Pamela Payton-Wright

An N.Y.C. film school student accepts a job with a local mobster who resembles a famous cinema godfather and who takes the young man under his wing, after demanding total loyalty. Clark Kellogg is a young man starting his first year at film school in New York City. After a small time crook steals all his belongings, Clark meets Carmine "Jimmy the Toucan" Sabatini, an "importer" bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. When Sabatini makes Clark an offer he can't refuse, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining. —Scott Renshaw <as.idc@forsythe.stanford.edu> Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick) is robbed moments after arriving in New York, so when he sees his mugger several days later, he confronts him. The man promises to return his property and get him a job with his uncle, Carmine Sabatini (Marlon Brando), who turns out to be a Mafia boss. As Clark continues his shady work for Carmine, he discovers an elaborate underworld that has caught the attention of the authorities. As things come to a head, not everything is what it seems. —FilmsNow

Edna McCauley buys her husband a new car for his birthday. While the two are out driving, they have a terrible accident. Both are killed, but Edna, after seeing a great white light and a mysterious group of people, wakes up in a hospital. Apparently, she died, but has come back to life. She's also suffered permanent spinal damage and must walk with braces and crutches. Devastated, Edna goes home to Texas to recuperate, reuniting with her beloved grandmother Pearl and her hard, loveless father, John Harper. While at a family barbecue, Edna touches a little girl who has a serious nosebleed, seeming to stop the ordinarily serious bleeding with her touch. Edna actually feels the heat in her own hand. Grandmother Pearl tells her of a woman she once knew who, after a similar back from death experience, returned with the power to heal. Edna touches her own crippled legs, gradually able to walk without braces or crutches. With her abilities becoming known, townsfolk bring Cal Carpenter, an attractive young man stabbed in a barfight, for Edna's healing touch. She saves his life. Later, they become lovers. It isn't long before Edna's healing people daily. But some feel apprehensive about her power, since it doesn't necessarily involve preaching the gospel. Cal's father, a zealot, even suggests her powers are satanic. Cal begins to fear her power, and he eventually walks out on her after an argument. Edna's father John, accuses her of being a whore for sleeping with Cal, ordering her off his property. Edna goes to a university, where two scientists want to study her abilities. She dazzles them with the strength of her gift, strong enough that she's able to bend a beam of laser light. She also enables a severely crippled woman to walk again, taking the woman's weaknesses into herself, then dispelling it - a dazzling display that nonetheless frightens Cal, who's now so fearful of Edna's gift it has rendered him impotent. When Edna senses that her father John is dying, she goes home, standing at the dying man's bedside. She wonders aloud what made him so incapable of love, reminding him of the abortion he ordered on her when she was a young girl. It left her sterile forever. She tells him she loves him nonetheless, and he dies after claiming to see the same bright light. Once again, Cal fears her, thinking that she's Jesus returned. Edna assures him that she's not, but Cal, increasingly disturbed, takes a rifle, shooting at Edna as she talks to some followers in the country. He wounds her. After Cal is jailed, Edna decides to take off for parts unknown, saying farewell to Grandma Pearl, who understands that the power of love is Edna's only true gift. The years go by and Edna ends up a recluse, running a tiny gas station in the desert. A young couple pass through in their R.V. with a boy, Bobby, who's dying of cancer. Edna talks to the boy, laying her healing hands on his cancerous body. Although they don't know it yet, she has healed the child. The boy thanks her, but it is Edna, all too happy to express her gift, who thanks the child who has allowed her to heal him...

Joe (George Burns), Al (Art Carney), and Willie (Lee Strasberg) are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in Astoria, Queens, New York City. They are three retirees who live off monthly social security checks and spend their summer days sitting on a bench in a nearby park, reading newspapers, feeding pigeons, and fending off obnoxious children. It is a dull life, and finally Joe is driven to suggest something radical to break the monotony. After making their monthly visit to their bank to cash and/or deposit their social security checks, out of the blue Joe asks them: "why not go on a stick-up?" Bored by their daily routine, Joe argues that the crime is not as risky as they may think. In the unlikely event that they are arrested, room and board will be free in prison and their social security checks will accumulate until they are released; and if they succeed, they will have extra cash to enjoy, instead of sitting on a park bench all day. Al likes the idea, but Willie is more skeptical. As they discuss details, Al offers to investigate the gun collection of his nephew, Pete, while Joe proposes that they scout a bank to rob in New York City. Al surreptitiously borrows some pistols from the collection of his nephew, Pete (Charles Hallahan) who lives just a few miles away with his wife and three obnoxious children, and whom are having money problems themselves. Pete tells Al that he wants to open up his own furniture store, but the stress of paying for their mortgage as well as utility bills is getting to all of them. Al decides to himself that the bank robbery will help his nephew out financially. The next day, the three men take the subway into the city and, without much deliberation, decide to hold up the Union Marine Bank at 36th Street and Broadway. As they indulge in hot dogs from a street vendor and participate in a sidewalk drum performance, the men are rejuvenated by the scheme. Al is confident that he can obtain the guns that afternoon, so the ringleader, Joe, suggests robbing the bank the next day. While Joe and Willie purchase three pairs of Groucho Marx-style glasses as disguises, Al stops by Pete's house. As soon as his nephew leaves for work, Al sneaks into the basement and takes three pistols from the gun case, as well as an assortment of bullets. The next morning, after finally determining which bullets fit the pistols, the threesome take a bus to another neighborhood in Queens to conceal their point of origin. From there, they hail an unlicensed cab, which does not keep records of fares. For $30, the driver agrees to take them into Manhattan and to wait outside the bank while they "sign a will." Upon entering the bank in disguise, Al detains the security guard at gunpoint, as Joe orders the teller to hand over the money. When the bank manager does not take the elderly men seriously, Joe fires a bullet at the wall, causing everyone to take cover on the floor. After filling their satchel with cash, the friends dash back to the waiting cab, ask the driver to drop them at a subway station and return to Queens on the train. When they count the money at home, the total amounts to just over $35,000, and Al suggest they hide the loot in his old suitcase, stored at Pete's house. Later, as the three men sit on their regular park bench and overhear a report on the radio about the crime, Willie suffers a heart attack and dies. Sparing no expense, Joe makes funeral arrangements. During the memorial service, Joe and Al decide to give $25,000 of the heist money to Pete, who tirelessly works two jobs to support his family. Pete is speechless as Joe explains that he and Al inherited a $25,000 life insurance policy from Willie, but they have no need for the money. In exchange for the gift, Joe suggests that Pete give them $20 per week to supplement their fixed income. After the funeral, the two friends decide to spend some of their money on a spontaneous vacation to Las Vegas, Nevada. Without making reservations, they take a cab to Kennedy Airport, buy a ticket, and board their first plane flight. At a casino hotel that evening, they try their luck at the craps table. Al is not familiar with the game, but Joe instructs him to simply roll the dice while he places bets. To their surprise, they accumulate $73,000 in winnings by the end of the evening. However, Joe realizes that their gambling luck will make them a target for thieves, as well as more conspicuous to authorities, so he suggests they collect the cash and fly back to New York that night. Arriving at their apartment exhausted from the whirlwind excursion, they immediately fall asleep. When Joe wakes, he hears a report on the radio that the police anticipate a development in the "amateur" bank robbery case. Joe tries to wake Al with the news, but is distressed to find that his friend has passed away. A few hours later that evening, Joe arrives at Pete's house, carrying the bag of money, and takes Pete aside to divulge the bank robbery, the Vegas winnings and his uncle's death. He adds that the police appear to be closing in and asks Pete to help hide the approximately $107,000 in a safety deposit box. Tearful over his uncle's death, Pete agrees and promises not to inform the authorities. The next day, Joe shaves and dresses for Al's funeral, but as he leaves the apartment, two FBI agents handcuff him and take him away. During questioning, Joe refuses to reveal the location of the money. Sometime later, Pete visits Joe at the state prison and reminds him that if he does not give back the robbery cash, he will receive a harsher sentence. Joe says he does not mind, adding that Al and Willie would not want him to return the loot. Joe explains that it no longer matters to him if he remains in prison for the rest of his life. For several years, Joe already felt like he was in prison with living a dull life. Joe explains that he no longer has to cook and clean for himself in prison. He gets three square meals a day, and generally is getting "treated like a king around here." Joe tells Pete not to visit him again to avoid being suspected in his bank robbery plan, and to "enjoy his inheritance" of living off the bank robbery and Vegas money. In the final shot, as Joe is being escorted back to his cell by a guard, he looks mischievously at Pete and says with a wiry smile: "besides... no tin-horn joint like this could ever hold me!"