Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.
Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.
The crew of an atomic submarine battle to save the world from global destruction.
After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from Paris, the beautiful, ultra-serious Ninotchka is sent to complete their mission and to retrieve them. She starts out condemning the decadent West, but gradually falls under its spell—with the help of an American movie producer. A remake of Ninotchka (1939).
Based on the famous book by Jules Verne the movie follows Phileas Fogg on his journey around the world. Which has to be completed within 80 days, a very short period for those days.
A ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.
A group of con artists stake their claim on a bogus uranium mine.
Young auto mechanic Dan Brady takes $20 from a cash register at work to go on a date with blonde femme fatale Vera Novak. Brady intends to put the money back before it is missed, but the garage's bookkeeper shows up earlier than scheduled. As Brady scrambles to cover evidence of his petty theft, he fast finds himself drawn into an ever worsening "quicksand" of crime.
Ronnie Jackson is a lowly baby photographer who secretly fantasizes about being a private detective. When a lovely baroness actually mistakes him for one and asks him to help locate her missing husband, Baron Montay, Ronnie finds himself agreeing. Several days later he is on death row whiling away the hours until his execution by recounting to a group of reporters the bizarre tale of how he ended up there.
Chuck Scott gets a job as chauffeur to tough guy Eddie Roman; but Chuck's involvement with Eddie's fearful wife becomes a nightmare.
Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at a club offering free of charge food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen on their way overseas. Club founders Bette Davis and John Garfield give talks on the history of the place.
Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Broadway gamblers stumble across a plan by Nazi saboteurs to blow up an American battleship.
A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
After three British agents are assigned to assassinate a mysterious German spy during World War I, two of them become ambivalent when their duty to the mission conflicts with their consciences.
While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.