Malcolm Danare

When a fussy performing dog is left behind by a traveling carnival and adopted by a lonely farm boy, bumbling thieves from a rival circus plot to kidnap the priceless pooch.

Clark W. Griswald (Chevy Chase), his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), and their teenage children, Audrey (Dana Hill) and Rusty (Jason Livey), are contestants on a TV game show called "A Pig In A Poke." After facing off against the eccentric and intellectual Froeger family, the Griswald's win the show's grand prize: a two-week, all-expense-paid European vacation. During a cookout the next day, Audrey does not want to leave her boy friend, Jack, behind. Before they leave, Clark videotapes a provocative striptease performed by his wife. On the plane to London, England, Ellen dreams that she meets Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana, Audrey has a nightmare of gaining weight from the rich European cuisine, and Rusty dreams of beautiful women fawning over him. Clark dreams of spending time with his family in the Bavarian Alps. Arriving in London, they follow the itinerary provided by the game show, which promises luxury accommodations. However, their hotel room is not up to par. Clark has trouble driving on the opposite side of the road, gets into three car accidents, hitting one man on a bicycle (Eric Idle), and is stuck driving for hours in a roundabout. Sometime later, they take a drive in the countryside and visit Stonehenge, and Clark reverses his car into the rock installations, knocking them over like dominoes, as he drives away. Next, the Griswald's arrive in Paris, France, and a local man steals Clark's video camera after he offers to take a family photograph. Clark buys everyone berets with their names on them. They have lunch at a local cafe where the waiter insults them in French, knowing that they are tourists and cannot understand the French language. During the day, The family visits the Eiffel Tower. Later, they race through the Louvre museum in 15 minutes, and Ellen pleads with Clark to slow down their tour. Audrey is distraught when she receives a break-up letter from Jack. The family drives to Germany to visit Clark's distant relatives, Fritz and Helga. They arrive at the wrong home, however, and fail to realize the elderly couple are not Fritz and Helga. The German couple do not speak English, but welcome the Griswalds to dinner, and allow them to spend the night. The family leaves the next day, thinking they had a nice visit with their family. At a German festival, Rusty meets a local girl named Claudia (Claudia Neidig). After kissing her, she shows him her breasts. Elsewhere, Clark wears a Bavarian costume and joins performers on stage where he participates in a traditional dance. Clark accidentally incites a riot, and the family flees as an angry mob pursues. They board a train for Rome, Italy, but lose their luggage in the process. Meanwhile, two criminals hold up a Rome traveler's check office, and tie-up the shopkeeper. When Clark arrives to reclaim his lost traveler's checks, the lead criminal (Victor Lanoux) pretend they work in the shop, and give him three times the amount he lost. Additionally, they provide him with a rental car, in which they have hidden the shopkeeper in the trunk. The thieves secretly follow the Griswalds around Rome. The family buys extravagant Italian clothes, and later, the teens demand some time away from their parents. Ellen sees a billboard with a suggestive photograph of her on it, and realizes it came from the stolen video camera. She is furious with Clark for not erasing the provocative videotape as promised. The family goes their separate ways, and the criminals follow Ellen, who drives off with the hostage in the trunk. Elsewhere, Rusty meets an American girl (Moon Zappa) and flirts with her, while Audrey attempts to purchase a ticket home to salvage her relationship with Jack. Meanwhile, Ellen proceeds to get drunk at the hotel bar, and is joined by the lead thief, whom she recognizes from the travelers check shop. Believing him to be the shopkeeper, she regales him with her marital woes. When she goes to her hotel room, the man follows, and tries to seduce her. Ellen fights him off, and picks up the telephone to call police, but he holds a gun to her head and kidnaps her. As the thief escorts her out of the hotel, Ellen sees her daughter in the lobby, and throws her the keys to the car. Audrey realizes something is amiss, and when her father arrives, they chase Ellen and her kidnapper. Clark and Audrey race through the streets of Rome. As Clark crashes along the narrow streets, he sees Rusty and his new girl friend, who get into the automobile. When he gets a flat tire, Clark opens the truck and finds the bound shopkeeper inside. In mid-pursuit, Clark takes a nearby bicycle and chases after Ellen. He jumps into the convertible and the kidnapper crashes into a fountain. The thief is arrested, Ellen embraces Clark, and the Griswalds happily return to America. But in the final scene as the plane arrives over New York City, Clark accidentally stumbles into the cockpit and knocks the pilot down which the plane nose dives and knocks the torch of the Statue of Liberty over.

The film opens with "Flashdance... What a Feeling," which is a recurring theme throughout the entire film. During the opening credits 18-year-old Alexandra 'Alex' Owens (Jennifer Beals) rides her bicycle through Pittsburgh on her way to work as a welder at one of the city's steel mills. After work, Alex moonlights as a dancer at Mawby's Bar, which features dancers in a go-go atmosphere. Nick Hurley, one of the steel mill bosses, enters the bar as Alex performs a dance to "He's a Dream." Nick is intrigued by Alex. His friend tells him that she works for him at the mill. Richie, the bar's cook, wants to be go to Los Angeles to become a standup comedian. He tries out some of his material on Jeanie, one of the waitresses. At work the next day, Nick introduces himself to Alex, tells her he saw her dance and asks why a dancer would be working as a welder. She responds, "a girl's got to make a living." Their first meeting ends when Nick is called away to another area of the mill. Alex lives by herself in a converted warehouse loft with her pit bull, named Grunt. When she gets home from work, she channel surfs for something worth watching on TV. She stops on some ballet dancers performing to "Adagio for Strings" and attempts to copy their moves. It is Alex's dream to study at a local, prestigious school of dance, the Pittsburgh Dance and Repertory Company. She changes into exercise clothes, tapes her bare feet and feverously exercises to "Maniac." The song's lyrics reflect her passion to become a serious dancer. After her strenuous workout, she's exhausted. The next day Alex bikes to the Repertory building to obtain an application, but is discouraged when she finds several girls waiting for applications. The lady in the admissions office instructs them to list all their previous years of training. Alex leaves without an application and bikes to work. When Alex and Nick share an elevator ride at work, he asks her to lunch or dinner, but she tells him she doesn't have dinner with the boss. Later Alex visits Hanna Long, a retired professional dancer, who has become her mentor. Hanna encourages Alex to pursue her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer, but Alex makes excuses for not auditioning for the Rep. After she leaves Hanna's, Alex bikes to a nearby church where she confesses to the priest that she thinks a lot about sex and she told a lie. Hanna was badgering Alex to get the application for the Rep, but she didn't want to make her friend unhappy by telling her that she didn't have the courage to go through with it. In the next scene Johnny C., who runs the Zanzibar strip club, and his not-too-bright bodyguard, Cecil, try to entice customers into his club. At a self service laundry, Alex notices that Jeanie is washing Richie's underwear, confirming that these two are a serious couple. Jeanie's father is giving her a hard time because Richie hasn't proposed. Jeanie has dreams of becoming a professional ice skater. Next, Alex and several of the dancers from Mawby's exercise with weights and use workout machines to "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." As Jeanie and Alex walk down the street, a group of African-American guys breakdance and moonwalk to music played on their jambox. Quite a crowd gathers to watch their demonstration. As the girls continue their walk, a policeman directs traffic. When Alex helps the traffic cop with his duties, it turns into a traffic signal dance, as an excerpt from Georges Bizet's "Carmen Suite No. 2: Garde montant" is heard. At dinner at Jeanie's parents house, Alex defends her friend's dream of becoming a professional ice skater even though her parents don't seem to have much confidence in their daughter's abilities. After dinner the two girls go to the ice rink where Jeanie showcases some of her skating skills. In the following scene Richie is backstage practicing some of his jokes waiting to go on while one of the dancers finishes her routine on stage. Alex and a couple of the other dancers are in the audience rooting for him. Jeanie stops her waitressing to listen. At first, Richie's jokes bomb. Only after he threatens to put cockroaches in the hamburgers does the audience warm up to his humor. At the end of his routine, he introduces Tina Tech, who dances to "Manhunt." Johnny C. visits Mawby's to recruit some of the dancers to work at the Zanzibar. When he stops Alex and squeezes her buttocks, she pours beer on his crotch. Later after work as Richie and Alex are walking through a parking lot, Johnny and Cecil stop them. After Cecil socks Richie in the nose, Nick breaks up a potentially violent payback. Afterwards, Alex thanks Nick for his help and bikes home. Nick follows her in his Porsche and asks her to dinner again. Once again she reiterates that it isnt a good idea to go out with her boss, so he kiddingly fires her and sets a date for the next evening. On their date, Alex and Nick first attend Jeanie's ice skating competition. Jeanie's parents and Richie are also there to watch her skate to "Gloria." Unfortunately, Jeanie falls a couple of times. Afterwards, Alex tries to cheer Jeanie up, but she is discouraged that she has spent so much time and practice towards something that now seems like a waste. Her father, who hasn't been very supportive of his daughter's dream, reassures her of his love. After the ice skating competition Nick and Alex decide to have pizza for dinner. They pick it up and take it back to her warehouse apartment. She immediately changes into a much more comfortable sloppy sweatshirt. Alex tells Nick about the time her father took her family to the symphony. At first, she was bored, but her father suggested that if she closed her eyes she could see the music. Before the evening is over, Nick and Alex end up in bed. The next day the two lovers walk on the railroad tracks as "Lady, Lady, Lady" is heard. They go inside an old building where Nick sees Alex spin like a ballet dancer. When he asks her to do it again, she says she was just fooling around. She explains that she has never studied dance; she's read books on ballet and watches ballet, but has never taken classes. Then she explains how she does what she does at Mawby's. She just feels the music, something clicks inside and she becomes somebody else. And she loves to get up there and disappear into the music. In the following scene, Alex dances an avant garde routine in white face makeup to "Imagination." The number has a lot to do with fantasies becoming reality. Nobody seems to understand Alex's dance except for one of the other dancers in the club, Heels. During the song Johnny C. asks Jeanie why she doesn't dance. She tells him she's been practicing. After he makes a suggestive remark about doing the horizontal mambo, he gives her a big tip. Alex attends a ballet performance of Claude Debussys "Prélude à lAprès-midi dun Faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn)" at the Repertory with Hanna. When the ballet is over, Alex happens to see Nick with another woman. She is furious! Still in her concert dress, she rides her bike to his house, throws a rock through one of his windows, calls him a son of a bitch and retreats quickly. Back at the warehouse, her radiator has sprung a leak. While she is on her knees mopping up the water in her concert dress, Richie comes by to tell her goodbye; he's headed for L.A. When she asks about Jeanie, he admits he loves her, but he says he can't continue to cook hamburgers at Mawby's and pretend to be a comedian. The next day at the mill, Nick tries to pay for Alex's lunch at the lunch truck, but she is still very mad. She demands to know who the blond was that was with him the previous evening. He explains that it was his ex-wife. Since they have friends on the Arts Council, he takes her to the benefit once a year. Now Alex feels guilty that she broke his window. When they reconcile, the workers who are sitting around eating their lunch applaud. That evening Nick and Alex have dinner at a fancy restaurant. Alex, who is dressed in a tuxedo coat, eats her lobster with her fingers. During the meal, just as Alex puts her foot on Nick's crotch, his ex-wife, Katie, stops by their table. After a few catty remarks from Katie that are aimed at Alex, Alex takes her tux coat off to reveal she is only wearing a shirt bib and cuffs. Then she proudly announces that on her first date with Nick: "I fucked his brains out!" Later that evening, Nick and Alex talk about his marriage to Katie; she was high class, educated, from a good family and it made him feel like he had made it. But one day he realized that wasn't what he really wanted. So he started over and went after what he really wanted to do. Alex asks, "How did you do it?" Nick answers, "I took a deep breath and jumped." Their conversation gave Alex the renewed desire to pursue her dream, so the next day she goes to the Rep for an application. There she is reminded that auditions to the school are by invitation only. Nick sees her leave the building, so he goes inside and finds out about her getting an application. He immediately telephones a friend on the Arts Council asking for a favor. At Mawby's Halloween Party, the owner and his guests are dancing to "Romeo." During the party, Richie returns from L.A. Jeanie is very cool towards Richie and leaves the party with Johnny C. When Alex gets a letter from the Repertory, she's afraid to open it. Finally she musters enough courage and is ecstatic when she discovers she's been invited to audition. She runs to find Nick to break the news, who suggests they celebrate at dinner that evening. Later in the day, she bikes to Hanna's to tell her the good news. Hanna congratulates and encourages her. On an after dinner drive later that evening, Nick commits a faux pas: he says he called the restaurant the previous night and told them this was a special occasion. Alex immediately realizes that he knew she was going to be invited to audition before she received the letter. She makes him stop the car in the middle of a tunnel, gets out and walks away. He tries to make her understand that he just made a phone call to a friend. She, however, yells that she doesn't want his help. Afterward Alex needs to talk to a friend, so she calls Mawby's to talk to Jeanie. They inform her that Jeanie now works at the Zanzibar. Alex immediately heads for the nude club. Before she arrives, we see several of the nude or semi-nude girls performing to "Seduce Me Tonight." Once Alex enters the club, she spots Jeanie (clad in only high-heeled shoes and a G-string) dancing, and Alex literally drags her off the stage. When Johnny C. tries to stop her, Alex pushes him out of the way. Outside in the rain, Jeanie asks Alex why she came after her. Alex responds, "Because you're my friend." Later that evening, when Alex returns to her warehouse apartment, Nick and Grunt are waiting outside in the rain. When Alex didn't show up at work that day, Nick came to investigate. He accuses her of being scared to audition for the Rep and of using him as an excuse. Just before he leaves he says, "When you give up your dream, you die." The next day Alex bikes to Hanna's, but sadly discovers that her mentor had died the previous day. As Alex mourns the loss of her friend and mentor, she picks up a pair of Hanna's ballet slippers to take as a memento. During this and the following scene, "I'll Be There Where the Heart Is" is heard. Back at her apartment Alex continues to mourn; the song continues as she sits alone on the floor of her bathroom and wanders aimlessly around her warehouse apartment. Alex returns to Mawby's to pick up her stuff, then goes to confession. She tells the priest "I want it so much." The next scene is Alex's audition for the dance school before five stuffy judges. She puts on a recording of "Flashdance... What a Feeling," starts her dance, stops and starts again. During the slow beginning of the song, the judges seem completely unimpressed and maybe even bored, but when the tempo picks up the stodgy judges begin to loosen up. The lyrics are very germane to the plot. They sing about a dream that is hidden because of fear and about crying in a world made of steel. This dancer hears the music, closes her eyes and allows it to invade her body (like her father had suggested when he took her to the symphony). Then she is the music, she is the rhythm, and she dances as if her life depended on it. The song continues as Alex exits the building with a huge smile on her face. Waiting for her are Nick and Grunt. After Alex hugs Nick, he presents her with a bouquet of roses (like most ballerinas receive after a brilliant performance). When she takes out one rose to give to Nick, the scene freezes to end the film (we are left to speculate whether Alex was accepted into the dance school, but we are confident that she was). As the closing credits begin, "Flashdance... What a Feeling" continues, followed by "Manhunt," "Imagination," and "Maniac."

It's 1958 in Detroit. We are inside a car factory where numerous Plymouth Fury's are being assembled. Among the rather plain-colored vehicles, one of them stands out: a bright-red one. During the process, this particular red car is being fussed about by one factory worker who has his hand injured when the vehicle's hood comes down on it. Another factory worker takes a seat inside the vehicle; he will be found dead afterwords. Present day, September 16, 1978 in Northern California. Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) is a meek teenager who spends his weekends playing Scrabble with his parents (Christine Belford and Richard Darnell), who still treat him as a child. Arnie and his best friend Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) are going to their school, as usual. Arnie is clumsy, and his black-rimmed glasses characterize him as being nerdy. Dennis is a football player, who still befriends Arnie and tries to stand up for him. During shop class, Arnie is bullied by several students led by Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander). Dennis tries to stop the bullies, but he can't be all the time checking on weak Arnie. Today, Buddy stamps on Arnie's sack-lunch and also breaks his glasses. When both Arnie and Dennis tell the shop teacher that Buddy had a switchblade in his possession when he teased Arnie, it looks that the only consequence will be bad for Arnie, as Boddy announces he will take his own back pretty soon. Arnie and Dennis start their way back to their homes. Arnie notices a used Plymouth Fury with a placard announcing "SOLD". Supposedly, this is the same vehicle that we saw on the Detroit assembly line... only now it's dirty, gritty, broken, with pieces peeling off or falling apart. In spite of everything, Arnie falls in love with this car. He immediately wants to buy it. The owner, George LeBay, tells the story of the car: he inherited it from his dead brother, Roland. The current owner also tells Arnie that the car has a name: Christine. Arnie drives Dennis home in his new car. Once at home, Arnie's overprotective parents angrily start pestering him for having spent his money on a car without consulting them, and especially one in Christine's wrecked condition. Arnie angrily shouts back that throughout his life, they haven't allowed him to have something he truly wants, and that he is dead-set on keeping Christine. However, his parents refuse to have it parked in their driveway. Arnie decides to take it to a local junkyard garage run by an irritable middle-aged man named Will Darnell (Robert Prosky) for storage. Over the next several weeks, Arnie begins working on Christine whenever he has a bit of free time after school. He also starts to help Mr. Darnell around his garage. This was the first time when Arnie stood up to his parents. However, it's not only about being against parental control. Dennis also notices a subtle change in Arnie, as he seems to be more assertive. Weirdly enough, Arnie has stopped using his eye glasses. During a football game, Dennis is shocked to see Arnie arrive in Christine, now fully-restored into a shining beautiful red car, but also along for the ride is the new student, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul). The sight of the two of them together causes Dennis to make a mistake on the field as he's tackled hard. This puts an end to Dennis' football career - and to his ambitions for the future-, so he ends up recuperating in hospital, surrounded by medical paraphernalia. Meanwhile, Arnie continues to date Leigh. One night, he takes her to see a film at the drive-in; and there, Leigh confesses to Arnie that she thinks he's moving too fast in their relationship. She also claims she feels unsettled when she is around Christine. During the movie, one of Christine's windshield wipers becomes stuck, and Arnie gets out to fix it. As he does so, Leigh chokes on a hamburger and immediately, the door latches lock themselves! Arnie tries to get back into the car unsuccessfully. Basically, Leigh has to save herself when she manages to unlock the passenger door, and a nearby viewer who saw her struggling performs the Heimlich maneuver on her. Arnie then drives Leigh home. At her doorstep, she tells him that she won't go anywhere in Christine again. There are weird things about the car, she says, like when only old songs can be reached through the radio aerial, but none of the local radio stations can be heard. Arnie then returns Christine to Darnell's garage. After Arnie's departure, Buddy Repperton and his thugs arrive, and they proceed to systematically destroy the car. Arnie sees the wreck done to Christine the following day and is shocked that all the work he had put into restoring the car has evaporated. Arnie suspects that Leigh was somehow responsible for the wreck. He is getting into trouble as home as well, as his temper is radically changed. His parents notice the acute change in him and they comment that they want the old Arnie to come back. The long Scrabble nights are over, and Arnie has one big row with his father. But more and more, Arnie can only think of one matter: he wants to restore Christine to its full beauty again. Next day, first thing he does is going to the salvage garage to re-start work on Christine. Determined, he looks for his tools. Turning his back on Christine, he hears the crinkling of metal behind him. Arnie looks at Christine startled, and he realizes that, part of her engine is now repaired as if by magic. Arnie doesn't look startled anymore, and he encourages Christine to restore herself in front of him. The car flicks her headlights on, and obediently, there is suddenly mayhem: pieces are moving to their original position, the hood dusts itself off, the aerial strengthens up, buttons and seats start mending themselves and end up being shiny as brand new. The living malevolent car has the power to regenerate. A more-determined Arnie goes back to high school life. Nobody dares to touch him now. At night, Christine comes to life by herself and she seeks out and gruesomely kills each gang member who took part in destroying her. He runs after them. Eventually, Christine arrives at a gas station, spilling gasoline, setting it on fire so that the building becomes debris and ashes. Christine catches fire herself, but that doesn't stop her, as she still goes after Buddy. He tries to run away the scene, terrified because he has seen an unexplainable thing happened. The following morning, Chrisitne becomes the quiet, shiny, brand-new red car of the cover painting. Christine also kills grumply Will Darnell, by the slow method of crushing him in the front seat against the steering wheel. Christine has to deform herself in order to do this, but the following morning, she is in perfect condition. Some weeks later in December, Dennis catches Leigh in high school between classes and he talks to her about Arnie and his car. Dennis and Arnie are not best pals anymore, and Leigh had realised that, in spite of not having broken up verbally with Arnie, there is no place in his life for her. Holidays approach, and New Year's Eve is close. Dennis and Leigh talk about the supernatural element in Christine, knowing that they can only talk to each other about that, as nobody else would believe them. They know they will have to kill Christine. Dennis decides to call on his old buddy at his home, but Leigh advises him to take caution. After she leaves, it's Arnie who calls on Dennis instead. Arnie arrives in Christine and invites Dennis over. Arnie drives Dennis to the former's. Dennis realises about Arnie's dazzled eyes, even before Arnie starts doing things he would have never done before, during his nerd phase: he drinks beer in Homer Simpson-quantities, he terrorizes other drivers and even copies the "without-hands" motorbike stunt. Dennis watches how Christine's mile counter moves backwards, having less miles instead of more. Arnie tires to explain to Dennis how wonderful, strong and fulfilled he feels when he is driving Christine; Arnie's words increasingly become those of a starry-eyed lover. When Dennis leaves Christine, he is more unsettled than ever. Dennis is determined that the nightmare has to stop. He thinks that killing Christine is the only way of returning Arnie to normal. Dennis and Leigh may be having a thing going on between them, but it also may be that each one is the only safe rock of the other. They are worried about Arnie, especially Dennis, who really misses his best friend. Next morning, Dennis goes to the school parking lot and scratches "Darnell's Tonight" into Christine's hood, and drives off with Leigh. They go to Darnell's scrapyard and they wait for Arnie and Christine inside a bulldozer. Night falls down, and Dennis devises a plan. He tells Leigh to wait in the office. The plan is that she will shut door on Christine after her arrival, trapping the vehicle inside the office. Leigh leaves to do so. While she is on her way there, the car's lights suddenly break the night: she was hiding under a pile of garbage. Christine drives towards Leigh trying to run over her, but crashes on to one of the office walls instead. Arnie gets ejected through Christine's windshield and is impaled on a shard of glass, fatally wounding him. Arnie is bloodied, but in his last breath, he just caresses Christine's front bumper for the last time. In his own way, he dies happy. Enraged, Christine attacks Leigh once again. Dennis drives the bulldozer and he fights Christine, who is playing Pledging My Love at top volume on her radio. Christine is still set on dealing with Leigh first, so she approaches her top speed to run over her. However, Dennis drives the bulldozer up on to the car's back, stopping her and crashing her. Leigh climbs in to the cab of the bulldozer and embraces Dennis. Meanwhile, Christine returns back to life and begins to heal herself over again. So, Dennis has to drive the bulldozer over Christine, crashing her onto a thin layer of metal and glass materials, until her headlights flicker and then go out for good. Dennis compacts the red car onto a cube. The ordeal is over. However, later on, within that scrape-yard cube, a metallic stick starts to slowly move and straighten up...

In 1960s America, a black cadet is allowed acceptance into a seemingly prestigious military academy, unleashing a barrage of corruption within the system that another cadet is willing to expose. Will arrives for his last year at The Carolina Military Institute, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960s. For the first time, a Black student has been accepted--Pearce--and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave of his own free will, but they are prepared to torture him to MAKE it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce, and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so. —Matthew Stanfield <mattst@cogs.susx.ac.uk>