Sam Shepard

Seen only by kids, the Fixies are tiny creatures who mend broken appliances, gadgets and electrical circuits. When one of the Fixies gets a hold of special bracelets that transform him into a super-powered rascal, it's up to his colorful little friends, a young boy and a lab professor to save the day!

When Rodney Baze mysteriously disappears and law enforcement doesn`t follow through fast enough, his older brother, Russell, takes matters into his own hands to find justice.

Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds star in the action-thriller Safe House. Washington plays the CIA`s most dangerous traitor, who stuns the intelligence community when he surfaces in South Africa. When the safe house to which he`s remanded is attacked by brutal mercenaries, a rookie (Reynolds) is forced to help him escape. As the masterful manipulator toys with his reluctant protege, the young operative finds his morality tested and idealism shaken. Now, they must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead. Legendary spy Tobin Frost (Washington) has eluded capture for almost a decade.

The family man Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff) is living the American Dream with his girlfriend Laura (Marisol Nichols) and their son Michael: they have a nice house; he has just raised a loan to make his company grow and they are going to get married. However, their dream becomes a nightmare when Wade unintentionally kills a burglar that had broken into their house in the middle of the night on his lawn. Wade chased the burglar out of the house and hits him in the head with a baseball bat, unintentionally killing him on his lawn. For attacking an unarmed intruder after he exited the house, he is arrested and charged with murder. Wade is put on trial and accepts a deal proposed by the prosecutor. At the urging of his public defender, he enters a plea of no contest in exchange for a reduced sentence of three years for involuntary manslaughter. During the transportation, there is an incident in the bus. During the bus ride to prison Danny Sampson (Chris Browning), leader of the local Aryan Brotherhood, stabs a man and hides the knife with young Aryan member Snowman (Johnny Lewis) who is sitting behind Wade. In a moment's panic, Snowman hides the knife under Wade's seat and forces him to deny knowledge of it. As a result, Wade is sent to solitary confinement until the stabbing can be investigated. Lieutenant Jackson interrogates him about the stabbing, but he doesn't cooperate with the investigation. Jackson (Harold Perrineau) decides to send Wade to the Security Housing Unit (SHU) in Corcoran State Prison where he is the commanding officer. Jackson overrides the advice of this top security person & puts Wade in with the common hardened criminals who are residents at his facility. Jackson refuses to show any leniency for Wade's crime free past. In the middle of the gloom and the daily carefully monitored & humiliating existence, John Smith (Val Kilmer) walks into the prison & is assigned as cell mate to Wade. John is sympathetic to Wade & takes him under his wings. John Smith is serving a life sentence after avenging the death of his family. Inmates here are under 23-hour lock-down and not permitted to have visitors for the first three months. Wade discovers the daily hour of yard time consists of inmate fights, on which the officers bet. Jackson watches the developing friendship between Wade & John. John saves Wade from the Nazi skinhead gang in prison when they turn on Wade when Wade refuses to fight the Hispanics as the Nazi's crony. The Nazi skinhead gang lead promises revenge to John. In addition to the prison violence, Wade's regular visits with Laura start to take their toll on their relationship. Michael has nightmares after visiting, and the family's finances are running low. Jackson resorts to heavy violence to control the gang wars within prison. His officers James (Nate Parker) & Cormack are not supportive of this & want to do things by the book. But Jackson always manages to convince them to his point of view with an evil streak in his eyes. Jackson arranges cockfights between Wade and the Hispanics & bets on them with his colleagues. Wade refuses to fight. Jackson threatens Wade to implicate him in the murder of the inmate on the prison transport bus & extend his stay in the prison when Wade had only 4 months to go on his term. After Wade refuses to identify Sampson as the perpetrator of the murder on the bus, Jackson falsely testifies that he was an accessory to the murder, resulting in an additional three years being added to his existing sentence. Wade is sentenced to 6 years in prison on this second conviction that was implanted by Jackson & was based purely on his testimony on Wade's violent conduct in prison. After the second conviction, Wade's wife who was under a lot of stress due to financial problems, leaves Wade. Broken and enraged, he resorts to fighting the prisoners in exchange for protection from Sampson and the Aryan Brotherhood. But later on, his wife comes back to Wade & wants to make up. Wade decides that what Jackson did was wrong & wants to expose him so that he can get his life back. Wade agrees to participate in Jackson's cock fights, but then simultaneously asks his wife to contact one of John's relatives who knows a high official in the DA's office. Upon hearing Wade's wife's allegations about prison cockfights, the DA agrees to visit the prison the same day Wade has alleged a cockfight will take place. In the fight, Wade defeats his opponent, but refuses to kill him. Jackson threatens Wade with his life, but the entire prison stands behind Wade & Jackson has to back down. Jackson clears the yard out, where the fights take place, except for John & Wade & shuts the surveillance video. He enters the yard, has Wade & John covered with a sharpshooter & attacks them with a carving knife. James, already angry, does not agree with this behavior & turns on the surveillance video. As Jackson attacks, John pulls out a knife from his spectacles & stabs Jackson in the neck, killing him. The sharpshooter takes John out. The DA reaches the prison just then & seizes the video tapes documenting the entire sequence & essentially clearing up Wade's name in the process. Wade is released upon completion of his original term. He is released after 15 months in prison and reunited with his family.

Three pilots struggle to bring an unpiloted computer-driven drone under control before it initiates a nuclear war.

Parolee Stanley Jobson is hired by Gabriel Shear to hack a complicated computer system but Jobson soon realizes he`s a pawn in a plot far more sinister than he could ever imagine.

Two Texas cowboys head to Mexico in search of work, but soon find themselves in trouble with the law after one of them falls in love with a wealthy rancher's daughter. Two young Texas cowboys on the cusp of manhood ride into 1940's Mexico in search of experience. What they find is a country as chaotic as it is beautiful, as cruel and unfeeling as it is mysterious, where death is a constant, capricious companion. —Richard Foxx <spiritranch@earthlink.net>

A law student`s theory about the deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a web of greed, corruption and murder that goes to the top of the United States government.

A young mixed-blood FBI agent is assigned to work with a cynical veteran investigator on a murder on a poverty-stricken Sioux reservation. An FBI man with Sioux background is sent to a reservation to help with a murder investigation, where he has to come to terms with his heritage. Slowly he rejects the intimidating tactics of his fellow FBI agents, who are not so interested in solving the crime as covering up an incriminating situation with the locals, and as he becomes more tuned to his heritage, the locals begin trusting him. Based on actual Reservation occurrences of the '70s. —Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com> Young hotshot FBI agent Ray Lavoy (Val Kilmer) reluctantly accepts an assignment to solve a series of homicides committed on tribal land in South Dakota. Chosen because of his part Native American heritage, Lavoy is teamed up with a grizzled old agent (Sam Shepard) and finds himself in a dilemma beyond the straight forward crime fighting he is used to. A dedicated agent, Lavoy learns the history and culture of the Lakota people in the process, inspite of his staunchly Western mindset. Will he stick to standard FBI procedure as his partner urges or adopt unconventional means necessary to get answers as to the motives behind the killings? There has been a series of mysterious homicides on a Sioux Indian reservation in the Badlands of South Dakota. The investigation of homicides on Native American territory is within Federal jurisdiction, but the FBI is finding it difficult to gather information from the native Sioux. Ray Levoi, a promising but inexperienced field agent who happens to be one-quarter Sioux, is called in to assist in the investigation. As he probes deeper into the events on the reservation, he is torn between his duty to the FBI and his awakening sense of duty to the Sioux nation. —Cal Lott <cal.lott@gsb.uchicago.edu>

Steel Magnolias follows the close friendship of a group of women living in a small town, as they look to each other for strength and support to survive life`s various misfortunes.

After generations of being apart, an accident brings a family back together and they begin to cope with their original issues.

The life of super-yuppie J.C. is thrown into turmoil when she inherits a baby from a distant relative. J.C. Wiatt is a successful New York business woman known around town as the "tiger lady." She gets news of an inheritance from a relative from another country and off the bat she suspects it's money. Well it's not money, it's a baby girl. At first she doesn't accept until the lady that gives the baby to her has to catch her flight. J.C. is now stuck with an annoying baby girl. Her boyfriend doesn't like the idea of a baby living with them and he leaves her. J.C. has enough of it and takes her to meet a family ready to adopt her. She leaves but hears the baby cry while walking away and has to go back. The baby is too attached to her now and won't let her go. Later, her baby gets into mischief which causes her to get fired. Now, she sets her eyes on an old two story cottage in Vermont to get out of the New York life. When she arrives, the house needs more help than originally thought. She gets bored one snowy day and decides to make apple sauce. Her baby loves it and she decides to sell it. Pretty soon everyone wants some of the baby apple sauce. J.C. hits it big and falls in love with a local veterinarian. Was this fate or destiny?

In the town of Edna, Texas, in 1940, Nita Longley (Sissy Spacek) carries her infant, William Henry Longley, to a local bar and sees her husband, Harry Longley Sr., kissing another woman. Outside, she takes the hand of Harry Junior (Henry Thomas), her other son, and returns home. Four years later, in Gregory, Texas, Nita works as an operator for the Southwest Consolidated Telephone Company in a small house where she lives with her two sons. She types an application for a transfer and presents it to her boss, Mr. Rigby (R.G. Armstrong), when he arrives for the company receipts. Tired of being on-call day and night, Nita wants a secretarial job with regular hours. Her sons, Harry and William Henry (Carey Hollis Jr.), roam to a nearby bar, where brothers Calvin (William Sanderson) and Arnold Triplett (Tracey Walter) play a trick to get William Henry's trousers wet. The "raggedy man," (Sam Shepard) a dark, derelict figure wearing a hat over his scarred face, walks past them, dragging a lawn mower. Inside the bar, Calvin and Arnold discuss their chances of having sex with Nita Longley, figuring that a divorced woman must be as sex-starved as they were when they were cellmates at Huntsville Prison. After several drinks, the brothers drive to Nita's house in Calvin's pickup truck. Calvin goes to the door, but Nita claims the company allows no after hours visitors. Later, on a rainy night, a knock on the door awakens Nita. Outside, a sailor named Teddy Roebuck (Eric Roberts) claims the man at the gas station sent him to use the telephone. Nita lets him into an anteroom, where a telephone sits below a small window with a door. At the switchboard on the other side of the window, Nita rings Teddy through to Ardmore, Oklahoma. He tells his girlfriend's father he is hitchhiking home from boot camp on liberty, but the father informs him she has married another man. Nita offers the drenched sailor a cup of coffee to cheer him up. When the storm knocks out the electricity, they talk in the dark until lights are turned back on. Teddy thanks her and leaves, but as he walks away, he thinks he sees a dark man in a hat standing nearby in the rain. At sunrise, Harry and William Henry find Teddy curled up asleep on the front porch. Nita receives a telephone call from Washington, D.C., for Jean Lester, and sends her sons to bring the young woman to the telephone. A voice informs Jean that her husband was wounded, but he will be coming home from the war. As the tearful woman returns home, the raggedy man passes by, dragging his lawn mower. Teddy pulls Harry and William Henry in a red wagon and shows them how to fly a kite. When he gives Nita the string, she trips over him and they fall down together. Every time she tries to play with them, the telephone rings and she hurries back to the house. With nowhere to go, Teddy decides to spend the rest of his leave with Nita and the kids. Herman Callaway (Ed Geldart), a middle-aged man, comes to pay his telephone bill, but tells Nita that Teddy's presence "doesn't look good" in the eyes of Gregory's citizens. That night, the raggedy man stands outside Nita's house. At the bar, Calvin and Arnold try to telephone Nita, but Teddy, unfamiliar with the switchboard, innocently hangs up the call. Arnold expresses anger that Nita told them they were not allowed in the house at night, yet now she entertains a stranger. The next day, Teddy takes Harry and William Henry on a bus trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, where he treats them to a beach side carnival and a John Wayne war movie. At home, Nita gets her best dress out of the closet, flirts in a mirror, and dances to the radio as she sweeps the floor. That night, Calvin and Arnold peek in Nita's window and watch her bathing, but they run when the horn on Calvin's truck begins to blare. Nita telephones Sheriff Watson (Bill Thurman) to report a "peeping Tom." Looking around and finding nobody, the sheriff mentions that everyone is talking about the stranger staying at her house. He emphasizes that locals depend on her, especially now with a war on. When Nita mentions seeing a strange man in a hat hanging around, Sheriff Watson says he is a harmless drifter named Bailey, who has been around town for a couple of years, mowing lawns. Harry and William Henry, wearing little sailor suits, return later that night with Teddy, who brings Nita a set of rayon stockings. After she puts the boys to bed, Nita and Teddy dance to radio music, then kiss. She turns off the telephone switchboard, and the two make love. The next morning, as prim Miss Pud and Miss Beulah pass by, they are shocked when Teddy steps onto the front porch without a shirt. Nita asks him to be more discreet, because "I have to live here." Meanwhile, Arnold and Calvin lure William Henry into the bar, buy him an orange soda drink, and ask about his mother and Teddy. Harry tries to pull his little brother away, but the Tripletts grab him and ask if his mother gets naked with the stranger. Suddenly, Teddy arrives and fights with them, but when Arnold hits him with a pool stick, the bartender, Crecencio, ends the melee by firing his shotgun in the air. Later, Nita tends to Teddy's cuts and scrapes. She bemoans being trapped in Gregory, but she cannot quit. She asks Teddy to leave, for the sake of everyone. Teddy bids goodbye to the boys, and since they have polished his shoes, he tells them he has named one shoe Henry, for William Henry, and the other Harry, so that no matter where he goes, they will be with him. As Teddy hitches a ride out of town, Calvin and Arnold watch him go. Harry blames his mother for sending Teddy away, just like she drove away their father. He wants to live with his daddy, but she reminds Harry that his father has never returned for him. That night, Nita telephones Mr. Rigby. When he comes to the house in the morning, she shows him the application for a transfer she is sending to the company personnel office in San Antonio, Texas. Rigby becomes angry, tells her she is "frozen" in her job, and insists that everyone else is also making sacrifices for the war. Nita knows all about the war, who is wounded, and who is not coming home, because every telephone call goes through her. When she telephones the company personnel office, Mr. Rigby disconnects her. Nita walks out the door and buys three one-way bus tickets to San Antonio from the local agent. Returning to the house, she finds Rigby indignant that she left him alone with the switchboard. That evening, Nita and the boys pack their possessions. Before going to bed, Harry goes to the outhouse in back, but Calvin locks him in. Arnold knocks on Nita's door and claims he needs to use the telephone. She lets him into the hall, but locks her door to the house interior. However, Calvin breaks in through the back, unplugs the telephone system, and grabs her. As the brothers assault Nita, the lights go out. Somebody outside starts Calvin's truck, honks the horn, and aims its lights at the front porch. Arnold steps outside with a knife to investigate, and the raggedy man hits him. Nita shakes loose from Calvin, locking him outside. Calvin runs to the outhouse to grab Harry, but the raggedy man kills him, allowing Harry to rejoin his mother. As Nita steps onto the front porch, Arnold grabs her, but the raggedy man intercedes, letting her slip back inside. Arnold stabs the stranger, then prepares to break down Nita's door, but with his final breath, the raggedy man slashes him with a hand sickle. After moments of silence, Nita goes outside and finds both Arnold and the raggedy man lying dead on the porch. Looking closer at the disfigured face of the raggedy man, she realizes he is her long-lost, unfaithful husband, Harry Longley. The next morning, with the sheriff's blessings, Nita and her sons board a bus to San Antonio. Harry is happy that their father returned to save them. They all agree they want to see Teddy again.

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...

Bill (Richard Gere), his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and his young teen sister Linda (Linda Manz) are forced to flee Chicago when Bill accidentally kills the foreman (Stuart Margolin) at the steel mill at which he works. They hop a train and eventually arrive at a wheat farm in the Texas panhandle. Bill secures work for them as sackers by lying to the foreman (Robert J. Wilke) about prior experience. Bill and Abby pretend to be brother and sister to avoid suspicion. Although Bill squabbles with the foreman who considers his performance subpar, the three enjoy the work. The wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard) begins to fall in love with Abby and asks her to stay with him after the harvest. Bill is jealous, but when he overhears the doctor tell the farmer that he has only a few months to live, he encourages Abby to accept his proposal. After the other itinerant workers leave, the farmer and Abby are married. The foreman is suspicious and considers Bill and Abby to be con artists, leading the farmer to send him away. The farmer, Abby, Bill and Linda spend an idyllic year on the farm, playing in the river and fields and having many picnics. The farmer's health recovers quickly, and he no longer seems near death. He treats Bill like a brother but notices that Bill has begun to grow restless and irritable. Bill realizes that Abby is beginning to fall in love with the farmer. However, she is actually torn between her love for the two men. During a visit by a wayward Italian circus troupe, the farmer begins to suspect that Bill and Abby are lovers. When Abby tells Bill this, he decides to leave the farm with the circus troup. With Bill gone, Abby, the farmer and Linda form a stable family for nearly a year. But as the itinerant farmers return, so does Bill. He tells Abby that he doesn't blame her for deciding to stay with the farmer and that he will leave them alone. But the farmer, watching them from afar, misinterprets their final embrace and realizes the true nature of Bill and Abby's relationship. But before he can confront them, locusts arrive at the farm. Bill tries to help with the efforts to burn the pests out, but the farmer attacks him. In his rage, the farmer sets his fields on fire. Bill races off into the night, and the farmer, nearly insane, ties Abby to a column on the porch. The next morning, while surveying the damage, the farmer finds Bill. When he threatens Bill with a gun, Bill stabs him and mortally wounds him. Bill takes Abby and Linda away in the farmer's car, which they later sell in order to purchase a boat. They travel down river but a posse, led by the foreman, pursues them. One morning, the police catch up to the fugitive trio. Bill is shot down trying to escape. Abby has inherited the farmer's fortune. She deposits Linda in the kind of boarding school/dance academy that she herself had dreamed of as a child, then leaves on a train with American soldiers going off the fight in World War I. An older girl (Jackie Shultis) who Linda had befriended that first fall on the farm finds her in the boarding school. Together they run away. ----- Note to author of below: opening credits, narrators and concepts such as "scenes" are not part of a synopsis. It also does not include every single detail, such as one character helping another with a cigarette, or use dialog in lieu of narrative description. ------ The films opening credits portray old photos of turn of the century America with a musical theme that recurs throughout the film, Carnival of the Animals The Aquarium by Camille Saint-Saens. Outside Chicago, Bill (Richard Gere) is shown firing up the furnace at a steel mill. He gets in a fight with the steel mill foreman (Stuart Margolin) and accidentally kills him. He runs away. His kid sister Linda (Linda Manz), begins narrating the story. She begins by recounting how things were that have not happened in the movie yet the days of heaven. Bill is helping his lover Abby, (Brooke Adams) with a cigarette as he explains that things will change for them eventually they are down on their luck. The three of them hop a train to Texas, where they sit with dozens of others on the roofs of the trains boxcars. Linda explains that she met someone once who told her that someday the world will go up in flames and the good people will avoid it, but for the bad people, God don't even hear you talkin'. Everyone gets off the train and Bill quickly negotiates a job working on a wheat field for $3 per day as a sacker. He lies about his experience as a "sacker" to get the job. All three get jobs as laborers on the vast wheat field of a farmer (Sam Shepard). Linda makes a friend (Jackie Shultis) in the wheat field. The farmer checks the quality of the wheat in the field to see if its ready for harvest. Prayers are said for a good harvest. Scenes of people using farming equipment follow. Linda narrates that the farmer is falling for Abby for some intangible reason. Bill has told everyone that Abby is his sister, and gets in a fight with a field hand who suggests otherwise. Bill and Abby share a moment in the shade of a wagon. Linda is shown plucking a pheasant. There are more scenes of the harvest. The farmer is shown asking questions of one of his workers about Abby. The farm foreman (Robert J. Wilke) comes by inspecting Bill and Abbys work and docks them $3 for wasting wheat when making bushels. Bill complains but the foreman threatens to fire him and Bill backs down. Bill is concerned about Abbys hands which are sore and rough from the work and wants to find the doctor. The men swim in a pond after the days work is done. Bill sneaks up behind the doctors wagon and steals some ointment for Abbys hands. While he behind the wagon he overhears the doctor explaining that the farmer has about a year to live. Linda narrates that the farmer knew he was going to die, and that people live only once so they should have it nice. The farmer finally speaks with Abby. She explains she is from Chicago. Linda roasts a peacock over a spit, as Bill tells her a joke: "I saved your life today. I killed a shit-eating dog. I'm always lookin' out for you." Apparently a joke by comedian Redd Fox - acknowledged in the end credits in the Thanks section. Bill and Abby have a talk in a haystack. Bill explains they will eventually go to New York and this is only temporary. The harvest continues on. Linda explains if people didnt work they were shipped right out they didnt need you. They could always find someone else. The farmers accountant explains its a 6-figure harvest, his best ever. The farmer gets up and takes a look at Abby through his telescope. There are more scenes of the harvest. The farmer comes up to Abby and offers her to stay instead of going on up north. She excuses herself quickly without answering to go talk to her brother. Bill and Abby splash around in a river. Bill begins to scheme. He suggests that she tell the farmer she will stay. There is a night scene of the harvest, the very end of it. Linda asks Bill if they are going to stay and he explains its up to Abby. Linda has a conversation with her friend about a worker who she was going with who abandoned her. Linda continues to narrate about Bill getting tired of living like the rest of them, like pigs. Bill figured some people need more than they got, and others got more than they need. It was a matter of getting everyone together. A man dances on a wooden plank to a tune played by harmonica. Bill and Abby continue their discussion about staying. A night time celebration with a bonfire and music occurs. Abby tells the farmer she can stay but shes got to keep her brother and sister with her. Lindas friend says good bye and many people leave on a train similar to the way they arrived. Linda questions Abby about why she wants to stay and she explains this isnt so bad to the way she had to live earlier, wrapping cigars, never seeing the light of day. The foreman questions Linda about what they did in Chicago before. Bill explains to the farmer a half-story about how he worked at the mill in Chicago. The farmer tells Abby he loves her. Bill begins to scheme. He suggests she marry him (since he is about to die). She is reluctant. The farmer and Abby get married along the river. The foreman is a joyless best man. The farmer and Abby take off of on their honeymoon. When they get back Linda explains they all never had it so good. The rich got it figured out. All four of them have a playful meal on a gazebo. They play makeshift golf. Bill sneaks Abby out of the house one night for some play in the river and tells her he never wanted to fall in love with her. They sneak in a bit late, after the farmer has begun calling for her. Life goes on. The foreman tells the farmer he thinks they are a couple of con-artists. The farmer takes offense and they have a falling out. The foreman quits and leaves and as he drives away, he stops to tell Bill and Abby he knows what they are doing and warns them that boy is like a son to me. The farmer senses some distance from Abby. A shot of a newspaper shows that president Wilson is on a whistlestop tour. They all go out to watch his train go by. Linda narrates that the farmer wasnt getting sicker as fast as they planned. Maybe the doctor gave him some medicine. Bill and the farmer go hunting for pheasant. The farmer remarks that Bill seems jumpy. Right during their conversation a Fokker tri-plane and a Sopwith camel come into a view as a flying circus lands right in their field. just as things were about to blow says Linda. The circus brings entertainment. Bill kisses Abby one night at the gazebo but the farmer sees it. He confronts Abby later about this strange behavior with her brother. She denies anything unusual but remarks to Bill that the farmer seems more paranoid. Bill is now angry that Abby seems to be in love with the farmer. Bill who is in a bit of a huff, gets a lift from the flying circus to take care of some business. The farmer and Abby are now alone. There are loving scenes between Abby and the farmer. Linda narrates that the farmer taught her the keys on the piano, the parts of a globe. Life continues. The following spring comes. The wheat begins to ripen. Bill comes back on a motorcycle and sees Abby dancing on the porch. Later, Abby apologizes to Bill. Bill explains he regrets not knowing what he had with her, and pushing her into this plot. Bill kisses Abby on his way to leave, and the farmer sees him from up on the roof with his weathervane. He seems a bit sickened. A close-up of a two locusts on some lettuce in the kitchen is a portent of a problem. They are shown bothering the birds. Things evolve rapidly. Abby begins swatting locusts all over the house. They are shown all over the wheat. A red storm flag is hoisted, and a warning siren is sounded, and the workers pile into the field to get rid of the swarm by any means possible. The farmer out in the smoking fields is suspicious of Bill and swings his lantern at him starting a fire. The fire spreads and starts to burn the entire field. Bill and Abby are silhouetted against the fire and she says, "He knows". The hands desperately try to put the fire out but it burns everything. The farmer aggressively intimidates Abby up in the bedroom, throws her down and gets a gun out of his desk. He ties her hands together and calls her a liar. The next day, the farmer is riding through his burnt out fields looking for Bill and finds him fixing his motorcycle. The farmer aims a gun at Bill but bill stabs him with a leather punch. The foreman finds the dead Sam Shepard. The three of them flee. They head down river in a boat. Linda narrates that no one is perfect, youve just got half devil and half angel in you. She explains that Abby will lead a good life from now on, she blamed it all on herself. Linda talks about all the things they see on the boat ride. In parallel action, the foreman begins to track them down. Wild turkeys gobble in the forest, where Bill, Abby, and Linda have camped. Bill walks under some trees, and notices police officers at their ferry boat at the river, presumably looking for him. They spot him and come chasing after him with dogs and horses. He gets back to the tent and grabs a shotgun. He tells them to keep down and then tries to run away as he is pursued. Eventually, he makes a run along the shore line and ends up in a gunfight. He is shot and killed by one of the pursuers on horseback. In her grief, Abby sobs over Bills body as detached people on the shoreline look on. The next scene is Linda in a dancing class. Abby has enrolled her in a dance academy. We dont know exactly how much time has passed. She tells Linda shell be all right, turn around and go inside. Abby walks to the train station through a small town. Young men are boarding a train to participate in World War I which the U.S. has just gotten involved in. A band plays a tune to bid the soldiers goodbye as Abby boards the train with the soldiers. The next morning, Linda escapes from the dance academy. She runs into her friend from the fields who has a new boyfriend. He's in the Army. Maybe he'll get killed or something. I don't know. Anyway, he said I'm pretty. They race away and chat at the railroad tracks, and then walk down the rails towards an uncertain future. Linda narrates This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' or what she was goin' to do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.