A charismatic charlatan begins a business — and eventually romantic — relationship with a roadside evangelist to sell religion to 1920s America. Based on Sinclair Lewis' novel of the same name.
In the late 1930s, Sheilah Graham’s Hollywood column quickly becomes popular for its biting tone. At a party, she meets author F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the two begin a torrid affair. Scott laments that his writing has fallen out of fashion, and when he is fired from his screenwriting position, he...
Cattle baron Matt Devereaux raids a copper smelter that is polluting his water, then divides his property among his sons. Son Joe takes responsibility for the raid and gets three years in prison. Matt dies from a stroke partly caused by his rebellious sons and when Joe gets out he plans revenge.
After her father's funeral, Ann Chapin thinks back over the last five years of his life, years of apparent political and personal failure dominated by a selfish and dissatisfied wife, eased only by alcohol. But it starts to emerge that he had in fact one brief and unsuspected period of happiness...
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he's there, MacWhite sees only a...
Tax collector Lorenzo Charlton comes to the Larkins' farm to ask why Pop Larkins hasn't paid his back taxes. Charlton has to stay for a day to try to estimate the income from the farm, but it isn't easy to calculate when the farmer has such a lovely daughter.
The wedding of Ellen and David is halted by a stranger who insists that the bride is already married to someone else. Though the flabbergasted Ellen denies the charge, the interloper produces enough evidence that his accusation must be investigated. Ellen and David travel to the small coastal town...
Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the town newspaper, pitches an idea for a story about a local haunted house where a famous murder/suicide occurred 20 years earlier. After the editor assigns Luther to spend one night alone in the mansion, Heggs has a number of supernatural encounters and writes a...
After their orphanage burns down, a group of children are being transported west by train to Manitoba. All of them are available for adoption and at a stop at Scourie, Ontario little Patsy meets Victoria McChesney. Victoria and her husband Patrick have no children and she immediately decides to...
Nick Romano lives in a poor tenement building on the south side of Chicago with his well-meaning but drug-addicted mother, Nellie. She encourages him to pursue his piano-playing talent in hopes that it will bring him a better life. Nellie's neighbors, like the alcoholic ex-lawyer who secretly loves...
Middle-class suburbanites Larry and Kitty grow bored with their lives and respective marriages. Although each always found the other's manner grating, they fall in love when thrown together--without their spouses--on vacation. On returning home they try to break things off, only to grow closer. A...
Kay Kingsley, a sophisticated and successful songwriter in New York City. falls in love with a widowed rancher, Chris Heyward, she meets at the Madison Square Garden Rodeo and they get married, and leave for his ranch in the west. Her friends warn her of an early disillusionment with life on a...