Valerie Curtin
This trio of tales, based on classic short stories, chronicles the complicated relations between the sexes. In "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt," salesman Gerry seduces train traveler Viki. Then, in "Dusk Before Fireworks," a night of romance between Hobie and Kit goes bad when the phone keeps ringing. Finally, in "Hills Like White Elephants," Robert discovers Hadley is pregnant.
Leonard Hoffman is an insurance salesman struggling to make ends meet. The fact that he has triplet sons who all want to go to Yale isn't making things any easier. Blanche Rickey is also worried about money; her husband is a millionaire with a weak heart, and she worries that he'll blow through all his cash before he finally dies. When Blanche meets Leonard, she devises a murderous plan that she claims will fix both their problems.
When Nick and Jan move into their new apartment in San Francisco, the batty landlady upstairs tells them about a girl who used to live there in the 20's: a brash young party girl named Maxie, who died in a car crash the morning before her big audition for a Hollywood studio. The trouble is, Maxie, or rather her ghost, hasn't left the house. Worse, she can take over Jan's body. And the only way she's going to leave is if she gets that audition.
Dudley Moore plays a composer who suspects his wife of cheating. He plots to kill her and frame it on her lover. The whole movie sort of compares his expectations of a perfect result to reality. In the end nothing turns out as planned.
When a professional couple who have lived & worked together for many years finally decide to marry, their sudden betrothal causes many unexpectedly funny and awkward difficulties. They soon find that being married is often quite different from being "best friends."
A divorced woman (Michael Learned) moves to San Francisco from Omaha with her young son. She's trying to re-build her life after her divorce, she leaves her son with his grandmother. She joins the choir of a local church. She has some issues with the choirmaster (John Houseman) who tries to get the choir into shape before the Christmas concert. The choir overcome some personal setbacks as they all deal with personal issues. Zoe (Michael Learned) thinks of quitting the choir all together when push comes to shove.
After a failed suicide attempt leaves him partially crippled, Rory begins spending a lot of time at a neighborhood bar full of interesting misfits. When Jerry the bartender suddenly finds himself playing basketball for the Golden State Warriors, Rory and the rest of the bar regulars hope his success will provide a lift to their sagging spirits. Will Jerry forget his friends? What about his junkie hooker girlfriend and her pimp?
An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is asked to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial. But if he doesn't do it, the judge will have him disbarred.
Lionel's life turns around after a one-night stand on top of a pinball table... he becomes the world's first pregnant man!
A gay man and a lesbian enter into a marriage of convenience in order to prevent his deportation, and then gradually fall in love with one another.
Just before a championship basketball tournament, a teenage athlete learns that he has leukemia.
Henry Fonda plays Elegant John, an old trucker who steals back his prized rig in California and takes off with almost no money. His Kenworth tractor has the name Eleanor on it. Elegant John once met Eleanor Roosevelt. He pulls a Fruehauf van with a "sunroof". Why is he called Elegant John? Well, sonny, if you drive five million miles without being late or having a wreck, you deserve to be called Elegant. Elegant John picks up Bible-thumping hitchhiker Beebo Crozier, who is going to Florida to learn motel management. Elegant John stops and gets fuel. Beebo reluctantly pays for fuel. The two stop at a whorehouse for truckers at Cheyenne, Wyoming, a possible homage to Fonda's movie The Cheyenne Social Club. The prostitutes are about to be raided, and the madam hires Elegant John to take them to the coast of South Carolina to start another prostitution business. Thus Elegant John's trip will be coast to coast.
A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no one who will believe him, he starts doing some investigating of his own. But all that accomplishes is to get the killer after him.
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National Headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. After the editor of the Post runs with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it, they find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party—and eventually into the White House itself.
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.
After her husband dies, Alice and her son, Tommy, leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make a new life for herself as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner.
