Judith Lowry

A dad tries to impress the daughter -- a soon-to-be college student he thinks is hanging around with a bad crowd.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

Thief Duke Anderson—just released from ten years in jail—takes up with his old girlfriend in her posh apartment block, and makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being recorded on audio and video, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.

Reverend Brooks leads his small Iowa town in a contest to stop smoking for a month. But some tobacco executives don't want them to win, and try everything they can to make them smoke. If townspeople don't go nuts from wanting a cigarette, or kill each other from irritation and frustration, they will win a huge prize.

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave the country together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

Daisy Gamble, an unusual woman who hears phones before they ring, and does wonders with her flowers, wants to quit smoking to please her fiancé, Warren. She goes to a doctor of hypnosis to do it. But once she's under, her doctor finds out that she can regress into past lives and different personalities, and he finds himself falling in love with one of them.

Taxi dancer Charity continues to have faith in the human race despite apparently endless disappointments at its hands, and hope that she will finally meet the nice young man to romance her away from her sleazy life. Maybe, just maybe, handsome Oscar will be the one to do it.

Abraham is a Puerto Rican single parent with two boys. He is becoming very worried about them living in their run down neighborhood when one day he notices that Cubans who escape are lionized and given exceptional benefits. He thinks up a plot to have his sons washed ashore as cuban immigrants who will be adopted by rich anglos.

On his wedding day, in the few remaining hours of his bachelorhood, Barney Kempinski goes off to tour the city and sing his song to life, love and the city of New York.

Rachel arrives in New York from her Amish community intent on becoming a dancer. Unfortunately Billy Minsky's Burlesque is hardly the place for her Dances From The Bible. But the show's comedian Raymond sees a way of wrong-footing the local do-gooders by announcing the new Paris sensation "Mme Fifi" and putting on Rachel's performance as the place is raided. All too complicated, the more so since her father is scouring the town for her and both Raymond and his straight-man Chick are falling for Rachel.