Mark Rydell

Separated from his beautiful but aloof wife, Vincent has an affair with a passionate writer. Emotionally torn between the two, his happiness is left hanging in the balance.

A coming of age story set in the south of the U.S. when Elvis was King. Rural Louisiana, summer of 1957, Elvis is King. At 14, Dani is coming of age. Her older sister is beautiful, smart, and off to Duke in the fall; her mom's pregnant with number four (Dad wants a son), and Dad's pretty strict. Life gets sweeter when 17-year-old Court Foster, his widowed mom, and two little brothers move into the vacant farm next door. Court likes Dani's high spirits and direct way, and though he has a man's responsibilities on the farm, they go off swimming sometimes. The waters of adolescence are deeper than Dani realizes as hers and Court's feelings get jumbled. Then Mother Nature throws wrenching surprises at Dani, and she must come to terms with new emotions.

A medical-school dropout and a homemaker/mom try to make it as stand-up comedians. They become friends and help each other out at a New York City comedy club. Steven Gold is a flat-broke stand-up comedian who has recently dropped out of medical school. He and several others work regularly at the Gas Station, a New York City comedy club. The wages are lousy and everybody hopes for the big break. Lilah Krytsick is a homemaker with an ambition to be a stand-up comedian, but she doesn't seem to have the talent. Steven takes her under his wing and teaches her the art of comedy and humor. But when a TV station arranges a comedy evening at the club, Steve sees his opportunity for fame and stardom. Their friendship seems quickly forgotten and now it's every man and woman for him- or herself. —Mattias Pettersson <seaman@sbbs.se> Lilah Krytsick is a New Jersey homemaker and mother married to insurance salesman John Krytsick, who expects her to place these household roles as her top priority in life. Steven Gold has just been kicked out of medical school; he had only been admitted by having his doctor dad pull some strings. Although he never wanted to be a doctor, Steven doesn't want his father to know he is no longer in school. Lilah and Steven casually know each other with both being stand-up comics--secret lives to both John and Steven's father--performing for $15 a set at a New York City comedy club called The Gas Station. Lilah has always felt joy in making people laugh, although she strains in putting together a set that is meaningful to her and thus funny to the audience. Steven, arguably considered the best comic at the club, wants to make it big in the business. However, he sucks up most of the proverbial oxygen when at the club, which doesn't sit well with some of the other comics, especially the less secure ones who also want to make this business their life. While Lilah deals with trying to balance this secret life and her household duties while also trying to improve her stand-up skills and Steven strives to make a career of stand-up happen sooner than later in needing to eke out a life for himself, Lilah and Steven connect on an emotional level through comedy. The question then becomes what will happen to their friendship as they focus on their own priorities in their lives holistically, which is only complicated as network executives hold a contest at the club; the winner will be featured on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). —Huggo

A farming family battles severe storms, while taking a valiant stand against a bank foreclosure and a powerful land grabber. Tom and Mae Garvey are a hard working farming couple living with their two children on the east Tennessee farm owned by Tom's family for generations. They and many of their neighbors have hit hard times of late. A downturn in the economy has led to dwindling land prices. But the biggest problem of late has been that their crop land has been prone to flooding as the property is adjacent to a river. Manipulating the powers that be including a local senator and the local bank, Joe Wade, who also grew up in the area and now runs the local milling company that sets the local grain prices, is working behind the scenes to buy up the properties along the river for a song as he wants to build a dam which would flood the Garvey's and others riverfront properties. The dam would generate electricity, but more importantly for Joe it would provide irrigation opportunities for farm properties away from the river, such as his own. Tom already intensely dislikes Joe as he and Mae used to go together. Joe's behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings coupled with the continuation of these and many other farming problems makes it increasingly difficult for the Garveys to hold onto their farm, Tom who seems determined at any cost to stay on the land of his ancestors. —Huggo

In 1892, two vaudevillians and petty con artists get involved, together with the most notorious bank robber, in a New York City bank heist. Two hopelessly-out-of-their-class conmen attempt to pull off the largest bank heist of the nineteenth century. They gain the enmity of the most famous bank robber in the world, and the affection of a crusading newspaperwoman. —Don Devlin <ddevlin@loop.com> It's 1892. Harry Dighby and Walter Hill are a Massachusetts-based third-rate vaudeville team and penny-ante con artists who pilfer money from audience members to supplement their meager income. They often feud with each other because of their differing perspectives and personalities, but they both have the same primary goal of making it big in vaudeville. Adam Worth is a renowned New York City socialite and ladies' man who also robs banks, the latest being the Lowell Bank and Trust. He has a standing agreement with New York City bank Presidents that after the robberies, he keeps the cash, but returns the securities for a fifteen percent face-value fee minus a modest commission for the bank President. Harry and Walter meet Adam when they are assigned cellmates during their incarceration at Concord Prison for their latest crimes. As Adam manages to arrange to continue living lavishly in prison, Harry and Walter become his manservants. They learn that Adam has a copy of the blueprints for the redesigned Lowell Bank and Trust, now reported to be the most impenetrable financial institution. Adam plans to rob the bank again to satisfy his ego that he can do it, but also to get back at the bank's President, Rufus T. Crisp, who was responsible for his capture. Much against Walter's sensibilities, Harry senses an opportunity to get a copy of the plans so he and Walter can rob the bank first. They manage indirectly to get a copy of the plans, but they destroy the originals in the process and subsequently escape from prison. Adam finds out about the copy and does whatever he can to get the plans back from Harry and Walter. But unexpectedly on Harry and Walter's side are Lissa Chestnut, the emancipated publisher of the New York City-based Socialist Advocate newspaper, and her associates at the newspaper. She inadvertently helps Harry and Walter get the plans, but does whatever she can to rob the bank with them in the name of the common man and to avenge an action against her and the newspaper by Adam. —Huggo

Private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) wakes up in the middle of the night when his pet cat wakes him up, wanting to be fed. He goes out to an all-night supermarket somewhere in west Los Angeles, but can only buy a brand his cat hates. His cat runs out on him. Marlowe's friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) comes by and gets Marlowe to drive him to Tijuana. In the morning, the L.A. police arrest Marlow for helping Terry escape. They tell Marlowe that Terry is a fugitive who beat up and killed his wife Sylvia. Marlowe doesn't believe his friend is capable of such a crime. Another day later, Marlowe is freed from jail and the case has been closed. According to Mexican newspapers, Terry Lennox committed suicide. Marlowe is hired by Terry's ex-neighbor, Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) to find her husband, author Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden). Marlowe tracks Wade to sanatorium where he is being treated for alcoholism by Dr. Verringer (Henry Gibson), a money-hungry quack. Marlowe brings Wade home and observes that the Wades are at odds with each other. Eileen has a bruise on her face to prove that she is being abused by her husband. Wade is full of self-pity and haw writer's block. Marlow wonders if Wade, a big, powerful, violent, depressed man, might have known Sylvia Lennox. Gangster Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell) threatens Marlowe, telling him to return the money that Terry was running for him but took to Mexico. Marlowe says that he knows nothing about any money, but Marty tells him to go find it. Suspicious, Marlowe follows Marty's car to the Wades' house. The next day, Wade tells Marlowe that Marty owes him a lot of money. A day or two later, the Wades throw a party where Dr. Verringer shows up and demands that Wade pay him the money they he owes. When Wade refuses, Verringer slaps Wade greatly embarrassing him. As a result the party ends. Eileen makes dinner for Marlowe where she tell him that she doesn't believe Terry was violent enough to have killed Sylvia. Wade walks into the ocean and commits suicide by drowning. Afterwords, the tearful Eileen tells Marlow that Wade and Sylvia were having an affair and that she thinks that he killed her and set up Terry as the fall guy. Marty's men pick up Marlowe. Marty threatens to beat him up for failing to find the money that Terry stole. But when the money Terry owned turns up, they let Marlowe go. Marlowe is accidentally run down by a car while following Eileen's car on foot. When he gets out of the hospital, he discovers that Eileen has moved. Marlowe takes $5,000 he received in the mail from Terry on the day Terry went to Mexico and goes back to Mexico himself. There, he bribes the local coroner and learns that Terry's death and funeral was all fake. Terry really is still alive. Terry is not surprised to see Marlowe. He admits that he really did kill his wife because she was going to squeal on him for running money for Marty. "No one cares," Terry says. But Marlowe says that he cares. Upset that Terry would brutally kill his wife and that Terry would play him for a fool, Marlowe pulls a gun out and shoots Terry dead. In the final scene, Marlowe dances back up the road for the USA, passing Eileen, who has been living with Terry, her new lover.

Rancher Wil Andersen is forced to hire inexperienced boys as cowhands in order to get his cattle herd to market on time but the rough drive is full of dangers and a gang of rustlers is trailing them. When his cattle drovers abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his drovers in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage; however, neither Andersen nor the boys know that a gang of cattle rustlers is stalking them. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Wil Andersen finds himself with a herd of cattle which he has to get to market before the winter sets in, but he has no men to help him. He turns to a group of young schoolboys as his last hope to get the job done. There is no better training for these boys than hands-on as they don't know what they are in for. They set out as schoolboys but return as Cowboys. —Christopher D. Ryan <cryan@direct.ca>

In 1905, a train rolls into a quiet and happy Mississippi town where Lucius (Mitch Vogell), a boy of 11, is about to begin his journey to manhood as his grandfather, Boss (Will Geer), has the town's first car delivered - a yellow Winton Flier. The family's handyman, Boon Hogganbeck (Steve McQueen), immediately takes the automobile under his eager care. His friend Ned (Rupert Crosse) steals it to try to impress a woman resulting in a fun chase and resulting in an innocent accident. Lucius' other grandfather dies requiring the family's attendance out of town. Boss leaves the young boy in the care of Boon - after cautious warnings of Boon's predilections of immoral tendencies. Boon immediately teaches Lucious how to smoke, drive and lie to his other relatives so he can go on the road trip. Boon talks of the benefits and beauty of a trip to Memphis and as they start Ned talks his way aboard. They get stuck in a muddy ditch where they must pay for a farmer to use his mules to free them, then they make it to the big highway - a two-lane dirt road. They make it to their first stop, a Memphis brothel where Boon's girlfriend Corrie (Sharon Farell) works, piquing Lucius pubescent curiosities. After Lucius gets into a manly brawl with another youngster regarding the reality of Corrie's adult profession, she is determined to change her path and quits to join Boon and the boys on the road. That same night, Ned drunkenly trades the automobile for a questionable racehorse leaving them all without transportation and a racehorse that doesn't race. In order to figure out how to get the horse to run they regroup at Mr. Possum's (Juano Hernandez) farm, a black man who's mortal enemy, Sherriff Lovemaiden (Clifton James), threatens racial calamity. Some of the ladies of the evening and other friends hear about the race and show up from Memphis to root for the cause. Lovemaiden comes back with his deputies and after a barnyard brawl he arrests the lot. Corrie arranges for their release with a private liaison with Lovemaiden, causing Boon to give her a black eye. Lucius, abhorred by the realities of adulthood, wants to quit and go home but after considering what his grandfather would do decides he will finish the task. Lucius will be the jockey and if they win they can get the car back. After the first race ends with controversy he wins the second race. Grandfather Boss shows up after witnessing the win and the return of the car. Lucius, Boon, Ned, Corrie and Boss go back to Mississippi. In lieu of corporal punishment from his father, Boss interrupts with and opportunity for Lucius to learn the valuable life lesson of accepting responsibility for one's actions regardless of cause - a large lesson indeed.