Art curator George Steele experiences a train wreck...which never happened. Is he cracking up, or the victim of a plot?
Don't be fooled by the title. Christmas Holiday is a far, far cry from It's a Wonderful Life. Told in flashback, the story begins as Abigail Martin marries Southern aristocrat Robert Monette. Unfortunately, Robert has inherited his family's streak of violence and instability, and soon drags Abigail into a life of misery.
Imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, John "Kit" McKittrick is released when a New York City policeman pulls some strings. Upon returning to America, McKittrick hears that a friend has committed suicide, and he begins to smell a rat. During his investigation, McKittrick questions three beautiful women, one of whom has a tie to his refugee past. Pursued by Nazi operatives, McKittrick learns of the death of another friend, and begins to suspect the dark Dr. Skaas.
A naive small-town girl comes to New York City to meet her husband, and discovers that he may be a murderer.
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.
A family man – desperate for a job – latches onto a friend who encourages him into being a criminal.
A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.
A man who spent his formative years in prison for murder is released, and struggles to adjust to the outside world and escape his lurid past. He gets involved with a cheap dancehall girl, and when her protector is accidentally killed, they go on the lam together, getting jobs as farm labourers. But some fellow workers get wise to them.
Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.
A drifter claims the money in an old bank account. Soon he finds himself the target of two men who turn out to be the sons of the man's old partner, who is now in prison because of a conflict with him over the money in that account.
A family (mother, daughter and son) tries to survive their loneliness and obsessions by going through different sexual experiences and relationships with a new neighbour, a prostitute.
Story of an investment agent who embezzles a large sum from an estate, hoping to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress. The girl is already engaged, so he arranges to have the fiance killed. A mix up involving the society section of the newspaper places him in the sights of his own hired gun.
A private detective is hired to find a young heiress but finds himself accused of murder.
A bedridden and gravely ill man believes his wife and doctor are conspiring to kill him, and outlines his suspicions in a letter.
A prim psychology professor fights to hide a murder she committed in self-defense.
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.
Two businessmen pose as film-makers in order to get away with the murder of a young girl.
A mad writer checks into a hotel. In the window of a opposite building he sees four men and starts to write their life story. Every man is an anonymous person who have done or experienced something irreversible in his life. They end up together to plan a heist.
In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.