alongside John Philip Sousa. Meanwhile, Scott hopes for committee approval and writes a new rag for the fair. Receiving a note from Chauvin saying that he is ill, Scott reluctantly visits his friend, who asks him to transcribe his music so he, too, will be remembered. As Chauvin plays and Scott writes the notes, Chauvin loses control of his hands and says he will send for Scott when he has recovered. Afterward, on the street, Stark says that the committee has approved Scott for the World's Fair and that Belle has given birth to a baby girl. Scott rushes home to discover there is something wrong with the baby, so he confesses he has been deceitful. The World's Fair arrives and Scott's music is ignored, overwhelmed by the scope and volume of Souza and his orchestra. Scott rages at Stark for failing him and decides that he is going to write an opera in ragtime. Stark warns that it will be professional suicide, adding that he is moving to New York City and the Joplins should accompany him. Scott returns home in turmoil and finds Belle sitting alone in the nursery; the baby has died and Belle leaves him. Scott stops speaking to Stark and pours his energy into writing the opera. One day, he comes across the composition he transcribed for Chauvin and remembers his friend's request for help. In 1906 Chicago, Illinois, a derelict Chauvin returns to home to find Scott playing the piano and the old friends reunite before Chauvin passes away. In 1910, Scott goes to New York City to see Stark and hands him the composition he wrote with Chauvin, as well as a stack of newly written rags. After a celebratory dinner, Scott tells Stark that he has finished the opera, Treemonisha, and he wants Stark to finance it, but the publisher guesses that Scott is ill and tells the composer he will not pay penance for Scott's misdeeds. Later, Scott begins rehearsals with performers on his own, but they do not go well. Poor Alfred (musician Taj Mahal), Scott's piano player, tells Stark that Scott needs $3,000 to produce the opera and reports of the staging of a one-night, bare-bones showcase in Harlem. Although Stark claims he is penniless and is moving back to St. Louis, Alfred confesses that Scott is dying of syphilis and Stark agrees to find a backer. Later, Scott performs for one of Stark's potential investors and Stark reflects on Scott's career. While playing "The Entertainer," Scott's hands give him trouble and he is unable to finish. Later, Stark and Scott say goodbye on the back stairs of the Grand Opera House and Scott walks home alone as snow falls around him. In 1974, Joplin's music won an Academy Award® for The Sting (1973), Treemonisha was staged successfully on Broadway; and in 1976, the composer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Joplin died in 1917.