The Big Train

Grant MacLaine, a former railroad troubleshooter, lost his job after letting his outlaw, the Utica Kid, escape. After spending five years wandering the west and earning his living playing the accordion, he is given a second chance by his former boss.

When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

There's a box social coming up, and Curly asks Laurey if she'll be his date. Trouble is, Laurey thinks he's waited too long, and in a fit of pique accepts an offer from the boorish ranch hand Jud instead. Meanwhile, Laurey's friend Ado Annie is also torn between two men: cowboy Will and foreign peddler Ali Hakim. Both women struggle to know their own hearts before it's too late.

Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west. He sets off with his son, Davy, to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne. One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy is all alone now.

Mickey is heading out on vacation from Burbank to Pomona, taking the train. The conductor, Pete, won't let him on with Pluto, so he hides Pluto in his suitcase, and tries to hide him all throughout the trip without much luck. But Pete wins when Pluto is hooked by a mail hook. Or does he?

A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Morris Mishkin is a elderly religious Jew in New York. His wife Fanny is very ill. He's a tailor, but he can't work because his back has given out. He doesn't even have enough money for Fanny's medicine. Finally, a black fellow appears from nowhere in the Mishkin kitchen. He says he's an angel from God, sent to help Mishkin. The black angel is even Jewish, named Alex Levine? But will Morris believe in the angel? And can the angel perform the miracle that he promises?

The fates of horses, and the people who own and command them, are revealed as Black Beauty narrates the circle of his life.

A loose fictitious of Charlie Parker's last years and a portrait of the jazz scene in 1960's New York. A black jazz musician bent on self destruction forms an odd friendship with a white college professor full of feeling sorry for himself.