James Griffith

From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen takes viewers on a whirlwind tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, investigating the myriad stories and legends that have come to define it, and meticulously, judiciously revealing the real city that lives beneath.

The escapades of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and the runaway slave, Jim, drifting down the Mississippi on a homemade raft, and their encounter with the Duke and his cohort, Dauphin.

A TV adaptation of Washington Irving's classic ghost story. Humor is the drawing card in this version, with Jeff Goldblum a nerdish Ichabod Crane, Dick Butkus an appropriately nasty Brom Bones, and Meg Foster as spirited Katrina van Tassel. Angered that Katrina has grown fond of schoolmaster Crane, Brom Bones determines to scare off the interloper by filling his head with spooky tales of a Headless Horseman. Crane pooh-poohs the legends, until one fateful ride home in the dark of night.

A laconic ex-hired gun in the Old West teams up with three scrappy female prisoners abandoned in the desert, two orphaned children, an army deserter, and a group of cantankerous animals, all of whom try to outsmart and outshoot a ratty gang of desperadoes trying to retrieve their boss' girlfriend and the saddle-tramp's secret cargo.

After a wave of unsolved car thefts, an insurance company calls in a private investigator to solve the case. While the chief of police isn't thrilled about having an outsider come and show up his men, one of the officers is a former girlfriend who's more than willing to help him out in any way she can.

On a cold winter morning Tav wakes his son Samuel at 4 A.M. to help with chores on the family farm. He sternly comments on Sam's work, such as napping while milking, or spilling a little milk, causing Sam to tell his mother how hard it is to please his father. She explains that Tav is just teaching him traits he will need as a man, and although his father loves him very much he finds it hard to express this in words. Sam admits to having the same problem. She says that there are unspoken ways to communicate love, and Sam volunteers, "Like Christmas presents ?" She agrees, but will not tell him how to select a special gift for his father. On Christmas morning Sam goes out to the barn alone (except for the cows, pigs, and chickens) to deliver his special gift in a setting very similar to where the very first Christmas gifts were bestowed.

Two helicopter pilots rush aid to a small town devastated by a flood following the collapse of an aging dam.

A fictionalized account of the real-life adventure of the Sager family. Travelling with a wagon train from Missouri to Oregon, things are going well for the Sagers, until father Sager dies from blood poisoning following an Indian attack, and mother Sager dies soon afterward from pneumonia. The leaders of the wagon train decide to send the children back, but the oldest, John (who had been described by all the adults as lazy and worthless), decides to lead his siblings through the wilderness to complete the journey their parents started.

A Los Angeles woman, on her way to visit her sister in San Fransisco, picks up a hitchhiker who has just killed his stepmother. Charmed by him, she fails to notice his strange behavior until it is too late.

A young teenage girl is jealous of her father's new wife, and when one day she discovers the two of them having sex, she freaks out and starts hanging out with the "wrong crowd" at school. Next thing you know, she's smoking pot and having sex with long-haired hippies. From there it's all downhill.