John Frankenheimer

In a Montmartre, Paris café, an Irish woman named Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) meets five men, taking them to a warehouse and briefing them on a mission. The men, Spence (Sean Bean), Larry (Skipp Sudduth), Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård), Vincent (Jean Reno) and Sam (Robert De Niro), are all former Special Forces soldiers or intelligence operatives now working as mercenaries. The team are planning to attack a heavily-armed convoy and steal a suitcase, its contents unknown (a MacGuffin). Following the briefing, the team begins assembling their equipment. Deirdre meets with her handler Seamus (Jonathan Pryce), who reveals that Russian gangsters are bidding for the case and that the team must act quickly to intercept it. The team goes over the plan with Deirdre. Vincent will provide the team with any technology they need, including vehicles with modified engines. Spence is a weapons expert who sets up an exchange for the team. He, Sam, Vincent and Larry meet Spence's contacts under the Pont Alexandre III (Bridge of Alexander III) on the Seine. When Spence talks to the dealers, he's dismayed to find that they brought only half the weaponry he'd ordered. The other half is allegedly in another car on the other side of the bridge. Sam immediately smells a trap but agrees to accompany Spence for protection. As they approach the dealers' shady boss, a fat man in an overcoat, Sam sees a sniper hiding in the rafting of the bridge and shoots him. The rest of the dealers open fire while Spence, Vincent and Sam return it. Larry picks them up after securing the cases and the team roars off at high speed. When they determine they're not being pursued, they pull off the street, allowing Spence to exit the car and vomit. Vincent asks Sam why he took the job and Sam tells him he needs the money. He and Vincent share a knowing smile. Later at the warehouse, Spence is exposed as a fraud when he offers an incompetent plan of attack and is summarily released from the team. Deirdre informs them that they'll capture the case near Nice. The team departs for Nice, where for the next several days they observe the convoy and plan an ambush. During their surveillance, Deirdre and Sam pose as husband and wife and grow somewhat close. Sam observes that security surrounding the man carrying the case is airtight and that he keeps it handcuffed to his wrist at all times. The team engages the convoy and pursues them through the surrounding highways in the country. After a lengthy car chase and gun battle, they successfully obtain the case, but Gregor betrays the team and switches the case with another, identical case that explodes, seriously injuring Larry. Gregor disappears. Gregor attempts to sell the case to the Russians but when his contact pulls a gun, he shoots the Russian contact and kills him. Gregor contacts Mikhi, the leader of the Russians and threatens to sell the case to the Irish unless Mikhi pays a grossly inflated price for it, which Mikhi agrees to. Meanwhile, the rest of the team track Gregor through one of Sam's old CIA contacts and corner him in the Roman arena in Arles, where he is meeting the Russians. A tense standoff and hectic gun fight follows as Deirdre, Sam, and Vincent attempt to capture Gregor while the Russians try to kill them. In the melee that follows, Vincent comes face-to-face with a man he recognizes from a previous job and is nearly shot. The man is distracted by Sam and his bullet ricochets off the stone wall and hits Sam in his abdomen. Vincent shoots and kills the man instantly. Gregor escapes the coliseum. As he runs from the arena, he is intercepted and captured by Seamus, who has already killed Larry. They escape with Deirdre at the wheel just as Sam and Vincent emerge from the coliseum. Vincent takes Sam, who was seriously wounded by the stray bullet during the fight, to his friend Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale) in a villa in rural France. Vincent removes the bullet and allows Sam a day or two to recuperate. Vincent asks Jean-Pierre to help him locate Gregor, Deirdre and Seamus. Meanwhile, in a Paris slum, Seamus learns that Gregor has mailed the case to himself at a post office in Paris. Seamus and Deirdre escort Gregor to the post office where they retrieve the case, and they are ambushed by Vincent and Sam. Sam, feeling a bit of closeness with Deirdre, hesitates when he could have stopped her escape by shooting her; she gets away and picks up Seamus and Gregor. During the high-speed chase that follows, they drive the wrong way against traffic and through the streets and tunnels of Paris. Vincent finally shoots out one of Deirdre's tires. The care crashes and falls over the unfinished end of a highway overpass. Construction workers pull the three from the car shortly before it explodes, but Gregor once again escapes with the case. Vincent and Sam, considering their options, discover that the case is identical to one used by figure skaters. They surmise that Gregor had been working with the Russians all along and that they had made the decoy case for him. They conclude that if they can find the Russians Gregor plans to sell the case to, they'll find Gregor. Intelligence gleaned from Jean-Pierre's contacts also suggest the Russians are involved with figure skater Natacha Kirilova (Katarina Witt), a protégé of Mikhi, who is performing in a show at the local arena that night. Vincent and Sam appear at the arena as Mikhi, already there with Natacha, receives a call from Gregor, who demands to meet in a backstage broadcasting room. At the meeting, Mikhi exchanges money for the case when Gregor, prepared to leave, reveals that he has positioned a sniper somewhere in the arena that will shoot Natacha if Gregor is betrayed before he can leave safely. Mikhi shoots Gregor anyway, and Natacha is also killed by the sniper. Mikhi and his bodyguard leave the arena with both the case and his money, blending in with the panicked crowd fleeing the arena. Vincent and Sam follow the crowd out of the arena in time to see Seamus, disguised as an arena security guard, ambush and shoot Mikhi and his bodyguard before stealing the case. Sam runs ahead of Seamus and finds Deirdre sitting in the getaway car, where he encourages her to leave. He reveals that he is after Seamus, not her and that he'd never actually left the CIA. Deirdre hesitates and asks him to leave with her, but he refuses, and she flees, leaving Seamus. Seamus' exit is blocked by the crowds. Sam and Vincent confront Seamus, but are momentarily distracted by the security guards, and Seamus shoots Vincent. He escapes through the crowd back into the arena building. Sam pursues him. Seamus wounds Sam and is about to kill him when Vincent opens fire from scaffolding above the arena, killing Seamus before collapsing from his own wounds. Some time later a BBC radio broadcast reveals that, as a result of stability resulting from the death of the terrorist Seamus, a peace agreement has been reached between Sinn Féin and the British. Sam and Vincent share a drink in the same Montmartre café from the first scene. Vincent tells Sam that Deirdre will not be returning to the cafe. He asks Sam what was in the case. Sam replies, "I don't remember." They part as friends and Sam drives off with his CIA contact. Vincent disappears up a staircase into the streets of Paris.

A man kills a storekeeper and a cop. LASD homicide detective Jerry Beck gets the case. His murder suspect is connected to a heavily armed white supremacy group. A cop is gunned down on Xmas eve. Jerry Beck, the homicide cop given the job of hunting the killer, investigates some leads which bring him into contact with a group of white supremacy extremists. In addition to the racists, Beck also has to contend with an unhelpful FBI agent. —Rob Hartill

Tracking two lost lumberjacks through the night, a rescue team nearly follows a hound over a cliff. Two men rappel down to retrieve the fallen hound, but they are killed. The third, hearing screams down below, rappels down to investigate, where he finds his team mates dead, only to be killed himself by an unidentified creature. Dr. Robert Verne is fed up with dealing with the squalor of city tenements. He does not feel he is making a difference. He accepts a job from the United States Environmental Protection Agency to write a report on a logging operation near the Androscoggin River in Maine. The loggers are in a dispute with the local American Indian "Opies" (i.e., "O.P.s"), the original people. Dr. Verne's wife Maggie accompanies him on the trip. She is pregnant but is apprehensive to tell her husband as he is set against having children. When they fly in, they meet a man, Travis Nelson and his two children Paul and Kathleen who are embarking on a trek into the wilderness. They also meet Bethel Isely , the director of the paper mill, who is to be their host. He tells them about his missing rescue team and lays the blame at the feet of the Opies. The latter have their own explanation: Katahdin, a vengeful spirit of the forest that has been awakened by the activities of the loggers. Isely describes Katahdin as "larger than a dragon with the eyes of a cat". As Isely drives the couple to their cabin, their path is barred by a party of Opies. They refuse to let Isely's people pass and a fight ensues between the leader of the Opies John Hawks Armand Assante and Kelso (Everett Creach), one of Isely's heavies. The heavy is armed with a chainsaw while Hawks has only a double-bit axe. The scuffle ends with Hawks laid on the ground with the chainsaw nearly at his throat. The Opies relent and let the cars pass. Verne and Maggie are visibly shocked by the incident. While fishing, Verne sees a huge salmon devour a duck. Later, after he and Maggie have eaten his catch, they are attacked in their cabin by a deranged raccoon. Verne kills it and sends a tissue sample to be tested. The next day Hawks and his wife Ramona Victoria Racimo approach Dr. Verne to put over their side of the story. If Verne is concerned about the environment then he should include the people in his assessment. Something is making the people ill: still births, mental illness and birth defects are rife. Hawks takes Verne and Maggie to the home of Hector M'Rai, Ramona's grandfather. Hector claims to have seen Katahdin and describes him as "part of everything in God's creation". Verne sees plant roots growing on the surface that should be underground; Hawk nets a bullfrog-sized tadpole from the water to show Verne; Hector has cigarette burns on his hand but feels no pain. As the evidence mounts the idyllic setting gradually takes on a sinister hue. Verne and Maggie tour the paper mill to look for incriminating evidence but the chemicals used in the processing are demonstrated to never leave the plant. Isely tells them that the water is routinely tested for purity. As they leave, however, Verne notices mercury deposits on Maggie's boots. It is a mutagen that causes birth defects and progressive nerve damage. It has long been used in logging as a fungicide because it is cheap. It will not show up in Isely's water purity tests because it sinks to the bottom. Verne needs more evidence and determines to take blood tests from the Opies. That night, the Nelson family, who have set up a camp in the woods, are suddenly assaulted by Katahdin; a ferocious bear with one of it's sides containing horribly mutated skin. The horrified Paul tries to flee, but the beast swats him into a rock, killing him. The next day as Verne and Maggie are taking blood samples, Isely and Sheriff Bartholomew Pilgrim arrive to arrest Hawks and his men whom they mistakenly believe to be the ones who killed the Nelson family. Hawks, however, escapes. Verne, Maggie and Ramona take a helicopter to the campsite to investigate the killings. Verne and Ramona find huge scratch marks on the trees while Maggie finds two mutated bear cubs trapped in a salmon poacher's net. One of the cubs is still alive and Verne is determined to save it so it can serve as empirical evidence of the contamination. However, the weather has turned and the pilot, Huntoon, refuses to take off in the high wind. They make for Hector's home and Verne sends Hawks to fetch Isely and the sheriff. Verne sets up an emergency room in one of Hector's tepees and helps the cub survive. Maggie is clearly distressed by the ordeal so Verne takes her aside and assures her that it will all be over soon. Shockingly, she reveals to him that she is pregnant and she has eaten contaminated fish like the mother of the cubs. Isely and Sheriff Pilgrim arrive and see the mutant cub. Isely is contrite, knowing that Hawks and his men weren't the killers. Hector arrives, when suddenly Katahdin attacks the camp in search of her cubs and kills everyone in sight. Everyone else seeks shelter in tunnels beneath Hector's home. All goes quiet so Pilgrim decides to check it out. He pokes his head up out of the tunnel and Katahdin kills him. The next day, the survivors make their way out of the forest. The helicopter is not an option as Huntoon was severely mauled in the beast's initial attack. Isely heads up to Mount Emery to try to reach a radio tower and call for help. Isley finds the radio tower but the monster immediately finds him and before Isley is able to call help, Katahdin kills him as well. The others find the Opie village mysteriously isolated and the Opie people gone, but take a truck and try to drive out along the winding forest road. Katahdin turns the truck over and finishes Huntoon off by devouring his head. The others run off through the forest with the beast in pursuit. They arrive at the river and swim across. The cub continues to bite Maggie but Rob pulls it off her and holds it underwater, drowning it. Hector stays behind to make Katahdin flee but fails and he is killed as well. Katahdin seems reluctant to follow them at first, but then enters the water and vanishes. They believe she drowned but then she suddenly emerges. They take shelter in a log cabin, but Katahdin tears down the walls. Maggie is knocked unconscious by debris, but Ramona is crushed. It is later revealed that she survived the incident. Verne finds a Winchester Model 1892 rifle in the cabin and shoots the monster twice with some effect. Hawks shoots arrows into Katahdin's hide until the beast sends him airborne with a mighty swat from her paws, then he lands on the ground, dead and bloodied. Verne picks up an arrow, then Katahdin hoists him up, only to be stabbed repetitively in the face and eyes until she collapses into the lake. Rob notices that the monster still moves slightly and leaps onto the beast and stabs her a few more times until her corpse finally sinks below the water. Verne and Maggie fly over the forest the next day, but not knowing that there is another mutant animal still alive in the forest.

On November 12, 1975, Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller) arrives at the airport in Beirut, Lebanon. Taking a taxi into town, she walks through narrow alleys and bazaars, then slips into the back seat of a waiting car. The vehicle takes her to a gated compound, where she meets Nageeb (Victor Campos), a Palestinian co-conspirator. He shows her a secret film of an American prisoner of war named Mike Lander (Bruce Dern) confessing his war crimes to his North Vietnamese captors. Nageeb admonishes Dahlia that she's built an upcoming mission around Lander who is obviously unstable, but Dahlia insists she can control him. Dahlia tells Nageeb to destroy the film because it could compromise her mission. Confident that her plan will succeed, Dahlia records an audio statement on behalf of her guerrilla group, Black September, telling the American people that it's time for them to pay for aiding Israel's repression of the Palestinians. That night, Israeli commando Major David Kabakov (Robert Shaw) leads a strike team against the compound. When Kalakov enters Nageeb's room and kills him, he finds Dahlia taking a shower in the adjoining bathroom; however, he assumes she's Nageeb's mistress or a local prostitute and doesn't shoot her. Kabakov's men gather evidence, including Dahlia's tape recorder, and escape the compound before blowing it up. On November 14, Mike Lander is piloting a Goodyear blimp above a football game at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The head of the television crew is angry because Lander can't get the blimp and its overhead camera in the right spot. But Lander brushes him off, knowing that no other pilot would even try to fly a dirigible in the high winds that day. On November 17, in Washington, D.C., F.B.I. agent Sam Corley (Fritz Weaver) is called to the Israeli embassy to hear Dahlia's tape. Kabakov tells Corley that Dahlia's wording indicates that Dahlia's message was not a warning but rather a justification to be heard after a planned terrorist attack. He suspects the attack is planned for January. Kabakov recognizes Dahlia as the woman he saw in the shower, but he has no idea who she is. Meanwhile, Dahlia goes to Lander's apartment in Los Angeles. Lander is an emotional wreck because Dahlia hasn't contacted him in three days and he thinks she's betrayed him. Dahlia calms him with a gift-a statuette of the Madonna made of an explosive compound that he needs for his project. Dahlia encourages Lander to pull himself together and go to his Veteran's Administration rehabilitation meeting, so that he won't lose his piloting job with Goodyear. Later that day, at the V.A., Lander reveals his bitterness. Despite his heroism and years as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, the Navy turned his wife against him and took away his commission. On the night of November 23, Lander and Dahlia unload wooden crates from a freighter in the Long Beach harbor when a Coast Guard cutter approaches. Since Lander's speedboat is faster and smaller, he's able to evade them by running under a low bridge, but the Coast Guard reports the clandestine activity to the F.B.I. The freighter captain tells Corley that he knows nothing about the incident, but when Kabakov and fellow Israeli agent Robert Moshevsky (Steven Keats) sneak aboard the ship that night and threaten to slit the captain's throat, he confesses that his crew delivered 12 crates to a man and a woman in masks. Just then, the phone rings, and when the captain answers it, the receiver explodes, killing the captain and injuring Kabakov. When Dahlia sees Kabakov on television being carried into the emergency room of a local hospital, she disguises herself as a Catholic nurse, breaks into the hospital drug room and fills a syringe with potassium chloride. However, Moshevsky spots her before she can get into Kabakov's room and demands that she accompany him downstairs to the nurses' station for identification. On the elevator Dahlia jabs the needle into his neck and kills him. As soon as Kabakov gets out of the hospital, he goes to the office of Muzi (Michael V. Gazzo), the local importer in charge of Lander and Dahlia's shipment. Holding Muzi at gunpoint, Kabakov learns that the shipment was plastic explosives, the woman called herself "Kaza" and the man who paid him was an Egyptian in Tripoli named Mamud al Bernardi. On December 3 , Lander and Dahlia land a small plane at a desolate Mojave Desert airstrip to test an explosive device he's designed for the mission. Lander gains the confidence of the airstrip's sole caretaker and kills him by firing off hundreds of "steel rifle darts"-pieces of shrapnel-in one symmetrical blast. Ecstatic with his success, Lander tells Dahlia that 200,000 darts could cause significant damage if they were detonated 100 feet above the fifty-yard line of a football game from the Goodyear blimp. Back in Washington, D.C., Kabakov has a secret rendezvous near the Lincoln Memorial with an old intelligence rival, Egyptian Colonel Riaf (Walter Gotel), and convinces him that it's in both of their interests that he find out who Kaza is. When the men meet again days later, Riaf has a photograph of Kaza and reveals that her real name is Dahlia Iyad. Riaf explains that Dahlia was born in Haifa (then Palestine) to an Arab father and German mother, and Israeli commandos killed the men of her family and forced her mother, sister and Dahlia into refugee camps, where only Dahlia survived. A few days later, Dahlia hauls a speedboat-shaped trailer into Miami, Florida, and parks it in a locked storage area. When she checks into the downtown Hotel Edward, Palestinian agent Mohammed Fasil (Bekim Fehmiu) greets her with news that the Israelis have found out who she is. Although Fasil wants her to abort the mission and go into hiding, she refuses, insisting it's already too far along. On January 1, 1976, Corley and Kabakov are alerted that Dahlia has been spotted in Miami, but by the time they arrive, she has already driven back to Los Angeles and only Fasil is at the hotel. Before F.B.I. agents can apprehend Fasil, he shoots his way out and wages a running gun battle through the city until Kabakov kills him on the beach. When Kabakov and Corley search Fasil's hotel room, the commando holds up a magazine with the Miami Orange Bowl on the cover. The two hurry to the Orange Bowl and try to convince stadium authorities that they need to cancel the upcoming Super Bowl X football game to be held on January 18, but the authorities refuse and claim that the President has arranged to be at the event. Although security is enhanced and all flights over Miami during the Super Bowl are canceled, police helicopters and the Goodyear blimp are allowed to fly overhead. On January 17, the day before the game, Lander's mission is stymied when Goodyear replaces him with another pilot named Farley (Tom McFadden). Assuring Lander that he needn't worry, Dahlia goes to Farley's hotel room, kills him and puts a "Do Not Disturb" sign on his door. The next morning on January 18, Lander joins his crew and tells them that Farley is sick. At the airfield, the men prepare the blimp, lift off and head for the stadium. During the game, Lander starts a fire in one of the engines, which provides him with an excuse to hurry the blimp back to the field and fix it. Dahlia is waiting there with the trailer and helps to hook up Lander's contraption to the underbelly of the blimp's gondola, claiming it's a last-minute request from CBS-TV. However, one of the television crewmen becomes suspicious and runs back to the CBS remote trailer. Lander follows the man and shoots him. Meanwhile, the police find Farley's body at the hotel and alert the authorities that the blimp is the terrorists' weapon. Lander and Dahlia use automatic weapons to kill the men on the blimp airfield, including several policemen and an F.B.I. man, then head back toward the stadium, dumping the gondola's equipment to offset the added weight of the shrapnel. Kabakov and Corley commandeer a police helicopter and follow them, using the gondola's limited visibility beneath the blimp to avoid detection. Lander pilots the blimp with the bomb towards the Orange Bowl stadium while Dahlia provides covering fire as she opens fire and shoots down a police helicopter, and forces unarmed civilian media helicopters to back away. Dahlia opens fire on the helicopter containing Kabakov and Corley when it comes into view, slightly wounding Corley when he tries shooting at the blimp with a rifle. As Kabakov and Corley swoop down next to the gondola for another pass, Kabakov opens fire with his sub-machine gun, killing Dahlia and wounding Lander, but it's too late to stop the blimp. Using the helicopter's cargo hook line, Kabakov slides down onto one of the blimp's rear tails and connects it to the helicopter in time to pull the dirigible away from inside the stadium and toward the nearby ocean. In his final moments, Lander lights a backup fuse to detonate the bomb. Moments after the helicopter lifts Kabakov free from the blimp, Lander's invention explodes in a ball of fire, spraying the ocean surface with shrapnel. With 80,000 lives saved, the helicopter flies back toward Miami.

Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged man whose life has lost purpose. He is disengaged at his job as a banker, while the love with his wife has dwindled. Through a friend who he thought had died years earlier, Hamilton is approached by a secret organization, known simply as the "Company," which offers wealthy people a second chance at life. The Company, in the person of Mr. Ruby (Jeff Corey), interviews Hamilton, then shows him a film of him attacking a girl after he'd unknowingly consumed drugged food & drink offered him by the Company. They threaten to blackmail Hamilton forcing him to sign on, foreshadowing the unfortunate consequences of accepting the Company's assistance. Hamilton's death is staged to make it look as if he perished in a hotel fire with a corpse left disguised as him. Through extensive plastic surgery and psychoanalysis, Hamilton is transformed into Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson). He is provided with a new home, a new identity (as Wilson), new friends and a devoted manservant. The details of his new existence suggest that there was once a real Tony Wilson, but what became of him is a mystery. Wilson copes with his new world. Relocated to a fancy home in Malibu, California, where he is an already established artist, he commences a relationship with a young woman named Nora Marcus (Salome Jens) and for a time he is happy but soon becomes troubled by the emotional confusion of his new identity, as well as by the exuberance of renewing his youth. At a dinner party he hosts for neighbors, Wilson drinks himself into a stupor and begins to babble about his former life as Hamilton. It turns out that his neighbors are "reborns" like himself, sent to keep an eye on his adjustment. Nora is actually an agent of the Company and her attentions to Wilson are designed merely to ensure his cooperation. In violation of Company policy, Wilson, posing as an old friend of her husband's, visits his former wife (Frances Reid) in his new persona. He learns that his marriage had failed because he was distracted by the pursuit of career and material possessions, the very things in life that others made him believe were important. Wilson returns to the Company and announces a desire to start again with yet another identity. The Company offers to accommodate him, but asks if he would first provide the names of some past acquaintances who might like to be "reborn." He refuses since he now knows of the drawbacks to being "reborn" and also doesn't want to delay the Company's procedure for a new identity for himself. While awaiting his reassignment, Wilson encounters Charlie Evans (Murray Hamilton), the friend who had originally recruited him into the Company. Evans was also "reborn" and likewise could not make a go of his new life. Together, they speculate on the reason for their failure to adjust, attributing it to the fact that they allowed others, including the Company, to make life choices for them. This realization comes too late. Wilson/Hamilton is suddenly strapped to a gurney and as he is wheeled down the hallway, a priest reads him his last rites. He is eventually wheeled into a small room where he learns that failed reborns are not actually provided with new identities but instead become the cadavers used to fake new clients' deaths.

Drivers are introduced with their back stories at the starting grid of the Monaco Grand Prix. They're off!. Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) leads Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), Pete Aron (James Garner) third. Pat Stoddard (Jessica Walter)gets out of bed hungoverand looks down at the racing cars from her high balcony. Hugo, an older gentleman friend arrives to escort her to the winner's circle. Pat had partied hard with two Greeks and ouzo while her huband Scott had gone to bed early. Stoddard pushes and passes Sarti for the lead leaving the others behind as they begin to lap the backmarkers. Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato) passes Aron for 3rd. Pete Aron in the 11 car Jordan-BRM is having problems with his gearbox and gestures to his pits. He slips to 5th and pits. Team owner/Manager Jeff Jordan (JaCK Watson) angrily tells him to get back out despite a faulty transmission. Aron exits the pits in front of his teammate Scott Stoddard in the 12 car. Despite being a lap down and with a wonky car Pete doesn't pull out of the way, Jordan is livid as he sees the cars pass the pits. Aron ignores the blue flag order. Coming to the chicane Aron's car slips a gear, he raises his arm but too late, the 12 car rams him from behind. Stoddard is sent into the runoff haybales while Aron is pushed into the harbour. Stoddard is badly hurt and Arons swims to safety. Jordan is furious and calls Aron a liar and a coward. In the hospital Stoddard is bandaged from head to foot. Jordan peevishly tells Pat she got what she wanted, Stoddard is finished as a driver. Meanwhile Sarti wins the race. In a hotel room after the celebrations a weary Sarti has a chat with Aron, Pete tries to explain what happened. At night the 11 car is hoisted from the harbour. Pat sits by her unconscious husband, she gently kisses the sleeping man and tells him softly she knows he will drive again somehow, but she has had enough. She leaves quietly as Stoddard stirs. Aron then comes to the room and sees Scott crying. In a posh reception area Hugo greets American journalist Louise Frederickson (Eva Marie Saint). Sarti arrives wearing a tuxedo and is introduced to Louise. Jean-Pierre charms the woman and the two go outside for a quiet talk. Louise is doing a story for a fashion magazine. Sarti recalls Louise had written an article about his wife Monique, who is from an auto company family but never comes to races. The two browse in an old car museum, Louise admits she has never seen a race before. Sarti invites her to another party that night. At a disco young people shake their booties to pop music. Nino Barlini arrives on a motorcycle and spots the bored but gorgeous, leggy blonde Lisa (Francoise Hardy). Nino goes to chat her up. Pete visits the Ferrari factory in Modena to talk to Agostini Manetta, asking to drive for them again. Manetta refuses partly because of how Aron left the team three years earlier, he also says Aron is reckless and not a winner. Stoddard is transferred by ambulance back to the UK, reporters crowd around him on the gurney. A reporter asks about a rumoured divorce but Jeff says it's not true. In the hospital Scott tells Jeff he wants her back. Pat is a fashion model doing a shoot at the Ferrari garage. Louise is there too and greets Jean-Pierre. The two Ferrari cars come out onto a city street to cheering onlookers. At the French Grand Prix Pete is now in a burgandy blazer as a TV commentator. In the pits Lisa is now an enthusiastic pit babe hanging close to Nino. The drivers kibbitz with Pete. The famous Japanese industrialist Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune) arrives by limo. Pete introduces himself to the Japanese car owner, but can't arrange an interview. Scott watches dismally as Pat is being interviewed on TV, she denies any marriage problems. Pete chides her off camera for the obvious lies. The others discuss the Stoddards' not exactly fairy tale marriage. Sarti and Louise have lunch together. Pete then sees Pat sitting alone on the bleachers and goes to apologize but still manages to insult her. At a quiet stream, Jean-Pierre gives Louise fly-fishing lessons. Sarti talks about his marriage. Nino and Lisa are in a pedal boat nearby. Louise is not married as she likes to be free and independent. The cars whiz by the French fans, Louise is in the crowd and excited by the spectacle. Sarti in the #6 Ferrari cruises to a win. Pat sits with Pete in a bar as they hear the French anthem. Pat tries to break the ice between them and asks for a lift. In a Mustang Aron drives quickly as Pat admits she has left Scott and why she did so. On a hillside viewpoint Jean-Pierre and Louise look a the scenery, Sarti tries to encourage her to stay in Europe for a while longer. He invites her to join him at a place near Monza. At the hotel Pete leaves Pat at her room, he then finds a letter slipped under his door. Pete goes to the Yamura garage with the invitation. He is greeted by Yamura, who explains his racing philosophy, and is anxious for his first win. He offers Aron a job as a driver in a third car on his team, Pete accepts. Pete and Pat stroll down a quiet city street. Pat announces she is divorcing Scott. The two are more friendly, and later Pat comes to his hotel room. At an exlusive resort Jean-Pierre shows Louise around his large Ferrari-decorated suite. They make love and discuss the future over champagne. Yamura shows Pete around his racing car shop, there are many chassis and bodies being worked on. Pete sits in a car then the two men have tea outside a luxurious estate. Yamura tells Aron he was a fighter pilot in the war, shooting down 17 Americans. The two men seem to hit it off. At the Stoddard manse, filled with trophies and racing art, Scott returns, now hobbling on crutches escorted by Jeff Jordan. The house is a shrine to Scott's older, dead brother Roger. Scott uses the mementos as motivation to exceed. At a meeting with all the other drivers Sarti presses for a union to push for better safety. Scott arrives and is greeted warmly by the other drivers. Pete and Pat are living together in a suite upstairs, Scott comes to talk and asks Aron to leave them for a moment. Scott has missed her but Pat refuses to reconcile. Sarti has pole position for the Belgian GP at Spa. The cars tear around the long circuit. It starts to rain heavily and Aron in the #24 Yamura begins to cut through traffic. Sarti pushes hard at the front and comes up to the backmarkers. Suddenly his right front wheel breaks off and the Ferrari crashes through a fence. Sarti is helped out. His leg gashed, he looks back at two spectators who were killed in the crash. Aron wins! Stoddard and Jordan look on glumly. The father of one of the dead men attacks Sarti as Aron receives his flowers and the American anthem plays. Intermission At Stoddard's farm they wheel out Roger's old front engine green racer from a barn. Scott squeezes into the car and takes it out for a spin. At Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix Scott is back racing, he celebrates a hot record lap, Aron and Yamura look concerned. In the race Barlini spins out but continues. Sarti retires at the back of the circuit. Scott charges and rubs his leg whenever he can, he wins! The Jordan team are joyous. Later Scott injects his leg with a painkiller. In the US he wins again at Watkins Glen. After Mexico Yamura and Aron review movies of the #32 Yamura spinning out. Aron acknowledges he is making mistakes, Stoddard has won yet again. At Brands Hatch the cars arrange on the grid. The track announcer states Aron has already won at Belgium and Germany. The British Grand Prix is underway! After 15 laps Stoddard begins to slow, he starts thinking of the drugs and Pat. He pits and is lifted almost unconcious from the car. Barlini, Sarti and Aron battle for the lead on the last lap. Aron's car begins to leak fuel. It catches fire but Aron continues onto 2nd place as the car erupts in a fireball. Aron is OK! Sarti seems shaken and blasts the photographers. Lisa joins an ecstatic Nino on the podium. Scott is relaxing in a dark room as Pat comes to see him, concerned. At a pub all the drivers celebrate Nino's win. Sarti slips out quietly and Louise joins him. Jean Pierre is getting reflective and begins to question what they all do. Louise tries to reassure him. At Monza Lisa notices a handsome young man at a slot car track. Sarti is upset his car hasn't arrived yet. A narrator describes the dangers of the 6.5 mile high banked race track. Manetta arrives with a guest, it is Sarti's wife Monique. She greets Louise awkwardly and makes small talk with Nino. Then Lisa sees Nino playing around with two Japanese girls and turns away. Manetta challenges Sarti's recent driving and suggests he is ready for retirement, Jean-Pierre is angry. He politely meets his wife behind the pits. Monique tells him divorce is out of the question and Sarti will always be used for marketing her auto company. Scott and Pat prepare to go to a party, this will be his last race. Nino is headed to a room with the two kimono-clad girls. Outside Lisa starts to talk to the handsome guy she noticed earlier. The next morning Jean-Pierre and Louise talk wistfully and express their love. In the pits Nino wonders where Lisa was last night, she tells him she is leaving him to go to Greece with her new American boyfriend. Nino sarcastically tells her off. Scott confidently blips his throttle as Pat looks on smiling. Pete arrives in his Shelby Mustang GT and greets Pat, he wishes her well. On the grid the announcer says Barlini leads the championship with 28 pts, Stoddard and Sarti are tied for 2nd at 27, Aron is 4th with 26. The flag drops, Sarti's car stalls. He manages to restart 30 seconds behind the pack. Barlini leads. The cars speed around the imposing banking at 180 mph. Sarti closes up and passes slower cars. Barlini stretches his lead but Sarti is the fastest car on the track. On lap 22 Sarti makes it to 4th place! An exhaust pipe comes off another car, Sarti hits it, spins off the high banking and crashes in an explosion on the trackside below. Jean-Pierre is fatally injured and taken away by ambulance. Louise is hysterical, Monique is shocked. Manetta black flags Barlini withdrawing his whole team from the race. Everyone is silent in respect. Back on the track Scott and Pete now duel wheel to wheel, passing and re-passing each other using drafting. Around the last corner Pete presses ahead and wins by a wheel. Getting out of his car Yamura indicates Sarti is gone, Aron is silent but takes the winner's laurels and beckons a subdued Scott up to the podium. Later, Pete looks sadly around the empty grandstands and starting grid. He hears the engines roar, has a smoke and strides off down the track.

In August 1944 (1511th day of the German occupation), masterpieces of modern art stolen by the Wehrmacht are being shipped to Germany; the officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Franz Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), is determined to take the paintings to Germany, no matter what the cost. After the works he selects are removed from the Jeu De Paume Museum, curator Mademoiselle Villard (Suzanne Flon) seeks help from the French Resistance. Villard knows that Waldheim loves his art and has saved the pieces from Nazi ideology by hiding them in Villard's Museum for 4 years. Given the imminent liberation of Paris by the Allies, SNCF (French National Railways) workers associated with the Resistance need only delay the train for a few days, but it is a dangerous operation and must be done without risking the priceless cargo. As luck would have it, Waldheim's train is canceled due to orders to prepare an armament train at the highest priority. Waldheim arranges for new orders and asks the Railways area inspector to have his train ready at 3 PM the same day. Waldheim takes permission from General Von Lubitz (Richard Munch) himself to get his train sanctioned. He convinces Lubitz that money is itself a weapon and that the retreating Germans should not leave 1 Billion in Deutschmarks in the form of art, in the hands of the French. Due to the delays in meeting Lubitz, Waldheim delays the departure to the following morning at 9:50 am. Resistance cell leader and SNCF area inspector Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) initially denies the plan, telling Villard and senior Resistance leader Spinet (Paul Bonifas), "I won't waste lives on paintings." Villard insists that the train must be stopped, but the paintings must not be harmed as they are a National heritage and irreplaceable. Spinet argues that British planes are going to hit the rail yard at 10 the next morning and wants Labiche to delay the train by 10 minutes. Boule is an engineer assigned to Waldheim's train and had learned from the conductor Octave (Jean-Pierre Zola) that the train was carrying stolen art to Nazi Germany and was motivated by his sense of nationalism. Didont and Pesquet are fellow engineers who were engineering a military train (with anti-aircraft guns and tanks) that was held at the station of Vaires to prioritize the passage of Waldheim's art train. Labiche is also at Vaires. Boule's train passes Vaires at precisely 10 am when the bombing starts. The bombing destroys the military train but misses Boule's train. But Buole had thrown coins into the engine to clog up the oil filters, which brings the train to a halt at the station of Rive-Reine. The engine is towed back to Vaires for repairs. Major Herren (Wolfgang Preiss) is an experienced engineer and understands immediately that Boule threw coins into the oil line to clog the filters. Labiche has a change of heart after his cantankerous former mentor, Papa Boule (Michel Simon), is summarily executed for sabotaging the train on his own. After that sacrifice, Labiche joins his Resistance teammates Didont (Albert Remy) and Pesquet (Charles Millot), who have been organizing their own plan with the help of other SNCF Resistance members. Labiche, Didont and Pesquet fix the engine and take it to Rive-Reine to attach to the train. Waldheim wont release Labiche and asks him to rest for a few hours before taking over the train. Labiche is put up in a hotel owned by Christine by Captain Schmidt (Jean Bouchaud). Labiche escapes the hotel room, creates a distraction by exploding a truck and enters the stationmaster's office to issue a set of instructions to the other station masters. The station master at Rive-Reine Jacques (Jacques Marin) coordinates the actions when Labiche boards the train. In an elaborate ruse, they reroute the train, temporarily changing railway station signage to make the German escort believe they are heading to Germany when they have actually looped back round towards Paris. Two deliberate collisions then block the train in at the small town of Rive-Reine without damaging the cargo. Jacques derails an engine across the tracks at Rive-Reine. As Labiche approaches Rive-Reine, he separates the engine from the wagons, abandons the engine, which goes on to collide with the engine on the tracks. Then Jacques sends another engine from behind the wagons, which crashes into them and blocks the reverse escape. Labiche, although shot in the leg, escapes on foot with the help of Christine (Jeanne Moreau), the widowed owner of a Rive-Reine hotel, while other Resistance members involved in the plot are murdered, including Pesquet and Jacques, the Rive-Reine stationmaster. That night, Labiche and Didont meet Spinet again, along with Jacques's young nephew Robert (Christian Fuin). Spinet says that the Allied army is delayed as they went to Paris first as a good-will gesture. He also says that London has decided not to bomb the train and has asked for the first 3 wagons to be painted white on top. Labiche says that too many men have lost their lives already, but Didont convinces him to complete the mission else all sacrifices would have been in vain. Labiche, Didont and Robert plan to paint the tops of three wagons white to warn off Allied aircraft from bombing the art train. Robert recruits railroad workers and friends of his uncle. He and Didont are killed when the painting is detected during a false air raid alarm staged by Robert (the air raid siren prompts the Germans to switch off all lights at night, which allows Labiche and Pesquet to approach the train and paint it), but because of the paint, the train is spared from bombing the next day when Allied medium bombers roar over Rive-Reine. But now Walheim figures out that the train is protected and the Allied air force will not bomb it, prompting him to take the train out of Rive-Reine in daylight. Now working alone, Labiche continues to delay the train after the tracks are cleared, to the mounting rage of Von Waldheim. Labiche attempts to use plastic explosives to destroy the locomotive, only to find it carrying French hostages placed by the Germans. To spare the hostages, he blows the explosives early, damaging the tracks in front of the train. While the Germans fix the tracks, Labiche runs ahead, struggling to keep away from the soldiers searching for him. Finally, he manages to derail the train by unscrewing and loosening one of the rails, causing the rails to spread and the engine to fall gently into the ballast without harming the hostages. No crane is available to re-rail the train, so Von Waldheim flags down an army convoy retreating on a nearby road, learning that a French armored division is not far behind. The colonel orders the train to be unloaded and attempts to commandeer the trucks for the art, but the convoy's commander refuses the order. The train's German contingent then kill the hostages and join the retreating convoy. Von Waldheim remains behind with the abandoned train. Strewn between the track and the road are crates labeled with the names of famous artists. Labiche appears and the colonel castigates him for having no real interest in the art he has saved. In response, Labiche turns and looks at the murdered hostages and then, without a word, turns back to Von Waldheim and shoots him dead. Afterwards Labiche limps away, leaving the bodies and the art treasures where they lie.

A true-life drama about Robert Stroud who educated himself in the science of birds while spending 53 years in prison. He became a world authority on birds. Convicted of murder twice, the second time for killing a prison guard, Robert Stroud is sentenced to life in solitary confinement. One day, after curing a sickly sparrow that lands in his cell, Stroud finds new purpose in his lonely life. He begins studying and eventually becomes an expert on birds. Through the strength of his will and the power of his intellect, Stroud is able to create a new life, and a fascinating world, in his tiny prison cell.

In 1952 during the Korean War, the Soviets capture an American platoon and take them to Manchuria in Communist China. After the war, the soldiers return to the United States, and Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is credited with saving their lives in combat. Upon the recommendation of the platoon's commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), Shaw is awarded the Medal of Honor for his supposed actions. In addition, when asked to describe him, Marco and the other soldiers automatically respond, "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." Deep down, however, they know something is wrong. As Marco puts it: "It isn't as if Raymond is hard to like. He's impossible to like!" Marco who has since been promoted to Major suffers from a recurring nightmare in which a hypnotized Shaw strangles one of his fellow soldiers, and shoots another, killing both before the assembled military brass of communist nations, during a practical demonstration of a brainwashing technique. (Raymond and his platoon have been hypnotized into believing that the Korean military brass are a bunch of harmless old American ladies from a garden club.) Marco wants to investigate, but receives no support from Army Intelligence as he has no proof. However, Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon, Allen Melvin (James Edwards), has had the same nightmare. When Melvin and Marco separately identify some of the men in the dream as leading figures in communist governments, Army Intelligence decides that this is too much of a coincidence and agrees to help Marco investigate. Shaw's mother, Mrs. Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury), is the driving force behind her husband, Shaw's step-father, Senator John Yerkes Iselin (James Gregory), a bombastic demagogue in the style of Joseph McCarthy, who is dismissed by most people as a fool. Shaw hates them both, especially his domineering mother. Senator Iselin's political stature is established when (per his wife's orders) he interrupts a televised press conference given by the Secretary of Defense, accusing him of knowing that some 207 Defense Department employees are "card carrying" Communists. This provokes the expected chaos and shock among journalists and an enraged reaction from the Secretary. Unknown to everyone including Raymond, the Iselins (or possibly only Mrs. Iselin) are actually Stalinist agents with a plan intended to take them all the way to the White House. His mother is actually the American "operative" for whom Raymond is to effect the operation's final step. Raymond was conditioned in Manchuria to be an unwitting assassin whose actions are triggered by a Queen of Diamonds playing card. When he sees it, he will obey the next suggestion or order given to him by anyone. When given instructions to kill selected targets, he must also kill any witnesses and never remember his actions, making him the perfect assassin as he can never feel fear or guilt. It is revealed that Shaw's heroism was a false memory implanted in the platoon by the Communists in Manchuria, and that they were covertly returned to the American lines only after their conditioning was completed. The actions for which Shaw was awarded his Medal of Honor never took place. Raymond briefly finds happiness when he rekindles a youthful romance with Jocelyn Jordan (Leslie Parrish), the daughter of Senator Thomas Jordan (John McGiver), one of his stepfather's political rivals. Raymond had previously courted Jocelyn in order to get at his parents in a Romeo and Juliet-style romance, but they then genuinely fell in love, both she and her father being the nearest thing Raymond has ever had to having friends. Mrs. Iselin broke up the relationship for obvious political reasons, but now facilitates the couple's reunion as part of her scheme to garner the support of Senator Jordan for her husband's own sudden vice presidential bid. Jocelyn, wearing a Queen of Diamonds costume outfit, inadvertently hypnotizes Raymond at a costume party thrown by the Iselins at their Long Island home and the couple elopes. Although tolerant of the match, Senator Jordan makes it clear to Mrs. Iselin that he will move for her husband's impeachment if he makes any attempt to seek the vice-presidential nomination. Raymond's conditioning is then triggered by his mother and he is sent to assassinate Jordan. Jocelyn happens upon the scene and is also shot dead as a witness to the event. Raymond has no knowledge of his actions and is genuinely grief-stricken when he learns of the murders. In the course of Marco's investigation, he discovers the role of the Queen of Diamonds card in putting Raymond into the hypnotic state for his assignments. Marco meets Raymond and, using a deck composed entirely of Queen of Diamonds, gets the full story and orders Raymond to break the linkages between himself and the card forever and to disobey any further subsequent orders from his controllers. Unaware of this, Mrs. Iselin primes her son to assassinate their party's presidential candidate at the nomination convention so that Senator Iselin, as the vice-presidential candidate, will become the presidential candidate by default and give an inflammatory anti-Communist speech (actually written by the Communists themselves). This will cause mass hysteria that will get Iselin, the real "Manchurian candidate", elected and justify such emergency powers that, in Mrs. Iselin's words, "will make martial law seem like anarchy". She condescendingly tells her son that, although he may never fully understand, she did not know it would be her son whom the Communists selected as the assassin, apparently because they believed it would solidify their own hold over her. Furious, she vows that once in power she will "grind them into the dirt". She proceeds to give the ostensibly "hypnotized" Raymond a decidedly non-maternal kiss. Marco's attempt to free Raymond appears to have failed. Raymond enters the convention hall disguised as a Catholic priest and takes up a position to carry out the assassination as he was instructed, using a rifle with a scope. Marco and his supervisor, Colonel Milt (Douglas Henderson), arrive at the convention to stop him. As the Presidential nominee (Robert Riordan) makes his speech, Raymond instead shoots his stepfather and mother dead. He then commits suicide in front of Marco while wearing his undeserved Medal of Honor.