Teri Garr

The two owners of the Long Shot Copies shop struggle against a copying giant, King Co. Having gotten their start from a one hundred thousand dollar windfall when one of them hit a promotional mid-court basketball shot, they have to find a way to keep their company afloat or fold. Thus starts a series of gimmicks and a war against the opposition, particularly after they are visited by a corporate thug. —John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>

Betsy Jobs (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene Lorenzo (Michelle Williams) are two sweet but somewhat ditsy teenage girls living in Washington D.C. in the early 1970s. Betsy comes from a wealthy family in the Georgetown area, while Arlene lives with her widowed mother Helen (Teri Garr) in an apartment in the Watergate building. Betsy stays with her father David (Karl Pruner) and brother Larry (Devon Gummersall). The house is upset as Larry has recently been drafted. One night, on a quest to mail a letter to enter a contest to win a date with teen idol singer Bobby Sherman, the two girls sneak out of Arlene's home, at the same time as the Watergate break-in. They manage to enter and leave through the parking garage door, accidentally causing the break-in to be discovered. They are seen by G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer), who they believe to be committing a jewel robbery; they panic and run away. The security guard, who had heard the parking garage door being shut, goes to investigate and is startled by the taped door. The guard calls the police, who immediately arrest the burglars. The burglary revolved around members of a group associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign breaking into and planting listening devices (and also taking photographs of confidential documents) in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972. The next day, while at the White House on a school tour, they accidentally happen across Liddy again. They don't recognize him, but he recognizes them and instantly becomes suspicious. The girls had noticed a piece of paper stuck to the underside of Liddy's shoe, which they assumed to be toilet paper. But when Liddy left, they picked the paper which had some named and an amount of money written next to each name. They keep the paper as a souvenir. Liddy points them out to H. R. Haldeman (Dave Foley), who proceeds to interrogate them; their conversation (in which it is revealed that the girls don't actually think about the President that much) is interrupted by a phone call from Haldeman's wife. During the call the door of their room opens up and they can see directly into the Oval office with Nixon playing with his dog named Checkers. Arlene attracts the attention of the dog with a whistle, which brings Nixon into their room as well. President Nixon / Dick (Dan Hedaya), who takes Haldeman aside to complain about the bugging operation being so fouled up. The girls are naturally awestruck at being in the same room as Nixon - but more awestruck at being able to play with his dog, which gives Nixon an idea. In order to keep their silence, he appoints them his official dog-walkers. Which means they must be admitted repeatedly to the White House. Rose Mary Woods (Ana Gasteyer) is Nixon's assistant. On these visits they accidentally influence major events such as the Vietnam peace process (Arlene advocates that bombing hurts people, and Nixon takes that as the voice of the people and instructs Kissinger accordingly. Arlene says that the people would like Nixon more if he stopped the war) and the Nixon-Brezhnev accord, by bringing along cookies that they have inadvertently baked marijuana into. When Betsy's brother, Larry (Devon Gummersall), reveals the cookies' "secret ingredient" and realizes the President ate them, he concludes that this was likely a leading cause of Nixon's paranoia. They also become familiar with the key figures of Nixon's administration, including the long-suffering, frequently ignored Henry Kissinger (Saul Rubinek), and inadvertently learn the major secrets of the Watergate scandal without realizing what they know. They were finding their way through the White House and mistakenly stumble onto a room where a man was counting money with a machine and putting it into a briefcase, while others were busy shredding documents. Nixon explains that Paper Mache is a hobby of his. Arlene, previously infatuated with Bobby Sherman, now falls equally hard for the president. She adorns her bedroom walls with posters of Nixon and changes her look including wearing contacts instead of glasses. Just after reading an 18½-minute message of love into his tape recorder, she plays back another part of the tape and, after hearing his coarse, brutal rantings, quickly realizes his true nature. When they confront Nixon ("You kicked Checkers, you're prejudiced, and you have a potty mouth!"), he fires and threatens them ("You don't mess with the big boys!"). The girls now reevaluate what they have learned and decide to reveal everything to the "radical muckraking bastards" (Nixon's words) at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward (Will Ferrell) and Carl Bernstein (Bruce McCulloch). So, they become informants; two 15-year-old girls are the true identity of the famous Deep Throat (Betsy's brother had just been caught watching the film of the same name). Woodward and Bernstein - portrayed as petty, childish, and incompetent - are naturally skeptical of the two girls. To make matters worse, their only piece of physical evidence, a list of names of those involved from the Committee to Re-Elect the President, is eaten by Betsy's dog. Nixon's men realize that the girls are a real threat and attempt tactics such as bugging and undercover agents to find out what they know, eventually going so far as to break into Betsy's house and plant an undercover agent as Arlene's mother's boyfriend. Eventually pushed to the limit after being chased by the Watergate "plumbers", the girls decide to take action: sneaking into Haldeman's house, they manage to find and steal a crucial tape recording. They give a transcript of it to Woodward and Bernstein (keeping the tape as a "souvenir") thus ending Nixon's political career. Nixon finds Arlene's message on his tape and erases it, reasoning that he would be "crucified" if it was perceived that he had an affair with a 15-year-old girl. After the resignation, as Nixon's helicopter flies over Betsy's house, the two girl hold up a sign depicting the phrase "You suck, Dick", further angering the now ex-president.

Jim Carry and Jeff Daniels star as two good-natured but incredibly stupid friends who drive across the United States to return a client`s briefcase in this comedy blockbuster.

Butcher Ernie's marriage to Sunny is on the rocks. One evening, drunken Ernie and Dave have a fight which results in Ernie getting knocked out in the refrigerator, where he dies during the night. Sunny is married to the butcher, Ernie, and their marriage is about to end as both of them have affairs. Thus Sunny hires Lester Atlas as private investigator in order to collect proof for the divorce. One evening drunken Ernie and his partner Dave have a fight in the butcher shop with Ernie getting knocked out in the fridge where he dies during the night. But it was not Dave's fault but intentional murder by Sunny. Only Lester has proof so Sunny kills him, too. Thus she only has to kill Dave to get rid of all witnesses, but he can free himself out of the fridge and wants to take revenge.

A nosy cab driver gets a hot tip on a race horse and wins big, but he can't seem to stop gambling. Will he go broke or walk home with a pretty penny? An average kind of guy who has a slight problem with gambling goes to the track, and mystically, it seems as though he can't lose, no matter how he bets; and he has an incredible day.

After a long and boring day at work, Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), a computer word processor, meets Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette) in a local cafe in New York City. Paul wants more in his life than just going to work and going home every boring day of his life. Paul is a well-dressed man in a suit and a tie. Paul leaves the office building when it closes at the end of the day and goes to his Upper East Side apartment on East 91st Street where he wastes the evening away watching TV and reading Arthur Miller books. Paul went to the coffee shop as he had nothing else to do at his apartment. Marcy was having her own dinner across the table from Paul. Paul and Marcy discuss their common interest in Henry Miller. Gradually, Marcy comes over to Paul's table as they strike a conversation. Marcy leaves Paul her number and informs him that she lives in SoHo with a sculptor named Kiki Bridges (Linda Fiorentino), who makes and sells plaster of Paris paperweights resembling cream cheese bagels. Later in the night, Paul calls the number from his apartment under the pretense of buying a paperweight. She invites him to come down to SoHo where she is staying with Kiki. The time is 11:32 p.m. Paul visits Marcy, taking a cab to her apartment. On his way to visit Marcy, Paul keeps a $20 bill into the payment slot of the cab. But the driver was driving very fast and recklessly and the $20 bill is blown out the window of the cab, leaving Paul with only some spare pocket change. The cab driver is furious that he cannot pay. This is the first in a long series of misadventures for Paul that turn hostile through no fault of his own. At the apartment Paul meets the sculptor Kiki, who's wearing nothing but a black bra and leather miniskirt. He comes across a collection of photographs and medications which imply that Marcy is severely disfigured from burns on her legs and torso. Kiki is working on a sculpture of a screaming man which he compares to Edvard Munch's The Scream. Marcy had gone to the drug store. Kiki invites Paul to work on her sculpture and he spills plaster of Paris on his shirt. Kiki takes the shirt away for laundry and asks Paul to give her a shoulder massage. Kiki falls asleep just as Marcy returns from the drug store. They go out to a nearby diner where they talk about their favorite movie, which is The Wizard of Oz, among other things. When offered to pay the bill, the strange diner waiter (Dick Miller) tells Paul that it's on the house. At 1:40 a.m., Marcy and Paul return to the loft, where she ushers Paul to her bedroom. In conversation Marcy reveals that she was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend. And that she is married to a guy named Franklin, who owns the place where she lives, but Franklin doesn't stay there anymore. Franklin was obsessed with the movie "the Wizard of Oz" and would scream "Dorothy", after he came during sex. After smoking a joint of Marcy's which she claims it's from Columbia, Paul, for some reason, begins acting like a jerk and leaves. Paul then attempts to go home by subway, but the fare has increased at the stroke of midnight, and he finds that his pocket change is no longer sufficient to purchase a token. Paul had 97 cents in his pocket. The attendant tells Paul that the subway fare for a token has just gone up to $1.50 that very midnight, and the time is now 2:15 am. He goes to a bar where Julie (Teri Garr), a waitress, becomes enamored with him. After Paul uses the men's room, he returns to his table and finds a note slipped by the waitress in which she asks for Paul's help as she hates her job. At the bar, Paul learns that there has been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood. The bar's owner, Tom Schorr (John Heard), offers to give Paul money to cover the subway fare, but cannot open the cash register. As a sign of trust, Paul leaves his apartment keys with Tom and rushes off with Tom's apartment keys to earn his $1.50. Paul lets himself into Tom's apartment, checks the alarm which is on (Tom had asked Paul to check the alarm due to robberies in the neighborhood). On the way back from Tom's apartment, Paul is questioned by suspicious neighbors. Afterwards, Paul spots two actual burglars, Neil (Cheech Marin) and Pepe (Tommy Chong), with one of Kiki's sculptures. After he attempts to confront them, they flee, dropping the sculpture in the process. Paul brings the statue back to Kiki's loft nearby and finds her gagged and tied to a pillar. He unties Kiki thinking that they robbed her, but she tells them that the men are Pepe and Neil, friends of hers who just bought the stature and that she's tied up because she and her boyfriend Horst (Will Patton) are playing a sex game. Kiki and Horst tell Paul that he should apologize to Marcy who has been in her bedroom crying since Paul left. Paul finds Marcy has committed suicide by overdosing on Seconal. Paul reports Marcy's death before noticing a roving neighborhood watch on the street below. On the way out, he grabs a note from Kiki inviting him and Marcy to Club Berlin. Kiki and a stout man named Horst had already left to go to Club Berlin, a nightclub. Paul looks and finds no burn marks on Marcy. Paul sees a $20 bill left behind by them and instinctively takes it. Paul calls the police to report the body. Paul attempts to return to Tom's bar, but it is locked up, with a sign indicating that Tom will be back in half an hour. Paul meets Julie, the waitress, in the street, who invites him up to her apartment to wait for Tom to reopen the bar. Julie's apartment looks like a shrine to the mid-1960s replete with the music of the Monkees playing in the background. Julie asks Paul to let her draw a picture of him which he agrees. Julie is enamored with Paul, but Paul goes back to Tom's bar. Tom tells Paul that he just left to check his apartment because it took so long for Paul to come back. Paul apologizes and gives Tom back his apartment keys. Just as Tom is about to hand over the $1.50, the phone rings and someone on the other line informs Tom that his girlfriend has just committed suicide. To his horror, Paul immediately learns that Marcy was Tom's girlfriend. Paul returns to Julie's apartment where she begins to sketch his portrait while they talk. Ultimately, Paul rejects Julie's advances and leaves. But when Paul returns to the bar to get his apartment keys back from Tom, he finds the place closed again. Paul goes over to Tom's apartment, but he is not there either. Then the gay couple and another of Tom's neighbors see him and chase him away again. By this time, however, Tom's neighbors have become convinced that Paul is responsible for the rash of burglaries in SoHo and form together a vigilante group to hunt him down. Paul goes to find Kiki and inform her of Marcy's suicide. The bouncer at Club Berlin refuses him entry because his hairstyle does not fit the Mohawk dress code, and Paul narrowly escapes several punks who attempt to forcibly give him a haircut. Paul sees Kiki and Horst at a table and calls out to them, but they don't see or hear him through the loud music and crowd. Paul runs out of the club barely able to compose himself with only a line or two of his hair shaved off. On the street, Paul is mistaken for a burglar and is relentlessly pursued by a mob of local residents. Back on the street, Paul suddenly meets the same cab driver whom he was forced to stiff earlier for the ride. Paul gives the driver the $20 bill he took from Kiki's loft, but the driver just grabs the bill and drives off as payback for stiffing him. Paul by then has just run into another strange woman, coming out of the cab, named Gail (Catherine O'Hara) a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver, whom she feels sorry for and takes him back to her apartment. Gail then blurts out that she drives a Mister Softee ice-cream truck nearby and will be glad to give him a ride home. But when they arrive at the truck parked in an alley, Gail spots a wanted poster of Paul. Gail mistakes him for the burglar based on Julie's posters. Back on the street, Paul runs into a shy homosexual man, named Alex, (Robert Plunket) and allows himself to be "picked-up" to let himself into the man's apartment. Paul asks to use Alex's phone to call the police and then tries to tell the desk sergeant about wanting to report the vigilante mob that's been endangering his life. Unbelievably, the police officer on the other end of the line thinks that it's a prank call and hangs up on him. Then Paul sees Julie on the street putting up wanted posters of him on a lamp post. Paul runs back out onto the street and calls out to her, but she just scornfully glances at him and rides off on a bicycle. At 4:10 a.m., Paul goes back to the diner where he sees Tom sitting at a table. Tom tells Paul that he just got back from the local morgue where he was forced to identify Marcy's body. Paul demands that Tom give him back his apartment keys, but Tom says that he left them back at the bar. Frantic, Paul asks Tom to hide him for there is a vigilante mob looking for him. Tom goes outside to check if the coast is clear, but Paul sees Tom running right to up Gail and the vigilante mob passing by and he tells them where Paul is. Angered at Tom's betrayal, Paul runs out of the diner just in time. As a last resort, Paul dashes back to Club Berlin hoping to find Kiki and Horst there to ask them for help, but now finds the place deserted for it is closing since the time now is almost 5 a.m. Sleep-deprived, bedraggled, and ranting, Paul uses his last quarter to play "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee on the club's jukebox and asks an older woman named June (Verna Bloom) to dance. After he explains his situation, June offers to hide him in her apartment underneath the club, where she uses Papier-Mache to disguise him as a sculpture while the mob raids the club. After the mob leaves, June is worried they will come back, and doesn't take off the plaster, which hardens, trapping Paul in a position that resembles Kiki's sculpture. Neil and Pepe break into June apartment and steal Paul, thinking him to be the sculpture they had dropped in the street earlier. They load Paul in the back of their van now spilling over with dozens of stolen appliances from the SoHo apartments including June's. The van speeds uptown and takes a sharp turn which swings open the van's back door. Paul falls to the pavement, with the force of the impact breaking the plaster open, directly outside the front gate of his office building. With no way to go home, he simply brushes himself off and goes to his desk. Paul goes to the floor where he works, sits at his desk, and goes to work at his computer while the rest of the office workers arrive. It's the beginning of just another boring weekday for him.

Jack Butler (Michael Keaton) is an engineer at an automobile manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan. He lives in the suburbs with his wife, Caroline (Terri Garr), their two young sons, seven-year-old Alex (Frederick Kohler), five-year-old Kenny (Taliesin Jaffe) , and their six-month old infant daughter Megan (Courtney and Brittany White). Jack has a decent life and a decent home in the suburbs. However, Jack's job seems to be stressful for him; he and his co-workers Larry (Christopher Lloyd) and Stan (Tom Leopold), and supervisor Jinx Latham (Jeffery Tambor), whom he carpools with in the morning, all talk about their lack of sleep from the night before. When they drive in one morning, they talk about rumors of layoffs at their plant. Jinx, tells them not to worry about losing their jobs. The rumors persist while Jack talks to the assembly line workers. Jack is called into Jinx' office during the day and finds out that he and Larry and Stan are being laid off. Jinx tells them that they'll be asked to come back at an undetermined time in the future. The guys are not convinced. At home, Jack talks with his wife about finding another job and also having some time off to do work on the house he'd been planning. When Caroline, a former advertising expert, tells him she'd put her resume out on the job market as well, Jack suddenly becomes competitive, challenging her to a wager where the first of them to get a job will win $100. Some time later, Caroline wins the bet and goes to work for a prominent advertising firm called Richardson-Frankel. Jack becomes a stay-at-home-father and takes care of the kids, the errands, and the house during the day. Jack's first few weeks at home are mostly a disaster: he discovers that the vacuum cleaner has a mind of its own and rampages around the house, he's inept at operating the washer and dryer, three repair-people come in one day and the baby eats chili. Jack also has trouble at the supermarket and he misunderstands the procedure for dropping Alex off for school. He also draws too much attention from one of his wife's more attractive friends, Joan (Ann Jillian), who is divorced. As Caroline's career takes off she becomes an employee prized by her boss, Ron Richardson (Martin Mull). At her first staff meeting, Caroline looks over the firm's ideas for one of their flagship clients, Schooner Tuna and, though she is constructively critical, receives scornful remarks from the rest of the staff. Caroline realizes that they are overworked, stressed out and have little or no experience similar to hers with regard to food prices or shopping. A few months later, Jack has not been called back to his work at the auto factory and there are no other jobs available in his line of work or any similar fields. Jack becomes increasingly depressed, wearing the same flannel shirt every day (without laundering it), he gains weight, lets his beard grow un-groomed and drinks beer while watching soap operas. His attention to his kids even wanes a bit which makes it more difficult for him to convince his younger son, Kenny, to give up the baby blanket he carries around for security. One day, while watching a soap opera, Jack daydreams that Joan stops by. He begins to talk about his strained relationship with Caroline; Joan takes off her raincoat and is dressed in sexy lingerie. While Jack kisses her, Caroline walks in and finds them. She pulls out a gun, affixes a silencer to it, and threatens Jack. A struggle ensues and Jack is shot. As he dies, Ron Richardson appears and walks off with Caroline and Jinx appears and says that the auto factory was going to call him back to work. Jack wakes up from his nightmare, cancels the weekly poker game with Joan and decides to clean up his act. He gets the kids to follow a morning routine to get them off to school on time; he exercises with Caroline's friends and loses the weight he'd put on, shaves off his beard, and he fixes up the house. At one point, we see him throwing his flannel shirt into the fireplace, a gesture meant to encourage Kenny to give up his security blanket. Kenny refuses and Jack has a man-to-man talk and convinces his son to give up the blanket. At a party thrown by Richardson at his palatial mansion, Jack is egged on by Richardson himself to compete in a race involving toys and other obstacles meant for children. Before the race, Jack, a fair sportsman himself, is persuaded by Richardson's subordinates to throw the race because his wife works for their host. Not wanting to jeopardize his wife's career, Jack stumbles just short of the finish line, preserving Richardson's dignity. Caroline's schedule keeps her away from home more frequently, which has an effect on Jack and the family. Caroline also develops a new strategy for Schooner Tuna; she meets with the company's CEO and tells him that the only way to sell more of his product is to lower the price in light of tougher economic times. The CEO goes almost immediately for Caroline's ideas, which also include filming a TV ad that will express the company's new policy, with an included appeal to consumers. Caroline is charged with going to Los Angeles to aid in shooting the new ad, which takes her out of town on Halloween. Richardson comes to their house to pick Caroline up in a limousine, but before she leaves, Jack talks to her about all the changes the family has experienced in her absence. Caroline still goes with Richardson. A few nights later, while Caroline is still out of town, some of the girls invite Jack out for the evening, leaving one of them, Annette, behind to sit with the kids. As a prank, the women take Jack to a male stripper bar. When he comes home late with Annette tagging along, he tries to call Caroline in California. Unknown to him and to Caroline, Richardson has snuck into Caroline's hotel room with dinner and champagne to celebrate their Schooner Tuna success; Richardson answers the phone and Jack recognizes his voice. Richardson abruptly hangs up on him. Caroline confronts Richardson, who suggests she leave Jack. She refuses and orders him to leave, punching him in the face when he won't. At home, Jack becomes jealous and furious when the phone rings and throws it across the room. He also kicks the TV, shattering the screen. Annette, witness to Jack's meltdown, leaves and tells Joan the next day. Jack works through his anger by painting the house, while repair woman Doris fixes the television (with one of Jack's shoes found in it), and Bert, the exterminator, fumigates the basement. Joan takes Annette's message as a signal that Jack and Caroline are through and races to his house to talk to him. She stretches out in the bedroom while Jack cleans up painting in the bathroom. Caroline, returning early from California after her confrontation with Richardson, finds Joan in her bed. When Jack comes out of the bathroom, after a lengthy contemplation with himself about having an affair with Joan, he finds Caroline, who is angry about finding Joan in her bed. The two argue, Jack telling Caroline that he heard Richardson's voice on the phone when he called. Jack storms out of the room saying he has a house to run. Caroline follows him and the two begin to reconcile when both Jinx and Richardson arrive at the house, both wanting Jack and Caroline to return to their jobs. At one point, Jinx yells at Alex and Jack hits him in the face, knocking him to the floor. Jack accepts his old job back on the condition that Larry and Stan join him. At the same time just feet away, Caroline tries to tell Richardson that she's quit and Richardson offers her a better working contract. The couple negotiate new employment deals for themselves and agree to return. The film ends here with Jack, Caroline, and the children celebrating their good fortune and everyone watching the TV ad Caroline helped create; Mr. Humphries appears on the new television, announcing Schooner tuna's new low price.

In 1940 New York City, a man known as Kid Colors (Burt Remsen) is tortured and killed as retribution for his role in swindling $500,000 from Doyle Lonnegan (Oliver Reed), a crooked banker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His lead henchman, Carlos (Jose Perez), spreads the rumor that Brooklyn, New York, nightclub owner and pimp Gus Macalinski (Karl Malden), known as "the Wolf" for his reputation as a womanizer, is responsible for the Kid's killing, while Lonnegan plans the murder of confidence man Jake Hooker. Elsewhere in the city, con artist Jake Hooker (Mac Davis) and his friend, Eddie (Ron Rifkin), attempt to swindle Countess Veronique Le Fleur (Teri Garr) and her companion, Lady Dorsett (Frances Bergen), who turn the tables on them. Jake receives a telegram from his old con artist friend, Fargo Gondorff (Jackie Gleason), inviting him to Florida. After boarding the train, Jake and Eddie raise train fare by stealing off-duty police officer Francis O'Malley's wallet. Meanwhile, Carlos trails the two men and informs Lonnegan of their plans. After arriving in Miami, Florida, Jake and Eddie discover that Fargo is serving a two-year sentence in a federal prison and will be released within a few days. Fargo tells them about Kid Color's murder, placing blame on Gus Macalinski. A few days later, the three men return to New York City and meet with business associates "Handicap," (Larry Hankin) "Big Ohio," (Michael D. Alldredge) "Doc Brown," (John Hancock) and "Tuxedo" in the back room of a Chinese laundry, where they concoct a "sting" to cheat Macalinski out of a fortune. While Fargo establishes headquarters at Golding's gymnasium, Jake purchases boxing equipment at a department store, where he encounters Countess Veronique Le Fleur. Jake accuses her of being a pickpocket and alerts the store manager, who discovers O'Malley's wallet in the countess's handbag, and her coin purse in Jake's pocket. After both are ejected from the store, the countess introduces herself as Veronica Sherman... a con artist herself. Jake is sufficiently impressed with her skills and offers her a job as a member of the team to exploit Macalinski's weakness for the opposite sex. The next day at Golding's Gym, Jake receives his boxing license and his alias, Bobby Florian. He tells Fargo about Veronica, sheepishly revealing that she "reverse conned" him two weeks earlier. At Fargo's urging, Veronica admits to her real surname, Crinklaw. The next evening, she enters Macalinski's Ocean Club and draws the owner to her table. Fargo appears within seconds and introduces himself as Trevor Plantagenet. Veronica, who calls herself Elizabeth Windsor, pretends to be enamored with Fargo. He opens a bottle of champagne and the spray removes Macalinski's toupee. Attempting to overcome his humiliation, Macalinski challenges Fargo to a game of pool, then to a game of Three Card Monte. Fargo wins both, and Macalinski leaves the club in a fit of anger. Outside, Jake tells Macalinski he has information on "Trevor Plantagenet." Macalinski invites Jake, posing as "Bobby," to join him for a roller coaster ride. As the coaster speeds along the track, Jake explains that Fargo is his manager, and wants him to intentionally lose his upcoming fight against boxer Chico Torres. Jake intends to win the fight, and asks Macalinski for protection against a reprisal from Fargo in exchange for half of the $6,000 prize. After Macalinski promises to consider the offer, Jake encounters O'Malley. He eludes the officer and takes refuge in the Chinese laundry, where Fargo and his team are waiting for him. Fargo assures Jake that Macalinski will accept the offer, and advises him stay in hiding to avoid O'Malley. When Carlos updates Lonnegan on Jake's activities, the banker happily anticipates the murder of his adversaries by Macalinski. Meanwhile, Jake trains with Big Ohio, but shows little promise. However, when Macalinski visits the gym, they stage a sparring match and Jake knocks Big Ohio out of the ring. That evening, Jake informs Macalinski that Fargo is betting on Torres, and has arranged with bookmaker Tuxedo to increase the odds of Jake winning to attract more bets. Though Macalinski is intrigued, he refuses to commit until he sees Jake fight a professional boxer, which he arranges for the following day at the 8th Street Gymnasium. Jake leaves the meeting and evades O'Malley a second time. Carlos intercepts the policeman and takes him to see Lonnegan, who pays O'Malley to leave Jake alone until the sting is completed. After learning of Jake's dilemma, Fargo devises a plan to evacuate the gym, staff it with his own people, and drug Jake's competitor. When Jake wins, Macalinski agrees to protect him, and places a $400,000 bet with Tuxedo. Jake returns to Golding's and has a romantic interlude with Veronica. Confident of a victory by Torres, Lonnegan bets $1 million with a bookmaker named King Rafferty. Lonnegan directs O'Malley to the Chinese laundry, where he is expected to kill Jake and Fargo if Macalinski fails. The banker also introduces O'Malley to his informant, Samantha Scanlon, alias Veronica Crinklaw. On the night of the boxing match, Fargo instructs Jake to feign defeat in the sixth round, although Jake doubts he will last that long. While the fight is underway, Lonnegan informs Macalinski that Torres is the predetermined winner. On their boss's instructions, Macalinski's thugs reassign the bet to Torres and bring Tuxedo to the stadium at gunpoint. Believing their friend's life is in danger, Fargo instructs Jake to knock out Torres in the sixth round. Jake wins, despite his self-doubt, and is equally puzzled by Veronica's sudden absence. Fearing revenge from Macalinski, Lonnegan and Carlos run from the stadium, only to be ambushed in their car. O'Malley leads a police raid on the Chinese laundry and is greeted by a messenger, who delivers a bouquet of flowers and a derisive message from Fargo. On their way to the train station, Fargo explains that he hired Veronica to infiltrate Lonnegan's gang several months earlier. King Rafferty and Torres are also members of the organization. Fargo and his team board a westbound train, but Jake waits on the platform, hoping for Veronica's arrival. Moments after leaving the station, the train stops and Veronica disembarks. She tells Jake that she will be taking care of him from now on, as instructed by her father, Fargo.

A teenager loses his horse in Morocco and gets him back after various daredevil adventures. The Black is stolen from Alec by his former Arabian owners. Alec sets off on an adventure to Arabia to reclaim his beloved horse. Based on the books by Walter Farley. —Lisa

An out-of-work actor finds success, love and frustration when he gets the role of his life...playing a woman.

In the summer of 1946, Alec Ramsey (Kelly Reno) is travelling by steamer off the coast of North Africa. Alec is also a lonely boy. Onboard the streamer, he sees a wild colored stallion (Cass-Ole) being forced into a makeshift stable and heavily restrained by ropes leading to his halter. The stallion resists fiercely to protect its freedom, but eventually submits to the trauma of the whiplashes. Captivated by the horse, Alec later sneaks to the horse to feed him some sugar cubes. The stallion eats the cubes, but still would not allow any human to get close to him. Alec is caught by the horse's owner, who tells him in Arabic to stay away from Shetan and shoves the boy away. Later in his bunk, Alec's father (Hoyt Axton) shows Alec his winnings from a card game and gives him a pocketknife and a small statue of Bucephalus and tells the story of how Alexander the Great became Bucephalus' master. Bucephalus was a magic horse, so wild that King Phillip couldn't tame him. So, he decided to kill it publicly in a huge arena. In the arena, a young boy claims he can ride that horse and does so. King Phillip gives him the horse for keeps. The boy was young Alexander. Later that night, the carving is illuminated with a bright orange light. The ship pitches violently and Alec is thrown from his bunk onto the cabin floor. Grabbing the carving & his pocketknife, Alec gets to his feet and his dad throws a life jacket over him. Alec's dad sees water pouring in through a door, and they make their way onto the deck. As Alec looks up he sees the superstructure of the ship blazing with fire. The ship had caught fire and begun to sink. In the chaos, Alec grabs his knife and makes his way to the stallion and manages to free him. Alec is attacked again by the horse's owner who cuts the life jacket from Alec's body with a knife for his own use. Seeing this, Alec's dad leaps onto the man from the upper deck & throws him against the rail. The stallion then jumps into the sea. Alec himself is thrown overboard by the waves. In the water, he swims toward the stallion. The Stallion had its head above the water, and its ropes caught in the propeller. Alec swims over & cuts the rope, freeing the stallion Alec manages to grab hold of the ropes of the stallion's restraints just as the ship explodes, rendering him unconscious. Only Alec and the Stallion survived. Alec wakes on the shore of a deserted island (with his Bucephalus figurine and the pocketknife) and starts to explore. Finding a cave, he makes a fire and starts catching fish. He eventually discovers he is not alone as the horse had also survived and was trapped with its ropes caught on some rocks. At first the frightened animal is wary of Alec, but he gets close enough to cut the ropes and free the horse, which shakes off the ropes & flees. Alec follows the horse's tracks, but they vanish in the sand. For a time, the two keep their distance. Alec discovers means to survive by catching fish (with his hunting knife, fashioned into a spear) and seaweed. As Alec suddenly faces a cobra eye to eye. Alec, frozen with fear, tries to back away, but the snake hisses more aggressively. The stallion comes to the rescue and kills the snake with its hooves, only to run off again. By now, Alec decides to try to get closer to the horse and offer him some seaweed. The hungry stallion finds himself unable to resist, but visibly struggles with his distrust for humans. Eventually, the hunger wins, and he takes Alec's offer; their bond has been sealed and the two are now inseparable. Together, they enjoy the pristine beauty of the island. Alec even manages to ride the unbroken horse, after many times falling off the horse. One day, a fishing ship arrives, rescuing both Alec and the stallion (the sailors take Alec forcibly and the horse follows him through the water). Alec refuses to leave without his beloved animal, and the horse refuses to let Alec go. The men on the rescue boat tether the horse and help the animal to a larger ship, and Alec & the horse are on their way home to America. Back home in America, Alec is given a hero's welcome. Alec's mother is enormously relieved her son is alive but also grieving the loss of her husband and expresses her thanks to the stallion for saving his life. The stallion has a temporary home in Alec's back yard. A garbage man not knowing that there is a wild horse in the back yard is chased by the stallion (who was scared looking at the hat on the head of the garbage man, which looked very much alike to the headgear worn by the stallion Arab master), who races off down the street after being spooked by a passing car. Alec chases after him through every part of town but loses track of him. The next day, Alec meets Snoe (Clarence Muse) (and his horse Napoleon) who tell him where the stallion is. Alec finds the stallion in the barn of Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney), a retired racehorse jockey, who apparently spent all night catching the stallion. Alec arranges for the stallion to stay at the barn in exchange for cleaning his stables. One day Alec finds all of Henry's trophies and convinces him to train the stallion and him. Henry is not entirely on-board as the stallion is a desert horse and has no US papers. The two of them, along with the stallion, undergo frequent, rigorous training in riding and saddling a horse. At first the stallion is reluctant to allow a saddle but eventually becomes used to it, and soon Alec & the stallion are making runs on a racetrack. When Alec wonders how fast the stallion is, Alec and Henry decide to train the stallion for the racetrack, while Henry teaches Alec how to be a jockey. The stallion surprises Henry with his speed. Henry maintains complete secrecy around the stallion even when on training runs around the racetrack. Henry immediately starts plotting a plan to get the stallion into the match race between the country's current two champions, which is set on a few months out. To do that, he sets up a secret demonstration at night where the press led by Jim Neville (Michael Higgins) can witness his speed (it was pelting down and with a strong headwind), keeping the identity of Alec and the stallion secret. Soon, promotions about the upcoming challenge are sprouting up everywhere, and even Alec's mother takes notice. The news spreads about the mystery horse and the stallion is entered into the race. However, Alec's mother (Teri Garr) disapproves of this, fearing that her son would be taking a huge risk as a jockey. She fears the worst after losing her husband. After talking with Henry and Alec again, though, Alec reveals the carving of Bucephalus and how he got it - and when. His mother relents & allows Alec to ride the stallion in the challenge. The race is the most anticipated horse-racing event of the year. Before the two champions and the stallion enter the starting gate, the stallion gets into a fight with one of his opponents, wounding his leg. Alec does not see the wound until he is in the gate. As he dismounts, the bell rings and the horses take off. Alec desperately tries to stay on his horse and trying to stop him. He falls behind, but the stallion won't stop. When Alec regains his balance, the stallion is well on his way to catch up with his opponents. Alec now encourages the stallion to run as fast as he can, remembering the wild rides on the island, as they catch up. The stallion eventually wins by two lengths.

Power repairman Roy Neary has an extraordinary encounter with a strange spacecraft while out on a call. His life changes when he decides to search for an explanation.

Jerry Landers (John Denver), an assistant manager at a Food World grocery store in Burbank, California, receives a letter at his home after work summoning him to a meeting with God the following day. Jerry and his wife, Bobbie (Terri Garr), dismiss it as a practical joke and he tears the note up and throws it away. However, the next day, the note turns up in a head of lettuce at the store and Jerry feels compelled to honor the request. Jerry goes to the appointment meeting place in downtown Los Angeles, California, and finds an office with nothing but a chair and an intercom. He is greeted by a voice on the intercom. The voice attempts to convince the dubious Jerry that He really is God by demonstrating that Jerry is on the 27th floor of a building that actually has only 17 floors. After Jerry leaves the building completely spooked, the voice begins talking to him through Jerry's supposedly broken car radio. God informs Jerry that He wants him to spread the word that God exists. At home, Jerry tells his wife all about the meeting and encounter. But naturally Bobbie does not believe Jerry and suggests that they go on vacation and visit his brother-in-law, who is a therapist, but Jerry insists that he is not crazy, which fuels her suspicions about Jerry and his mental health. The following day, God speaks to Jerry in the shower and then appears to him in the guise of an elderly man (George Burns). When Jerry asks him how He can permit so much suffering in the world, God explains that the world is based on luck and free will. God tells Jerry that it is up to him to inform the world to heed His message, treat one another better, and look after the Earth's natural resources. God urges him to go to the press. Jerry visits Briggs (George Furth), a Los Angeles Times reporter, that God asked him to be His messenger, but the journalist is skeptical. Later, God appears to Jerry at the grocery store and asks him to go for a drive. Jerry asks for a sign and God makes it rain inside the car. When Jerry is pulled over by a policeman to inquire about the water leaking from the moving car, Jerry lies to the motorcycle cop by claiming that he left the car windows down while driving through a car wash. After the policeman lets Jerry go with a warning, God is somewhat disappointed that Jerry lied to the policeman to avoid getting in trouble and insists that Jerry spread His word with truth and no more lies. Jerry returns to the newspaper office (still soaking wet) and again tries to convince Briggs. The next day, the newspaper runs a story that includes Jerry among tales of various religious fanatics and Bobbie is mortified. Jerry explains that he has now seen God and needs her to believe him. She allows that Jerry believes that he spoke to God, and they attempt to explain the situation to their children, Adam and Becky, but the boy and girl hope their father is just going through a phase and also think that he may be crazy. Later, a television news program picks up the story and the media surrounds the Landers' Tarzana, California, home. A Food World executive warns Jerry not to make any more claims that he has spoken to God if he wants to keep his job. In another meeting, God tells Jerry that there are no guarantees in life, and his job is a small price to pay for saving the world. When Jerry picks up Adam at school, his son is embarrassed to be seen with him, and Becky refuses to speak to him as well. At home, Bobbie pleads with Jerry not to jeopardize his career or their lives, as their neighbors are now avoiding her. Later, Jerry appears as a guest on the Dinah Shore Show, on which a Los Angeles Police Department sketch artist produces a drawing of God based on Jerry's description. After the show airs, people begin to recognize Jerry wherever he goes. Bobbie is extremely upset when a crowd of religious zealots gathers outside the Landers' house. A committee of religious leaders of various faiths calls Jerry before them to verify his story. The committee sequesters Jerry in a hotel with 50 questions written in ancient Aramaic, which he is to answer with God's help. God appears as a room service waiter, dictates the answers to Jerry and instructs him to take them directly to Reverend Willie Williams (Paul Sorvino), an evangelical preacher, whom God calls a fraud. Jerry attends Reverend Williams' revival meeting at the Shrine Auditorium and tells Williams' followers what God said, which leads to a riot at the auditorium and Jerry getting thrown out by the hostile bouncers. Reverend Williams then sues Jerry for slander. In court, Jerry acts as his own attorney and calls God to the witness stand. The judge threatens Jerry with contempt of court, but God enters the courtroom and testifies. Everyone in court can see and hear Him and He performs a card trick and makes himself disappear to prove his legitimacy; however, when the audio recording made by the court clerk is played back, God's voice cannot be heard and His testimony has disappeared from the stenographer's transcription. The judge dismisses the slander charge against Jerry, but rules that there is no evidence that God appeared despite their mutual experience of the phenomena. Nevertheless, Jerry and Bobbie reconcile as she now believes him and his encounters with God. As the film comes to an end, Jerry loses his job at Food World, collects his final paycheck, and says goodbye to his co-workers. As he drives away, Jerry hears a pay phone ringing in a park and stops to answer it. God materializes in the adjacent phone booth. Jerry asks if they failed to spread His message due to him losing his job and all of his friends and neighbors still ostracizing him. God assures Jerry that they succeeded in getting His word out and now they just have to see what happens. With Jerry's work complete, God bids him good-bye and fades away.

In 1924, Estie comes to Hollywood to become an actress but the dog that followed her becomes the star. Hollywood has its own rules of success.

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a prominent private surveillance expert in San Francisco, has been hired by the CEO (Robert Duvall, known throughout simply as the director) of a large, unnamed company to follow and record a conversation between the director's wife, Ann (Cindy Williams) and her suspected lover, Mark (Frederic Forrest), who's a major executive at the company. Using three separate microphones and two cameras, Harry and associates follow the couple on a seemingly casual walk in Union Square, where the director suspects they go to talk without, they think, the possibility of being surveilled. Later, in his lab, Harry laboriously reconstructs their conversation, which clearly indicates the two are in a relationship, which seems about to be consummated again the following Sunday at 3 pm at a room in the Jack Tar Hotel. He obsessively homes in on a particularly hard-to-hear sentence Mark whispers in Ann's ear, and eventually, with the aid of a complex state-of-the-art electronic board of his own invention, pieces together what Mark whispered: "He'd kill us if he had the chance." Harry is secretive and paranoid (not totally without reason). He alienates his assistant, Stan (John Cazale), because Harry won't teach him more about audio surveillance nor share the details of his cases, and his girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr), because he won't open up to her. A deeply religious man, his guilt over a previous case he conducted for the U.S. Justice Department that resulted in the death of a mafia accountant and his wife and child makes him fear that his work will again lead to the death of innocents, and he refuses to deliver the tape or its contents to the director's assistant, Martin Stett (a very young Harrison Ford). Amy breaks up with Harry, and he goes off to attend a surveillance convention at which he's a featured guest. There he spots Martin, whom he accuses of following him. Martin says he's just delivering a message: give up the tape. Harry discovers that Stan has overnight gone to work for Bernie Moran (Alan Garfield), a Detroit-based surveillance-device inventor looking to acquire the rights to Harry's celebrated electronic surveillance inventions. Bernie demonstrates a device he sells that turns any telephone into a live remote microphone. Harry pooh-poohs the device to Stan, and persuades him to come back and work for him. He invites Moran, Stan, and four other friends from the convention back to his lab for a party. Moran's sexy (but aging) product demonstrator Meredith (Elizabeth McRae) flirts brazenly with Harry, and in a tëte-a-tëte outside the lab he opens up to her about his troubles with Amy. Back in the lab, Stan gets Harry to explain his sophisticated surveillance method for the Union Square conversation. Harry is drunk and exuberant, but his mood is broken when Bernie reveals that he successfully planted a pen mike on Harry and plays back the very private conversation with Meredith. Harry is outraged and kicks everybody out. Meredith stays and sleeps with him on the small bed in the lab. Harry dreams that he's pursuing Ann through fog, telling her about how he nearly died from a childhood disease and warning her that her husband plans to kill her. "I'm not afraid of death," he tells her as she disappears in the mist, "but I am afraid of murder." When Harry awakens in the morning, he discovers that Meredith is gone, along with the composite tape, and the original individual tapes. He tries unsuccessfully to reach the director from a pay phone, then hurries home. Harry has told everyone that he doesn't have a telephone and is shocked when Martin calls him right back. Martin tells him that it was he who hired Meredith to take the tapes, and that he's delivered them to the director. Martin instructs him to come to the corporate office to pick up his $15,000 cash fee. When Harry complies, he finds the director listening to the tape in disbelief, which is turning, as he feared, quickly to anger. The upset director curtly dismisses Harry, telling. him to "please go count your money somewhere else." At the appointed time, Harry goes to the Jack Tar Hotel assignation Ann and Mark mentioned, takes an adjoining room, and inserts a microphone through a hole he drills in the bathroom wall to listen in. He hears the director yelling at Ann, followed by confusing shouting, and rushes to the balcony, where he sees bloody hands slap up against the glass partition. Terrified, he collapses in his room, and falls asleep, curled up like a fetus. (Some commentators wondering about his unusual last name note that the gray, semi-transparent raincoat Harry Caul sports throughout the movie eerily resembles the caul, a membrane that protects a baby in the womb.) Upon reviving, he breaks into the room Mark and Ann had rented. The room has been completely cleaned and restored to rentable status. In the bathroom, he inspects the covered-with-a-"sanitized"-label toilet, and hesitantly lifts the lid. It's immaculate inside, to his visceral relief. But when he flushes it, bloody water wells up and gushes surreally and relentlessly onto the floor. Harry goes to see the director but is forcibly ejected by guards before he can even get past the first floor. On the street, he spies a waiting limo which he expects to be occupied by the director. But it's Ann inside. He passes a newspaper box and sees that the headline story reveals the death of the director in a car accident. Suddenly he revisualizes the central line from the conversation, "He'd kill us if he had the chance," and realizes that because of his sympathy for Ann and Mark, he'd misapplied his modulator to emphasize the word "kill", and suppress the real emphasis that was on the word "us". The whisper wasn't about Mark's fears, but was instead a justification for the director's planned murder that they had been finalizing in the conversation. Ann now controls the company. Later, as Ann, Mark and Martin try to escape reporters pestering them about the director's death and the company's future, they spot Harry in the crowd. He runs. Back in his apartment, Harry sits and stews, and goes into his habitual form of meditation, playing a saxophone in accompaniment to a jazz record. His phone rings, but no one seems to be on the other end. He hangs up and resumes playing. It rings again; this time Martin is on the other end and warns him that he, Ann and Mark know that he has figured out what happened, and that they will be watching him. Martin then plays back a recording of Harry's record and sax playing from seconds before. Harry methodically tears apart his apartment looking for the bug, which he can't unearth (even in the phone, à la Bernie's device). He may be a widely celebrated surveillance expert, but he's got nothing on these guys. Exhausted, he resignedly goes back to playing his sax amidst the ruins of his apartment.