Lucien Littlefield

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.

Italy 1757, Pippo Popolino, a lowly tailor, disguises himself as the great Casanova in order to romance the attractive widow Francesca. He little suspects what awaits him... Locked into the incongruous role by the desperation of the real Casanova's creditors, Pippo must journey to Venice on a delicate mission far beyond his capabilities.

France, 1648: Richelieu and Louis XIII are dead, the new king is a minor, and the Duc de Lavalle is in virtually open rebellion, scheming to seize power. As a last resort, Queen Anne summons the heirs of the original Musketeers to her aid...including Claire, daughter of Athos, who when she chooses can miraculously pass as a boy, and wields as fine a sword as any. All their skills will be needed for a battle against increasing odds. One for all and all for one! Written by Rod Crawford

Middle-aged middle-manager Jim Fry, with the same company for fifteen years, is in a comfortable rut. But life becomes less predictable when he doesn't receive an invitation to an important luncheon being held by the new company president. Convinced that he's about to lose his job, Jim begins to mull over his limited prospects when his wife confirms that she's pregnant.

In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.

Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.

In Hoyt City, a statue of founder Ethan Hoyt is dedicated, and 100 year old Hannah Sempler Hoyt (who lives in the last residence among skyscrapers) is at last persuaded to tell her story to a 'girl biographer'. Flashback: in 1848, teenage Hannah meets and flirts with pioneer Ethan; on a sudden impulse, they elope. We follow their struggle to found a city in the wilderness, hampered by the Gold Rush, star-crossed love, peril, and heartbreak. The star "ages" 80 years.

Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by claiming to be a friend of stage star Lillie Langtry, with whom the judge is obsessed, even though he has never met her. Tensions rise when Harden comes to the defense of a group of struggling homesteaders who Judge Bean is trying to drive away.

Pretty Girl Barbara Mededith takes over her murdered brother's crusading newspaper. She also assumes the dead sibling's identity as "The Black Whip," righting the wrongs of Crescent City very much in the manner of her famous ancestor, Zorro.

Raised by Natalie Brennan, a flamboyant and irresponsible mother, Ziggy Brennan gets involved in hustling men at a young age. She hangs around with a wild crowd and learns gets her "street smarts" first from her mother, who wants everyone to think they are sisters, and then from Denny Reagan, an older man. He starts teaching her his tricks of the trade and she falls right in line with his crooked ways. Then one night she meets Martin J. 'Mart' Neilson, a tall, handsome, honest farmer boy who's a sailor and they fall in love. While he's away fighting the war, she discovers she's pregnant.

Charlie Chan, with son Jimmy on a week's pass from the Army, takes up a request for help at a castle-home, miles from anywhere in the American desert south-west and inhabited by an eccentric, reclusive historian and his wife, a descendant of Lucrezia Borgia. Once there, he finds the request's legitimacy denied by all who are present, but still necessary as one houseguest has already been murdered, the other guests are at each other's throat, and the Borgia-related chatelain is suspected...

An insurance salesman, Albert Tuttle, is hired as a body guard for a millionaire.

Li'l Abner becomes convinced that he is going to die within twenty-four hours, so agrees to marry two different girls: Daisy Mae (who has chased him for years) and Wendy Wilecat (who rescued him from an angry mob). It is all settled at the Sadie Hawkins Day race.

Henry Aldrich finds himself in a heated election for high-school class president.

The hometown life of a young soldier suffering from shellshock amnesia is revealed in flashback.

A young newlywed (Robert Sterling) finds working for his nasty father-in-law difficult.

Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, in 2013.

The bad guys dynamite a fish hatchery. They're trying to put the hatchery out of business so they can get possession of oil underneath the lake. Roy is a game warden investigating the dynamiting.

Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects.

A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany to meet the man's family.

Naval commander Charles Sturm has made life miserable for his wife Diana due to his insane jealousy over every man she speaks to. His obsessive behavior soon drives her to the arms of a handsome lieutenant. When Charles learns of their affair, he plots revenge.

Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.

Michael 'Nuggin' Taylor and Powdah save lives during a sea tragedy in this story about the slave trade on the high seas during 1842.

In this comedy of an Englishman stranded in a sea of barbaric Americans, Marmaduke Ruggles – a gentleman's gentleman and butler to an Earl – is lost in a poker game to an uncouth American cattle baron. Ruggles' life is turned upside down as he's taken to the USA, is gradually assimilated into American life, accidentally becomes a local celebrity, and falls in love along the way.

Dare Rudd takes a shine to his cattleman cousin Tom's girlfriend who asks Tom to hire Dare to head the big cattle drive. Dare loses the money for the drive to cardsharps, but Tom wins it back, but Dare must save Tom's life.

Meek Eddie Pink becomes manager of an amusement park beset by mobsters.

Shanghai, China, the 1920s. In the midst of a bloody civil war, General Yen, a ruthless warlord, rescues Megan Davis —who was about to marry a missionary— from certain death amid the chaos.

The setting is a small town in 1870s Pennsylvania. Sally Waterson and her father have stopped in town with their traveling medicine show, but when their wagon catches fire, they find themselves stranded. They're taken in by Mrs. Cortlandt and her grandson, Peter, who is trying to set up a pipeline that will supply oil throughout the state. Sally and Peter soon fall in love and marry. Neither their marriage nor Peter's pipe dreams flow too smoothly.

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.

With the aid of his former law students, a professor-turned-prosecutor battles corruption and organized crime.

A cattleman hires his cousin, Dare Rudd, to head a cattle drive. However, he doesn’t bargain for Dare taking an interest in his girlfriend or losing his money to card sharks

A European princess arrives in New York City to secure a much-needed loan for her country. She contracts the mumps, and an actress who looks exactly like her is hired to impersonate her.

After the death of her sewing machine tycoon husband, a young woman is cold-shouldered by her grasping in-laws. She heads to New York City and meets a man, falls in love and gets married. Unknown to her, her new husband is after what he thinks to be her fortune, in revenge for the theft of his father's patents that made the sewing machine profits. Discovering that she is in fact penniless, they both reconcile.

A waitress falls for a wealthy young man but has to fight his mother to find happiness.

President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

In the 1840s, Ramsey MacKay, the driver for the struggling Wells Fargo mail and freight company, will secure an important contract if he delivers fresh oysters to Buffalo from New York City. When he rescues Justine Pryor and her mother, who are stranded in a broken wagon on his route, he doesn't let them slow him down and gives the ladies an exhilirating ride into Buffalo. He arrives in time to obtain the contract and is then sent by company president Henry Wells to St. Louis to establish a branch office.

Opera student Annette Monard meets composer Jonathan Street, and in a buoyant, alcohol-fueled evening, the couple marries. Sincerely falling in love, Jonathan encourages the talented Annette to sing — yet when his own attempt at an opera fails, Jonathan lashes out at Annette's success. Despite her husband's jealousy, Annette embarks on a successful career that allows her to secretly fund Jonathan's opera, bringing their marriage to a crisis.

An incognito opera singer falls for a policeman who has been assigned to track down her fugitive brother.

Dr. Maurice Lamar is a noted plastic surgeon who makes his rich clients beautiful, and also makes them. He makes Eve Caron, the wife of Marcel Caron, so satisfied with his skilled hands that she leaves Marcel and marries Maurice. They go on a Mediterranean honeymoon, where he soon finds the effects of his own beauty regulations are more than he can handle. He bids adieu to his new bride, and wings it back to Paris with the intention of giving up his practice and becoming a scientific researcher... after winning back the love of his simple, unadorned secretary, Anne.

Newly arrived in the nineteenth century court of Emperor Francis 1st of Austria Countess Valerie happens to overhear a young pianist and advises him to play with more feeling, for he is playing a piece by Franz Schubert, her favorite composer. Unknown to Valerie, the man is Schubert, and he playfully keeps his identity a secret. Valerie visits Franz the next day, and he teaches her to play the violin part of a new song he has written, and she hopes for romance though he still longs for his lost love Caroline. But as a week passes, he forgets Caroline and returns Valerie's affections. When Franz is evicted, there is much tumult, but he is finally called to court where his music is celebrated, and Valerie and he are reunited.

Stan and Ollie are chimney sweeps working at the home of mad scientist Professor Noodle.

Esmeralda is a cook in a diner in a small Arkansas town. When a gang of crooks moves into town and plots a bank robbery, Esmeralda unintentionally wrecks their plans, resulting in fame for Esmeralda as the crime-fighting "Tiger Woman," but also further complications.

Confirming his principle that no one escapes the news, a tabloid editor prints a scathing story about his wife.

Abandoned by her lover, a woman becomes the main "hostess" in a decadent nightclub, but tries to put her past behind her on a steamer to Mandalay.

Radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. In reality, Glory would like to at least sample booze, jazz, gambling, and men. When the strain of representing "purity" brings her to rebellion, the sponsor and his nutty henchmen pick her a public-relations "sweetheart" from fan mail, who turns out to be a hayseed.

Chester Beatty and Tessie Weeks have been engaged for 5 years and going together for 15 years before that. Chester is reluctant to burden Tessie with marriage because of his secret problem. He is a sleepwalker. When Tessie finally does rope Chester into marriage, he can't get time off from his boss of 26 years, Mr. Frisbee. To resolve the problem, Chester sets out to impress his boss by securing a big sales contract of glass eyes. He takes Tessie and follows the rich doll company owner Horace B. Stanton to a lakeside resort and befriends him. However, his sleep-walking makes him a prime suspect in a thievery/murder case.

The night before his grandson, Tommy Grayson, a mechanic at the Midland Aircraft Corporation, is to marry Gail, a former showgirl, Major Matt Grayson, a war veteran and watchman at the plant, catches two men breaking into the machine shop. The men run, but the major shoots one of them.....

A writer and an actress meet and marry without really knowing each other--they are even unaware that both bride and groom are equally famous. During the honeymoon, all hell breaks loose as a comedic war of the sexes leads inevitably to love.

In 1856, slave Eliza plans to marry George with the consent of the Shelbys, her masters, but George's owner prevents the wedding. A few years later, Eliza flees with her son, Harry, after learning the Shelbys plan to hand them over to a crooked creditor to prevent foreclosure. George also escapes and goes on the run while Eliza and Harry are captured and brought back home. Mother and son are separated as George tries to find them both.

A young girl and her father are kicked out of their house by a cruel noblewoman, and the girl's heart is broken when her sweetheart, the noblewoman's son, won't go to Paris with them. After becoming an opera star in Paris, the girl returns to her homeland and finds her romance with the nobleman rekindled.

Socialite Anatol Spencer, finding his relationship with his wife lackluster, goes in search of excitement. After bumping into old flame Emilie, he lets an apartment for her only to find that she cheats him. He is subsequently robbed, conned, and booted from pillar to post. He decides to return to his wife and discovers her carousing with his best friend Max.

A group of potential heirs gather in a forbidding old house to learn which of them will inherit a fortune. Later, they learn that a flesh-rending maniac is loose.

In Fox's contribution to the all-star revue cycle of early talkies, showboat singer Margie, hearing that the show is in arrears, goes to New York to gather all of the former stars to stage a minstrel show as a benefit.

A young woman dutifully marries an older millionaire and then falls in love with a handsome nobleman-- who'd previously saved her life-- on her unhappy honeymoon.

Dan Prentiss is a special undercover agent hired by a mining company to look into a series of gold-shipment robberies.

A small-town businessman bumbles into blackmail and a real-estate swindle.

Sydney Fairchild, the daughter of a woman who was once loved by three bachelors, surprises the men with a visit. Findley, Trumbull, and Gaunt honor their former sweetheart's last request by becoming Sydney's guardians.

Bryce Cardigan struggles to protect his Redwood inheritance from a railroad-owner, who is also the guardian of the woman Bryce loves.

American law clerks Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne and Rodney Blake are nearly broke in Monte Carlo when Hawthorne breaks the bank. While driving through the impoverished kingdom of Bovinia, Hawthorne falls in love with a woman he meets when he retrieves his blown-off cap. Deciding to stay, Hawthorne is persuaded to finance a revolution until he learns that the woman he loves is Princess Irma and that she is in danger of being assassinated.