So's Your Old Man

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.

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.

In this one-hour special taped between March 9-17, 1981, Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore join the Muppets in a tribute to film classics. Kermit the Frog hosts the program, which begins with an all-cast rendition of "Hey a Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper.

Evelyn Palmer, a débutante society girl who also is a property landlord, becomes interested in the plight of one of her tenants, a struggling band-leader, to the extent she becomes a hostess in a dance club, incognito, where the band plays, and soon is the band's singer.

Two sisters from Indiana, the wide-eyed and innocent Mae Thorpe, and her more streetwise sister June, move into the Rolf House for Homeless Girls in New York. With June's help, Mae obtains a job as a stenographer for the scientist Joseph von Schraeder, while June gets work as a telegraph operator at Western Union.

Lemuel Morehouse, the owner of a profitable meatpacking company in Chicago, bemoans the fact that neither of his two sons have the time nor inclination to eat with him. Billy is obsessed with culture, while Tom is a physical fitness nut. At the office, Lemuel is exasperated when Billy arrives for work at four in the afternoon and cannot stay because of a party he is giving that night to unveil a statue he bought for $20,000. Lemuel then finds Tom meeting with his golf committee rather than working. When the boys argue that business is only a means to an end, and that happiness and enjoyment of life are desired goals, Lemuel counters their contentions by declaring that what they really need are wives and tells them that Dorothy and Rose Gregson, the daughters of an old friend, will soon be visiting.

Oscar, a tough guard at Newberry Prison, gets into an argument with Jerry, a smallish barber. He causes Jerry to be arrested as a fugitive, and gets him sent to Newberry. It's not long before both men fall in love with Mary, the daughter of the warden. Oscar gets Jerry put on the prison football team, where he is the smallest guy there, figuring that he will look like a fool in front of Mary and then she will pick Oscar. However, things don't turn out quite the way Oscar planned.

Gwen's family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant's irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.

Amy Spencer is engaged to artist Heath Desmond, a nature-worshipper who shuns organized religion. James Bartlett, a minister in love with Amy, influences her against Heath, and they break up. Cousin Kate Curtis, a novelist whose views on love are considered by her relatives to be unconventional, is called in to smooth matters over. She meets Heath on the train, and the two, not knowing each other's identity, apparently fall in love.

"Richard the Brazen" is the romance of a modern knight who has all the flourish and daring of the knights of old, although he happened to be born in Texas in the 20th century. While traveling with his chum, an English peer, an accident forces him to assume his friend's title, valet, and monocle and leads to a meeting with a girl whom he had worshipped from afar in England.

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Vaudeville is a 1997 PBS documentary under its American Masters program. Using film clips and photos, the art and history of vaudeville (1890-1930s) is illustrated.

Armed with a limitless Rolodex and a Benedict Canyon enclave with its own disco, Allan Carr threw the Hollywood parties that defined the 1970s. A producer, manager, and marketing genius, Carr built his bombastic reputation amid a series of successes including the mega-hit musical film "Grease," until it all came crashing down after he produced the 1989 Academy Awards, a notorious debacle.

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Young scout Breck Coleman leads a wagon train along the dangerous trail to Oregon as he tries to get the affection of the beautiful pioneer Ruth Cameron and plans his revenge on the harsh scoundrels who murdered a friend of his in the past.

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

A film scrapbook, images, phrases from our past, hiding their meanings behind veils. Let's lift those veils, one by one, to find how images, at one time seeming innocent, have revealed, after decades, to have homosexual overtones.

Clara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.

Andrew Richter shares odd celebrity encounters from his years of working in hotels.

Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.

France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.

Charm and Valor fall in love and are married. Jealousy, however, is angry at their happiness and decides to ruin their marriage, so she arranges for Charm to find an old photograph of her husband's former sweetheart Forgotten. Valor is also led to mistrust Charm, and the two return to their respective parents: his, Finance and Display, and hers, Commerce and Pride. While Charm spends her days with Sorrow, Treachery endeavors to ruin Valor by luring him to a disreputable roadhouse, and when Valor's father tries to bring him home, the young man strikes his father with a bottle. The two sets of parents are in the midst of a financial battle when Charm gives birth to a child, Happiness. The child reunites the couple, and Madame Jealousy, along with her servants Mischief, Treachery and Rumor, finally are banished.

Geoffrey Tempest is desperately in love with aspiring writer Mavis Claire, a tenant of his boardinghouse. Unable to marry her due to his poverty, in his anger, he curses God for abandoning him. Soon, Geoffrey meets Prince Lucio de Rimanez, a wealthy, urbane gentleman who informs Geoffrey that he's inherited a fortune, but that he must place himself in the Prince's hands in order to enjoy the fruits of his inheritance. What Geoffrey doesn't know is that Prince Lucio is actually Satan.

Having misused funds held in his trust by investing them with his friend, Henry Lowe, Robert Reardon appeals to his future son-in-law, James Calvin, a candidate for the position of district attorney, for help. When Calvin threatens to indict Lowe for fraud if he is elected, Reardon's anger becomes so great that the engagement between Calvin and Reardon's daughter Helen is broken, resulting in Reardon's suicide. After Lowe comes into possession of a check forged by Helen's brother Jack, he uses the document to force a marriage with Helen. Treated brutally by her husband, Helen seeks Calvin's aid, but Lowe frames Calvin, now the district attorney, in a compromising situation with his ex-fiancée. Calvin is about to resign when Helen traps her husband with some marked money, causing his suicide through disgrace. Thus freed, Helen and Calvin find happiness together.

Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.

Hardworking reporter Phyllis Dale has been hiding a seventeen year old secret. But when her wild daughter Bobby is removed from boarding school, it looks like the secret is out. That is, until Bobby introduces herself as the little sister to Phyllis' fiancé Lawrence and boss Roger. Yet Bobby is bound to cause mischief by flirting with everyone. And when she draws the attention of a philandering divorcee, she is bound for scandal! Will Phyllis be able to keep wild Bobby out of the Headlines?

Adapted from the Fannie Hurst story of the same name, Mannequin is the story of Joan Herrick, kidnapped in infancy from her wealthy parents and raised by a slatternly slum woman. The film is still extant.

A feisty, sexy and manipulative gypsy disrupts the lives of a conservative farm family.

An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.

Brothers Beau, John and Digby Geste join the Foreign Legion, where they fall under the rule of tyrannical Sergeant Markoff. Beau and John are assigned to Fort Zinderneuf, where Markoff tries to break their spirit, aware of a dark family secret concerning a fabulous jewel one of them carries. As tensions rise, Arabs attack the fort and rivalries must be thrown aside in a desperate battle for life.

Jude Hunter (Katherine Hughes) is a committed musician who is in the middle of preparing for the biggest and most important performance of her life. When mysterious, unprecedented, and seemingly connected deaths occur as the competition draws near, she begins to feel unsafe, thinking that she might be the next target.

The wife of attorney John Blair (T. Jerome Lawler), heroine Helene (Kalich) finds herself in an untenable position when two of Blair's clients, Harry Carson (Robert Rendel)) and Richard Tremaine (Eugene Ormonde), both fall in love with her.

Madame Vervier, a sophisticated woman, sends her daughter Alix to live with Owen Bradley's parents in London.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

While engaged in battle, Pierre Duval, a French soldier, stumbles onto the mortally wounded Count de Morave. Before dying, the count begs Pierre to deliver some family jewels and papers to the Vicomte Raoul de Reyntiens. At home, Pierre places the jewels in a box that also contains a necklace given to Margot, his wife, by the Duke D'Auberg. While stealing the box, Lazare, a war correspondent who witnessed Pierre's scene with the count, attacks and kills Margot. Found guilty of the crime, Pierre is sentenced to life imprisonment but is pardoned after performing a dangerous jailhouse rescue. Mavis, his daughter, who has been adopted by the duke, falls in love with the poor vicomte but is courted by Lazare, now posing as the Count de Morave. To win her love, Lazare gives her some of the stolen jewels, including the duke's necklace, but when Pierre sees the necklace later, he exposes Lazare and wins retribution.

Leone, a Papal guard, is devastated when his wife drowns herself after mistakenly thinking that he had abandoned her. He turns over his son David to be brought up by nuns, then enters a monastery. David is brought to London and is raised to be a beggar and thief until he is rescued by Dr. Roselli, an Italian political refugee, who raises David with his daughter Donna Roma. Years later David gets heavily involved in Italian politics and incurs the enmity of the corrupt Italian Prime Minister, which leads him to discover the hidden secrets of his family's past--and present.

Desperate to change her vixenish image, Theda Bara was called upon to play a sweet young thing (she was nearly 30) who sacrifices herself for the happiness of her sister (Claire Whitney).

The itinerant Jewish country peddler Abraham Jacobs saves his pennies until he can afford to open a small second-hand clothing store. Unfortunately, Abraham's son Sonny has not inherited his father's decent, hardworking instincts so when his mistress, Mrs. Morgan, needs money Sammy robs Abraham's safe and then disappears. Time passes, and oil is discovered on a tract of land left to Abraham by his late wife. Although he can now afford to live comfortably with his adopted daughter Mary, Abraham still strongly feels the loss of his son. His life is finally made complete when Sammy returns repentant to marry Abraham's housekeeper Sarah, and the old peddler, his struggles now over, can spend the rest of his days surrounded by his family.

James Rallston, facing financial hardship, marries a wealthy invalid widow with a daughter, Jean, and plots to control her fortune. He orchestrates her confinement in a sanitarium by drugging her and falsely claiming she is insane, with the help of a conniving doctor and sanitarium keeper. Fifteen years later, Rallston has lost Jean's fortune through speculation and seeks help from John Bigelow to recover it, offering Jean as a reward. Bigelow, suspicious of Rallston, discovers the truth about the widow and Jean's father, and rescues the widow from the sanitarium.