A gang of thieves plan a daring bank robbery, making their escape across the rooftops of Los Angeles. The police are quickly called in, however, and only one of the robbers, Murdock, makes a clean getaway. Unfortunately, in order to do so, he is forced to dump the stolen cash into a mailbox, which he then finds is locked until midnight, forcing him to wait until the mailman makes his late night pickup. As he waits, he discovers that his hiding place has been observed by several other people, all of whom want a share of the loot.
Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.
An ambitious reporter gets in trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.
After the superstardom and early death of Bruce Lee, 20th Century Fox decided to cobble together a couple of theatrical feature films from this property, of which this 1974 effort is the first. The bulk of the film consists of four episodes crudely spliced together. Scattered throughout are bizarrely irrelevant fight scenes from other episodes, which make the already disjointed plotting quite surreal. The television image was cropped to make a widescreen film, which means the tops of heads and hats are lopped off the frame with alarming regularity.
Hobos encounter a sadistic railway conductor that will not let anyone "ride the rails" for free.
When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
Germans kidnap an American major and try to convince him that World War II is over, so that they can get details about the Allied invasion of Europe out of him.
Featuring an all-star cast and on-location shooting in Japan, where the story is set, three US Air Force rescue pilots must overcome their personal problems and differences to embark upon a dangerous mission to save raft-bound Japanese survivors from a murderous storm-tossed sea. As they head for their location, the film flashes back to chronicle the pasts of each pilot to make clear their mixed feelings about their upcoming assignment.
An aging widower fights family disapproval when he falls in love with a gangster's widow.
Three Marines take shore leave in San Francisco during World War II. Frankie O'Neill visits his lower-class dysfunctional family; Nico Kantaylis visits his pregnant fiancée; and the upper-class Alan Newcombe visits his high-living playgirl girlfriend. Each must decide whether to make the best of his situation or break out of it. O'Neill drowns his troubles in alcohol, losing the respect of a potential lover; Kantaylis marries his fiancée, but realizes he may not survive the war to see his child; while Newcombe sheds his decadent girlfriend for a pure-hearted Hawaiian nurse. Later, in battle, a heroic act costs one of the Marines his life.
Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits his guilt and Edwards' superiors are impatiently pushing Edwards to move this case to court martial, Edwards becomes convinced of Cargill's innocence.
New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.
Having fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War, Jesse James and his brother Frank dream of a farm life in Missouri. Harassed by Union sympathizers, they assemble a gang of outlaws, robbing trains and becoming folk heroes in the process. Jesse marries his sweetheart, Zee, and maintains an aura of domesticity, but after a group of lawmen launch an attack on his mother's house, Jesse plans one more great raid -- on a Minnesota bank.