In 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war, led by Colonel Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. U.S. Navy Commander Shears tells Nicholson that the camp conditions are horrific. Nicholson forbids any escape attempts because headquarters ordered them to surrender. Also, the dense surrounding jungle renders escape virtually impossible.
Colonel Saito, the camp commandant, informs the new prisoners they will construct a railway bridge over the River Kwai connecting Bangkok and Rangoon. Nicholson objects, citing the Geneva Convention exempting officers from manual labour. Saito threatens to have the officers shot, until Major Clipton, the British medical officer, warns there are too many witnesses. The officers are left standing in the intense heat until evening when Saito then confines them to a punishment hut. Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box.
Meanwhile, Shears and two other prisoners escape. Shears is wounded and wanders into a Burmese village, where he is nursed back to health. He eventually reaches the British colony of Ceylon.
The bridge construction proceeds badly due to faulty Japanese engineering and the prisoners' slow pace and sabotage. Saito is required to commit ritual suicide if the completion deadline is unmet. Desperate, he releases Nicholson and his officers, exempting them from manual labour. Nicholson, shocked by the poor job his men have done, orders building a proper bridge. He considers it a tribute to the British Army's ingenuity but Clipton argues it is collaboration with the enemy. Nicholson's obsession with the bridge drives him to allow officers to voluntarily work on the project.
Shears is convalescing in Ceylon near a commando school referred to as "Force 316". Major Warden wants to recruit Shears for a commando mission to destroy the bridge. Shears refuses only to discover he has been temporarily transferred to the British military and has no choice.
Warden, Shears, and two other commandos—Chapman and Joyce—parachute into Thailand. Chapman is killed during the jump, and Warden is wounded in an encounter with a Japanese patrol. Khun Yai, a village chief, and a group of Siamese women lead Warden, Shears, and Joyce to the river. Under cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce plant explosives on the bridge towers. The first train to cross the bridge is scheduled for the following day, and Warden wants to destroy both. By daybreak, however, the river level has dropped, exposing the wire leading to the detonator.
Nicholson spots the wire, and he and Saito investigate the riverbank as the train approaches. Nicholson pulls up the wire on the riverbank, leading them toward Joyce, who is manning the detonator. Joyce breaks cover and stabs Saito to death. Nicholson inexplicably calls to Japanese soldiers for help and attempts to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Joyce is shot and Shears swims across the river to detonate the explosives, but he is wounded. Recognizing Shears, Nicholson comes to his senses and realizes what he has done.
Warden fires a mortar, killing Shears and Joyce and fatally wounding Nicholson. Nicholson falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge, and the train hurtles into the river. Warden leaves with the Siamese women. Witnessing the carnage, Clipton exclaims, "Madness! ... Madness!"
In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and Nazi German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and thieves who steal from gullible refugees. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.
Petty crook Ugarte tells Rick about letters of transit he obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club and persuades Rick to hold them for him. Before he can meet his contact, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that Rick has the letters.
Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader, enters the club. He is accompanied by his wife, Ilsa Lund; unbeknownst to Victor, Ilsa is Rick's former lover. Ilsa asks the club's pianist, Sam, to play "As Time Goes By", a song he used to play for her and Rick. Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order never to perform that song again, and is stunned to see Ilsa. A flashback reveals Ilsa left Rick without explanation when the couple were planning to flee as the German army neared Paris; Ilsa's sudden departure embittered Rick. German Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to prevent Victor and Ilsa from leaving the city.
Victor and Ilsa ask Signor Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, if he can procure exit visas for them. Ferrari tells them of his suspicion that Rick has Ugarte's letters of transit. Victor returns to Rick's café that night and tries to buy the letters. Rick refuses Victor's offer; when Victor asks why, Rick responds, "I suggest that you ask your wife." Strasser leads a group of German officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Victor orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". Rick gives his approval to the band, and Victor begins to sing. The majority of club patrons join in, drowning out the Germans' song. Afterwards, Strasser forces Renault to close the club on a flimsy pretext.
Later, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café; when he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun but confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when she met Rick in Paris in 1940, she believed Victor had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. When she learned Victor was alive but ill, she left Rick to nurse her sick husband. Rick agrees to help Ilsa, letting her believe she will stay with him when Victor leaves. When Victor unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick tells Carl, a waiter at the club, to take Ilsa home. Victor, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety.
When the police arrest Victor on a trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release Victor by promising to set Victor up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will use the letters to leave for America. When Renault tries to arrest Victor as arranged, however, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the airport, Rick convinces Ilsa to board the plane to Lisbon with Victor, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Strasser, tipped off by Renault, arrives at the airport. When Strasser attempts to stop the plane, Rick shoots him dead. After policemen arrive, Renault tells them, "Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects." Renault suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. Rick responds, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
In 1943, the Axis powers plan an assault on the island of Kheros, where 2,000 British soldiers are marooned, to display their military strength and convince neutral Turkey to join them. Rescue by the Royal Navy is prevented by two massive radar-directed large-calibre guns on (fictional) nearby Navarone Island. When aerial bombing efforts fail, Allied Intelligence gathers a commando unit to infiltrate Navarone and destroy the guns. Led by Major Roy Franklin, the team is composed of Captain Keith Mallory, a renowned spy and an officer with the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG); Colonel Andrea Stavros from the Greek Army; Franklin's best friend Corporal Miller, an explosives expert and former chemistry professor; Greco-American Spyros Pappadimos, a native of Navarone; and "The Butcher of Barcelona" Brown, an engineer and expert knife fighter.
Disguised as Greek fishermen on a decrepit fishing vessel, they sail across the Aegean Sea, where they successfully overwhelm the crew of a German patrol boat intercepting them. Later in the voyage, Mallory confides to Franklin that Stavros had sworn to kill him after the war because Mallory was inadvertently responsible for the deaths of Stavros's wife and children. After being shipwrecked on the coast of Navarone during a storm, the experienced mountaineer Mallory leads the team in a climb up the cliff, during which Franklin badly injures his leg. While taking shelter in the mountains, Mallory stops Franklin from killing himself and lies to him that their mission has been scrubbed, and that a major naval attack will be mounted on the coast instead. They rendezvous with two local resistance fighters, Spyros' sister Maria and her friend Anna, who was once captured and tortured by the Germans before escaping.
German soldiers continually dog the mission. The group is eventually captured in the town of Mandrakos by Oberleutnant Muesel while trying to find a doctor for Franklin (whose leg is infected with gangrene). While being interrogated by SS Hauptsturmführer Sessler, Stavros distracts the Germans and the team overpower their captors. They escape in German uniforms, leaving Franklin behind to receive medical attention. In due course, Franklin is injected with scopolamine and gives up Mallory's misinformation, as Mallory had hoped. Most forces leave the fortress to counter the expected coastal attack. Upon infiltrating the village of Navarone, however, Miller discovers most of his explosives have been sabotaged and deduces that Anna is the culprit. She confesses that she did not escape but that the Germans recruited her as an informer in exchange for her release. Mallory reluctantly prepares to execute Anna to prevent detection, but Maria intervenes instead and shoots her dead.
The team splits up: Mallory and Miller go for the guns, Stavros and Spyros create distractions in town (assisted by local residents), and Maria and Brown steal a boat for their escape. Spyros dies in a shootout with a German officer, and Brown is stabbed during the boat theft due to his reluctance to kill a guard. Meanwhile, Mallory and Miller infiltrate the gun emplacement but set off an alarm when they seal the doors behind them. Miller plants explosives on the guns and prepares a large booby trap below an ammunition hoist, with a trigger device set into the track of the hoist. The Germans eventually force entry into the gun emplacement and defuse the explosives planted on the guns; meanwhile, Mallory and Miller make their escape down the cliff and are picked up from the sea by the stolen boat. A wounded Stavros is also able to reach the sea and is helped aboard by Mallory, thus resolving the blood feud between them.
As the Allied destroyers trying to rescue the trapped British troops appear, the Germans open fire at them. When the hoist eventually reaches Miller's trigger, the hidden explosives set off the surrounding shells in a massive explosion, totally destroying the guns and the entire fortress. Mallory's team safely reaches the British convoy. However, Stavros shakes Mallory's hand and decides to return to Navarone with Maria, with whom he has fallen in love. Mallory and Miller, returning home, observe the aftermath of their success from a destroyer.
On the Western Front in 1918, a Jewish soldier fighting for the Central Powers nation of Tomainia[8] valiantly saves the life of a wounded pilot, Commander Schultz, who carries valuable documents that could secure a Tomainian victory. However, after running out of fuel, their plane crashes into a tree and the soldier subsequently suffers memory loss. Upon being rescued, Schultz is informed that Tomainia has officially surrendered to the Allied Forces, while the Jewish soldier is carried off to a hospital.
Twenty years later, still suffering from amnesia, the Jewish soldier returns to his previous profession as a barber in a ghetto. The ghetto is now governed by Schultz who has been promoted in the Tomainian regime, which now transformed into a dictatorship under the ruthless Adenoid Hynkel.
The barber falls in love with a neighbor, Hannah, and together they try to resist persecution by military forces. The stormtroopers capture the barber and are about to kill him, but Schultz recognizes him and restrains them. By recognizing him, and reminding him of World War I, Schultz helps the barber regain his memory.
Meanwhile, Hynkel tries to finance his ever-growing military forces by borrowing money from a Jewish banker called Hermann Epstein, leading to a temporary ease on the restrictions on the ghetto. However, ultimately the banker refuses to lend him the money. Furious, Hynkel orders a purge of the Jews. Schultz protests against this inhumane policy and is sent to a concentration camp. He escapes and hides in the ghetto with the barber. Schultz tries to persuade the Jewish family to assassinate Hynkel in a suicide attack, but they are dissuaded by Hannah. Troops search the ghetto, arrest Schultz and the barber, and send both to a concentration camp. Hannah and her family flee to freedom at a vineyard in the neighboring country of Osterlich.
Hynkel has a dispute with the dictator of the nation of Bacteria, Benzino Napaloni, over which country should invade Osterlich. The two dictators argue over a treaty to govern the invasion, while dining together at an elaborate buffet, which happens to provide a jar of English mustard. The quarrel becomes heated and descends into a food fight, which is only resolved when both men eat the hot mustard and are shocked into cooperating. After signing the treaty with Napaloni, Hynkel orders the invasion of Osterlich. Hannah and her family are trapped by the invading force and beaten by a squad of arriving soldiers.
Escaping from the camp in stolen uniforms, Schultz and the barber, dressed as Hynkel, arrive at the Osterlich frontier, where a victory parade crowd is waiting to be addressed by Hynkel. The real Hynkel is mistaken for the barber while out duck hunting in civilian clothes and is knocked out and taken to the camp. Schultz tells the barber to go to the platform and impersonate Hynkel, as the only way to save their lives once they reach Osterlich's capital. The barber has never given a public speech in his life, but he has no other choice. He announces that he (as Hynkel) has had a change of heart, he makes an impassioned speech for brotherhood and goodwill, encouraging soldiers to fight for liberty, and unite the people in the name of democracy.
He then addresses a message of hope to Hannah: "Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us." Hannah hears the barber's voice on the radio. She turns toward the rising sunlight, and says to her fellows: "Listen."
Maxim de Winter stands at a cliff edge, seemingly contemplating jumping. A young woman shouts at him to stop him in his tracks, but he curtly asks her to walk on.
Later, at Monte Carlo on the French Riviera, the same young woman is staying with her pompous old traveling companion, Mrs. Van Hopper. She again encounters the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter, looking much more debonair. They are attracted to each other, and although Van Hopper tells her he is still tormented by thoughts of his dead wife, Rebecca, who we are told drowned in the sea near Manderley, she soon becomes the second Mrs. de Winter.
Maxim takes his new bride back to Manderley, his grand mansion by the sea in southwestern England. It is dominated by its housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. She is a chilly individual who had been a confidante of the first Mrs. de Winter, whose death she has not forgotten. She has even preserved Rebecca's grand bedroom suite unchanged, and displays various items that carry her monogram.
Eventually, constant reminders of Rebecca's glamour and sophistication convince the new Mrs. de Winter that Maxim is still in love with his first wife, which could explain his irrational outbursts of anger. She tries to please her husband by holding a costume party as he and Rebecca had done. Danvers suggests she copy the dress that one of Maxim's ancestors is seen wearing in a portrait. However, when she appears in the costume, Maxim is appalled as Rebecca had worn an identical dress at her last ball, just before her death.
When Mrs. de Winter confronts Danvers about this, Danvers tells her she can never take Rebecca's place and tries to persuade her to jump to her death from the second-story window of Rebecca's room. At that moment, however, the alarm is raised because a ship has run aground due to the fog and, during the rescue of its crew, a sunken boat with Rebecca's body in it has been discovered.
Maxim now confesses to his new wife that his first marriage had been a sham from the start. Rebecca had declared that she had no intention of keeping to her vows but would pretend to be the perfect wife and hostess for the sake of appearances. When she implied she was pregnant by her cousin and lover, Jack Favell, she taunted Maxim that the estate might pass to someone other than Maxim's line. During a heated argument, she fell, struck her head, and died. To conceal the truth, Maxim took the body out in a boat which he then scuttled, and identified another body as Rebecca's.
The crisis causes the second Mrs. de Winter to shed her naïve ways as the couple plan to prove Maxim's innocence. When the police claim the possibility of suicide, Favell attempts to blackmail Maxim, threatening to reveal that she had never been suicidal. When Maxim goes to the police, they suspect him of murder. However, further investigation with a doctor reveals that she was not pregnant but terminally ill due to cancer, so the suicide verdict stands. Maxim realizes Rebecca had been trying to goad him into killing her to ruin him.
As a free man, Maxim returns home to see Manderley on fire, set ablaze by the deranged Mrs. Danvers. All escape except Danvers, who dies when the ceiling collapses on her.
In 1861, on the eve of the American Civil War, Scarlett O'Hara lives at Tara, her family's cotton plantation in Georgia, with her parents, two sisters, and their many black slaves. Scarlett is deeply attracted to Ashley Wilkes and learns he is to be married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. At an engagement party the next day at Ashley's home, Twelve Oaks, a nearby plantation, Scarlett makes an advance on Ashley but is rebuffed; however, she catches the attention of another guest, Rhett Butler. The party is disrupted by news of President Lincoln's call for volunteers to fight the South, and the Southern men rush to enlist. Scarlett marries Melanie's younger brother Charles to arouse jealousy in Ashley before he leaves to fight. Following Charles's death while serving in the Confederate States Army, Scarlett's mother sends her to the Hamilton home in Atlanta. She creates a scene by attending a charity bazaar in mourning attire and waltzing with Rhett, now a blockade runner for the Confederacy.
The tide of war turns against the Confederacy after the Battle of Gettysburg. Many of the men of Scarlett's town are killed. Eight months later, as the Union Army besieges the city in the Atlanta campaign, Melanie gives birth with Scarlett's aid, and Rhett helps them flee the city. Rhett chooses to go off to fight, leaving Scarlett to make her own way back to Tara. She finds Tara deserted, except for her father, sisters, and former slaves, Mammy and Pork. Scarlett learns that her mother has just died of typhoid fever, and her father has lost his mind. With Tara pillaged by Union troops and the fields untended, Scarlett vows to ensure her and her family's survival.
With the defeat of the Confederacy, the O'Haras toil in the cotton fields. Ashley returns but finds he is of little help to Tara. When Scarlett begs him to run away with her, he confesses his desire for her and kisses her passionately but says he cannot leave Melanie. Scarlett's father attempts to chase away a carpetbagger from his land but is thrown from his horse and killed. Unable to pay the Reconstructionist taxes imposed on Tara, Scarlett unsuccessfully appeals to Rhett, then dupes her younger sister Suellen's fiancé, the middle-aged and wealthy general store owner Frank Kennedy, into marrying her. Frank, Ashley, Rhett, and several other accomplices make a night raid on a shanty town after Scarlett is attacked while driving through it alone, resulting in Frank's death. Shortly after Frank's funeral, Rhett proposes to Scarlett, and she accepts.
Rhett and Scarlett have a daughter whom Rhett nicknames Bonnie Blue, but Scarlett still pines for Ashley and, chagrined at the perceived ruin of her figure, refuses to have any more children or share a bed with Rhett. One day at Frank's mill, Ashley's sister, India, sees Scarlett and Ashley embracing. Harboring an intense dislike of Scarlett, India eagerly spreads rumors. Later that evening, Rhett, having heard the rumors, forces Scarlett to attend a birthday party for Ashley. Melanie, however, stands by Scarlett. After returning home, Scarlett finds Rhett downstairs drunk, and they argue about Ashley. Rhett kisses Scarlett against her will, stating his intent to have sex with her that night, and carries the struggling Scarlett to the bedroom.
The next day, Rhett apologizes for his behavior and offers Scarlett a divorce, which she rejects, saying it would be a disgrace. When Rhett returns from an extended trip to London, England, Scarlett informs him that she is pregnant, but an argument ensues, resulting in her falling down a flight of stairs and suffering a miscarriage. While recovering, tragedy strikes again when Bonnie dies while attempting to jump a fence with her pony. Scarlett and Rhett visit Melanie, who has suffered complications from a new pregnancy, on her deathbed. As Scarlett consoles Ashley, Rhett prepares to leave Atlanta. Having realized that it was Rhett, and not Ashley that she truly loved all along, Scarlett pleads with Rhett to stay, but he rebuffs her and walks away into the morning fog. A distraught Scarlett resolves to return home to Tara, vowing to one day win Rhett back.
An old legend tells of a fortune in gold hidden in the "Cañon del Oro" ("Canyon of Gold"), later called the "Lost Adams", guarded by Apache spirits. A man named Adams is said to have found it when he was young, only to have the Native Americans capture and blind him. Years later, Marshal MacKenna is ambushed by Prairie Dog, an old Native American shaman, and is forced to kill him. MacKenna thereby comes into possession of a map to the treasure. He examines it before burning it.
While being tracked by the US Cavalry, Mexican outlaw John Colorado and his gang look for Prairie Dog to get the map. They take shelter in the house of an old judge in Hadleyburg, kill him, and kidnap his daughter, Inga. Colorado captures MacKenna, intending to force him to lead them to the gold. The gang includes Colorado's right-hand man Sanchez and several Native Americans, among them Apache warrior Hachita and Apache woman Hesh-ke. Hesh-ke and MacKenna were once lovers, but she rejected him after he arrested her brother, who was tried and hanged.
Ben Baker, a gambler who knows Colorado, arrives with townsmen who have learned about Colorado's plans when one of the latter's men got drunk in town and said too much. Colorado is forced to allow them to join his party. The townsmen include the blind Adams himself. MacKenna warns them to return home, that they will get themselves killed searching for gold that does not exist, but Colorado reveals what happened to Prairie Dog, and they stay.
The cavalry, led by Sergeant Tibbs, ambushes the party at a water hole, and most of the gang is killed. The remaining gold hunters continue on their way, while MacKenna and Inga begin to fall in love. A jealous Hesh-Ke now wants MacKenna back.
When the cavalry patrol is whittled down to just Tibbs and two others, Tibbs kills them and joins the gang. After a shoot-out with the Apaches, they reach "Shaking Rock", a feature on the map. According to MacKenna, they will see the canyon the next morning. Mackenna says that he wants his guns and the girl and if there is no gold he still expects that Colorado will keep his word. Colorado reveals that he is not going to waste his share of the gold in bars and clubs but shows Mackenna a copy of the magazine La Vie Parisienne[a] and Mackenna realizes that Colorado's ambition is to live as a millionaire in Paris. He warns Inga to be alert for any opportunity to escape. When Inga protests that she too wants some gold, he tells her there is no gold, that he has been bluffing.
The next morning, when the first sunlight shines down, the shadow of the pinnacle of "Shaking Rock" starts to move and eventually points to a hidden passageway. On the other side, they see below them a vein of gold in the canyon wall opposite. As everyone races to it, Hesh-ke tries to kill Inga, who fights back, making Hesh-ke fall to her death. MacKenna, suspecting that Colorado does not intend to leave anybody else alive, tries to escape with Inga up the canyon wall. Tibbs is killed by Hachita. Colorado then pulls his gun on Hachita, only to find that it is unloaded. Hachita removed the bullets, as the spirits had told him to do, but turns his back on Colorado, who kills him with a knife.
Colorado pursues MacKenna and Inga, catching up to them at an abandoned Native American dwelling up the cliff. They fight, but are interrupted when Apaches enter the canyon. Their shouts and the pounding of their horses trigger a rockfall which causes the valley floor to buckle and quake. The Apaches flee. The three survivors descend the cliff and ride away, escaping the collapse of the canyon walls, which buries the gold beyond reach.
Colorado warns MacKenna to stay away from him, but MacKenna tells him that he will be coming after him. MacKenna and Inga ride off together, unaware that the saddle bags of the horse MacKenna is riding are stuffed with gold nuggets.
Smiler Grogan, a recently released convict, crashes his car on California State Route 74. With his dying breath, Grogan tells a group of motorists who stop to help him about $350,000 buried in Santa Rosita State Park under "a big W." Failing to negotiate a satisfactory way to split the money, the four cars begin a mad dash to the park, having several mishaps along the way:
Melville Crump, a dentist on a second honeymoon with his wife Monica, charters a rickety biplane to Santa Rosita. Despite arriving in Santa Rosita first, they get locked in a hardware store's basement. After several attempts to break out, they blow out the wall of the basement with dynamite, and hire a cab to get to the park.
Ding Bell and Benjy Benjamin, two friends on their way to Las Vegas, charter a small airplane. When their alcoholic pilot knocks himself out, they struggle to land the plane themselves; once on the ground, they also hire a cab to get to the park.
J. Russell Finch, a businessman traveling with his wife Emmeline and her mother Mrs. Marcus, crashes into the furniture truck of Lennie Pike, another witness of Grogan’s crash. Finch persuades British Army Lieutenant Colonel J. Algernon Hawthorne to drive them to Santa Rosita. After a nasty argument, Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline exit the car to hitch their own ride. Hawthorne crashes the car while driving through a tunnel, and he and Finch come to blows.
Pike stops motorist Otto Meyer for a ride and tells him about the money; the greedy Meyer decides to search for the treasure himself, and abandons Pike, convincing two service station attendants to detain him. Pike destroys the station, steals a tow truck, and picks up Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline. Mrs. Marcus calls her son Sylvester, who lives close to Santa Rosita, but he misunderstands and drives to meet her. Eventually, the group reunites with Russell and Hawthorne, and continues to head to the park.
Meyer stops to help a stranded miner get back to his very rural cabin. Trying to get back to the highway, Meyer fails at crossing a deep river and his car is swept away, leading him to steal another motorist's car.
Meanwhile, Santa Rosita Police Captain Culpeper, hoping to tie up the Grogan case before his impending retirement, secretly has the motorists shadowed throughout their various adventures. After a furious argument with his wife and daughter, Culpeper learns that his pension will be a pittance and has a mental breakdown.
The entire group, now consisting of thirteen people, arrives at Santa Rosita at nearly the same time, and searches frantically for the "big W", which turns out to be a gathering of four palm trees. Culpeper arrives shortly after and observes the group. After the group digs up a suitcase full of cash, Culpeper identifies himself and informs the group that they are wanted by the police. He convinces them to turn themselves in and hope for leniency.
The motorists realize that Culpeper is not returning to the police station with them, but is stealing the money for himself. The men chase him into an abandoned building and onto a rickety fire escape, which starts to collapse under them. The briefcase containing the money falls open, scattering the cash to the wind. When Culpeper and the men all pile onto a fire department ladder sent to rescue them, their combined weight causes it to spin uncontrollably and fling them all off, leaving them heavily injured.
In the prison hospital, the men bemoan the loss of the money and blame their injuries on Culpeper, who responds that due to his lost pension (which his boss had successfully negotiated back, thus making his illegal actions unnecessary), the ruined relationship with his family, and the likelihood that the judge will probably give him the harshest sentence, he may never laugh again. Mrs. Marcus, flanked by Emmeline and Monica, enters and begins berating the men, only for her to slip on a banana peel and fall. All the men except Sylvester roar with laughter, and, after a brief hesitation, Culpeper joins in.
In 1996, aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, Brock Lovett and his team search the wreck of RMS Titanic. They recover a safe they hope contains a necklace with a large diamond known as the Heart of the Ocean. Instead, they find only a drawing of a young nude woman wearing the necklace. The sketch is dated April 14, 1912, the same day the Titanic struck the iceberg that caused it to sink.[Note 2] After viewing a television news story about the discovery, centenarian Rose Dawson Calvert contacts Lovett, identifying herself as the woman in the drawing. Hoping she can help locate the necklace, Lovett brings Rose aboard Keldysh, where she recounts her experiences as a Titanic passenger.
In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, her wealthy fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley and Rose's widowed mother Ruth board the Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage to Cal will resolve the family's financial problems and maintain their upper-class status. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson, a poor young artist, wins a third-class Titanic ticket in a poker game. After setting sail, Rose, distraught over her loveless engagement, climbs over the stern railing, intending to commit suicide. Jack coaxes her back onto the deck and they develop a friendship. Jack soon admits that he has feelings for Rose. When Cal and Ruth object, Rose rejects Jack's attentions, but returns to him after realizing she has fallen in love.
Rose brings Jack to her state room and requests he draw her nude, wearing only the Heart of the Ocean. They later evade Cal's servant, Lovejoy, and have sex in a Renault Towncar inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear its officers discussing its seriousness. Cal discovers Jack's sketch and an insulting note from Rose in his safe, along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose return to warn the others about the collision, Cal has Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack's pocket to frame him for theft. Jack is confined in the master-at-arms' office. Cal puts the necklace into his own overcoat pocket.
With the ship sinking, the crew prioritize women and children for evacuation. Rose finds and frees Jack, and they make it back to the deck, where Cal and Jack urge Rose to board a lifeboat. Intending to save himself, Cal lies that he will get Jack safely off the ship and wraps his overcoat around Rose. As her lifeboat is lowered, Rose, unable to abandon Jack, jumps back onto the ship. Cal grabs Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose, but they escape. Cal realizes the necklace is still in the coat he gave Rose. He poses as a lost child's father to board a lifeboat.
Jack and Rose return to the deck. The ship's stern is rising as the flooded bow sinks; the two desperately cling to the stern rail. The upended ship breaks in half and the bow section sinks. The stern slams back onto the ocean, upends again and sinks. In the freezing water, Jack helps Rose onto a wood transom panel among the debris, buoyant enough only for one person, and makes her promise to survive. Jack dies of cold shock, but Rose is among six people saved by the one returning lifeboat. RMS Carpathia rescues the survivors. Rose avoids Cal and her mother by hiding among the steerage passengers and giving her name as Rose Dawson. Still wearing Cal's overcoat, she discovers the necklace tucked inside the pocket.
In the present, Rose says she heard that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Lovett abandons his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes the Heart of the Ocean, which has been in her possession all along, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep in her bed,[17] her photos on the dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by Jack. A young Rose reunites with Jack at the Titanic's Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died that night.
Maria is a free-spirited young Austrian woman studying to become a nun at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg in 1938. Her youthful enthusiasm and lack of discipline cause some concern. Mother Abbess sends Maria to the villa of retired naval officer Captain Georg von Trapp to be governess to his seven children—Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl. The Captain has been raising his children using strict military discipline following the death of his wife. They have scared away several governesses by playing tricks. Although the children misbehave at first, Maria responds with kindness and patience, and soon the children come to trust and respect her.
While the Captain is away in Vienna, Maria makes play clothes for the children out of drapes that are to be changed. She takes them around Salzburg and the mountains while teaching them how to sing. When the Captain returns to the villa with Baroness Elsa Schraeder, a wealthy socialite, and their mutual friend Max Detweiler, they are greeted by Maria and the children returning from a boat ride on the lake which concludes when their boat overturns. Displeased by his children's clothes and activities and Maria's impassioned appeal that he get closer to his children, the Captain attempts to fire Maria. However, he hears singing coming from inside the house and is astonished to see his children singing for the Baroness. Filled with emotion, the Captain joins his children, singing for the first time in years. The Captain apologizes to Maria and asks her to stay.
Impressed by the children's singing, Max proposes that he enter them in the upcoming Salzburg Festival, but the Captain disapproves of letting his children sing in public. During a grand party at the villa, where guests in formal attire waltz in the ballroom, Maria and the children look on from the garden terrace. When the Captain notices Maria teaching Kurt the traditional Ländler folk dance, he steps in and partners Maria in a graceful performance, culminating in a close embrace. Confused about her feelings, Maria blushes and breaks away. Later, the Baroness, who noticed the Captain's attraction to Maria, hides her jealousy by indirectly convincing Maria that she must return to the abbey.
However, Mother Abbess learns that Maria has stayed in seclusion to avoid her feelings for the Captain, so she encourages her to return to the villa to look for her purpose in life. When Maria returns to the villa, she learns about the Captain's engagement to the Baroness and agrees to stay until they find a replacement governess. However, the Baroness learns that the Captain's feelings for Maria haven't changed, so she peacefully calls off the engagement and returns to Vienna while encouraging the Captain to express his feelings for Maria, who marries him.
While the couple is on their honeymoon, Max enters the children into the Salzburg Festival against their father's wishes. Having learned that Austria has been annexed by the Third Reich, the couple return to their home, where the Captain receives a telegram, ordering him to report to the German Naval base at Bremerhaven to accept a commission in the Kriegsmarine. Strongly opposed to the Nazis and their ideology, the Captain tells his family they must leave Austria immediately.
That night, the von Trapp family attempt to flee to Switzerland, but they are stopped by a group of Brownshirts, led by the Gauleiter Hans Zeller, waiting outside the villa. To cover his family's tracks, the Captain maintains they are headed to the Salzburg Festival to perform. Zeller insists on escorting them to the festival, after which his men will accompany the Captain to Bremerhaven.
Later that night at the festival, during their final number, the von Trapp family slips away and seeks shelter at the abbey, where Mother Abbess hides them in the cemetery crypt. Zeller and his men soon arrive and search the abbey, but the family is able to escape using the caretaker's car. When Zeller's men attempt to pursue, they discover their cars will not start, as two of the nuns have sabotaged their engines. The next morning, after driving to the Swiss border, the von Trapp family make their way on foot across the frontier into Switzerland to safety and freedom.
Sabrina Fairchild is the young daughter of the Larrabee family's chauffeur, Thomas Fairchild, and has been in love with David Larrabee all her life. David, a three-times-married, non-working playboy, has never paid romantic attention to Sabrina. Since she has lived for years on the Larrabee estate in Long Island New York with her father, to him, she is still a child.
Eavesdropping on a party at the mansion the night before she is to leave to attend the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, Sabrina watches, follows, and listens as David entices yet another woman into a dark and vacant indoor tennis court. Distraught, she leaves her father a suicide note and then starts all eight cars in the closed garage in order to kill herself. She is passing out from the fumes when Linus, David's older brother, opens the door, discovers her, and carries her back to her quarters above the garage when she does pass out.
After two years in Paris, Sabrina returns home an attractive, sophisticated woman. When her father is delayed from picking her up at the station, flirtatious David, passing by, offers her a lift without recognizing her. She accepts.
Once David realizes who she is, he is quickly drawn to Sabrina and invites her to join him at a party at the mansion, and then later invites her to the indoor tennis court. When Linus sees this, he fears that David's imminent marriage to Elizabeth Tyson may be endangered. If that engagement were broken it would ruin a profitable opportunity for a great corporate merger between Larrabee Industries and Elizabeth's very wealthy father's business. Instead of confronting David about his irresponsibility, Linus pretends to sympathize with him. Linus manipulates David to sit down on champagne glasses he has placed in his pockets, and David is incapacitated for a few days.
Linus now takes David's place with Sabrina, on the pretext that "it’s all in the family", and both fall in love, though neither will admit it. Linus's plan is to pretend that he will accompany Sabrina back to Paris on an ocean liner but then not join her, getting her away from David, the family, and the now-threatened merger. However, when Linus instead confesses these intentions to Sabrina, she is hurt but understands the logic of the tactic. She agrees to sail the next day to live in Paris, but without Linus's offered money and other inducements.
The following morning Linus has second thoughts and decides to send David to Paris with Sabrina. This means calling off David's wedding with Elizabeth and the big Tyson deal, and Linus schedules a meeting of the Larrabee board to announce this. Instead, David enters the meeting room at the last minute and shows that he will marry Elizabeth after all. He also helps Linus recognize his own feelings for Sabrina by insulting her and letting Linus punch him in the face. Then, having already arranged a car and a tugboat to wait for Linus, David assists him to rush off and join Sabrina's ship before it leaves the harbor. Once this is accomplished, Linus seeks out Sabrina on board after providing an inside-joke hint that he is there, and they sail away together.
Crown Princess Ann is on a tightly scheduled tour of European capital cities for her unnamed nation. After an especially hard day in Rome, her doctor gives her an injection and advises: "Best thing I know is to do exactly what you wish for a while." She secretly leaves the embassy to explore the city and, as the drug takes effect, falls asleep atop a low wall, where Joe Bradley, an American reporter, finds her. Without recognizing her, he thinks she is intoxicated and takes her to his apartment to sleep it off.
Joe oversleeps and misses the princess's press conference, but claims to his editor, Hennessy, that he attended. Hennessy shows him a news item about the cancellation of the press conference due to the princess's "sudden illness". Joe recognizes the picture as the woman asleep in his apartment. Joe asks Hennessy what he would pay for an exclusive interview with the princess. Hennessy offers $5000, and counters with a $500 bet that Joe will not be able to get it.
Joe calls his photographer friend, Irving Radovich, and offers to show "Anya" around Rome, without revealing that he is a reporter. Ann cites an important appointment and leaves. Joe follows and sees her explore an outdoor market, buy shoes, and get her long hair cut short. Joe contrives to meet her on the Spanish Steps and convinces her to spend the day with him, taking her to a street café to meet up with Irving, who takes pictures with a camera concealed in his cigarette lighter. Ann claims to be playing truant from school. When Ann drives Joe through heavy Roman traffic on a Vespa, they are arrested, but Joe and Irving show their "fake" press passes and they are released. They tour the Colosseum, and each puts their hand in the Mouth of Truth; Joe tricks Ann into thinking that his hand has been bitten off.
At a dance on a boat, agents from Ann's government try to forcibly take her back. Ann joins Joe and Irving in the fight that breaks out. When Joe is knocked into the river, Ann jumps in after him. They swim away and kiss as they sit shivering on the riverbank. While drying their wet clothes at Joe's apartment, a radio bulletin says that the people of Princess Ann's country are concerned that her illness may be serious. Ann asks Joe to drive her to a corner near the embassy, where they kiss again. She bids him a tearful farewell.
Upon her return, the princess replies to those attempting to remind her of her duty, "Were I not completely aware of my duty to my family and my country, I would not have come home tonight..or indeed ever again."
Joe tells a disbelieving Hennessy that he did not get the story, although he tells Irving he cannot stop him from selling the photographs. Joe and Irving attend the postponed press conference, to Princess Ann's surprise. She asserts her faith in relations between nations just as between people, and Joe assures her that her faith is not misplaced. When asked which city she most enjoyed visiting, she begins to say it would be difficult ... before declaring "Rome. By all means, Rome." Other photographers take pictures with their large press cameras, while Irving makes a show of using his cigarette lighter. Ann speaks briefly with each journalist, and Irving presents her with his photographs as a memento of Rome. Joe remains behind after everyone else leaves, before walking from the room.
While recuperating from a broken leg, professional photographer L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. His rear window looks out onto a courtyard and other apartments. During an intense heat wave, he watches his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool. They include a lonely woman whom Jeff nicknames "Miss Lonelyhearts," a newlywed couple, a pianist, a pretty dancer nicknamed "Miss Torso," a middle-aged couple whose small dog likes digging in the flower garden, and Lars Thorwald, a traveling costume jewelry salesman with a bedridden wife.
Jeff is visited regularly by Lisa Fremont, his socialite girlfriend, and a nurse named Stella. One night after an argument with Lisa, Jeff is alone in his apartment and hears a woman scream, "Don't!" and the sound of breaking glass. Later that night, during a thunderstorm, he observes Thorwald making repeated trips carrying a suitcase. Later, after Jeff dozes off, Thorwald leaves his apartment along with a woman. The next morning, Jeff notices that Thorwald's wife is gone, and sees him cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Thorwald also has moving men haul away a large trunk. Jeff becomes convinced that Thorwald has murdered his wife, and shares this with Lisa and Stella, who believe him when they notice that Thorwald's wife isn't in bed anymore. Jeff calls his friend and war buddy Tom Doyle, a New York City Police detective, and asks him to investigate Thorwald. Doyle finds nothing suspicious—apparently, Mrs. Thorwald is upstate.
Soon after, the neighbor's dog is found dead. The distraught owner yells and everyone runs to their windows except Thorwald, who sits quietly in his dark apartment smoking a cigar. Certain that Thorwald killed the dog, Jeff telephones him to lure him away so that Stella and Lisa can investigate. He believes Thorwald buried something in the flower bed and killed the dog because it was digging at it. When Thorwald leaves, Lisa and Stella dig up the flowers, but find nothing.
Much to Jeff's amazement and admiration, Lisa climbs up the fire escape to Thorwald's apartment and clambers in through an open window. Jeff and Stella get distracted when they see Miss Lonelyhearts take out some pills and write a note, realizing she is going to attempt suicide. They call the police but before they can report it, Miss Lonelyhearts stops, opening the window to listen to the pianist's music. Thorwald returns and confronts Lisa, and Jeff realizes that Thorwald is going to kill her. He calls the police and reports an assault in progress. The police arrive and arrest Lisa when Thorwald indicates that she broke in to his apartment. Jeff sees Lisa coyly pointing to her finger with Mrs. Thorwald's wedding ring on it. Thorwald sees this also and, realizing that she is signaling someone, spots Jeff across the courtyard.
Jeff phones Doyle and leaves an urgent message while Stella goes to bail Lisa out of jail. When his phone rings, Jeff assumes it is Doyle, and blurts out that the suspect has left. When no one responds, he suspects that it was Thorwald calling. Thorwald enters Jeff's dark apartment and Jeff sets off a series of camera flashbulbs to temporarily blind him. Thorwald pushes Jeff out the window and Jeff, hanging on, yells for help. Police enter the apartment, Jeff falls, and officers on the ground break his fall. Thorwald confesses to the police that he murdered his wife.
A few days later, normality returns to the neighborhood. The couple whose dog was killed have a new puppy, the newlyweds are having their first argument, Miss Torso's boyfriend comes back from the army, Miss Lonelyhearts starts seeing the pianist, and Thorwald's apartment is being refurbished. Jeff rests in his wheelchair, now with casts on both legs. Beside him, Lisa reads a book titled "Beyond the High Himalayas." After seeing that Jeff is sleeping, Lisa happily opens a fashion magazine.
Retired jewel thief John "The Cat" Robie is suspected by the police in a string of burglaries on the French Riviera. When they come to his hilltop villa to question him, he slips their grasp and heads to a restaurant owned by his friend Bertani. The restaurant's staff are members of Robie's old gang, who have been paroled for their work in the French Resistance during World War II. They are angry at Robie because they are all under suspicion as long as the new Cat is active. When the police arrive at the restaurant looking for Robie, Danielle, the daughter of the restaurant's wine steward Foussard, spirits him to safety; she is a young woman who fancies him dearly.
Robie realizes he can prove his innocence by catching the new Cat in the act. He enlists the aid of an insurance man, H. H. Hughson, who reluctantly discloses a list of persons currently on the Riviera who own the most expensive jewelry. The American tourists Jessie Stevens, a wealthy nouveau-riche widow, and her daughter Frances top the list. Robie strikes up a friendship with them. Frances feigns modesty at first, but kisses Robie at the end of the night as she retires to her room.
The day after, Frances invites Robie to a swim at the beach, where Robie runs into Danielle. He keeps up his cover of being a wealthy American tourist, despite Danielle's jealous barbs about his interest in Frances. Frances accompanies Robie to a villa, where Robie suspects the new Cat might break in. Frances reveals that she knows Robie's real identity. He initially denies it, but concedes it that evening when she has invited him to her room to watch a fireworks display. They kiss passionately.
The next morning, Jessie discovers her jewels are gone. Frances accuses Robie of using her as a distraction so he could steal her mother's jewelry. The police are called, but by the time they reach Jessie's room Robie has disappeared.
Later Robie, while staking out an estate at night trying to catch the thief, is attacked by an unknown assailant. A second attacker raises a wrench and tries to kill Robie but accidentally instead hits the first assailant, who falls off the estate's seawall into the water. When the police reach the body in the water it turns out to be Foussard.
The police chief announces to the press that Foussard was the jewel thief, but, as Robie points out privately in the chief's office with Hughson present, this would have been impossible because Foussard had a wooden leg and could not climb on rooftops.
Foussard's funeral is interrupted by Danielle's loud accusation that Robie is responsible for her father's death. Outside the graveyard, Frances apologizes to Robie and confesses her love. Robie asks Frances to arrange his attendance at a fancy masquerade ball, where he believes the Cat will strike again.
Robie accompanies Frances to the ball dressed as a masked Moor. The police hover nearby. Upstairs, the cat burglar silently cleans out several jewel boxes. When Jessie addresses the Moor as "John" and asks him to go and get her "heart pills", the authorities are tipped off as to his identity. Upon the masked Moor's return, the police wait as he and Frances dance together all night. When the masked Moor accompanies Frances to her room, he removes the mask and turns out to be Hughson, who switched places with Robie to conceal the latter's exit.
Robie lurks on the rooftop, and his patience is finally rewarded when he spots a figure in black whom he recognizes as Danielle, Foussard's daughter. The police throw a spotlight on him and demand that he halt, giving Danielle the chance to slip away. Robie flees as they shoot at him and manages to corner his foe with jewels in hand. She loses her footing on the roof and starts to fall, but Robie grabs her hand at the last second. While she hangs in his grasp, he forces her to confess to the police and admit that Bertani was behind the thefts.
Robie speeds back to his villa. Frances follows to convince him that she has a place in his life. He agrees but looks less than thrilled when she says, "Mother will love it up here."
New York socialite Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly arrives at a remote African outpost, looking for a rich maharajah acquaintance, only to find he has cancelled his trip owing to unrest in his realm.[2] While waiting for the next river boat out, she spars with hardworking big game hunter and wild animal catcher Victor Marswell from the United States, who initially views her as disreputable. Marswell's business partner is plucky Englishman and big game hunter John Brown-Pryce, known as "Brownie." "Brownie" is sympathetic to Kelly, and believes that her "scars aren't visible, but they're there." Marswell also has a semi-hostile relationship with his employee, the gruff Russian Leon Boltchak. Kelly and Marswell later develop a mutual attraction and make love. Then the river boat brings London couple Donald Nordley and his wife Linda. Honey Bear takes the steamer out with the British skipper at Marswell's urging, although she would prefer to stay with Marswell and he expresses some regret at their parting. The Nordleys wish to go on safari to record the cries of gorillas. Marswell declines to guide them there due to the difficulties involved and insists that they be guided on the agreed route by his assistant, despite the Nordleys' protests. Honey Bear rejoins the group after the steamer suffers engine failure and subsequently runs aground.
Marswell rescues Linda from a panther, and Honey Bear sees that they are attracted to one another. After Marswell talks to Linda privately, he agrees to take the Nordleys into gorilla country, while also taking Honey Bear part of the way to join the district commissioner, who can then take her back to civilization. However, they find the commissioner mortally wounded by recently belligerent natives. With reinforcements days away, the small party narrowly escapes, taking the commissioner with them. Meanwhile, a serious romance is developing between Marswell and Linda. Only Donald is blind to the situation. Marswell plans to tell him about how he and Linda feel, but has second thoughts after realizing how much Donald loves his wife and perhaps how she would be better off remaining with him. The situation is aggravated when Marswell reluctantly shoots a gorilla to save Donald, blowing a chance to capture a baby gorilla. Marswell goes back to camp, depressed, and begins drinking heavily in his tent. Honey Bear joins him.
When Linda appears, she finds them cuddling. Marswell decides he can fix everything by making Linda hate him and makes a show of this cuddling followed by dismissive remarks about Linda's infatuation with "the White Hunter" to enrage her. Unfortunately, his ploy works too well when Linda shoots him with his own pistol, wounding him in the arm. Honey Bear lies to the others, telling them that Marswell had been making advances to Linda for some time, finally forcing Linda to shoot him in his drunken state. The next day, the party breaks camp to head back, leaving Marswell behind to try to capture young gorillas to pay for the safari. Marswell, acknowledging to himself his feelings for Honey Bear, asks her to stay and then proposes to her, but she rebuffs him. As the canoes set off, however, she suddenly jumps into the water and wades her way back to him.
Maggie Prescott, a fashion magazine publisher and editor for Quality magazine, is looking for the next big fashion trend. She wants a new look which is to be both "beautiful" and "intellectual". She and top fashion photographer Dick Avery want models who can "think as well as they look." The two brainstorm and come up with the idea to use a book store in Greenwich Village as backdrop.
They find what they want in "Embryo Concepts", which is being run by the shy shop assistant and amateur philosopher, Jo Stockton. Jo thinks the fashion and modelling industry is nonsense, calling it "chichi, and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics". Maggie decides to use Jo but after the first shot Jo is locked outside to keep her from interrupting Maggie’s take-over of the shop. The crew leaves the store in a shambles; Dick stays behind to help clean up and apologizes to Jo, then kisses her impulsively. Jo dismisses him, but her song "How Long Has This Been Going On?" shows that she feels the stirrings of romance.
What Jo wants above all is to go to Paris and attend the famous Professor Émile Flostre's philosophy lectures about empathicalism. When Dick gets back to the darkroom, he sees something in Jo's face which is new and fresh and would be perfect for the campaign, giving it "character", "spirit", and "intelligence". They send for Jo, pretending they want to order some books from her shop. Once she arrives, they try to make her over and attempt to cut her hair. She is outraged and runs away, only to hide in the darkroom where Dick is working. When Dick mentions Paris, Jo becomes interested in the chance to see Professor Flostre and is finally persuaded to model for the magazine. Dick sings "Funny Face".
Soon, Maggie, Dick, and Jo are off to Paris to prepare for a major fashion event, shooting photos at famous landmarks from the area. During the various shoots, Jo and Dick fall in love. "He Loves and She Loves". One night, when Jo is getting ready for a gala, she learns that Flostre is giving a lecture at a cafe nearby, which she attends. Eventually, Dick brings her back and they get into an argument at the gala's opening, which results in Jo being publicly embarrassed and Maggie outraged.
Jo goes to talk to Flostre at his home. Through some scheming, Maggie and Dick gain entrance to the soirée there. After performing an impromptu song and dance for Flostre's disciples, they confront Jo and Flostre. This leads to Dick causing Flostre to fall and knock himself out. Jo urges them to leave but when Flostre comes round, he tries to seduce her. Shocked at the behavior of her "idol", she smashes a vase over his head and runs out, returning just in time to take part in the final fashion show. During this, Maggie tries to get in touch with Dick, who has made plans to leave Paris. Before her wedding gown finale, Jo looks out the window and sees the plane Dick was supposed to be on flying over the city. Believing that he has refused to return to her, she runs off the runway in tears at the conclusion of the show.
Meanwhile, Dick is still at the airport. He runs into Flostre and learns how Jo had attacked him. Realizing how much Jo cares, Dick returns to the fashion show, but Jo is nowhere to be found. Finally, after applying the insights of empathicalism at Maggie's behest, Dick guesses that Jo would return to the church where he had photographed her in a wedding dress and they shared their first romantic moment. On his arrival there himself, he finds Jo (in the wedding gown) by a little brook. They join in the duet "'S Wonderful" and embrace.
Aliens secretly visit Earth at night to gather plant specimens in a California forest. One of them separates from the group, fascinated by the distant city lights. U.S. government vehicles arrive and chase the startled creature. The other aliens depart, abandoning him on Earth. In a nearby neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, ten-year-old Elliott Taylor's suspicions are roused when he pitches a baseball into a tool shed, and the ball is rolled back. Later that night, Elliott returns with a flashlight, discovering the creature among the cornstalks. He shrieks and flees the scene.
Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott leaves a trail of candy to lure the alien into his house. Before bed, he realizes the alien is imitating his movements. The next morning, Elliott feigns sickness to stay home from school and play with him. He can "feel" the alien's thoughts and emotions, shown when the alien accidentally opens an umbrella, startling him and simultaneously Elliott several rooms away.
Later that day, Elliott introduces his older brother Michael and seven-year-old sister Gertie to the alien, deciding to keep him hidden from their mother, Mary. When the children ask the alien about his origins, he shows them by levitating several balls, representing his planetary system, and demonstrates his powers by reviving dead chrysanthemums. He demonstrates his healing power, through his glowing fingertip, on a minor cut on Elliott's finger.
At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a much stronger empathic connection with the alien, including exhibiting signs of intoxication (because the alien is at Elliott's home, drinking beer and watching television) and freeing the frogs in his biology class. As the alien watches John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man on television, Elliott kisses a girl he likes similarly and is sent to the principal's office.
The alien dubs himself "E.T.", reading a comic strip where Buck Rogers, stranded, calls for help by building a makeshift communication device, and is inspired to try it himself. E.T. gets Elliott's help to build a device to "phone home" by using a Speak & Spell, along with a record player, circular-saw blade, wooden coat-hanger, foil-lined umbrella, and other items from around Elliott's house. Michael notices that E.T.'s health is declining and that Elliott is referring to himself as "we". Throughout this, the boys are unaware that E.T. is being tracked by government agents and that all three of them are being spied on.
On Halloween night, Michael and Elliott dress E.T. as a ghost to sneak him out. Elliott and E.T. head through the forest, where they successfully call home. The next day, Elliott wakes up in the field, finding E.T. gone. Elliott returns home to his worried family. Michael discovers E.T. dying next to a culvert and takes him home to an also-dying Elliott. Mary becomes horrified upon discovering her son's illness and the dying alien, just as a group of government agents dressed in biohazard suits led by "Keys" invades the house.
Scientists set up a lab at the house, asking Michael, Mary, and Gertie what they know about E.T. While the scientists are treating Elliott and E.T., the mental connection between Elliott and E.T. disappears. E.T. appears to die while Elliott recovers. Elliott is carried away, screaming that the doctors are killing E.T. as they try to revive him. When the doctors pronounce E.T. dead, Michael discovers that the chrysanthemums that E.T. previously revived are dying again. As Elliott recovers, the scientists first return him to his family, but then "Keys" leaves him alone with E.T. Elliott says a tearful goodbye, telling E.T. that he loves him before closing the case. Before long, E.T.'s heart light begins to glow, and Elliott notices that the chrysanthemum is once again coming back to life and opens the case. E.T. reanimates and tells Elliott that his people are returning.
Elliott and Michael steal the van that E.T. had been loaded into and a chase ensues, with Michael's friends joining them on bicycles, evading the authorities. Suddenly facing a police roadblock, E.T. helps them escape by using his telekinesis to lift them into the air just in time and towards the forest like he had done for Elliott before.
Standing near the spaceship, E.T.'s heart glows as he prepares to return home, while Mary, Gertie, and "Keys" show up. E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, as she presents him with the flower he had revived. Before boarding the spaceship, he embraces Elliott and tells him "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Elliott's forehead. He picks up the chrysanthemum and boards the spaceship. As the others watch it take off, the spaceship leaves a rainbow in the sky.
Jack Beauregard is an aging gunslinger who wants to retire peacefully to Europe. After watching him quickly shoot three gunmen who attempted to ambush him in a barbershop, the barber's son asks his father if there is anyone in the world faster than Beauregard, to which the barber replies, "Faster than him? Nobody!"
Beauregard pauses to watch a down-and-out catching fish before continuing to an old goldmine. He finds his friend Red dying after an attack by a gang. Beauregard asks Red about the whereabouts of "Nevada", but Red manages to disclose only Nevada's village before dying. At a horse relay station, the down-and-out is asked by three men to deliver a basket to Beauregard inside, where he talks to Beauregard, revealing his detailed knowledge of Beauregard's feats. He throws the basket outside, where the bomb that was hidden within explodes.
The bum introduces himself as "Nobody". He idolizes Beauregard and wants him to end his career in style by taking on all 150 of the Wild Bunch single-handed. The bandits are using a worthless goldmine to launder their stolen gold. Sullivan, the mine owner fronting for them, believes Beauregard is trying to kill him, so he tries to kill Beauregard first.
Arriving at Nevada's village, Beauregard finds Nobody already there, and he reveals that the Nevada Kid, Beauregard's brother, is dead. Nobody again unsuccessfully tries to get Beauregard to take on the Wild Bunch. Arriving in a town, Sullivan hires Nobody to kill Beauregard, but Nobody instead helps Beauregard to take out Sullivan's men. The Wild Bunch ride into town to collect sticks of dynamite, stashing them in their saddlebags.
Later, an old man tells Beauregard that he was bought-out of a worthless goldmine by his partners Nevada and Red, only to have the mine produce much gold afterwards. Beauregard hurries off to the mine and catches Sullivan loading sacks of gold powder. Sullivan offers Beauregard Nevada's share, but Beauregard tells him he could not care less about his brother, and takes just two sacks, as well as $500 to pay for his passage to Europe. He then leaves to catch a train to New Orleans.
Nobody steals a train that is being loaded at a station with bars of gold, guarded by soldiers. Beauregard is waiting down the line when the Wild Bunch charge towards him across a featureless plain. Nobody arrives with the train but refuses to rescue Beauregard until he "makes his name in the history books". Remembering the mirrored conchas on the gang’s dynamite-filled saddlebags, Beauregard shoots them and takes out most of the gang until Nobody lets him board the train.
In New Orleans, Beauregard and Nobody duel in the street, with a photographer and many spectators on hand. Nobody is faster, and Beauregard falls to the ground, apparently dead. The remaining members of the Wild Bunch see it and switch their search to the anonymous Nobody. Later, Nobody walks by the ship that was to take Beauregard to Europe, where Beauregard is revealed to be in his cabin aboard, writing Nobody an affectionate farewell.
After his mother's suicide, adolescent Zachary "Zack" Mayo was sent to live with his alcoholic womanizing father, Byron, a US Navy petty officer stationed in US Naval Base Subic Bay, Philippines and grew up as a military brat. Now an adult, Zack has graduated from college and prepares to report to Port Rainier, an Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS), located near Port Townsend, Washington. Zack surprises Byron by announcing his intention to become a Navy jet pilot.
Upon arrival at AOCS, Zack and his fellow recruits meet Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, their stern, no-nonsense drill instructor. Foley says any OCs that are mentally or physically unfit to be a US Navy officer will be dismissed. Male candidates are also warned about "Puget Sound Debs", local girls aspiring to marry a Naval Aviator and who will use pregnancy to entrap an officer. Soon after, Zack and fellow candidate, Sid Worley, meet two young factory workers, Paula Pokrifki and Lynette Pomeroy, at a Navy dance. Zack begins a relationship with Paula, while Sid dates Lynette.
Zack is eventually caught peddling contraband uniform accessories to cash-strapped candidates so they can pass inspections. Foley punishes Zack with a weekend of rigorous hazing to force his resignation, telling him that he lacks the character to be an officer. When Zack still refuses to quit, Foley dismisses him from the program. Zack breaks down emotionally and admits he has no options in civilian life. Finally persuaded of Zack's commitment, Foley relents and assigns him to cleaning work.
At dinner with Paula's family, her mother and younger sister appear enchanted with Zack but her step-father acts with hostility. Zack later learns that Paula's absent biological father was an officer candidate who abandoned Paula's mother when she became pregnant. As it nears time to transfer to another base for the next training phase, Zack ends his and Paula's relationship, which she reluctantly accepts.
During the final obstacle-course run, rather than break the base's course record, Zack stops to encourage his teammate, Casey Seeger, to complete the run so she can graduate. Zack dines with Sid and his parents and learns that, after Sid is commissioned, he is expected to marry his late brother's fiancée. Meanwhile, Lynette tells Sid she may be pregnant.
After a severe anxiety attack during a high-altitude simulation in a pressure chamber, Sid quits the program. He goes to Lynette's dilapidated house and proposes marriage, saying that he never wanted a military career and was only assuming his deceased brother's role to please his family, while Lynette has helped him be his real self. Lynette is thrilled with the ring Sid has brought until she hears he has quit his course. She tells him that there is no baby; it was a 'false alarm', yet Sid is keener than ever for them to marry, explaining they can move back to his home of Oklahoma, live with his parents and he'll resume his old JC Penney's job. A stunned Lynnette rejects Sid, saying she likes him but she always wanted to marry a naval aviator and 'live overseas'. A dejected Sid leaves, and Zack and Paula arrive soon after, looking for him; Lynette recaps what happened and Zack accuses her of faking being pregnant, which she denies.
Zack and Paula find Sid at a motel where he has died by suicide. Zack, blaming himself, heads back to the base, intending to quit. He angrily confronts Foley, who refuses Zack's resignation and challenges him to settle their differences in martial arts combat. Zack lands several blows on a surprised Foley before the latter incapacitates Zack; he says it is Zack's choice to quit.
Zack completes his training and is commissioned as an officer; following tradition, he and the other graduates receive their first salute from Foley. Zack thanks Foley for not giving up on him. Before Zack departs, he sees Foley training new recruits like he was in the beginning.
Zack surprises Paula at her workplace, they embrace then he carries her out in his arms to everyone's applause, including Lynette's.
Carl Brashear leaves his native Kentucky and the life of a sharecropper in 1949 by joining the United States Navy. As a crew member of the salvage ship USS Hoist, where he is assigned to the galley, he is inspired by the bravery of Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday who free dives to rescue a diver knocked overboard without an air line. Sunday develops an air embolism which prevents him from ever diving again. Brashear is determined to become the first black American Navy diver, even proclaiming that he will become a master diver. He eventually is allowed to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey. He finds that Master Chief Sunday is the head instructor; Sunday is under orders from the school's bigoted commanding officer, Mr. Pappy, to ensure that Brashear fails. The other students, led by Dylan Rourke, refuse to bunk with Brashear.
Brashear struggles to overcome his educational shortcomings, a result of his leaving school in the seventh grade in order to work on his family's farm. He receives assistance from Jo, a female medical student who works part-time in the New York Public Library. Brashear proves himself as a diver by rescuing a fellow student when his dive partner, Rourke, abandons him during a salvage exercise gone wrong. At Mr. Pappy's instruction, Rourke is awarded a medal, taking credit for Brashear's actions. After learning his father has died, Brashear encounters Sunday and the rest of the class at a bar. When Sunday asks if Brashear thinks he is better than him, the two don diving gear that fills with water to see who can hold his breath longer. After four minutes, Sunday's nose starts to bleed and the students drain his suit, leaving Brashear the winner.
For their final evaluation, each student must assemble a flange underwater using a bag of tools. At Mr. Pappy's direction, Brashear's bag is cut open to impede his passing. Brashear must take time to locate and gather his tools as the water temperature drops. Hours after the other students have finished, Brashear completes the assembly and graduates from diving school. Sunday is later demoted to senior chief by Mr. Pappy for allowing Brashear to pass.
The paths and careers of Brashear and Sunday diverge. Sunday continually loses his composure around officers who disrespect his accomplishments until he is finally demoted to chief petty officer and relegated to menial duties. Brashear marries Jo and rises quickly through the ranks, even becoming a national hero in the 1966 Palomares incident for evading a Soviet submarine, recovering a missing hydrogen bomb and severing his left leg below the knee while saving the lives of Navy crewmen. Brashear feels that his only chance to return to active duty and a relatively normal life is for the leg to be amputated and replaced with a prosthesis. Until this time, no Navy man had ever returned to full active duty with a prosthetic limb.
Brashear reunites with Sunday, who helps him train and fight against the Navy's bureaucracy and the antagonistic Captain Hanks (Brashear's and Sunday's former Hoist executive officer) in order to return to full active duty and fulfill his dream of becoming a master diver. After Brashear passes his readiness evaluation, his reinstatement hearing is held before the Chief of Naval Personnel in Washington. Hanks brings in the latest Navy technology, a 290-pound copper diving suit and tells Brashear he must walk 12 steps to qualify for reinstatement. Knowing his prosthesis cannot bear the extra weight, Brashear stands and takes all 12 steps with the full weight of his body and the suit on his right leg. Hanks declares that Brashear is reinstated to full active duty.
The epilogue notes that Brashear becomes a master diver two years later, and was active for another nine years before retiring.
