
The brightest stars and celebrated movies spanning the Golden Ages of Hollywood.
Writer and notorious marriage detractor Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) falls for girl-next-door Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), and they tie the knot on Halloween. When the newlyweds return to their respective family homes to deliver the news, Brewster finds a corpse hidden in a window seat. With his eccentric aunts (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), disturbed uncle (John Alexander), and homicidal brother (Raymond Massey), he starts to realize that his family is even crazier than he thought.
Defying her conventional in-laws, young widow Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) leaves London with her young daughter and moves away for a quieter life in a secluded seaside cottage. Lucy discovers the ghost of the deceased former owner, sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), is haunting the house, but gathers the courage to stand up to him, and woman and ghost become friends. Faced with dwindling means of support, Lucy agrees to the Captain's challenge to write his colorful life story.
Although Larry Ballentine (Robert Young) is married to the wealthy Greta (Rita Johnson), he still sees other women on the side. While he is involved with Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward), they commit embezzlement and run away together. However, a car accident occurs in which Verna is burned to death and thought to be Greta by police. When Larry goes to find Greta, he discovers that she has died in an equestrian accident and hides her body. Now Larry stands trial for murder of the missing Verna.
Novelist Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) and publisher Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) intend to show how lawyer Roy Thompson (Philip Bourneuf) has been using circumstantial evidence in capital punishment trials. They concoct a scheme in which flimsy evidence will point to Garrett as a murder suspect, but Spencer will exonerate him at the end. Meanwhile, they keep the plan a secret from Spencer's daughter, Susan (Joan Fontaine), who is engaged to Garrett. However, the trial doesn't go as planned.
Gangster Radak (Raymond Burr) and his cronies try to coerce truck driver Steve (Steve Brodie) into shipping stolen goods, but Steve manages to tip off the police and foil the crooks. Radak evades capture, but his brother ends up gunning down a policeman and going to jail. Radak and his men attempt to pressure Steve into taking the fall for the killing, using the well-being of the trucker's wife, Anne (Audrey Long), as leverage. But Anne and Steve manage to skip town, and the chase is on.
Looking to make money and bolster his street cred, Abe Reles (Peter Falk) goes to work for New York City racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Along with fellow thug Bug Workman (Warren Finnerty), Abe uses his ties to married entertainers Joey (Stuart Whitman) and Eadie Collins (May Britt) to close in on a murder target. But after the hit, prosecutor Burton Turkus (Henry Morgan) elicits key testimony from Joey and Eadie, forcing Abe to either accept a jail term or incriminate his dangerous boss.
New York City custodian Daryll Deever (William Hurt) is a big fan of local news reporter Tony Sokolow (Sigourney Weaver), so he is intrigued when she shows up to cover a story at his workplace. There's been a murder in the office building, and Tony suspects that Daryll may have insight into the crime, a notion that he furthers to stay close to her. However, when those behind the killing begin to think that Daryll really knows something, they target both him and Tony to keep their secrets hidden.