William Demarest

Caught in a snowstorm, a Calcutta-to-Paris flight crashes in the Swiss Alps. When the aircraft is spotted by an observation plane atop Bald Mountain, the airline organizes a rescue party to search for survivors. The townspeople of the local village advise Rivial, an airline official, to seek the counsel of Zachary Teller, a retired mountain guide who now tends sheep and takes care of his troubled younger brother Chris. Zachary warns Solange, the head of the rescue expedition, that the sheer south side of the mountain is the only possible way to the top of Bald Mountain in winter, though it is a much longer climb than the northern route. Zachary is then asked to lead the rescue party, but declines, as his last expedition up the mountain ended in an English tourist's death. The next day, Zachary's close friend Servoz is killed trying to guide the expedition up the north face. Learning that the airline has abandoned the rescue mission, Chris asks Zachary to lead him up the mountain in order to recover the money, gold and other valuables of the dead passengers. When his older brother refuses, Chris threatens to attempt the dangerous trek alone, so Zachary relents. The next morning, the two brothers begin their assent of Bald Mountain. They soon reach a sheer section of the mountain, the same location where the English tourist was killed. Despite Zachary's trepidation, the two successfully scale the difficult section, but the inexperienced and exhausted Chris later falls while attempting to climb a cliff. Securely held by his rope, Chris is pulled to safety by Zachary. The younger Teller then insists that they quit the climb, but Zachay assures him that the worst is over, as they should reach the mountain's peak by noon. Though Chris still dreams of the riches that await them, Zachary now proudly sees the climb as an accomplishment, for no one has ever successfully ascended Bald Mountain in winter. Reaching the crash site, however, Zachary's pride quickly turns to shame, as Chris gleefully strips the dead of their valuables. Inside the wrecked plane, the brothers find a young Hindu girl, the sole survivor of the crash. While Chris shows little interest in the girl, other than her diamond nose ring, Zachary nurses her throughout the night. Chris insists that they leave the girl behind, so that no one will know the origins of their newfound riches, but Zachary builds a sled in which to take the young Hindu down the mountain. Insane with greed, Chris attempts to strangle the girl, only to be fought off by his older brother. The next morning, Zachary and the Hindu girl head down the mountain, with Chris, weighed down by his ill-gotten booty, struggling behind them. Despite his brother's warnings, Chris attempts to cross an insecure snow bridge and plummets thousands of feet to his death. At his village, a bereaved Zachary claims that it was his idea to rob the plane, stating that he forced Chris to go along with him and that Chris really saved the Hindu girl. Though no one believes him, Zachary insists that Solange write down his version in his report to the airline. As Zachary heads home with Marie, a widow who has proposed to him on numerous occasions, Solange tears up his report. Father Belacchi, the village priest, tells the old mountaineer that he had never heard him lie before and insists that Zachary attend the upcoming Sunday Mass in order to be forgiven for that sin.

After purchasing Louisiana from France, the USA sends surveyors Lewis and Clark, assisted by a Shoshone guide, to chart the new territory. United States has just acquired Louisiana from France. An expedition led by Lewis and Clark is sent to survey the territory and go where no white man has gone before. Are they able to overcome the dangers with the help of Sacajawea? —Timo Lamminjoki <lamminjo@pcu.helsinki.fi>

The year is 1863. The Civil War still rages. Far off in the Arizona desert, captured Confederate soldiers are being held at Fort Bravo by their Union captors. Surrounding them all is the monumental, inhospitable terrain and the implacably hostile Mescalero Apaches. Captain Roper (William Holden) of the US Army drags an escaped Confederate prisoner named Bailey back to the fort on a rope behind his horse. As they enter the grounds, the prisoners in the stockade resentfully glare at Roper. Roper tells his commanding officer that the man had ridden his horse until it gave out and left it to die, then fled on foot before being ridden down. Roper finds that his brutal tactics are unpopular with his commanding officer, his second-in-command Lieutenant Beecher (Richard Anderson), and the post's doctor. The post commander pointedly reminds Roper that the prisoners nearly outnumber the garrison. Roper admits that his actions are designed to intimidate the restless prisoners and keep them in check. Confederate Captain Marsh (John Forsythe) asks Roper for permission to see Bailey, which Roper grants. The young man is in a bad way, exhausted and dehydrated. He apologizes for his foolhardy solo escape attempt but couldn't wait for the pending larger attempt. Some of the more aggressive prisoners question Marsh's delay in staging a larger escape. Roper leads a mounted patrol into the desert to locate an overdue supply convoy carrying rifles to the fort. They find the wagons overturned and burned, the drivers tortured to death on ant mounds. As the slain men are being laid to rest, Roper notices smoke and mirror signals in the distance. An attack is imminent. On the return to the Fort they are ambushed and Beecher takes an arrow to the shoulder as the surprise attack commences. The Mescaleros wheel around the surrounded troopers, inflicting and incurring several casualties. The Apaches soon retreat into the distance and the patrol heads out to the nearest water hole. As night falls, the soldiers make camp and almost immediately hear gunfire. A band of Apaches is pursuing a stagecoach through the desert, with both the shotgun guard and a passenger returning fire. Roper' sends his men to intervene and drive off the attackers. The stagecoach is escorted to the camp, where the beautiful Carla Forester (Eleanor Parker) alights and introduces herself to Roper. She explains that she was on her way to Fort Bravo to see the colonel and his engaged daughter who is soon to be married to Lt. Beecher. Carla dresses Beecher's wound and explains that she went to school with the colonel's daughter, Alice (Polly Bergen). The next evening, sparks fly between the aggressively flirtatious Carla and an amused Captain Roper as she escorts him to his quarters. He agrees to accompany her, when asked, to the post dance the next evening. At the dance, Carla expresses surprise that a pair of Confederate officers have been permitted to attend. One of them is Captain Marsh, who gallantly asks her to dance with him. As they dance closely together, it is revealed that they are in fact lovers, and she has come to the fort to aid in his escape. The breakout is planned for the night of Lt. Beecher's wedding to Alice. Following the dance, Roper takes Carla to see his prized rose garden on the way back to her quarters. Surprised by this softer side of the stern captain, she asks about his late father. He slowly starts to reveal a human side as he falls for her. The next day, Carla and Alice depart for a nearby town to shop for a wedding dress. Roper unexpectedly and inconveniently volunteers to accompany them. Roper and three troopers escort the carriage. In town, Roper accompanies Carla to a dry goods store run by a Mr. Watson, a Confederate sympathizer who has agreed to provide supplies for the escape attempt. While Roper is distracted, she covertly slips Watson a wad of cash and describes the clothing, provisions, horses, and guns that will be required. Watson is to prepare the supplies and on the night of the wedding conceal the escapees in his wagon to leave the fort. After returning to the fort, Roper accompanies Carla on a ride into the beautiful rock formations above the fort. Roper comes on to her and embraces her. She fights him at first but then willingly submits as they kiss passionately. After Beecher and Alice's wedding, Roper tells a conflicted Carla that he in love with her, asking her to stay on and marry him. Meanwhile, the four escapees (including Marsh and Bailey) have climbed into the back of Watson's covered supply wagon. Carla tells Roper that she needs to be alone to think. After he leaves, she runs to the supply wagon and tells Marsh she is going with them. Roper pointedly questions the nervous Watson as he exits with the concealed prisoners and Carla in his wagon. The next morning, the escape is reported. Roper is stunned and bitter at Carla's deception. He is to lead a detail in pursuit of the escapees and Beecher, even though just married, is concerned about Roper's methods and forces his way onto the patrol. Bailey is captured in a saloon, as Roper has judged him to be too cowardly to ride out into the desert again. Another army patrol has been attacked and Roper sends his troops to help them and continues on with just Beecher, the Kiowa scout and Bailey. Out on the desert, Carla seems distracted, and Captain Marsh suspects that she has true feelings for Roper. Roper's pursuit group soon sneaks up on the Confederates' campsite and gets the drop on them. Marsh, upset by losing his girl, hits Roper resulting in a fistfight, with Roper winning handily. Roper gathers up his prisoners and starts back for the fort. Watching from atop the spectacular desert rock formations, the Mescaleros discover Roper's outnumbered party and attack. The group is forced to dismount and take cover in the open in a small defile. Roper arms the Rebs and they acquit themselves well, but the group is hopelessly surrounded and their Kiowa scout killed. As night falls, Bailey bolts from the ditch and flees on one of their horses which has returned. The others curse him as a coward. The following morning, the Apaches attack again, wounding Beecher and one of the Rebels. During the attack, the Apaches curiously bracket the soldiers' position by thrusting lances into the soil around their position. No one knows why. The reason soon becomes apparent as single arrows are carefully lobbed from the surrounding cliffs, registering the distance to Roper's band. Deadly volleys of arrows soon follow, cascading down onto the group. Captain Marsh, Beecher, and others are hit. Two of the Confederates desperately leap from cover to knock down the lances guiding the archers. Both are shot dead. Roper makes his own dash and finishes the task, but the end is near. As night falls, Marsh uses a gun to try to force Roper and Carla to leave together, telling Roper that she fell in love with him and now he has to save her, but Marsh collapses before they can leave. With Marsh and Beecher near death, Roper realizes that his only remaining option is to pretend the others are all dead and break cover himself to face the Apaches and hope they leave the rest to rot and move on. At dawn, he sprinkles Marsh and Beecher with dirt and tells a tearful Carla to play dead. As he walks out of the defile, with two drawn pistols, he is shot twice and collapses. Suddenly, there is a distant bugle call and the Apaches flee past him. The cavalry has arrived. Bailey was not a coward after all; he had ridden to the fort and brought help back. Roper, Carla and Beecher are saved, but it is too late for Captain Marsh, who dies after congratulating Bailey.

Remake of the movie "Broadway Bill" (1934)

Woodrow is discharged from the military for hay fever, but fabricates receiving a heroic honorable discharge before returning home. Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge. They make him wear a uniform complete with medals and is pushed by his new friends into accepting a Hero's welcome when he gets home where he is to be immortalized by a statue that he doesn't want, has songs written about his heroic battle stories, and ends up unwillingly running for mayor. Despite his best efforts to explain the truth, no one will listen. —J. Adam Ingle Woodrow LaFayette wants to join the Marines, but he's 4F. So he leaves his hometown and with friends, who send postcards from all over the war theaters, and he fakes a heroic career. This has its consequences... —Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

After an all-night send-off party for the troops, a small-town girl with an awkward boyfriend wakes up to find herself married and pregnant, but with no memory of her husband's identity. Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers, wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember--and she's pregnant. Norval Jones, the 4-F local boy who's been in love with Trudy for years, tries to help her find a way out of her predicament. Trudy complicates matters further by falling for Norval, and events snowball from there. —James Meek <james@oz.net> During World War II, the citizens of Morgan Creek are saying farewell to the enlisted men heading off to war. Trudy Kockenlocker is one of the Morgan Creek residents who feels it's her patriotic duty to give the soldiers a happy send off, this against the wishes of her stern and overprotective policeman father who forbids her to attend the farewell parties. Trudy co-opts her naïve childhood friend, bank clerk Norval Jones, to help her clandestinely go to the festivities. Norval, who so wants to enlist himself but has some medical issues preventing him from doing so, does anything Trudy asks since he loves her. The next morning, Trudy doesn't remember everything of the previous night due to an accidental bump to the head, but she does know that she got married to one of the enlisted men - she doesn't know who or even what his name is - and that the evening resulted in her getting pregnant. Trudy's pragmatic younger sister, Emmy, becomes Trudy's confidante. To get Trudy out of her predicament, they decide tricking Norval into marrying her will prevent scandal from happening. She decides she can't put Norval through this illegal action since she is falling in love with him. However once Norval finds out what's going on, he hatches a plan that he thinks is somewhat legal that will legitimize Trudy's pregnancy. When the plan backfires, Norval is arrested and Trudy's father finds out the predicament his daughter his in. Constable Kockenlocker, who loves his daughter, risks his own career to help his daughter. Ultimately, Trudy unwittingly ends up being able to save herself and the lives of all those around her. —Huggo

A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead. Department store owner J.P. Merrick finds that several of his employees are unionizing to get more money and better working conditions. In order to find out who the organizers are, he gets a job at the store as a shoe salesman. Not realizing his true identity, he's befriended by Mary Jones and Joe O'Brien, the two ringleaders, and Elizabeth Ellis, a charming older woman with whom he develops a romance. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com> J.P. Merrick, a wealthy department store owner, uses a pseudonym and takes a job at his store in order to find out who organized a union of his employees. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com> Tycoon John P. Merrick is startled to see an effigy of himself hanging on the front page of the New York Times, courtesy of union organizers at Neeley's Department Store, which Merrick didn't even know he owned. On a sudden impulse, he goes undercover there as a shoe salesman. Soon he's so involved in the lives of his fellow employees (especially one young couple and a delightful single woman his own age) as to forget his original purpose. But his two lives are on a collision course... —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets, and a minor one at that, is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, most of the employees' anger directed at Merrick, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to go undercover working at the store to mete out the rabble-rousers. Undercover as Thomas Higgins, Merrick gets assigned as a sales clerk in the shoe department, where he is taken under the caring wing of his colleague Mary Jones, who sees in Higgins a poor man needing the guidance of friends. One of those other friends is Elizabeth Ellis, who Mary sees as a possible "Mrs. Higgins". Mary's boyfriend is Joe O'Brien, the chief organizer of the employees, four hundred of whom are following Joe in the charge against the store and Merrick. At the store, Merrick not only wants the list of the four hundred, but also wants to change those things he doesn't like at the store, chief amongst those being his shoe department section manager, Mr. Hooper. But as Higgins, Merrick also begins to see things a little differently, specifically from an employee's point of view. —Huggo

Young and popular Hollywood director John Lloyd "Sully" Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is dissatisfied with the shallow comedies that he has been making, such as "Thanks for Yesterday" and "Ants in Your Plants", despite their profitability. He lets his studio boss, Mr. LeBrand (Robert Warwick), know that he wants his next project to be a dramatic exploration of the plight of the downtrodden, based on the book "O Brother, Where Art Thou?". LeBrand wants Sullivan's next project to be another lucrative comedy, but Sullivan turns it down and, wanting to "know trouble" firsthand, begins to make plans to travel as a tramp who only has ten cents in his pocket in order to be able to direct a film that presents a genuine depiction of humanity's sorrows. His British butler Mr. Burrows (Robert Greig) and his valet (Eric Blore) both question the wisdom of Sullivan's plans. Sullivan goes ahead with his plans, dressing up like a hobo and taking to the road, where he is followed by a bus containing several staff from his movie studio, an imposition made by the studio for Sullivan's safety that no one is happy with. When Sullivan hitches a ride in a whippet tank being driven by a 13-year-old boy (Payne B. Johnson) who is learning to drive it, the bus driver steps on the gas, and the two are briefly pursued by a police motorcyclist until the whippet tank and bus turn down a side road while the police bike continues along the highway. The bumpy dirt road causes chaos on the bus. Eventually, the chase ends after the whippet tank knocks the supports off a horse-drawn hay cart, causing the horse to break free and the bus to crash into the hay. After the staff recover from the crash, some of them talk to the bus driver before one of them spots Sullivan near where the whippet tank drops him off. Sullivan persuades his guardians to leave him alone and makes an arrangement to meet with them in Las Vegas later on. Sullivan finds himself working on a nearby farm run by Miz Zeffie (Esther Howard) and Ursula (Almira Sessions). While he is chopping wood, they remark on his appearance. Later, they take him to the movies. That night, Miz Zeffie allows Sullivan to sleep in a bed where her late husband had been. After she says goodnight, Sullivan finds the door locked. He explores a little further and finds someone else in another bed on the other side of the shared bathroom. In the end, he tries to escape by knotting the bed sheets together. He makes it outside, but he rips his pants on a nail as he descends, and one of the knots comes undone, sending him straight down into a water barrel. He climbs out and flees the farm before the owners discover that he has gone. Back on the road, he hitches another ride and eventually finds himself back in a part of Los Angeles that he doesn't recognize. He goes into a nearby diner, where he meets a young actress who has struggled but failed to make it in Hollywood (Veronica Lake) and is just about to give up on her dream of stardom and return to her home. Seeing Sullivan and believing that he is a penniless tramp, she buys some breakfast for him. Sullivan repays the girl's kindness by retrieving his car from his estate and offering her a ride to wherever she wants to go, but he neglects to tell his servants about his return despite thinking that he left them a note. After they discover that the car has gone missing, they report it to the police as being stolen. As Sullivan and the girl continue their conversation, they hear the wail of a siren and see two police motorcyclists following them. Despite Sullivan's insistence that there is absolutely nothing they can do, they end up in a police lock-up. It isn't long before Sullivan's butler and valet arrive and clear things up allowing Sullivan to be released, and he persuades the officers to free the girl as well. The valet drives Sullivan and the girl back to his palatial mansion, and on the way, the tramp reveals to the girl that he is actually Sullivan the movie director. While his servants cook up some ham and eggs for breakfast, Sullivan shows the girl around his home. When she finds out about his true wealth, she gets him to show her the swimming pool, and then pushes him into it. When he asks her what the big idea is, she tells him that it is for making fun of a poor girl who had only tried to help him, by his story about being a washed-up director. After she calls him a clunk, he pulls her into the pool, and they splash around just as the servants arrive with breakfast. After the meal, the girl apologizes for pushing Sullivan in the pool, and Sullivan talks about trying his plan to live like a hobo again. The girl insists that he take her with him, but he objects to the idea, even after she threatens to throw him in the water again and Mr. Burrows agrees with the girl's suggestion of accompanying Sullivan. The girl instructs Burrows to get her some tramp clothes while Sullivan requests that he go down to the station and get him a train ticket, but when the girl refuses to tell them where she is from, Sullivan gets Burrows to grab her legs and all three of them fall into the pool. The valet comes to help Burrows out, only for Burrows to pull him in too. In the end, Sullivan agrees to the girl coming with him, on the condition that she dresses up like a boy. This time, his experiment is a success, and after they have ridden in a cattle car, eaten in some soup kitchens and slept in some homeless shelters, including one where somebody steals Sullivan's shoes, Sullivan eventually decides that he has had enough. The studio publicizes the huge success of Sullivan's experiment. The girl wants to stay with Sullivan, but he reveals to her that he is married to a wife who doesn't love him, a piece of advice that he chose to take on the pretense that he would pay less tax on a joint income, which ended up backfiring severely in many ways - his joint returns have ended up being much higher than the ones he earned when he was single, his wife (Jane Buckingham) ended up having an affair with his business manager, and she would never agree to him getting a divorce. As a gesture of thanks to the homeless people for the insights that they have given him for his next film, Sullivan decides to give them several five-dollar bills. When he reaches the train yard, somebody knocks him unconscious, steals his money and shoes and drops his body into a boxcar as it departs, but as the thief tries to escape with Sullivan's money, he is run over by another train. After the would-be thief's mangled body is found, identification cards sewn into the stolen shoes lead to the deceased thief being identified as John Sullivan. Sullivan regains consciousness in another city and with no memory about who he is or how he came to be where he is. He is discovered by a yard bull (Emory Parnell) who accosts him for trespassing in the rail yard. Still in a dazed state, Sullivan hits the yard bull with a rock, and as a result is convicted for assault and battery and sentenced to six years hard labor in a work camp. While he is working in the camp, Sullivan's memory gradually starts to come back to him. While he is there, he and the prisoners are given a special treat by being shown the Walt Disney cartoon Playful Pluto (1934), and he is surprised to find himself laughing along with the other prisoners. Sullivan is unable to either convince anybody else that he is John Sullivan or make any form of communication with the outside world, but when he sees an old newspaper with a front-page story about the unsolved mystery of "his" killing, he finds a way to solve his problems by confessing that he is the man who murdered John Sullivan. The next edition of the newspaper is printed with his face on the front page, and someone in the outside world recognizes him and makes arrangements for his release. He discovers that his wife, presuming that she is now a widow, has married his business manager, which means that if she still refuses to grant him a divorce, he will have her charged with bigamy. Back at the studio, Mr. LeBrand gives Sullivan the green light to start shooting the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" movie, but Sullivan tells LeBrand that he has changed his mind and the next movie he wants to make now is a comedy, as a result of him seeing firsthand just how much joy such movies have brought to the downtrodden people.

A trio of classy card sharks targets a socially awkward brewery heir, until one of them falls in love with him. Returning from a year up the Amazon studying snakes, the rich but unsophisticated Charles Pike meets con artist Jean Harrington on a ship. They fall in love, but a misunderstanding causes them to split on bad terms. To get back at him, Jean disguises herself as an English lady, and comes back to tease and torment him. —John Oswalt <jao@jao.com> After one year in Amazon researching snakes, the naive ophidiologist Charles Pike returns to the United States in a transatlantic. Charles is the son of the Connecticut's brewery millionaire Mr. Pike and disputed by gold diggers. The swindlers Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck), her father "Colonel" Harrington and their friend Gerald plan a confidence trick on Charles, but unexpectedly Jean falls in love with Charles and she calls off the scheme. However Charles's bodyguard Muggsy discovers that Jean is a con-artist and the disappointed Charles leaves Jean. Sometime later, in New York, the trio of con-artists meets their friend "Sir" Alfred McGlennan Keith in the horse races and they learn that "Sir" Alfred belonged to the high-society of Connecticut based on the reputation he had built. Jean sees the opportunity to take revenge at Charles, and she travels to the house of her "aunt" pretending to be the British noble Lady Eve. Mr. Pike promotes a party for Lady Eve and she seduces Charles that proposes her. But her intention is to get even with Charles. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Charles Pike, heir to the Pike brewing fortune, is a shy man who would much rather read a book than interact with people. While returning home from a scientific expedition in South America, he meets the lovely Jean Harrington. Unbeknownst to him however is the fact that Jean is part of a trio of cardsharps who travel on ocean liners looking for men just like him to give up his money. As they spend time together they soon fall in love and she is determined to protect him from her colleagues. Charles' bodyguard smells a rat and when he gets proof that Jean is a con artist, Charles breaks off the relationship. Jean now sets her sights on revenge and once back home, poses as the English Lady Eve to confuse and confound the innocent Charles. —garykmcd

Trouble-prone Billy Peck and his gang descend on a traveling circus that has just hit town, and before long their antics are causing the circus owner all kinds of problems. Bill Peck (Tommy Kelly) receives ten dollars from his parents for railroad fare to summer camp where he is to defend his trophy cup in a cross-country obstacle race. But he is forced to spend his money for tickets to a circus that comes to town. In revenge, he feed his mother's sleeping pills to the circus lions. Arthur Bailey (Edgar Kennedy, the lion tamer, swears vengeance on the one responsible. His money gone, Bill hitch-hikes a ride to the camp with the circus. A puppy-love romance develops between Bill and Fleurette de Cava, ten-year old bareback rider. During rehearsals, Fleurette sprains an an ankle, and she must appear for the next performance or have her contract cancelled. Bailey suggests that Bill wear a wig and substitute for Fleurette. Bailey volunteers to guide Bill with a wire---one end fastened around Bill's waist and the other strung through a revolving pulley controlled by Bailey. Just as the act begins, Bailey learns that Bill ruined his lion-act. He gets his revenge manipulating the wire so that Bill spins through the air in a series of ludicrous poses, which causes the audience to howl with laughter and make Bill a comedy success. Bailey, really soft-hearted, finally forgives Bill. But, Bill is still miles from the summer camp and has only thirty minutes to get there. Baily and Bill requisition a circus racing chariot and take a thrilling short-cut over the mountains. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>