An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.
Lost Caverns Hotel bellhop Freddie Phillips is suspected of murder. Swami Talpur tries to hypnotize Freddie into confessing, but Freddie is too stupid for the plot to work. Inspector Wellman uses Freddie to get the killer (and it isn't the Swami).
A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.
Movie star Charlie Castle draws the ire of Hollywood producer Stanley Hoff when he refuses to sign a new seven-year contract. Castle is sick of the low quality of the studio's films and wants to start a new life. While his estranged wife supports him in the decision, Castle's talent agent urges him to reconsider. When Castle continues to be uncooperative, Hoff resorts to blackmail in order to get his way.
Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously.
London, 1929. Frank Webber, a very busy Scotland Yard detective, seems to be more interested in his work than in Alice White, his girlfriend. Feeling herself ignored, Alice agrees to go out with an elegant and well-mannered artist who invites her to visit his fancy apartment.
Holly Parker, the wife of a wealthy diplomat, is compromised by the accidental death of a man who has been romantically pursuing her. She is forced by her mother-in-law to assume a new identity in order to save the reputation of her husband and infant son. She wanders the world, trying to forget her heartbreak with the aid of alcohol and unsavory men. Eventually returning to the city of her downfall, she murders a blackmailer who threatens to expose her past. Amazingly, Holly is represented at her murder trial by her now adult son, who has become a public defender. In the hope of protecting her family, she refuses to reveal her real name and is known to the court as "Madame X".
Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.
A web of blackmail and murder attracts the attention of a barrister with a seemingly idyllic life, threatening to derail his career on the path of success.
When her American lover visits London, a wealthy woman’s jealous husband hatches a plan to murder her and inherit her fortune.
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Ollie is running for mayor when an old flame tries to blackmail him with a old photo.
Unhappily married Richard Mason concocts a meticulous scheme to kill his shrewish wife so that he'll be free to marry her sister.
Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.
Aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.
Gamblers who "took" an out-of-town sucker in a crooked poker game feel shadowy vengeance closing in on them.
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
