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7,548,602 | The Robe | The Robe | The book explores the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus through the experiences of the Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio and his Greek slave Demetrius. Prince Gaius, in an effort to rid Rome of Marcellus, banishes Marcellus to the command of the Roman garrison at Minoa, a port city in southern Palestine. In Jerusalem during Passover, Marcellus ends up carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus, but is troubled since he believes Jesus to be innocent of any crime. Marcellus and some other soldiers throw dice to see who will take Jesus' seamless robe. Marcellus wins and asks Demetrius to take care of the robe. Following the crucifixion, Marcellus takes part in a banquet attended by Pontius Pilate. During the banquet, a drunken centurion insists that Marcellus wear Jesus' robe; reluctantly wearing the garment, Marcellus apparently suffers a nervous breakdown and returns to Rome. Sent to Athens to recuperate, Marcellus finally gives in to Demetrius' urging and touches the robe; his mind is subsequently restored. Marcellus, now believing the robe has some sort of innate power, returns to Judea and follows the path Jesus took and meets many people whose lives Jesus had affected. Based upon their experiences first Demetrius and then Marcellus become followers of Jesus. Marcellus then returns to Rome where he must report his experiences to the emperor, Tiberius. Marcellus frees Demetrius who escapes, but later on because of his uncompromising stance regarding his Christian faith both Marcellus and his new wife Diana are executed by the new emperor, Caligula. Marcellus arranges that the robe be given to "The Big Fisherman." | The action takes place in Ancient Rome, Judaea, Capri, and Galilee in a time period stretching from 32 A.D. to 38 A.D.The beginning date is given as the "18th year of Tiberius, and the ending date is a year after the historical year of the accession of Caligula as Roman emperor. Diana tells Caligula that she had not heard from Marcellus for almost a year when Marcellus was in Cana of Galilee. At that time Marcellus was told by Paulus that Caligula was then the emperor. Marcellus Gallio , son of an important Roman senator and himself a military tribune begins the film in a prologue that introduces the viewer to the might and scope of the Roman empire. He is notorious as a ladies’ man, but he is captivated by the reappearance of a childhood sweetheart Diana , ward of the Emperor Tiberius and Empress Julia , in Caligula's pavilion. As Caligula is the grandnephew and heir to Tiberius, Diana is unofficially promised in marriage to him as Empress Julia thinks Diana would be good for him. When Caligula comes to the marketplace with military fanfare to take part in the slave auction, Marcellus makes the mistake of bidding against him for a defiant Greek slave Demetrius - and winning. Caligula feels he had been made a fool of in front of Diana, while Marcellus feels that he had wronged Demetrius by stopping him earlier when he had escaped from his slaveholders. Angrily Caligula leaves with Diana and the rest of his military escort and issues orders for Marcellus to receive a military transfer to Jerusalem in Palestine. Marcellus has Demetrius released, and he orders him to go on his own to the Gallio home. At the Gallio home, Cornelia and Lucia, Marcellus's mother and sister, are informed by Diana about the situation at the marketplace. Lucia remarks that Marcellus is still in love with Diana. Marcellus is surprised to find Demetrius waiting for him when he gets home. Unofficially Marcellus had freed Demetrius, but Demetrius feels honor bound to compensate Marcellus by being his servant. Demetrius accompanies Marcellus to Palestine, but before the galley sails, Diana comes to see Marcellus, pledging her love for him and her intention to intercede on his behalf with Tiberius. Marcellus declares his love for Diana and asks her to make the emperor promise not to give her in marriage to Caligula. Marcellus rides into Jerusalem with the centurion Paulus on the same day as Jesus' triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Jesus confronts Demetrius as he rides into Jerusalem, silently calling him with his eyes to be his follower. When Demetrius later finds out what the Romans have in store for Jesus, he tries to warn him about the intentions of the Romans to arrest him. However, Jesus has already been arrested, as Demetrius finds out from a chance meeting with Judas. Jesus is arrested and condemned by Pontius Pilate , the procurator, who sends for Marcellus to take charge of the detail of Roman soldiers assigned to crucify him. As Pilate finishes washing his hands, he tells Marcellus that he is being recalled to Italy by the emperor and tells Marcellus of the duty he must perform before he leaves. As Marcellus leaves, Pilate pines about the past night and asks for water so that he can wash his hands again. Marcellus and the other soldiers cast lots for Jesus' robe, and Marcellus wins. On the way back into Jerusalem, Marcellus compels Demetrius to throw the robe over him as the two of them are caught in the rain. It is then that Marcellus begins to feel remorse for the crucifixion of Jesus. When the robe is on him he has a painful seizure, and he orders Demetrius to take it off him. When Demetrius does so he has had enough: he curses Marcellus and the Roman Empire and runs away. Marcellus now behaves like a madman haunted by nightmares of the crucifixion. What sets him off is any reference to being "out there" on Calvary. He cries out fitfully, "Were you out there?!" He does this in the presence of Tiberius himself when he reports to him on Capri. Tiberius is portrayed as a benevolent elder statesman, who wants to help Marcellus, so, at the prompting of his soothsayer Dodinius and Marcellus's own enthusiasm, he gives him an imperial commission to find and destroy the robe while gathering a list of names of Jesus' followers. At Diana's request, Tiberius leaves her free to marry Marcellus even though Tiberius believes him to be mad. After leaving Capri, Marcellus is next seen sometime later with a Syrian guide Abidor outside the village of Cana. He is posing as a cloth merchant going about buying up homespun cloth. To further his investigation Marcellus pays exorbitant prices for any kind of cloth, even rags. Justus, a weaver in Cana , reprimands his fellow Christians for accepting such unfair prices as being contrary to the teachings of Jesus and his fellow Christians give back the excess amounts voluntarily. Seeing Justus as a lead in his investigations Marcellus seeks to ingratiate himself with Justus by giving his young grandson Jonathan , whose club foot had been healed by Jesus, one of his pack donkeys. Marcellus also wanders in on a public performance by the paralytic Miriam as she sings a song of Jesus' resurrection. When Marcellus returns to his camp he is confronted by a greedy Abidor, who wants to turn in Justus and the others to Pilate, who has ordered the arrest of Jesus' followers. Abidor, who is obsessed with making money, threatens to tell the people of Cana that Marcellus crucified Jesus, which drives Marcellus to beat Abidor and send him away violently. The next day Marcellus is furious with Jonathan for giving his donkey to his physically challenged friend David, because he did not yet understand the teachings of Jesus. Miriam, who is sitting nearby kindly confronts Marcellus, and urges him to see Peter , who has come to Cana with a Greek companion. Marcellus guesses that this is Demetrius and goes off to Shalum's Inn to confront him. Marcellus finds Demetrius alone, and demands that he get the robe and destroy it. Demetrius gives the robe to Marcellus, who refuses to touch it, and Demetrius tells him that if he wants it destroyed, he will have to destroy it himself. Marcellus picks the robe up with his sword, and as he becomes frozen with fear, the robe slides down the sword onto him. He is terrified, but this time, as the robe touches him, he finds that the pain he has been carrying since the robe first touched him vanishes and that he is no longer afraid. He feels the true power of the robe and of the one who wore it. In that moment, Marcellus believes in Jesus Christ, is relieved from the madness of his guilt, and becomes a Christian. The two men go outside and Justus calls the villagers together and begins to introduce Peter. Justus tells the gathered crowd that, on the night of Jesus' arrest, only Peter stood by Jesus. Peter tries to correct Justus but Justus tells Peter that his turn to speak will come and continues. Suddenly, Justus is pierced by an arrow and falls. The assembly turns to see Paulus and a large detachment of Roman soldiers, with the gloating Abidor lurking among them. Several other villagers are killed before Marcellus intervenes, ordering them to stop. Paulus informs him that his orders are no longer valid; Tiberias is dead and Caligula is emperor. Marcellus informs Paulus that an imperial commission is valid even after a Roman emperor dies. Paulus tells Marcellus to make him obey via a sword duel. Marcellus asks Paulus if he will keeps his word to withdraw the troops if Marcellus wins the duel. Paulus says that if Marcellus wins, the troops are his because Paulus will be dead. Marcellus accepts the challenge to a duel. After a prolonged struggle Marcellus prevails. Rather than killing Paulus, as is expected of him, Marcellus hurls his sword into a tree. He challenges Paulus to give the order to his soldiers to withdraw. Paulus, recognizing the mercy extended to him by Marcellus, salutes Marcellus and orders the soldiers to leave. Peter invites Marcellus to join him and Demetrius as missionaries. Marcellus hesitates, and when Peter tells him that he denied Jesus three times on the night he was arrested, Marcellus confesses his role in Jesus' death. Peter points out to him that Jesus forgave him from the cross in the dramatic words showcased before, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" . Marcellus then pledges his life to Jesus and agrees to go with them. Their missionary journey takes them through Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and then to Rome, but they must proceed "undercover" with their base in the catacombs because the Emperor Caligula has proscribed them. In Rome, Caligula summons Diana from her retreat at the Gallio home to tell her that Marcellus has become a traitor to Rome by being a Christian. He takes her to the guard room where a captured Demetrius is being tortured. Diana runs out of the palace to Marcipor , the Gallio family slave, who is a secret Christian. Diana guesses that Marcipor is a Christian and has seen Marcellus, and she gets him to take her to Marcellus. Marcellus and Diana are reunited, and Marcellus tells her the story of the robe and his own conversion but Diana only thinks the story of Jesus, justice, and love is a nice story but that the world doesn't work that way. Diana gives Marcellus information on where Demetrius is in the imperial palace, and Marcellus and his fellow Christians manage to rescue him. They are almost too late as Demetrius is near death, but Peter comes to the Gallio home where Demetrius has been taken and heals him. Caligula scolds his Roman soldiers for letting the prisoner get away and issues orders to bring Marcellus to him alive to stand trial by the end of the day or they will all be sent to the galleys. A physician friend of Senator Gallio, Marius , is called in to help Demetrius, but is unable to heal him. Marius states that science has limits. Marcellus prays to God and Peter then knocks on the door and ask to be alone with Demetrius. Peter lays his hand on Demetrius and heals him. Marius, a proud man, is resentful of Peter's ability to heal Demetrius and leaves with the purpose of betraying Marcellus to Caligula. Marcellus tells his father, Senator Gallio, that he wants to return and tell his father more about Christianity; however, his father says this will be the last time they see each other because he feels his son has betrayed Rome by becoming a Christian and, therefore, he no longer has a son. Marcellus promises Diana that he will send for her tomorrow and kisses Diana as he leaves. Marcellus flees with Demetrius but, when they are pursued by soldiers, Marcellus gives himself up so that Demetrius can escape. He is captured and put on trial. Diana visit Marcellus in prison on the night before his trial and requests he not defy Caligula. Marcellus tells Diana of Miriam, the crippled girl who found herself fortunate to be lame; of the poor, young boy Jonathan, to whom Marcellus gave the fine donkey and he then selflessly gave it away to another boy without a second thought; and how other Christians do not deny Christ to save their skin. Diana wants to believe but does not feel she can if Marcellus dies. If he dies now, Diana tells him, that she feels his death would be for nothing and that she needs Marcellus. Caligula makes Diana sit next to him for Marcellus' trial. He then tells the crowd of Senators and Roman nobles that there is a secret party of seditionists called "Christians" and how their actions are comparable to the traitor Spartacus. He then tells them that one of their own, Marcellus, has joined these "conspirators" and thus is being tried by all of them for treason. Marcellus informs the crowd that it is true that he is a Christian; however, he denies the charge that Christians are plotting against the state. When Caligula says that Christians believe Jesus is a king, Marcellus tells everyone that Jesus is a king but that His Kingdom is not of this world and Jesus seeks to reign in the hearts and mind in the name of justice and charity. Caligula asks about the robe that Marcellus is holding and Marcellus tries to show Caligula his opportunity to accept Christ. Marcellus tries to hand the robe to Caligula but Caligula refuses to touch it as he considers it to be "bewitched". He orders one of his soldiers to take the robe and destroy it, but Diana asks to keep it instead. Marcellus informs Caligula that, if Rome turns to the ways of justice and charity, then Rome will be saved; however, if Rome stayed on its present course, then it would be destroyed. To the crowd, this sounds treasonous and Caligula condemns Marcellus to death by the wish of the members of the audience based on what they've heard. Caligula, in an effort to show mercy to Marcellus, tells him to renew his allegiance to Rome and renounce his faith in Jesus Christ. Marcellus kneels to Caligula to renew his pledge to Rome, a pledge he states that he has never broken, but then stands and states that he cannot renounce his belief in Jesus. Marcellus tells Caligula that Jesus is his King and Caligula's King and that Jesus is the Son of God. Diana then accepts Christ, and seeks to join Marcellus, the man she considers to be her husband, in His Kingdom. When Caligula tells Diana that there are no charges against her, she provides a reason for her to be charged with the same crime as Marcellus by telling the audience how evil an emperor Caligula is. Caligula screams out as she states her condemnation of his rules and then condemns Diana to die alongside Marcellus. As Diana and Marcellus are marched out of the emperor's court, Diana hands the robe to Marcipor. Diana and Marcellus pause to smile at each other as they peacefully walk out of the courtroom to meet their earthly fate. A chorus of "Hallelujah" plays and clouds are in the background behind Diana and Marcellus as the film ends. | 0.790689 | positive | 0.804774 | positive | 0.99833 |
3,186,725 | The Outsiders | The Outsiders | Ponyboy, a member of the Greasers gang, is leaving a movie theater when a group of Socs jumps him. His older brothers Darry and Sodapop save him. The next night, Ponyboy and his friends Dally and Johnny meet Cherry Valance and Marcia at a drive-in movie theatre. Ponyboy realizes that Cherry is nothing like the Socs he has met before. The Greasers walk Cherry and Marcia home, and Socs Bob Sheldon and Randy Adderson see them and think the boys are trying to pick up their girlfriends. Cherry and Marcia prevent a fight by leaving with Bob and Randy willingly. When Ponyboy comes home very late, Darry gets angry and hits him. Ponyboy runs away and meets up with Johnny. As they wander around the neighborhood, Bob, Randy, and three other drunk Socs confront them. After a Soc nearly drowns Ponyboy in a fountain, a terrified Johnny stabs Bob, accidentally killing him. Ponyboy and Johnny find Dally, who gives them money and a loaded gun and tells them to hide in an abandoned church. They stay there for a few days, during which time Ponyboy reads Gone with the Wind to Johnny and recites the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. When Dally comes to get them, he reveals that the fights between the rival groups have exploded in intensity since Bob's death. Johnny decides to turn himself in, but the boys then notice that the church has caught on fire and several children are trapped inside. When Johnny and Ponyboy rush to rescue them, burning timber falls on Johnny, breaking his back. Dally rescues Johnny. Ponyboy is relatively unscathed and spends a short time in the hospital. When his brothers arrive to see him, Darry breaks down and cries. Ponyboy then realizes that Darry cares about him, and is only hard on Ponyboy because he wants him to have a good future. Two-Bit informs Ponyboy that he and Johnny have been declared heroes for rescuing the kids, but Johnny will be charged with manslaughter for Bob's death. He also says that the Greasers and Socs have agreed to settle their turf war with a major rumble. The Greasers win the fight. After the rumble, Dally and Ponyboy visit Johnny and see him die. An overcome Dally rushes out of the hospital and robs a store. When he points is empty gun at the police, they shoot and kill him. Ponyboy faints and stays sick and delirious for nearly a week. While recovering, he tries to convince himself that Johnny is not dead and that he is the one who killed Bob. When Ponyboy goes back to school, his grades drop. Although he is failing English, his teacher says he will pass him if he writes a decent theme. In the copy of Gone with the Wind that Johnny gave him before dying, Ponyboy finds a note from Johnny describing how he will die proudly after saving the kids from the fire. Johnny also urges Ponyboy to "stay gold". Ponyboy decides to write his English assignment about the recent events, and begins: "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home..." | In mid-1960s Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greasers are a gang of tough, low-income teens. They include Ponyboy Curtis and his two older brothers, Soda and Darry , as well as Johnny Cade , Dally Winston , Two-Bit Matthews , and Steve Randle . Their rivalry is with the Socs , a gang of wealthier kids. Five of the Socs jump Ponyboy and cut his neck with a switchblade; Johnny had been similarly attacked the month before. Two Socs, Bob Sheldon and Randy Adderson , confront Johnny, Ponyboy, and Two-Bit, who are talking to the Socs' girlfriends, Cherry and Marcia , at the drive-in. The girls defuse the situation by going home with the Socs. Later that night, Ponyboy and Johnny are attacked in a park by Bob, Randy, and two other Socs. They begin dunking Ponyboy in a fountain, but Johnny pulls out his switchblade and stabs Bob, killing him. On the advice of Dallas, Ponyboy and Johnny leave town, and hide out in an abandoned church in Windrixville. Ponyboy dyes his hair blonde with peroxide in case anybody spots him. He reads Gone with the Wind and quotes the Robert Frost poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay". Dally arrives with news that Cherry has offered to support the boys in court. They go out for food, then return to find the church on fire with children trapped inside. Johnny is hospitalized with severe burns and a broken back after he, Ponyboy, and Dally rescue the children. The boys are praised for their heroism, but Johnny is charged with manslaughter for killing Bob, while Ponyboy may be sent to a boys' home. Bob's death has sparked calls from the Socs for "a rumble," which the Greasers win. Dally then drives Ponyboy to the hospital to visit Johnny. Johnny is unimpressed by the victory, and dies after telling Ponyboy to "stay gold," referring to the Frost poem. Unable to bear Johnny's death, Dally robs a grocery store at gunpoint and is killed by police. Ponyboy is eventually cleared of wrongdoing in Bob's death and allowed to stay with his brothers. Turning the pages of Johnny's copy of Gone with the Wind, Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny saying that saving the children was worth sacrificing his own life. The story ends as it began, with Ponyboy writing a school report about his experiences. | 0.941834 | positive | 0.967275 | positive | 0.991678 |
1,608,510 | Broken April | Behind the Sun | The story tells of Gjorg Berisha, a 26-year-old Albanian man living on the high plateau. He is forced to commit a murder under the laws of the Kanun. As a result of this killing, his own death is sealed; he is to be killed by a member of the opposing family. | The year is 1910; the place, the badlands of Northeast Brazil. Twenty-year-old Tonho is the middle son of an impoverished farm family, the Breves. He is next in line to kill and then die in an ongoing blood feud with a neighboring clan, the Ferreiras. For generations, the two families have quarreled over land. Now they are locked into a series of tit-for-tat assassinations of their sons; an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth. Embedded in this choreography of death is a particular code of ethics: "Blood has the same volume for everyone. You have no right to take more blood than was taken from you." Life is suffused with a sense of futility and stoic despair. Under pressure from his father, Tonho kills one of the Ferreira sons to avenge the murder of his older brother. This act marks him as the next victim. Tonho's younger brother is addressed only as "the Kid" by the family. Anticipating future loss, his parents don't give him a name. The Kid is an imaginative and loving child, whose spirit will not break in the face of harsh parenting, brutalizing isolation, and numbing poverty. The Kid's love encourages Tonho to question his fate. When Tonho meets Clara, a charming itinerant circus girl, all of life's possibilities open up for him. | 0.461829 | positive | 0.99651 | positive | 0.99424 |
5,777,111 | The Lost World | The Lost World | Edward Malone, a reporter for the Daily Gazette, goes to his news editor, McArdle, to procure a dangerous and adventurous mission in order to impress the woman he loves, Gladys Hungerton. He is sent to interview Professor George Edward Challenger, who has assaulted four or five other journalists, to determine if his claims about his trip to South America are true. After assaulting Malone, Challenger reveals his discovery of dinosaurs in South America. Having been ridiculed for years, he invites Malone on a trip to prove his story, along with Professor Summerlee, another scientist qualified to examine any evidence, and Lord John Roxton, an adventurer who knows the Amazon and several years prior to the events of the book helped end slavery by robber barons in South America. They reach the plateau with the aid of Indian guides, who are superstitiously scared of the area. One of these Indians, Gomez, is the brother of a man that Roxton killed the last time he was in South America. When the expedition manages to get onto the plateau, Gomez destroys their bridge, trapping them. Their "devoted negro" Zambo remains at the base, but is unable to prevent the rest of the Indians from leaving. Deciding to investigate the lost world, they are attacked by pterodactyls in a swamp, and Roxton finds some blue clay in which he takes a great interest. After exploring the plateau and having some adventures in which the expedition narrowly escapes being killed by dinosaurs, Challenger, Summerlee, and Roxton are captured by a race of ape-men. While in the ape-men's village, they find out that there is also a tribe of humans (calling themselves Accala) inhabiting the other side of the plateau, with whom the ape-men (called Doda by the Accala) are at war. Roxton manages to escape and team up with Malone to mount a rescue. They arrive just in time to prevent the execution of one of the professors and several other humans, who take them to the human tribe. With their help, they defeat the ape-men, taking control of the whole plateau. After witnessing the power of their guns, the human tribe does not want the expedition to leave, and tries to keep them on the plateau. However the team finally discovers a tunnel that leads to the outside, where they meet up with Zambo and a large rescue party. Upon returning to England, they present their report which include pictures and a newspaper report by Edward, which many dismiss as they had Challenger's original story. Having planned ahead, Challenger shows them a live pterodactyl as proof, which then escapes and flies out into the Atlantic ocean. When the four of them have dinner, Roxton shows them why he was so interested in the blue clay. It contains diamonds, about £200,000 worth, to be split between them. Challenger plans to open a private museum, Summerlee plans to retire and categorize fossils, and Roxton plans to go back to the lost world. Malone returns to his love, Gladys, only to find that she had married a clerk while he was away. With nothing keeping him in London, he volunteers to be part of Roxton's second trip. | {{expand section}} Professor Challenger leads team of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep within the Amazonian jungle to investigate reports that dinosaurs still live there. The boisterous, arrogant Professor Challenger , a reputed biologist and anthropologist, dares the London Zoological Society to mount an expedition to verify his spectacular claim, without physical proof, that his previous expedition to the Amazon Basin found live dinosaurs. Apart from him and his 'socialite' counterpart, Professor Summerlee , it consists of experienced discoverer Lord Roxton , the young reporter Ed Malone - who got publicly struck down with Challenger's umbrella at his arrival - and Jennifer Holmes , Malone's news agency's boss's daughter, who is allowed by her father to come essentially as one of the conditions for putting up the money. In Brazil they are joined by Jennifer's brother David and local 'guide' Manuel Gomez . They soon discover the dinosaurs and other creatures are real and dangerous, but lose their helicopter and thus are desperate for a way down from the isolated plateau. They learn Roxton knew about the fate of Burton White, an explorer whose diary they find, search for diamonds, and confirm that the local tribesmen are lethal guardians of the plateau's secrets. Another thing they learn is that Roxton accidentally killed Gomez' brother on a separate trip before this one, leaving Gomez hungry for revenge. During a volcanic eruption, they manage to escape from the plateau, carrying a Tyrannosaurus rex egg with them. The egg hatches when it is dropped by accident, and Professor Challenger resolves to take the infant dinosaur back to London with them. | 0.753403 | positive | 0.992459 | positive | 0.995458 |
5,777,111 | The Lost World | The Lost World | Six years after the disaster at Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm — who is revealed to have actually survived the events of the previous novel — teams up with wealthy paleontologist Richard Levine after learning about Site B, the secret "production facility" where the park's dinosaurs were hatched and grown; the site is located on Isla Sorna, an island adjacent to Isla Nublar. When Levine disappears, Malcolm fears that he might have discovered Site B's exact location and went there without his knowledge. Doc Thorne and Eddie Carr, who provided Levine with equipment, and R.B. "Arby" Benton and Kelly Curtis, two schoolchildren who assisted Levine, deduce the island's location. The adults organize a rescue operation and utilize an advanced fleet of field vehicles. Stowed away with them as they leave are Arby and Kelly, who plan to rescue Levine as well. At the same time, geneticist Lewis Dodgson and his underlings, Howard King and George Baselton, head to Isla Sorna in the hopes of stealing dinosaur eggs for Biosyn, the rival company of the now bankrupt InGen. Sarah Harding, a wildlife observer who had a previous relationship with Malcolm, accompanies them. However, Dodgson throws her off their boat and leaves her for dead. Once the team comes across the nest of a Tyranosaurus Rex, Dodgson forces King and Baselton to proceed with the mission. When trying to steal some eggs, King steps on a baby T-Rex's leg and breaks it. Baselton is too scared to enter the nest, causing Dodgson to grab one himself. In the process, the black box he has brought along is separated from its power supply and stops emitting the sound designed to keep the parent T-Rexes at bay. The T-Rexes eat Baselton and destroy Dodgson's SUV. Dodgson survives while King is eventually killed by Velociraptors. Coming across the baby T-Rex, Eddie brings it back to the base camp, where Malcolm and Sarah fix its broken leg. The absence of the infant is noted by its parents, who track their offspring to the camp by smell. Malcolm and Sarah are rescued by Thorne, but Malcolm's leg is injured, and he ends up spending most of the remainder of the story immobile and high on morphine. Meanwhile, the other team members are attacked by Velociraptors. Eddie is killed, but Arby manages to lock himself in a nearby cage. He is quickly abducted by the raptors, who bring him to their lair. Thorne and Levine rescue Arby, and the survivors take shelter in an abandoned InGen gas station. There, they encounter two Carnotaurus, but manage to scare them away with flashlights. Once daylight comes, Sarah attempts to retrieve the team's Ford Explorer. After evading a group of aggressive Pachycephalosaurus, she encounters and dispatches Dodgson. Dodgson is then taken by one of Tyrannosaurs to their nesting site, where his leg is broken and he is left for the babies to eat. After Sarah fails to reach the helicopter in time, Kelly locates an abandoned building with a functional boat inside. After making a quick getaway from a group of Velociraptors, the survivors are able to reach the boat and escape the island. While on the boat, Malcolm and Harding tell Levine, who was bitten by one of the animals, that some of the carnivores, including the Velociraptors and the Procompsognathus, are infected with prions due to InGen's decision to feed them contaminated sheep, and any animal bitten by them will be infected also. This means that all the dinosaurs on the island are fated to die due to the uncontrolled spread of the prions. Levine panics about the possibility of being infected with prions, but Malcolm states it shouldn't be harmful to humans. With that said, Thorne finally declares that is time for all of them to go home. As with the first book, the main conflicts the characters must face is fending off attacks from Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Procompsognathus. Throughout this second novel, Malcolm and Levine talk about various evolutionary and extinction theories, as well as the nature of modern science and the homogenizing and destructive nature of humanity. A particularly strong theme is the ethological and sociobiological concept of learned social behavior in animals (for example, Crichton's velociraptors, deprived of being reared among natural raptors with developed social pack behavior, instead show a tendency towards violent, antisocial behavior even amongst themselves). The book also discusses the role of prions in brain diseases, which has been at the root of concerns over Mad Cow Disease. | {{expand section}} Professor Challenger leads team of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep within the Amazonian jungle to investigate reports that dinosaurs still live there. The boisterous, arrogant Professor Challenger , a reputed biologist and anthropologist, dares the London Zoological Society to mount an expedition to verify his spectacular claim, without physical proof, that his previous expedition to the Amazon Basin found live dinosaurs. Apart from him and his 'socialite' counterpart, Professor Summerlee , it consists of experienced discoverer Lord Roxton , the young reporter Ed Malone - who got publicly struck down with Challenger's umbrella at his arrival - and Jennifer Holmes , Malone's news agency's boss's daughter, who is allowed by her father to come essentially as one of the conditions for putting up the money. In Brazil they are joined by Jennifer's brother David and local 'guide' Manuel Gomez . They soon discover the dinosaurs and other creatures are real and dangerous, but lose their helicopter and thus are desperate for a way down from the isolated plateau. They learn Roxton knew about the fate of Burton White, an explorer whose diary they find, search for diamonds, and confirm that the local tribesmen are lethal guardians of the plateau's secrets. Another thing they learn is that Roxton accidentally killed Gomez' brother on a separate trip before this one, leaving Gomez hungry for revenge. During a volcanic eruption, they manage to escape from the plateau, carrying a Tyrannosaurus rex egg with them. The egg hatches when it is dropped by accident, and Professor Challenger resolves to take the infant dinosaur back to London with them. | 0.653171 | positive | 0.992459 | positive | 0.333729 |
8,502,322 | The History of Mr. Polly | The History of Mr. Polly | The protagonist of The History of Mr. Polly is an antihero inspired by H.G. Wells' early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a timid and directionless young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves a sort of contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet," which leads him to coin hilarious expressions like "the Shoveacious Cult" for "sunny young men of an abounding and elbowing energy," and "dejected angelosity" for the ornaments of Canterbury Cathedral. Alfred Polly lives in the imaginary town of Fishbourne in Kent (not to be confused with Fishbourne, West Sussex—the town in the story is thought to be based on Sandgate, Kent where Wells lived for several years). The novel begins in medias res by presenting a miserable Mr. Polly: "He hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours -- every blessed neighbour -- and with indescribable bitterness he hated himself." The rest of the The History of Mr. Polly is divided in three parts. First (Chapters 1-6), there is the story of his life up to age 20, when he marries his cousin Miriam Larkins and sets up an outfitter's shop in Fishbourne with his father's inheritance. Second (Chapters 7-8), there is Mr. Polly's spectacular suicide attempt which ironically makes him a local hero, wins him insurance money that saves him from bankruptcy, and yields the insight that "Fishbourne wasn't the world," which leads him to abandon his shop and his wife. The third part (Chapters 9-10), at the Potwell Inn (apparently located in West Sussex), culminates in Mr. Polly's courageous victory over "Uncle Jim," a malicious and deranged nephew who has been tormenting the innkeeper. | Alfred Polly is a day-dreamer with his nose in books rather than keeping his mind on his work. Following his dismissal from a draper's shop, where his father had placed him as an apprentice, he finds it hard to find another position. When a telegram arrives informing him of his father's death, he returns to the family home. With a bequest of £500, Polly starts to think about what he should now do with his life, and a friend of his father's, Mr Johnsen , urges him to invest it in a shop - an idea that Polly hates. Whilst dawdling in the country on a newly-bought bicycle, Polly meets, and has a brief dalliance with, a schoolgirl, Christabel . It can't last, and eventually he marries a cousin, Miriam Larkins , whom he met at his father's wake. It is not a marriage of love, but one of convenience. 15 years pass and Polly and his wife are running a drapers in Fishbourne. Polly hates the shop and the marriage has descended to incessant arguments and bickering. Whilst walking in the country to get away from his wife, Polly decides to commit suicide but also sets his shop ablaze in the hope the insurance will set Miriam straight. He botches the arson job and instead of killing himself, rescues an elderly neighbour and becomes a minor local celebrity. Still unhappy, Polly decides to simply leave Miriam; he walks out and finds his way into the country where he comes across an inn on a riverside. The innkeeper is seeking a handyman and ferryman. Polly takes the job, but soon realises that the position was open because the innkeeper's brother-in-law is a drunkard who chases any other man away from the inn. Polly ends up having a few run-ins with Uncle Jim , who finally accidentally trips and drowns in a weir when he is chasing Polly. Polly returns to work in the inn. Several years later, he wonders whether Miriam is getting by. He returns to Fishbourne to find that she has opened a tea-shop with her sister, in the belief that Polly had drowned . He runs into his ex-wife whilst exiting the tea-shop; she thinks she recognises him and shrinks away in fear, but Polly quietly leaves and returns to his happier life at the inn. | 0.762869 | positive | 0.003729 | positive | 0.99744 |
3,303,351 | Frankenstein | House of Dracula | Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning. Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy family in Geneva, he is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him through science. He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends. When he is around 4 years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan whose mother has just died (she is Victor's biological cousin in the first edition, but an adopted child with no blood relation in the 1831 edition). Victor has a possessive infatuation with Elizabeth. He has two younger brothers: Ernest and William. As a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focus on achieving natural wonders. He plans to attend the University of Ingolstadt in Germany. Weeks before his planned departure, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, and develops a secret technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life. The details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, but Frankenstein finds himself forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. His creation, which he has hoped would be beautiful, is instead hideous, with dull yellow eyes, and a withered, translucent, yellowish skin that barely conceals the muscular system and blood vessels. After bringing his creation to life, Victor is repulsed by his work: he flees the room, and the monster disappears. Victor becomes ill from the experience. He is nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he determines that he should return home when his brother William is found murdered. Upon arriving in Geneva, he sees the monster near the site of the murder, and becomes certain it is the killer. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William's locket in her pocket. Victor, though certain the monster is responsible, doubts anyone would believe him, and does not intervene. Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him, ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear its tale. Intelligent and articulate, it tells Victor of its encounters with people, and how it had become afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage, observing the DeLacey family living there and growing fond of them. Through observing the De Lacey family, the monster became educated and self-aware. It also discovered a lost satchel of books and learned to read. Seeing its reflection in a pool, it realized that its physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans it watches. Though it eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their fellow, they were frightened by its appearance and drove it off, and then left the residence permanently. The creature, in a fit of rage, burned the cottage and left. In its travels some time later, the monster saw a young girl tumble into a stream and rescued her from drowning. A man, seeing it with the child in its arms, pursued it and fired a gun, wounding it. Traveling to Geneva, it met a little boy — Victor's brother William - in the woods outside the town of Plainpalais. The monster hoped the boy was too young to fear deformity, but upon its approach, William cried out, threatening the monster with the weight of his family - the Frankensteins. The creature grabbed the boy by the throat to silence him, and strangled him. It is unclear from the text whether this was an accident on the monster's part or a deliberate murder, but in either case, the monster took this as its first act of vengeance against its creator. It removed a locket from the boy's body and placed it in the folds of the dress of a young woman — William's nanny, Justine — who had been sleeping in a barn nearby, assuming she would be accused of the murder. The monster concludes its story with a demand that Frankenstein create for it a female companion like itself. It argues that as a living thing, it has a right to happiness and that Victor, as its creator, has a duty to obey it, with the chilling words, "You are my creator, but I am your master. Obey!" It promises that if Victor grants its request, it and its mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work. He is accompanied by Clerval, but they separate in Scotland. Through their travels, Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second being on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly as creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of monsters that could plague mankind. He destroys the unfinished example after he sees the monster looking through the window. The monster witnesses this and, confronting Victor, vows to be with Victor on his upcoming wedding night. The monster murders Clerval and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach, where Victor lands upon leaving the island. Victor is imprisoned for the murder of Clerval, and becomes seriously ill, suffering another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, and with his health renewed, he returns home with his father. Once home, Victor marries his cousin Elizabeth and prepares for a fight to the death with the monster. Wrongly believing the monster's vowed revenge was for his own life, he asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for the fiend. He searches the house and grounds, but the creature murders the secluded Elizabeth instead. Victor sees the monster at the window pointing at the corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and now Elizabeth, Victor's father dies. Victor vows to pursue the monster until one of them annihilates the other. After months of pursuit, the two end up in the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole. At the end of Victor's narrative, Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story. A few days after the vanishing of the creature, the ship becomes entombed in ice and Walton's crew insists on returning south once they are freed. In spite of a passionate speech from Frankenstein, encouraging the crew to push further north, Walton realizes that he must relent to his men's demands and agrees to head for home. Frankenstein dies shortly thereafter, not before imploring Captain Walton to carry his mission of vengeance to its completion. "The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to take up my unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue." Walton discovers the monster on his ship, mourning over Frankenstein's body. Walton hears the monster's adamant justification for its vengeance as well as expressions of remorse. Frankenstein's death has not brought it peace. Rather, its crimes have increased its misery and alienation; it has found only its own emotional ruin in the destruction of its creator. It vows to exterminate itself on its own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of its existence. Walton watches as it drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness. | {{plot}} The movie opens with a shot of a cliffside castle in Visaria. A mysterious bat circles the area and turns into Count Dracula . He enters the house and greets its owner, Dr. Franz Edelmann . The count explains to the doctor that he has come to Visaria, under the alias "Baron Latos", to find a cure for his vampirism. Dr. Edelmann agrees to help the count and lets him keep his coffin in the castle's cellar. Together with his assistants, Milizia and the hunchbacked Nina ([[Poni Adams , he has been working on a mysterious plant, the clavaria formosa, with juices that have the ability to reshape bone structure. The count returns that evening, and Edelmann explains to him that he thinks vampirism can be cured by a series of blood transfusions. Dracula agrees to this, and Edelmann uses his own blood for the transfusions. That night, Lawrence Talbot arrives at the castle, demanding to see Dr. Edelmann and seeking a cure for his lycanthropy. Talbot is asked to wait, but knowing that the moon is rising, Talbot has himself incarcerated by the police. A crowd of curious villagers gathers outside the police station, led by the suspicious Steinmuhl . Inspector Holtz asks Edelmann to see Talbot, and as the full moon rises, they both witness him transform into the Wolfman. Edelmann and Milizia take pity on the lycanthrope, and have him transferred to his castle the next morning. Edelmann tells him that he believes that Talbot's transformations are not triggered by the moonlight, but by pressure on the brain. He believes he can relieve the pressure, but Talbot must wait for him to gather more mold from his flowers. Talbot cannot stand another night as a beast, so he runs to the cliffs behind the mansion, and throws himself off. The doctor goes down the cliffs via a harness, and enters the caves below, looking for Talbot, but he has by this point turned into the Wolfman and attacks the doctor. Luckily, he was at the end of his transformation, and he turns back into Talbot. While in the cave, they discover the Frankenstein monster , trapped in the mud, still clutching the skeleton of Dr. Niemann. He is alive, but yet again in a catatonic state. They also discover that the damp humidity in the caves, are perfect for growing more of the plants needed for Talbot's operation. Dr. Edelmann takes the monster back to his lab and considers reviving him, for the sake of science, but decides that it would be too dangerous. That night, Milizia is playing the piano in the living room, and Dracula appears. Dracula tries to seduce her to become a vampire like him but Milizia brandishes a crucifix before he can bite her. Edelmann interrupts the hypnosis, and explains that he has found strange antibodies in the Count's blood. They decide to have another transfusion the next day. Meanwhile, Nina is following Milizia, who is getting weak because of Dracula's influence. She catches her talking to the Count by a hall mirror and sees that the Count casts no reflection. Meanwhile, Nina warns Edelmann of the count's intentions to make Milizia his undead bride. He prepares for a transfusion that will destroy the vampire and has Dracula come to the lab. During the transfusion, Dracula uses his hypnotic powers to send both Edelmann and Nina to sleep and reverses the flow of the transfusion, sending his own blood into the doctor's veins. When the doctor and his assistant awaken, Dracula is preparing to take Milizia away. They wake up Talbot, and fight Dracula off with a crucifix, who returns to his coffin as the sun is beginning to rise. Edelmann follows him, and drags his opened coffin into a spot of sunlight, and Dracula is destroyed, leaving only his skeleton. Edelmann on the other hand, starts feeling sick. His blood can't handle Dracula's vampire blood, and he is infected by Dracula's evil. He returns to his room, and watches in horror as his mirror reflection vanishes. He passes out and sees strange visions of himself performing unspeakable acts. When he awakens, his face has changed, now looking as an evil Hyde-like version of himself just like in his vision. He quickly rushes to the lab, to awaken the Monster, but Nina interrupts him. Edelmann finally performs the operation on Talbot. Afterwards, he suffers another transformation into his evil self and brutally tears his garderner, Siegfried's throat open. When the townspeople discovers the body, they begin chasing Edelmann, believing him to be Talbot. They follow him to the castle and Holtz, followed by Steinmuhl, interrogate Talbot and Edelmann. Steinmuhl is convinced that Edelmann is the murderer, and assembles a mob to execute justice. The operation on Talbot was a success, but Edelmann again turns into his evil self, and makes a final attempt to revive the Monster. The Monster awakens, but is very frail. Nina is horrified when he finds her employer, and Edelmann breaks her neck, and tosses her body down the hole leading to the caves. The townspeople arrive, followed by Holtz, and Talbot. The police try to attack the Monster, who knocks them to the ground, and Edelmann throws Holtz against some lab equipment, electrocuting him. Talbot grabs a gun off of a dead policeman, and shoots Hyde-like version of Edelmann, who falls to the floor, dead. Talbot then attacks the Monster, pushing some shelves over him. A fire breaks out, and the townspeople flee the burning castle. The Monster is trapped inside, as the roof crashes down on him. | 0.681025 | positive | 0.87485 | positive | 0.988304 |
3,120,202 | The BFG | The BFG | The story is about a little girl named Sophie, after the author's granddaughter Sophie Dahl. One night, when Sophie cannot fall asleep during the "witching hour", she sees a giant blowing something into the bedroom windows down the street. The giant notices her, reaches through the window, and carries her to his home in Giant Country. Once there, he reveals that he is the world's only benevolent giant, the Big Friendly Giant or BFG, who operating in the strictest secrecy, collects good dreams that he later distributes to children. By means of immense ears he can hear dreams and their contents (which manifest themselves in a misty Dream Country as floating, blob-like objects) and blow them via a trumpet-like blowpipe into the bedrooms of children. When he catches a nightmare, he destroys it, or uses it to start fights among the other giants, who periodically enter the human world to steal and eat "human beans", especially children. The BFG, because he refuses to do likewise, subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber (inspired by English cucumbers), and on a drink called frobscottle, which is unusual in that the bubbles in the drink travel downwards and therefore cause the drinker to break wind instead of burp; this causes noisy flatulence known as Whizzpoppers. Sophie and the BFG become friends early on; later, she persuades him to approach the Queen of England with the aim of capturing the other giants to prevent them from eating any more people. To this end, the BFG creates a nightmare introducing knowledge of the man-eating giants to the Queen and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it true. Because the dream included the knowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size for him to use, the BFG is given a lavish breakfast, and the Queen forms a plan to capture the other giants. She calls the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad to confirm the BFG's story - the giants having visited those locations on the previous two nights – then summons the Head of the Army and the Marshal of the Air Force. The said officers, though initially belligerent and skeptical, eventually agree to co-operate. Eventually, a huge fleet of helicopters follows the BFG to the giants' homeland. While the child-eating giants are asleep, the Army ties them up, hangs them under the helicopters, and (after a brief struggle with the largest and fiercest of the giants, known as the Fleshlumpeater), flies them to London, where a special pit has been constructed from which they will not be able to escape. With thousands watching closely, the BFG unties the giants, then feeds them snozzcumbers which they will eat for the rest of their lives as a punishment for eating human beings. Afterwards, a huge castle is built to serve as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is stated to be the same book in which the afore-mentioned story is narrated (a literary device also apparent in James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar). | One night when young orphan Sophie cannot sleep during the 'witching hour', she looks out of the window of her dormitory and sees a cloaked giant blowing something into a bedroom window down the street. The giant sees her, and although she tries to hide in her bed, he reaches through the window and carries her away to his home. Fortunately for Sophie, she has been abducted by the world's only good giant, the Big Friendly Giant . Operating in the strictest secrecy, the BFG catches dreams and at night, he blows his bottled dreams into the bedrooms of children. The other, larger giants are vicious, cannibalistic monsters; they go out into the world to steal and eat humans, mostly children, since there is little else for them to eat where they live. Because the BFG refuses to eat people, he must survive on a revolting vegetable known as a snozzcumber, and thus the other giants regard him with contempt. Sophie and the BFG form a quick bond, and the BFG develops a paternal sentiment for her. However, Sophie's life is put in danger by the sudden arrival of the Bloodbottler Giant, one of the fearsome, flesh-eating giants who live in the wastes outside the BFG's house. The giant demands to know who the BFG is talking to, but the BFG lies telling him he is talking to himself. The Bloodbottler assumes the BFG is talking to a human and begins searching for Sophie so he can eat her. Sophie hides in the snozzcumber, unknown to the BFG, and the BFG offers the snozzcumber to the Bloodbottler, hoping that its foul taste will send the giant hollering out of the cave and leave him in peace. The Bloodbottler crunches up the snozzcumber, but luckily spits Sophie out. In a rage, the beast destroys the cave and storms out. The BFG helps Sophie recover, makes her a new dress and treats her to a strange, but delicious fizzy drink called frobscottle. It is rather unusual in that the bubbles in the drink travel downwards and therefore cause the drinker to break into loud flatulence instead of burping: this is known as a Whizzpopper, which cause the drinker of the frobscottle to fly. After this the BFG takes Sophie to Dream Country to catch more dreams he calls Phizzwizards, but is tormented by the other giants along the way, notably their leader, the Fleshlumpeater, the largest and most fearsome giant of all. After escaping them and arriving in Dream Country, the BFG demonstrates his dream-catching skills to Sophie, but is unlucky enough to catch a Trogglehumper, which is essentially a particularly horrific nightmare. Back at the BFG's cave, he shows Sophie the huge storeroom where he keeps all the dreams he has captured over the years. He even takes Sophie with him to watch him on his dream-blowing duties, but this is cut short when they spot the Fleshlumpeater about to feast upon one of the children that the BFG had blown a dream to. Sophie cries out, attracting the Fleshlumpeater's attention and forcing the BFG to flee. Sophie persuades the BFG that something must be done to defeat the evil giants, even if it means getting the word out. At first, the BFG is reluctant to do so, since he views all adult humans as bad people, but Sophie manages to convince him otherwise. Together, they develop a plan to get the Queen of the United Kingdom to help them. Using dreams from his collection, the BFG mixes up a terrible nightmare which will show the Queen what the giants do. They set off for Buckingham Palace and blow the dream into the Queen's bedroom. The BFG then leaves Sophie on the Queen's windowsill and retreats into the palace gardens. When the Queen awakens, Sophie convinces her that all of her dream was true. Because the dream included the knowledge that Sophie would be there when she woke up, the Queen believes her, and she speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff, the BFG is given a lavish breakfast and the Queen summons the Head of the Army and the Marshall of the Air Force to begin work on neutralizing the evil giants. Eventually a huge fleet of RAF Chinook helicopters follows the BFG to the giants' homeland. While the child-eating giants are asleep, the Army ties them up, planning to hang them under several helicopters each, and transport them to London, where a special large pit has been constructed from which they will not be able to escape. However the giants are disturbed and begin to wake up, causing chaos and several soldiers to be injured. Eventually the giants attempt to free themselves from the chains that bind them, resulting in them being knocked out, and peace is momentarily restored. The only one who escapes being trapped is the Fleshlumpeater, who immediately goes after the BFG, who decides to face the Fleshlumpeater despite knowing he will stand no chance against him. Infuriated at being betrayed, the Fleshlumpeater is about to kill the BFG when Sophie screams out. Hearing this, the Fleshlumpeater drops the BFG and prepares to eat Sophie alive, but after a long struggle he is finally subdued with the nightmare-inducing Trogglehumper BFG caught earlier, and is carried with the rest. The BFG mentions that the Trogglehumper was a dream about a legendary giant killer named Jack. As a punishment for their lifetimes of child-eating, the giants are placed in the pit and forced to eat Snozzcumbers for the rest of their lives, fed to them by the awful Mrs Clonkers who ran the orphanage Sophie lived in, resulting in its closure. Afterwards, the Queen offers Sophie a place to stay in her palace along with all the other girls in the orphanage. Contrary to the book's ending, the BFG doesn't live in England; he instead carries on his dream-blowing job. Sophie cannot bear to part from him, and so decides to remain with him thereafter. They together fly back to Giant Country. | 0.910972 | positive | 0.99366 | positive | 0.990739 |
4,149,931 | Careful, He Might Hear You | Careful, He Might Hear You | Careful, He Might Hear You is based on the author's childhood. The secure world of an orphan living with his working-class aunt and uncle is changed forever with the arrival of another aunt from London who wishes to raise him as her child. | The film stars Wendy Hughes and Robyn Nevin as two sisters who are locked in a custody battle over their young nephew, PS, played by Nicholas Gledhill. PS has been raised by his aunt Lila and her husband George since his mother died soon after his birth. When Lila's richer sister Vanessa returns from overseas, she seeks custody of PS, citing the opportunities she can give him. | 0.311865 | positive | 0.996648 | positive | 0.997729 |
5,923,051 | National Velvet | International Velvet | "National Velvet" is the story of a 14-year-old girl named Velvet Brown, who rides her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. The horse which Velvet trains and rides in the Grand National is named The Piebald, because it is piebald colour. The novel focuses on the ability of ordinary persons, particularly women, to accomplish great things. Velvet is a teenager in the late 1920s, living in a small English coastal village in Sussex, dreaming of one day owning many horses. She is a high-strung, nervous child with a delicate stomach. Her mother is a wise, taciturn woman who was once famous for swimming the English Channel; her father is a butcher. Her best friend is her father's assistant, Mi (Michael) Taylor, whose father – as Mrs. Brown's swimming coach – helped her cross the channel. Mi formerly worked in stables and is familiar with the horse racing world. One day they both watch The Pie jump over a five-foot-high cobbled fence to get out of a field. Mi says, in passing, that "a horse like that'd win the National". Velvet becomes obsessed with winning the horse in an upcoming raffle and riding him to greatness. In addition to inheriting several horses from one of her father's customers, a man who left them to her in his will, Velvet actually does win her dream horse. After riding him in a local gymkhana, she and Mi become serious about entering the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree racecourse and train the Piebald accordingly. Mi uses his connections to the horse training/racing world and obtains a fake clearance document for Velvet in the name of James Tasky, a Russian jockey. Velvet wins, but slides off after the winning-post due to exhaustion, and her sex is discovered in the first-aid station. The racing world is both dismayed and fascinated by a young girl's winning its toughest race. Velvet and The Pie become instant celebrities, with Velvet and her family nearly drowning in notoriety (echoing her mother's unsought fame after swimming the English Channel), complete with merchandising. Velvet strongly objects to the publicity, saying The Piebald is a creature of glory who shouldn't be cheapened in tabloid trash and newsreels. She insists that she did not win the race, the horse did, and she simply wanted to see him go down in history. The National Hunt Committee finds no evidence of fraud, exonerates all involved, and Velvet and her family return to their ordinary lives; or rather, Velvet goes on "to her next adventures", for clearly she is a person to whom great things happen. The novel was made into a more or less faithful, highly successful film version in 1944, starring twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, with Donald Crisp, Anne Revere and a young Angela Lansbury. In 2008 the film was voted the ninth best American film in the sports genre. From 1960 to 1962, there was a half-hour B&W American television series, with Lori Martin, Ann Doran and James McCallion. In this version her horse was named King. This aired on NBC for 54 episodes. A 1978 film sequel, International Velvet, was made starring Tatum O'Neal as Sarah Brown, a young orphaned American teenager living in England with her aunt Velvet Brown (Nanette Newman) after Sarah's parents die in a car accident. Sarah and Velvet purchase the descendant of The Pie after Sarah earns the money by working for Velvet's boyfriend John. They name him Arizona Pie after Sarah's home state. Working with Arizona Pie, Sarah is selected to represent Britain in the equine Three-Day Olympic Event. While working with the horse with trainer Capt Johnson (Anthony Hopkins), she falls for an American competitor, Scott Saunders (Jeffrey Byron). Though distracted by him, she wins the event. Later, after getting engaged to Scott, Sarah returns to England and presents the medal to her aunt Velvet as a keepsake and introduces her and John to Scott. | The film follows the story of an American girl, Sarah Brown, who is orphaned when her parents are killed in a car crash. She is sent to England to live with her aunt Velvet Brown and Uncle John. When Velvet was a similar age to Sarah, she and her horse, The Pie, entered the legendary Grand National horse race and won; however, she was instantly disqualified due to falling from the horse after the race before reaching the enclosure. The Pie is ultimately put out to stud upon his retirement. He sires his last foal after Sarah's arrival in England. Sarah and Velvet are present for the birth of this foal and Sarah eventually decides that she'd like to purchase him. She later finds out that her Aunt Velvet has bought him for her. Sarah aptly names him "Arizona Pie" . She shows enough talent to be selected for the British Olympic team, where she is the junior, but she does well under the stern guidance of Captain Johnson. Sarah lives up to her dream and enters the Olympic Three Day Event helping Great Britain win the team competition. She falls in love with an American competitor and moves back to America with him. At the conclusion of the film she gives her Olympic gold medal to her Aunt Velvet. Sarah introduces her fiance by saying: "Scott, I want you to meet my parents". | 0.754247 | positive | 0.997414 | positive | 0.99722 |
10,539,303 | Heidi | Heidi | Adelheid (familiarly known as Heidi) is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-Öhi ("Alm Uncle" in the Graubünden dialect). He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and Heidi subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd. Dete returns three years later to bring Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion of a 12-year-old girl named Clara Sesemann, who is regarded as an invalid. Heidi spends a year with Clara, conflicting with the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper Fraulein Rottenmeier and becoming more and more homesick. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated by her desire to go home and read to Peter's blind grandmother. Heidi's increasingly failing health, and several instances of sleepwalking cause hysteria in the household that there is a haunting, prompt Clara's doctor to send Heidi home to her grandfather. Her return prompts the grandfather to descend to the village for the first time in years, marking an end to his seclusion. Heidi and Clara continue to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Clara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Clara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Clara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Clara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Clara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Clara's grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Clara walking. Clara's wealthy family promises to provide a shelter for Heidi, in case her grandfather will no longer be able to do so. | Adelheid, called Heidi , is an eight year-old Swiss orphan who is taken from her mountain-dwelling grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara , a spoiled, disabled girl. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather. When Klara's body and spirits mend under Heidi's cheerful companionship, the housekeeper tries to get rid of Heidi by selling her to the gypsies. Heidi is rescued and reunited with her grandfather. | 0.847749 | positive | 0.997207 | positive | 0.998007 |
2,900,798 | The Poseidon Adventure | Beyond the Poseidon Adventure | Formerly the RMS Atlantis, the SS Poseidon is a luxury ocean liner from the golden age of travel, which was converted to a single-class, combination cargo-cruise liner. The ship was on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic with the new company, celebrated with a monthlong Christmas voyage from Lisbon to African and South American ports. On December 26, the Poseidon is overturned when it has the misfortune of being directly above the location of an undersea earthquake. The ship capsizes as it falls into the sudden void caused by the quake displacing millions of gallons of seawater. Starting from the upper deck dining room, preacher Reverend Frank "Buzz" Scott leads a small group of (often unwilling) followers towards the keel of the ship, trying to avoid the rising water level and other such hazards. Those stuck within the dining saloon are unwilling to follow the Reverend, and stay behind. Those survivors choosing to follow Scott climb a Christmas tree to ascend into the galley area where they meet some stewards and kitchen crew. There is a great debate about whether to try to reach one of the propeller shafts at the stern, or to go forward to the bow. One of the stewards fears the lockers that hold the anchor chains will have flooded, and suggests that they try for the engine room. After climbing two upside-down stairways, the group comes upon "Broadway", a wide service corridor that runs the length of the ship and connects to the engine room. The posse breaks for a while whilst they look for supplies. Young Robin Shelby ventures off to find the bathroom while Tony "The Beamer" Bates and his girlfriend Pamela find the liquor closet. When the ship's emergency lighting suddenly goes out, a number of crew members panic and stampede; they are trampled, or killed by falling over stairway openings or into a large pit where a boiler tore through several decks of the upturned ship. After the panic, Scott's group goes in search of The Beamer, Pamela, and Robin, who are missing. New York Police Detective Mike Rogo finds The Beamer passed out, intoxicated, and Pamela refuses to leave him. Robin is nowhere to be found. While searching for her young brother, Susan is brutally raped by a young, terrified crew member. Susan talks with the boy, who is remorseful and ashamed, and grows to like him. But the boy, realizing the consequences of his actions, panics and runs off -falling to his death in the dark pit. Susan rejoins the group and tells them nothing of what has happened. After an intense search, they make the painful decision to move on without Robin. At this point his mother, Jane Shelby, breaks down and vents her long-held disgust and hatred for her husband. The Reverend, having found a Turkish oiler, guides the other survivors through Broadway to the stern. They find the corridor to the engine room, which is completely submerged. Belle Rosen, a former W.S.A. champion, swims through the corridor and finds the passage to get them to the other side. Upon their arrival, they find the engine room, or "Hell" as Mr. Martin calls it. They take time to rest and save the batteries on their recently-acquired flashlights. In the darkness Linda Rogo makes a move on the Reverend. After their rest they see the way out - five decks up, on top of a fractured steel wall they name "Mount Poseidon". During the difficult climb, Linda Rogo rebels and attempts to find her own way. She chooses an unstable route and falls to her death, impaled on a piece of sharp steel. An explosion rocks the ship, and Reverend Scott, in an insane rage, denounces God, offers himself as a sacrifice, and commits suicide. Mary Kinsale, an English spinster, screams in grief and claims that they were to be married. Her fellow survivors aren't quite sure what to make of this revelation. Mr. Martin takes charge of the group and they make their way into a propeller shaft where the steel hull is at its thinnest. The oxygen supply begins to give out, but after much waiting, they are finally found. Belle Rosen has a heart attack and dies before the rescue team can reach her. The rescue team cuts through and the group climb out of the upturned hull. Manny Rosen, however, refuses to leave without Belle's remains, which are lifted out after the others have left. Once outside, the survivors see another, much larger group of survivors being removed from the bow of the ship. Most are still in their dinner clothes, in contrast to Scott's group, who are stripped to their underwear and streaked with oil. En route to the rescue ships in lifeboats, they see The Beamer and Pamela, who have survived after all. Sailors from a small German ship try to put a salvage line on the Poseidon. Mike Rogo curses them because of his World War II experiences, and laughs when their efforts fail. The group goes their separate ways - Mary Kinsale and Nonnie on a ship back to England; Mike Rogo, Manny Rosen, Hubie Muller, Dick, Jane and Susan Shelby back to New York; and the Turk back to Turkey. Aboard the American ship, they watch as the Poseidon sinks. Jane Shelby, finally giving up hope, silently grieves the loss of her son. The novel ends with Susan dreaming of going to Hull in England to visit the parents of the boy who had raped her. She hopes that she might be pregnant with his child so he would have a legacy. | The film continues the story from the original movie's conclusion. The Poseidon is still afloat, and the six survivors of Reverend Scott's team have been rescued. Cockney tugboat captain, Mike Turner , discovers the wreck of the ship. Accompanied by second mate Wilbur and passenger Celeste Whitman , he heads out to claim salvage rights on it, as the tugboat Jenny lost her cargo in the same storm that capsized it. They are soon followed by Dr. Stefan Svevo and his crew, who claim to be Greek Orthodox medics who received the ship's SOS. They board the doomed vessel and become trapped after the entrance collapses. The group with Turner also encounters the ship's nurse, Gina Rowe, a passenger named Suzanne Constantine, and war veteran Frank Mezzetti who is searching for his missing daughter , which they soon find along with the elevator operator Larry Simpson and as well as a "billionaire" named "Tex". Later they find the blind Harold Meredith and his wife Hannah, who were waiting for rescue. Water continues to submerge more decks and more explosions occur. Turner and his group find the purser's office, where Svevo decides that he and his men will continue their search for other survivors. Turner agrees and Svevo and his men leave in another direction. Another explosion causes the safe in the purser's office to fall through the floor and open, revealing gold coins and cash. Turner and Wilbur excitedly gather it and start looking for another way out of the ship. Unknown to Turner and the survivors, Suzanne was actually working with Svevo and sneaked a list containing information about a cargo of crates from the purser's office. She gives it to Svevo, but decides that she doesn't want to go through with his plan anymore. Svevo apologizes and orders Doyle, one of his men to kill Suzanne. He shoots her, but she strikes him with an axe before she dies. After climbing up a few decks, Turner and his group find Svevo and his men gathering a cargo of plutonium. Svevo reveals that his real intention of boarding the Poseidon was to retrieve his lost shipment of plutonium, adding that he can't let Turner and his group go now. However, before they can kill Turner and his group, another explosion occurs, allowing them to escape through another cargo room full of cars, where another of Svevo's men is killed. Water floods the deck as Turner's group proceed to up to the next deck, but Hannah falls into the rising water and Turner loses his salvaged gold. Svevo and his one remaining gunman head back up to the ship's stern, where the rest of Svevo's team attempt to raise the plutonium using a crane up to the hull of the ship, which is still above water but is slowly sinking. In another section of the ship, Turner and the survivors exit the ship through an underwater side door, but due to shortage of scuba tanks, Wilbur sacrifices himself by swimming underwater and disappearing. Turner and Celeste swim to the tugboat Jenny and move it closer to the Poseidon as the remaining survivors swim towards it. Svevo's men see them and open fire and kill Tex, who willingly holds onto a bottle of champagne as he goes down. Turner's group makes it to his boat and they sail away. Water continues to flood the Poseidon and cause the on-board boilers to explode, which causes the cargo of plutonium to also do so. The Poseidon completely explodes, killing Svevo and his men. On board Turner's boat, Turner accepts that his tugboat Jenny will be taken from him when they get to port, but Celeste reveals a diamond that she salvaged from the Poseidon. Celeste asks Turner, "Are you going to kiss me now?" and Turner replies, "I was going to kiss you anyway." They kiss and the tugboat Jenny sails away into the sunset with the survivors. | 0.843442 | positive | 0.989751 | positive | 0.505466 |
157,481 | Diamonds Are Forever | Diamonds Are Forever | British Secret Service agent James Bond, 007 is sent on an assignment by his superior, M. Acting on information received from Special Branch, M tasks Bond with infiltrating a smuggling ring running diamonds from mines in Sierra Leone to the United States. Bond must travel as far as possible down the pipeline to uncover those responsible. Using the identity of Peter Franks, a country house burglar turned diamond smuggler, he meets Tiffany Case, an attractive go-between who developed an antipathy towards men after being gang-raped as a teenager. Bond discovers that the smuggling ring is operated by "The Spangled Mob", a ruthless American gang run by the brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang. Bond follows the pipeline from London to New York, where he is instructed by Shady Tree to earn his fee through betting on a rigged horse race in nearby Saratoga. At Saratoga Bond meets Felix Leiter, a former CIA agent working at Pinkertons as a private detective investigating crooked horse racing. Leiter bribes the jockey to ensure the failure of the plot to rig the race. When Bond goes to pay the bribe, he witnesses two homosexual thugs, Wint and Kidd, attack the jockey. Bond calls Shady Tree to enquire further about the payment of his fee and is told to go to the Tiara Hotel in Las Vegas. The Tiara is owned by Seraffimo Spang and operates as the headquarters of the Spangled Mob. Spang also owns an old Western ghost town, named "Spectreville", restored to be his own private vacation retreat. At the hotel, Bond finally receives payment through a rigged blackjack game where the dealer is Tiffany Case. However, he disobeys his orders by continuing to gamble in the casino after "winning" the money he is owed. Spang suspects that Bond may be a 'plant' and has him captured and tortured. However, with Tiffany's help he escapes from Spectreville aboard a railway push-car with Seraffimo Spang in pursuit aboard an old Western train. Bond re-routs the train to a side line and shoots Spang before the resulting crash. Assisted by Leiter, Bond and Case go via California to New York, where they board the Queen Elizabeth to travel to London. However, Wint and Kidd observe their embarkation and followed them on board. They kidnap Case, planning to kill her and throw her overboard. Bond rescues her and kills both gangsters; for precaution, he makes it look like a murder-suicide. Case subsequently informs Bond of the details of the pipeline. It begins in Africa where a dentist would pay miners to smuggle diamonds in their mouths which he would extract during a routine appointment. From there the dentist would take the diamonds and rendezvous with a German helicopter pilot. Eventually the diamonds would go to Paris, and from there to London. There, after telephone instructions from a contact known as ABC, Case would then meet a person to explain how to smuggle the diamonds to New York City. After returning to London, Bond flies on to Freetown in Sierra Leone and then to where the next diamond rendezvous takes place. With the collapse of the rest of the pipeline, Jack Spang (who turns out to be the mysterious ABC) shuts down his diamond smuggling pipeline by killing its participants. Spang himself is killed when Bond shoots down his helicopter. | James Bond – agent 007 – pursues Ernst Stavro Blofeld and eventually finds him at a facility, where Blofeld look-alikes are being created through surgery. Bond kills a test subject, and later the 'real' Blofeld, by drowning him in a pool of superheated mud. While assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd systematically kill several diamond smugglers, M suspects that South African diamonds may be being stockpiled to depress prices by dumping, and orders Bond to uncover the smuggling ring. Disguised as professional smuggler and murderer Peter Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet contact Tiffany Case. The real Franks shows up on the way, but Bond intercepts and kills him and switches IDs to make it seem like Franks is Bond. Case and Bond then go to Los Angeles, smuggling the diamonds inside Franks' corpse. At the airport Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter and goes to a funeral home, where Franks' body is cremated and the diamonds passed onto the next smuggler, Shady Tree. Bond is nearly killed by Wint and Kidd when they put him in a cremation oven, but Tree stops the process when he discovers that the diamonds in Franks' body were fakes, planted by Bond and the CIA. Bond tells Leiter to ship the real diamonds as he goes to Las Vegas. There Bond goes to the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. Then Bond discovers Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd, who did not know that the diamonds were fake. At the craps table, Bond meets the opportunistic Plenty O' Toole, and after gambling, brings her to his room. Gang members are waiting there and throw O'Toole out the window and into the pool. After they leave, Bond spends the rest of the night with Tiffany Case. Bond then tells Tiffany, who wants to steal the diamonds for herself, to retrieve the diamonds at the Circus Circus casino. Tiffany picks up the diamonds, but reneges on her deal and flees, passing off the diamonds to the next smuggler. However, seeing that O'Toole was killed after being mistaken for her, Tiffany changes her mind and drives Bond to the airport, where the diamonds are given to Bert Saxby. Following Saxby's van, Bond eventually enters the car which drives to a remote facility. Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds – a research laboratory owned by Whyte, where he finds that a satellite is being built by a laser refraction specialist, Professor Dr. Metz. When Bond's cover is blown, he escapes by stealing a moon buggy and reunites with Tiffany. Bond and Tiffany return to the Whyte House. Bond scales the walls to the top floor to confront Whyte. Inside, 007 is instead confronted by two identical Blofelds who use an electronic device to sound like Whyte. Bond kills one of the Blofelds, but it turns out to be a look-alike. He is then knocked out by gas, where he is picked up by Wint and Kidd and taken out to Las Vegas Valley where he is placed in a pipeline and left to die. After Bond escapes, he calls Blofeld posing as Saxby. He finds out Whyte's location and rescues him, but in the meantime Blofeld abducts Case. With the help of Whyte, Bond raids the lab and uncovers Blofeld's plot to create a laser satellite using the diamonds, which by now is already in orbit. With the satellite, Blofeld destroys nuclear weapons in China, the Soviet Union and the United States, then proposes an international auction for global nuclear supremacy. Whyte identifies an oil rig off the coast of Baja California as Blofeld's base of operations. After Bond's attempt to change the cassette containing the satellite control codes fails due to a mistake by Tiffany, Leiter and the CIA begin a helicopter attack on the rig. Blofeld tries to escape on a mini-sub, but Bond gains control of it, crashing it into the control room, causing the satellite control and base to be destroyed. Bond and Tiffany then head for Britain on a cruise ship, where Bond also foils Wint and Kidd's attempt to kill them with a hidden bomb. | 0.74638 | positive | 0.332236 | positive | 0.962194 |
123,464 | Fail-Safe | Fail-Safe | An unknown aircraft approaches North America from Europe. American bombers of the SAC are scrambled to meet the potential threat. As a fail-safe protection, the bombers have standard orders not to proceed past a certain point without receiving a special attack code. The original "threat" is proven to be innocuous and recall orders are issued. However, due to a technical failure, the attack code is transmitted to Group Six, which consists of six Vindicator supersonic bombers. Colonel Grady, the head of the group, tries to contact Omaha to verify the fail-safe order (called Positive Check), but due to Soviet radio jamming, Grady cannot hear them. Concluding that the fail-safe order and the radio jamming could only mean nuclear war, Grady commands the Group Six crew towards Moscow, their intended destination. At meetings in Omaha, at the Pentagon, and in the fallout shelter of the White House, American politicians and scholars debate the implications of the attack. Professor Groteschele suggests the United States follow this accidental attack with a full-scale attack to force the Soviets to surrender. Following procedures, the military sends out six Skyscraper supersonic fighters in an attempt to shoot down the Vindicators. The attempt is to show that the Vindicator attack is an accident, not a full-scale nuclear assault. This involves turning on afterburners to increase thrust and speed. Without tanker refueling, the "Skyscrapers" will run out of fuel and crash, dooming the pilots to die of exposure in the Arctic Sea. The Vindicators are too far away, and all six fighters shoot their rockets and fail to hit them. The President of the United States (unnamed but apparently modeled on Kennedy) contacts Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and offers assistance in attacking the group. The Soviets decline at first; however, they soon decide to accept it. At SAC headquarters, General Bogan attempts to stop the attack. However, his executive officer, Colonel Cascio, wants the attack to continue. Cascio attempts to take over command of SAC, but is stopped by Air Police. However, precious time has been wasted. Meanwhile, the Soviet PVO Strany air defense corps has managed to shoot down two of the six planes. The Soviets accept American help and shoot down a third plane. Two bombers and a support plane remain on course to Moscow. General Bogan tells Marshal Nevsky, the Soviet commander, to ignore Plane #6 (the support plane) because it has no weapons. Nevsky, who mistrusts Bogan, instead orders his Soviet aircraft to attack all three planes. Plane 6's last feint guarantees that the two remaining bombers can successfully attack. Following the failure, Nevsky collapses. As the two planes approach Moscow, Colonel Grady opens up the radio to contact SAC to inform them that they are about to make the strike. As a last-minute measure, the Soviets fire a barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles to form a fireball in an attempt to knock the low-flying Vindicator out of the sky. The Vindicators shoot up one last decoy, which successfully leads the Soviet missiles high in the air. However, one missile explodes earlier than expected; the second bomber blows up, but Colonel Grady's plane survives. With the radio open, the President attempts to persuade Grady that there is no war. Understanding orders that such a late recall attempt must be a Soviet trick, Grady ignores them. The Vindicator's defensive systems operator fires two missiles that decoy the Soviet interceptor missiles to detonate at high altitude. Grady tells his crew that "We're not just walking wounded, we're walking dead men," due to radiation from the burst. He intends to fly the aircraft over Moscow and detonate the bombs in the plane. His copilot agrees, noting "There's nothing to go home to." When it becomes apparent that one bomber will get through Soviet defenses and destroy Moscow, the American President states that he will order an American bomber to destroy New York City at the same time, with the Empire State Building as ground zero; his wife is in the city and would be killed. The Soviet leader is appalled but realizes that this is the only way to prevent a worldwide nuclear war which will probably destroy humanity; 'others' (presumably the Soviet military) would not accept the unilateral destruction of Moscow, and would depose him and retaliate. The bomb is dropped by a senior general within Strategic Air Command, who orders his crew to let him handle the entire bombing run by himself so as to assume all the responsibility; he then takes his own life. | The genesis of the movie arises out of the Cold War tensions existing between the United States and the Soviet Union during the early 1960s. The film presents a dramatic account of a series of coincidental events leading up to an accidental thermonuclear first-strike attack by a group of United States “Vindicator” bombers against Moscow, the capital of what was then the Soviet Union. Amidst an ordinary tour for VIPs at the U.S. headquarters of the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, Nebraska, an alert is initiated when SAC radar indicates an intrusion into American airspace of an unidentified flying object. The standard procedure of SAC is to keep several groups of bombers constantly flying around the clock as a most immediate response to any potential nuclear attack on the country. Upon any initial alert from headquarters, these airborne groups proceed to pre-identified aerial points around the globe called "fail-safe points" to await an actual "go code" before proceeding towards Russian targets. Shortly after reaching those points, the flying object is identified merely as an off-course airliner and the alert is canceled. However, a technical error sends an errant "go code" to a group of bombers, ordering them to proceed and attack their target. Coincidentally and simultaneously, a new Russian jamming device begins radio jamming of communications between SAC headquarters and the bomber group with the result that the group commander, Colonel Jack Grady , begins to lead the attack on Moscow. Pressure mounts as the President of the United States and his advisers attempt to recall the group or shoot them down. Communications are begun with the Soviet Chairman, whereupon mistakes on both sides are acknowledged. The jamming is reversed; however, SAC training and protocols cause the crew to reject counter-orders to abort the mission. Upon confirmation regarding the completion of the accidental attack on Moscow, the President realizes the severity of the situation and seeks a resolution to the matter that will avoid reprisal from the Russians and, ultimately, an all-out nuclear holocaust. With this threat in mind, the President orders an immediate similar nuclear strike on New York City. | 0.816464 | positive | 0.984556 | negative | -0.329963 |
6,124,685 | Vampire$ | Vampires: Los Muertos | The book opens with Vampire$, Inc. cleaning out a nest of vampires, introducing the main characters and setting the tone for the book. The team has some difficulty collecting their payment for dispatching said vampires, but ultimately collects their fee and hosts a wild party at a local motel where all of the team and some townsfolk engage in epic-level drinking and carrying on. The party is interrupted by a 'master' vampire who essentially slaughters everyone at the party with the exception of Jack Crow and his second in command "Cherry Cat" Catlin. The shaken Jack Crow begins to plan the formation of a new team, aided by Father Adam, a knowledgeable young priest sent to him by the Vatican. Events at the motel slaughter lead Jack to realize that silver, particularly blessed silver from a cross, can be used as a weapon against vampires. He has his weaponsmith Carl begin creating silver bullets and he recruits a skilled gunman named Felix, that Jack met while working as a government agent in Mexico. Felix proves to be as deadly with a pistol as Jack hoped and they seem to have a new and powerful resource to use against the vampires. In addition to the silver bullets, Carl also develops a "vampire detector" for use by the team, which proves to be a useful tool against the vampires (which are portrayed as fantastically fast and powerful compared to humans, particularly the 'master vampires'). A series of battles ensues, using these silver bullets against the vampires, but key members of Jack's team are killed by the vampires, including Annabelle, the office manager of the team's residence, and the aging weaponsmith Carl. Jack, depressed and beaten, suicidally returns to a known favorite hotel where the vampires are sure to find him. Felix, Cat and Father Adam stage a rescue attempt but it ends with Father Adam dead and Jack spirited away by the vampire. The novel closes with Felix taking a leadership role within Vampire$ Inc., after thwarting an attempt by the (now a vampire) Jack Crow to attack the Pope. | In Mexico, a freelance vampire slayer, Derek Bliss , is hired by an unknown client provided he build a team of slayers. Father Adam Guiteau is shown to have been killed in this one. This team ends up including the vampiress Zoe, who is fighting her affliction with medication, Father Rodrigo, a helper who pretends to be a priest, and Sancho, a brave fourteen year old boy who aids Derek in killing some vampires at the beginning of the movie, in finding a large nest of "suckers" and their powerful leader, a vampire princess named Una . She is seeking a legendary black crucifix: the Berziers Cross, the same crucifix used unsuccessfully in the first movie to perform a ritual which will enable vampires to walk in sunlight and be invulnerable. The movie starts out with a man on the streets looking for a prostitute. When he finds one, the man pulls out a razor and threatens the woman. Derek then comes up and points an odd-looking gun to his left temple. After the man backs away, the prostitute thanks Derek and asks if she can do anything for him. He turns the gun on her and shoots her with three stakes, and it is revealed that the prostitute was a vampire. Derek drags her to an abandoned car lot and watches her catch fire in the sunlight while filming it on camera. When he gets back to his hotel room, the Van Helsing Group leader calls him and informs him that he has a new job. He goes down to Mexico to a convent where a group of vampire-hunting priests are staying. He has a strange vision, and one of the priests conclude that the vampires may be linking up with him. In the night, Una and her fledglings attack and feed upon a human man. The next day, Derek goes looking for people on a list he has been given. Unfortunately, most of them are dead or crazy, and the last living ones are killed. Derek goes to a coffee shop and asks for a man named Jesse. He is there, and tells Derek to wait while he finishes up something. Derek then meets Zoe, and he grows suspicious when she asks him if he works in the "undead" business. He leaves to go to the bathroom, and finds out that Zoe is a vampire by using a special lens, becoming sad as he thinks she's cute. In the split second it takes him to throw a paper towel in the trash, Una comes in, slashes the throat of every customer, and kidnaps Jesse. When Derek comes out and sees that Zoe has also fled, he concludes that she must have done it. The next day, he pulls over when sees her on the side of the road. They argue; Zoe tells him about special pills she takes to fight off her vampire side. She has a vision of a monastery, and Derek realizes that it is the one where he just left. They drive back and find all but one priest slaughtered. "Father" Rodrigo tells them of the Berziers Cross, and shows them something a fellow priest was working on in his spare time: a huge van complete with all the necessary vampire-slaying tools. Derek hears a noise in the trees, and finds a teenager that he had met before. His name is Sancho, and he has a permission slip from his mother, stating he can go on the vampire hunt with Derek. The group meet up with another hunter, Ray Collins from Memphis, and go after Una. Una seduces Ray and convinces him to leave Zoe's pills where she can get them. When they reach the village where the vampires are hiding out, they are welcomed because they want the vampires killed. Una, now able to walk in daylight, goes out and kidnaps Zoe. Derek aims the gun at Sancho and says he must have given the pills to Una. However, a villager realizes that Ray did it, and shoots him before Derek shoots Sancho. Derek and the gang go after Zoe to rescue her, at the cost of leaving Rodrigo to properly perform the ritual. They go back to a clinic, where Zoe's vampire blood is exchanged for human blood. Derek knows how to save Rodrigo; the vampire blood pumped into his body. The team goes after Rodrigo and find out that he was not a real priest. Una is not daunted, and she responds by lighting a fire beneath his feet. Derek saves Rodrigo, and goes after Una. They almost kill her, but she escapes when the cord which was dragging her into the sunlight snaps. She catches Derek, Derek then grabs what is left of the cord. Before they reach the sunlight, Derek blows her head off and sends it flying into the sun, where it catches fire. Her body turns into stone with a black beating heart in the chest. Derek drives a stake into the heart. Sancho and Rodrigo decide to stay in the village, but Zoe and Derek drive for Mexico City in the sunset. | 0.636781 | positive | 0.978361 | positive | 0.995061 |
18,080,137 | The War of the Worlds | War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave | After ten paragraphs of introductory remarks the narrative opens in an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, southwest of London, near the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oil brown skin," "the size, perhaps, of a bear," with "two large dark-coloured eyes," and a lipless "V-shaped mouth surrounded by "Gorgon groups of tentacles." The narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous." They briefly emerge, have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. The narrator takes his wife to safety in nearby Leatherhead, where she has relatives, and then returns to Woking. He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (Tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the so-called "black smoke". These Tripods wipe out the army units positioned around the crater and attack surrounding communities, moving toward London. Fleeing the scene, the narrator meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the narrator off from his wife. The two try to escape via Byfleet, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, while the Martians escape. Our hero is able to float down the Thames toward London in a boat, stopping at Walton. More cylinders are landing across Southern England, and a panicked flight of the population of London begins. This includes the narrator's brother, who flees to the Essex coast after Black Smoke is used to devastate London. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child destroys two tripods before being sunk by the Martians, though this allows the ship carrying the narrator's brother and his two female travelling companions to escape to the continent. Shortly after, all organised resistance has ceased, and the Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered. Red weed, a Martian form of vegetation, spreads with extraordinary rapidity over the landscape wherever there is abundant water. At the beginning of Book Two, the narrator and a curate from Walton take refuge in a ruined building in Sheen. The house is nearly destroyed when another Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping them in the house for almost two weeks. The curate, traumatised by the invasion, sees in the Martian creatures heralding the advent of the Apocalypse. The narrator's relations with the curate deteriorate, and he eventually knocks him unconscious to prevent his loud ranting, but not before he is heard by a Martian, who captures him with a prehensile tentacle and, the reader is led to believe, drains him of his blood; blood transfusion is the Martians' form of nourishment. The narrator escapes detection by hiding in the coal-cellar. The Martians eventually depart, and the narrator is able to head toward Central London. He once again encounters the artilleryman, who briefly persuades him to cooperate in a grandiose plan to rebuild civilization underground. But after a few hours the narrator perceives the lunacy of this plan and the overall laziness of his companion and abandons the artilleryman to his delusions. Heading into a deserted London, he is at the point of despair and offers his life to the aliens when he discovers that the invaders have died from microbial infections to which they had no immunity, since "there are no bacteria in Mars." The narrator realises with joy that the threat has been vanquished. The narrator suffers a brief breakdown of which he remembers nothing, is nursed back to health, and returns home to find his wife, whom he had given up for dead. The last chapter, entitled "Epilogue," reflects on the significance of the invasion and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" that it has left in the narrator's mind. | The film begins with clips from War of the Worlds and the voice of George Herbert, who explains that despite years of searching for extraterrestrial life, mankind could never have predicted the invasion. He tells us that the aliens fed on human blood which infected them, wiping the invaders out. He then states "for some, the nightmare had only just begun". Two years later, a town is seen, populated with silent refugees. Among them is Shackleford and Sissy. Suddenly, three Tripods land in the city. People are struck by a Heat-Ray, disintegrating them. Shackleford and Sissy run to their hideout. Shackleford grabs a syringe and takes a sample of Sissy's blood. He then injects it into himself. George Herbert and his son Alex are living in their house, left undamaged by the first invasion. One morning, George recognises a familiar disturbance on the radio, the same heard during the first invasion. He takes Alex to the basement and promises he will be back when he is finished with his work. He goes to a United States air base, where he reveals to Major Kramer and scientists there that his studies suggests the aliens are creating a space time hole between Earth and Mars. A fleet of F-22 fighter jets, with the deep-space flight capabilities, fly through this time hole and raid the planet Mars. George goes to get his son back to the base, only to find a Tripod standing outside his home. Alex is then hit by a smaller weapon from the tripod. Remembering humans were kidnapped by the first wave of machines, he realizes the weapon is a teleporter. He escapes to an abandoned city and wakes up the next morning to find a man named Pete running from a Tripod. George throws himself before the machine offering himself and hoping to find his son once he's teleported. He wakes up inside the machine with Pete and they both escape with Sissy, who seems to know her way around the organic interior. Meanwhile, the Martians begin a second invasion, attacking recovering cities such as London and Paris. Major Kramer leads the fleet of jets to chase the alien mothership through the time hole and back to Mars. George, Pete and Sissy find themselves in the town from the start of the film. Shackleford reveals that the town is a fake, created by the Tripods as a place for human prisoners to live on Mars. Shackleford wants to destroy the aliens in the same way bacteria did them in during the first invasion. Shackleford and Sissy are dying from a virus which is lethal to the Tripods. Before he dies he convinces George to inject his infected blood into himself. George and Pete are kidnapped again and wind up inside the mothership, where they find Alex in a cocoon. George injects his infected blood into a pod holding a brain which is telepathically connected to all of the Tripods. The virus quickly spreads through their minds and deactivates the alien machines, ending their second invasion. George, Pete and Alex find Kramer's jet and escape just as the mothership begins to explode. George somehow survives the infection, and the humans celebrate while listening to the radio, which undergoes some static interference, indicating a third invasion, and the characters spend a few moments in silence before the film ends. | 0.663026 | positive | 0.991947 | positive | 0.331915 |
13,392,017 | Nights in Rodanthe | Nights in Rodanthe | The story begins in 2002 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Adrienne Willis, a part-time librarian and divorced mother of three, is helping her daughter, Amanda, cope with depression. Amanda is having problems coping with the loss of her husband and is having difficulties raising her two children. In an effort to show that life goes on despite trying times, Adrienne tells her daughter the story of her relationship with Paul Flanner, whom she met in 1988. Adrienne was abandoned for a younger woman by her husband. She parented their children alone and took care of her sick father. This had worn her down. So when an opportunity comes along to tend an inn in the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina for a friend, Adrienne decides to do it. As soon as she arrives, a major storm is forecast. Meanwhile, Paul, a fifty-four-year-old father, arrives in Rodanthe. He has sold his home and practice, and now wishes to travel to an isolated place where he can seek relief from his shattered life. A successful surgeon, he has recently divorced from his wife, and has had a patient die. While the storm looms, the two characters, the only people at the inn, find compassion in one another and fall in love. After a few days, Adrienne and Paul slowly realize that once they leave, they must return to their separate lives. Paul explains a promise to join his estranged son in a medical clinic in Ecuador; eventually, he and Adrienne part. Adrienne returns to Rocky Mount. Paul heads for Ecuador. They communicate through letters, further fortifying their love. Paul, however, dies in Ecuador. | While picking up his son and daughter for a weekend visit, Jack tells his estranged wife Adrienne that he still "loves her" and wants to move back home. Adrienne suggests that his remorse is due to his falling out with the other woman, but in any event says she needs time and space to think. The rift that this causes between the daughter and her mother is palpable. Typical teenage angst and rebellion follow and Adrienne is sure she is losing her daughter over the events that are unfolding in her marriage. Adrienne drives to Rodanthe, North Carolina, to look after a friend's bed-and-breakfast for the weekend while she's away. The house is rustic, romantic, and right on the beach, and partially in the surf at high tide. The only guest for the weekend, Paul , is a very TYPE A personality surgeon who arrives at the inn with his own emotional baggage. He has flashbacks of a surgery which ended tragically. The family of the patient, who live in Rodanthe, is suing him. The husband wrote to Paul asking to speak to him; this is what brings him to Rodanthe. A storm moves in and the two team up to protect the inn. They dine together, share stories, and eventually turn to each other for emotional comfort. A genuine romance is born. With Adrienne’s advice and moral support, Paul opens up to the patient's widower and in doing so faces his own pain. Paul carries guilt for passing up a relationship with his son in favor of his career, but with he had decided to go down to South America to salvage his relationship with his son. Paul is now very reluctant to leave Adrienne and Rodanthe but he knows that he must go to his estranged son Mark who left his stressful practice with his workaholic dad to become a physician there . During their separation, Adrienne and Paul exchange numerous handwritten letters expressing their longing to be with each other once again. On the evening that Adrienne and Paul were to finally reunite, he was a no show! Adrienne was unable to determine if he caught his flight back from South America from the Airlines. Unfortunately, Paul had been killed in a flash mudslide. His son, Mark, arrives at Adrienne's door the following day with a box of Paul's personal belongings, as well as gratitude to Adrienne for "giving him back the father he knew when he was a child". Adrienne is seen struggling, for what appears to be days or weeks, with a nearly unbearable grief. Eventually, her daughter is able to coax the story from her mother. This is a turning point for their relationship and it allows Adrienne to begin to deal with her loss. She tells her daughter the story of a very special type of love and encourages her daughter to seek that out for herself someday. Adrienne finally is granted a respite from her heart-rending sadness when, during a solitary sojourn along the beach on a strikingly beautiful day, she looks up to see a small herd of magnificent wild horses go thundering on by her. She, her children and her best friend walk down to the dock where Adrienne and Paul had danced, and Adrienne was finally able to kiss Paul goodbye. | 0.822052 | positive | 0.996713 | positive | 0.99713 |
3,242,846 | Gulliver's Travels | Gulliver's Travels | ;4 May 1699 — 13 April 1702 The book begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput. He is also given the permission to roam around the city on a condition that he would not harm their subjects. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is convicted of treason for "making water" in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving countless lives)--among other "crimes." Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. This book of the Travels is a topical political satire. ;20 June 1702 — 3 June 1706 When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to put in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is tall (the scale of Brobdingnag is about 12:1, compared to Lilliput's 1:12, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being ). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and she buys him and keeps him as a favourite at court. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This is referred to as his 'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England. This book compares the truly moral man to the representative man; the latter is clearly shown to be the lesser of the two. Swift, being in Anglican holy orders, was likely to make such comparisons. ;5 August 1706 — 16 April 1710 After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends. ("La puta" is Spanish for "the whore". Swift was attacking reason and the deism movement in this book, the last one he wrote for the Travels.) Laputa's custom of throwing rocks down at rebellious cities on the ground seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. Gulliver tours Laputa as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and on the Royal Society and its experiments. At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons (see muckraking). Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days. ;7 September 1710 – 2 July 1715 Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew whom he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of hideous, deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. This book uses coarse metaphors to describe human depravity, and the Houyhnhms are symbolized as not only perfected nature but also the emotional barrenness which Swift maintained that devotion to reason brought. | The story begins on the night that Lemuel Gulliver arrives back at home. Gulliver imagines for a moment that he is back on the shipwreck that started his travels. Meanwhile, Gulliver is found by his wife Mary and son Tom on the horse stable the next day. He then proceeds to tell his story starting back to the day of the shipwreck and the famous arrival of Gulliver to Lilliput, an island consisting of tiny people. Gulliver continues to explain the strange customs of Lilliput, such as the naming of officials by doing rituals such as the jumping over and going under a stick held by the emperor . Gulliver is then presented to the Empress of Lilliput and is asked to fight a war against the enemy country of Blefuscu. Gulliver then accepts and wins the war in order to show gratitude towards the Lilliputians. After some time they ask him to eliminate Blefuscu further which Gulliver refuses. He is then ordered to be executed, although his new Lilliputian friends help him, reciprocating Gulliver's help towards them to obtain the highest office. He then flees from Lilliput and ends up in the sea after making a raft with thousands of trees to escape. Meanwhile, Gulliver's wife Mary asks for the help of Dr. Bates , a member of the mental institution in London who appears to help Gulliver, but is actually plotting how to get rid of him. He pretends to send Mary's letters to Gulliver in the institution, but actually intercepts them, saving them in a book shelf. Meanwhile, Gulliver is sent to a mental institution, and he is allowed to tell his tale to everyone present. He also appears to show signs of dementia, although these are just memories of his travels. Tom later discovers a small Lilliputian sheep, which he tries to retrieve towards the series. Gulliver later lands in the land of Brobdingnag which consists of Giants. He is shown as an exhibition by Farmer Grultrud and his daughter Glumdalclitch who discover him. He is sold to a lady of the royal court, who presents him to the Queen of Brobdingnan . He is examined by the doctors who ridicule him for his size, and discusses the politics of Brobdingnag, which are different from the traditional politics of the normal kingdom of England. He eventually gains the despise of the court dwarf Grildrig , who is envious of not being considered the "smallest man in the kingdom". The dwarf sends him some giant wasps to kill Gulliver, but Gulliver is swift enough to kill them. He then extracts a wasp's sting and makes a dagger from it. Meanwhile, Glumdalclitch eventually falls in love with Gulliver and wishes to marry him. Gulliver softly rejects her advances and asks her to free him. She reluctantly does so by letting his box float away in the sea. Gulliver sees the flying land of Laputa and signals them to pick him up. They do so, and he immediately befriends the Rajah and Prince Munodi , who is considered an idiot. He converses with two astronomers and learns of the way to speak to them when they get into a thinking state. Gulliver later learns the tricks of these men, and they share their knowledge of math and astronomy, among other things. He later examines some customs which he finds unnecessary, while trying to find a Room of Answers to get back to England. After getting ready for the "End of the World Ball", he later participates in a battle in which the kingdom of the prince's mother Empress Munodi is attacked. Gulliver falls from the hole under a magnet that sustains the island above the ground, into a bed under the palace. He then converses with Empress Munodi of the place. After leaving the palace, he encounters a magician in Glubbdubdrib and stays at his house with the promise of being taken to a port to go to England. While the days pass Gulliver wonders when will this be, as the magician only says his servants are looking for two horses that escaped and that they'll "go tomorrow". Gulliver later discovers the magician is drugging him and using his blood to summon the spirit of great figures such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. He later summons more spirits by his own will. After summoning many spirits, he abandons the place realizing everything's an illusion when he goes through two standing guardians. He later meets the Struldbrugs where he gives his dagger to the Immortal Gatekeeper to enter, later rejecting their offer to gain immortality by drinking their water. He finally arrives in the land of the Houyhnhnm horses, where he is enchanted by their intelligence and grace, and also encounters the Yahoos. Gulliver begins to get disgusted by them and prefers the company of the Houyhnhnms. He talks to the Mistress Houyhnhnm and explains his costumes and lifestyle, and begins to admire more their culture. After being attacked by Yahoos and saved by the Houyhnhnm Mistress , Gulliver begins to despise more and more the Yahoo lifestyle. He studies their customs and decides to prove the Houyhnhnms he's more like them. He even rejects the diamonds he finds in a quarry. The Houyhnhnms, even though they recognize his virtues, form a council and decide that Gulliver must leave the island. With sadness, Gulliver then departs the island and is rescued by a Portuguese ship against his will. He then is in the moment amongst doctors in an evaluation. His wife is then asked if she believes his story. She answers that she believes in him and later questions Bates's motives to leave him in the institution. He answers he does it since it is his "Christian duty". She responds that his motives are "everything but Christian" and reveals his hideous plan of hiding the letters which had been discovered by Tom earlier in the film. After reassuring his tale once more, Gulliver's son enters the court room showing the small Lilliputian sheep Gulliver took care of. Gulliver is then released and he lives with his family. He still struggles to cope with them after receiving so much disgust of being a Yahoo, but has learned to be a better person and is dedicated to his new horses and family, whom he talks to again. It was mentioned by Lemuel in the narration that Dr. Bates wasn't seen again and it was said that he went abroad. The film ends in a scene of Gulliver and his family, whom he has grown to love once more, and shares what he is now as a person. | 0.856789 | positive | 0.994703 | positive | 0.597182 |
8,202,728 | The World According to Garp | The World According to Garp | The story deals with the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. As a matter of practicality and kindness in making his passing as comfortable as possible and reducing his agitation, she manually gratifies him several times. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him "T. S." (standing only for "Technical Sergeant"). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at the all-boys school Steering School in New England. Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. After his graduation in 1961, his mother takes him to Vienna where he writes his first novella. His mother, too, starts writing, - her autobiography. After they return to Steering Garp marries Helen, the wrestling coach's daughter and founds his family, he a struggling writer, she a teacher of English. The publication of A Sexual Suspect makes his mother famous as she becomes a feminist icon as feminists view her book as a manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women who cut off their tongues in support of and named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut off by her rapists to silence her. Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon) struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story is decidedly rich with (in the words of the fictional Garp's teacher) "lunacy and sorrow," and the sometimes ridiculous chains of events the characters experience still resonate with painful truth. The novel contains several framed narratives: Garp's first novella, The Pension Grillparzer; Vigilance, a short story; and the first chapter of his novel, The World According to Bensenhaver. As well, the book contains some motifs that appear in almost all John Irving novels: bears, wrestling, Vienna, New England, people who are uninterested in having sex, and a complex Dickensian plot that spans the protagonist's whole life. Adultery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton. | The story chronicles the life of T. S. Garp , the illegitimate son of a feminist mother, Jenny Fields . Jenny wanted a child but not a husband. A nurse during World War II, she encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him. Jenny raises young Garp alone. Garp grows up, becoming interested in wrestling and writing fiction, topics his mother has little interest in. However, his writing piques the interest of the daughter of the school's wrestling coach, Helen Holm . She is wary of him, however, because Garp is quite promiscuous at school. Jenny also observes Garp's behavior in this regard and is intellectually curious about it, having little more than clinical interest in sex herself. She offers to procure a prostitute for Garp, and -- after engaging the two of them in conversation on the subject -- decides to write a book on her observations of lust and human sexuality. Her book is a partial autobiography called A Sexual Suspect, and is an overnight sensation. Jenny becomes a feminist icon. She uses the proceeds from the book to found a center at her home for troubled and abused women and transsexuals. Meanwhile, Garp's first novel is published, which impresses Helen. The two marry and eventually have two children, Duncan and Walt. Garp becomes a devoted parent and successful fiction writer, while Helen becomes a college professor. However, he and his wife both struggle with fidelity. Having learned about his wife's infidelity with one of her students, Garp gets into a car accident while his children are riding in the back seat of his car. He crashes into his wife's lover's car, parked in their home's driveway; his wife was in the car performing fellatio on her lover. As a result, Walt is killed and Duncan suffers an eye injury. This turns into a time of emotional healing when Garp, through the aid of his mother, learns to forgive himself and his wife for their fidelity problems. The couple reconcile, and they have a baby daughter named Jenny after her grandmother. Garp spends time visiting his mother and the people who live at her center, including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon . He also first hears the story of Ellen James, a girl who was gang-raped and then had her tongue cut out so that she could not identify her attackers. Some of the women at Jenny's center are "Ellen Jamesians", women who voluntarily cut out their own tongues as a show of solidarity. Garp is horrified by the practice and learns that the Jamesians have received a letter from Ellen James herself begging them to stop the practice, but that they have voted to refuse. Because of both her center and her book, Jenny has been receiving credible death threats. To Garp's dismay, she is dismissive of physical danger, and in fact, decides to endorse a politician who supports her message. Garp writes a book about the life of Ellen James. The book is very successful and well-regarded, but is highly critical of the Jamesians. Garp begins receiving death threats of his own from them. During a political rally, Jenny is shot and killed by a male anti-feminist fanatic. The women of Jenny's center hold a memorial for her, but forbid all men from attending. Garp, dressed as a woman, is secreted into the memorial by Muldoon. However, he is identified by Pooh, a Jamesian he had known when they both were in school. A commotion breaks out, and Garp is in danger of being hurt, until a woman leads him out of the memorial, away from danger, and to a taxi. The woman is Ellen James , who thanks Garp for his book about her. The Jamesians are further outraged that Garp attended the memorial. Garp returns to his old school as the wrestling coach. One day during practice, Pooh enters the gymnasium and shoots him at close range with a pistol. Garp is airlifted away from the school by helicopter with his wife. He flashes back to an earlier time when his mother would toss him into the air. The movie is left open-ended on whether he survives or not. | 0.80208 | positive | 0.493963 | positive | 0.998243 |
508,044 | Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square | Frenzy | The novel and film tell the story of Bob Rusk, a serial killer in London who rapes and strangles women. Because of circumstantial evidence, however, the police come to suspect Rusk's friend Richard Blamey. | In London, a serial killer is raping women and strangling them with neckties. Most of the film takes place in Covent Garden, which at the time was still the wholesale fruit and vegetable market district. Fairly early in the film, the audience sees that fruit merchant Robert Rusk ([[Barry Foster is in fact the murderer. However, circumstantial guilt has already built up around his friend, Richard Blaney . Blaney's ex-wife Brenda runs a matchmaking service that Rusk used until he was blacklisted for beating up his dates. One day, Rusk shows up at her office and tries to seduce her; when she spurns his advances, he rapes and strangles her in a fit of rage. Suspicion falls on Blaney, who had earlier threatened her in public. The subsequent murder of Blaney's girlfriend, Barbara "Babs" Milligan , occurs off-screen: the audience sees her entering Rusk's apartment with him, but the camera then pulls back down the stairs all the way out to the other side of the street. The audience next sees Rusk at night carrying a large sack and lifting it into the back of a lorry among sacks of unsold potatoes bound for Lincolnshire. Rusk soon finds that his distinctive jeweled tie pin is missing, and realises that Babs must have torn it off as he was murdering her. He climbs into the back of the lorry, but it starts off on its journey north. The killer desperately scrabbles through the sack of potatoes to find the dead woman's hand. Rigor mortis has set in, and he has to break her fingers in order to prise the pin from her grasp. Blaney is jailed, while protesting his innocence. Chief Inspector Oxford , the detective investigating the murders, reconsiders the previous events and begins to believe that he has arrested the wrong man. He discusses the case with his wife in several scenes of black humour concerning her ineptitude as a cook. Blaney escapes from prison. Oxford knows he will head to Rusk's flat for revenge, and immediately goes there. Before this, Blaney arrives to find that the door to the flat is unlocked. He creeps in and sees what appears to be Rusk asleep in bed; he strikes the body twice with a metal bar. However, we see that the body is in fact the corpse of another of Rusk's female victims. Oxford bursts through the door. Blaney is still standing by the corpse holding the metal bar. They hear Rusk carrying something large and heavy up the staircase, so the two men wait in the flat. When Rusk enters, he is dragging a large trunk to cart away the body. The film ends with Oxford's urbane but pointed comment, "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie." | 0.692359 | positive | 0.991304 | positive | 0.997359 |
15,670,343 | The Detective | The Detective | Joe Leland, a private detective, begins investigating a case for the recently widowed Norma MacIver. Norma requests that Leland find out everything he can about her deceased husband. Norma requests Leland personally because her husband had mentioned knowing him in the past. It turns out that Leland and Colin MacIver served in the same military unit during World War II, but at different times. Leland interviews Colin's first wife, his mother and the security guards at the track where Colin supposedly killed himself. Norma introduces Leland to her neighbor and former therapist, Dr. Wendell Roberts. During their conversation Wendell reveals that he knew Leland's wife. It turns out Wendell was friends with the man with whom Karen Leland had had an affair. As Leland's investigation deepens he uncovers evidence of corruption and murder. Eventually, Leland discovers that Colin was connected to a homicide during Leland's earlier life with the police department as a detective. During the investigation of Teddy Leikman's death a confession was obtained from Felix Tesla, Leikman's roommate. Tesla was subsequently executed by electric chair. It turned out that Colin MacIver was the true murderer. Joe's partner, Mike Petrakis, managed to decipher Colin's coded notes and reveal a paper trail of corruption. | Detective Joe Leland is called to the home of a murder victim who has been beaten to death and has had his genitals removed. Puzzled and disgusted, the police on call are left bemused, Leland holding things together with his direct, no-nonsense approach. Few leads are found, other than the fact that a house-mate of the victim remains conspicuous by his absence. All the while notions about the victim's sexuality and personal interests warp the ideals of the officers assigned to the task. Leland tries to remain focused on the case while, at the same time, dealing with the breakdown of his marriage to wife Karen. Eventually, the victim's housemate is identified as one Felix Tesla, and he is soon tracked down by Leland and another detective. A psychologically disturbed Tesla cracks until eventually Leland coaxes a confession out of him. This results in extensive publicity, a promotion for Leland and the electric chair for Tesla, which distresses Leland because it is clear to him that Tesla is insane. Later, across town, a man kills himself by jumping from the rooftop of a racetrack. The case goes all but unnoticed until the wife of the dead man, Norma McIver, comes to Leland's office and asks him to look into it, believing something far more complex is involved. Leland soon learns that certain powerful interests in the city do not want him asking questions. The incorruptible detective presses on, at risk to his career and life, as he discovers a lurid relationship between the man's suicide and the previous murder. | 0.845609 | positive | 0.997391 | positive | 0.995739 |
490,101 | Thunderball | Never Say Never Again | Thunderball begins with a meeting between Bond and his superior, M, during which the agent is told that his latest physical assessment is poor because of excessive drinking and smoking (up to sixty cigarettes a day). M sends Bond on a two-week treatment at the Shrublands health clinic to improve his health. At the clinic Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns of the Tong connection, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction machine. Bond, however, is saved by nurse Patricia Fearing and later retaliates against Lippe by trapping him in a steam bath, resulting in the Count's second-degree burns and a week's stay in hospital. The Prime Minister receives a communiqué from SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) explaining that the organisation has hijacked a Villiers Vindicator and seized its two nuclear bombs, which it will use to destroy two major cities unless a £100,000,000 ransom is paid. This is SPECTRE's Plan Omega. SPECTRE is headed by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Count Lippe was dispatched to Shrublands to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi of the Italian Air Force, at the Boscombe Down Airfield, a bomber squadron base. Although Lippe was successful, Blofeld considered him unreliable, because of his childish clash with Bond and, as a consequence, Blofeld has Lippe killed. Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas. Once there, Petacchi is killed and the plane, with bombs, are taken by Emilio Largo (aka SPECTRE Number One) on board the cruiser yacht Disco Volante. The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns Bond to the Bahamas to investigate. There, Bond meets Felix Leiter, seconded to the CIA from his usual role at Pinkertons because of the Thunderball crisis. While in Nassau, Bond meets Dominetta "Domino" Vitali, Largo's mistress and the sister of the dead pilot Giuseppe Petacchi. She is living on board the Disco Volante and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt, although Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners hunt hidden treasure. After seducing her, Bond informs her that Largo killed her brother; Bond then recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino re-boards the Disco Volante with a Geiger counter to ascertain if the yacht is where the two nuclear bombs are hidden. However, she is discovered and Largo tortures her for information. Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases the Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. An undersea battle ensues between the crews, while Bond fights Largo. Bond, now very weak from his efforts to disable the bombs, tries to get away, but Largo corners him in an underwater cave and easily overpowers him. Before Largo can finish Bond off Domino shoots him with a spear gun. The bombs are recovered and Bond is sent to hospital with Domino. | After MI6 agent James Bond, 007 fails a routine training exercise, his superior, M, orders Bond to enrol in a health clinic in London to get back into shape. While there, Bond witnesses a mysterious nurse named Fatima Blush giving a sadomasochistic beating to a patient in a nearby room. The man's face is bandaged and after Fatima finishes her beating, Bond sees the patient using a machine which scans his eye. Bond is seen by Blush and an attempt is subsequently made to kill him in the clinic gym: however Bond manages to defeat the assassin. Blush and her charge, a United States Air Force pilot named Jack Petachi, are operatives of SPECTRE, a criminal organisation run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Petachi has undergone an operation on his right eye to make it match the retinal pattern of the US President, which he uses to circumvent security at an American military base in England. While doing so, he replaces the dummy warheads in two cruise missiles with live nuclear warheads; SPECTRE then obtains the warheads to extort billions of dollars from NATO governments. Blush subsequently murders Petachi. Under orders from the Prime Minister, M reluctantly reactivates the double-0 section and Bond is assigned the task of tracking down the missing weapons. Before leaving, he is outfitted with several gadgets by Q Branch, including a fountain pen that shoots an explosive dart. He meets Domino Petachi, the pilot's sister, and her wealthy lover, Maximillian Largo, another SPECTRE agent. Bond follows Largo and his yacht to the Bahamas, where he spars with Fatima Blush and Largo. Bond is informed by Nigel Small-Fawcett of the British Consulate that Largo's yacht is now heading for Nice, France. There, Bond joins forces with his CIA counterpart, Felix Leiter. Bond goes to a beauty salon where he poses as an employee and, whilst giving Domino a massage, is informed by her that Largo is hosting an event at a casino that evening. At the charity event, Largo and Bond play a 3-D video game called Domination, which Bond ultimately wins; Bond then informs Domino of her brother's death. Bond returns to his villa to find Nicole, his French contact, dead, having been killed by Blush. After a vehicle chase on his motorbike, Blush captures Bond. Forced to write his memoirs putting her as his "Number One" sexual partner, Bond uses his MI6-issue fountain pen to shoot Blush. Bond and Felix then attempt to board Largo's motor yacht, the Flying Saucer, in search of the missing nuclear warheads. Bond becomes trapped and is taken, with Domino, to Palmyra, Largo's base of operations in North Africa. Largo punishes Domino for betraying him by auctioning her off to some passing Arabs. Bond subsequently escapes and rescues Domino. After her rescue, Domino and Bond reunite with Felix on a US Navy submarine and track Largo to a location known as The Tears of Allah, below a desert oasis. Bond and Leiter infiltrate the underground facility and a gun battle erupts between Felix's team and Largo's men in the temple. In the confusion Largo makes a getaway with one of the warheads. Bond catches and fights Largo underwater. Just as Largo tries to detonate the last bomb, he is killed by Domino, taking revenge for her brother's death. Bond then returns to the Bahamas with Domino. | 0.76088 | positive | 0.992963 | positive | 0.988606 |
7,626,909 | Kidnapped | Kidnapped | The full title of the book gives away major parts of the plot and creates the false impression that the novel is autobiographical. It is Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson. The central character and narrator is a young man named David Balfour (Balfour being Stevenson's mother's maiden name), young and naive but resourceful, whose parents have recently died and who is out to make his way in the world. He is given a letter by the minister of Essendean, Mr. Campbell, to be delivered to the House of Shaws in Cramond, where David's uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, lives. On his journey, David asks many people where the House of Shaws is, and all of them speak of it darkly as a place of fear and evil. David arrives at the ominous House of Shaws and is confronted by his paranoid Uncle Ebenezer, armed with a blunderbuss. His uncle is also niggardly, living on "parritch" and small ale, and indeed the House of Shaws itself is partially unfinished and somewhat ruinous. David is allowed to stay, and soon discovers evidence that his father may have been older than his uncle, thus making himself the rightful heir to the estate. Ebenezer asks David to get a chest from the top of a tower in the house, but refuses to provide a lamp or candle. David is forced to scale the stairs in the dark, and realizes that not only is the tower unfinished in some places, but that the steps simply end abruptly and fall into the abyss. David concludes that his uncle intended for him to have an "accident" so as not to have to give over his inheritance. David confronts his uncle, who promises to tell David the whole story of his father the next morning. A ship's cabin boy, Ransome, arrives the next day, and tells Ebenezer that Captain Hoseason of the brig Covenant needs to meet him to discuss business. Ebenezer takes David to Queensferry, where Hoseason awaits, and David makes the mistake of leaving his uncle alone with the captain while he visits the shore with Ransome. Hoseason later offers to take them on board the brig briefly, and David complies, only to see his uncle returning to shore alone in a skiff. He is then immediately struck senseless. David awakens bound hand and foot in the hold of the ship. He becomes weak and sick, and one of the Covenant's officers, Mr. Riach, convinces Hoseason to move David up to the forecastle. Mr. Shuan, a mate on the ship, finally takes his routine abuse of Ransome too far and murders the unfortunate youth. David is repulsed at the crew's behaviour, and learns that the Captain plans to sell him into servitude in the Carolinas. David replaces the slain cabin boy, and the ship encounters contrary winds which drive her back toward Scotland. Fog-bound near the Hebrides, they strike a small boat. All of its crew are killed except one man, Alan Breck {Stewart}, who is brought on board and offers Hoseason a large sum of money to drop him off on the mainland. David later overhears the crew plotting to kill Breck and take all his money. The two barricade themselves in the round house, where Alan kills the murderous Shuan and David wounds Hoseason. Five of the crew are killed outright, and the rest refuse to continue fighting. Alan is a Jacobite who supports the claim of the House of Stuart to the throne of Scotland. He is initially suspicious of the pro-Whig David, who is also loyal to King George. Still, the young man has given a good account of himself in the fighting and impresses the old soldier. Hoseason has no choice but to give Alan and David passage back to the mainland. David tells his tale of woe to Alan, and Alan explains that the country of Appin where he is from is under the tyrannical administration of Colin Roy of Glenure, a Campbell and Government agent. Alan vows that, should he find the "Red Fox," he will kill him. The Covenant tries to negotiate a difficult channel without a proper chart or pilot, and is soon driven aground on the notorious Torran Rocks. David and Alan are separated in the confusion, with David being washed ashore on the isle of Erraid near Mull, while Alan and the surviving crew row to safety on that same island. David spends a few days alone in the wild before getting his bearings. David learns that his new friend has survived, and has two encounters with beggarly guides: one who attempts to stab him with a knife, and another who is blind but an excellent shot with a pistol. David soon reaches Torosay where he is ferried across the river and receives further instructions from Alan's friend Neil Roy McRob, and later meets a Catechist who takes the lad to the mainland. As he continues his journey, David encounters none other than the Red Fox (Colin Roy) himself, who is accompanied by a lawyer, servant, and sheriff's officer. When David stops the Campbell man to ask him for directions, a hidden sniper kills the hated King's agent. David is denounced as a conspirator and flees for his life, but by chance reunites with Alan. The youth believes Breck to be the assassin, but Alan denies responsibility. The pair flee from Redcoat search parties until they reach James (Stewart) of the Glens, whose family is burying their hidden store of weapons and burning papers that could incriminate them. James tells the travellers that he will have no choice but to "paper" them (distribute printed descriptions of the two with a reward listed), but provides them with weapons and food for their journey south, and David with a change of clothes (which the printed description will not match). Alan and David then begin their flight through the heather, hiding from Government soldiers by day. As the two continue their journey, David's health rapidly deteriorates, and by the time they are set upon by wild Highlanders who serve a chief in hiding, Cluny Macpherson, he is barely conscious. Alan convinces Cluny to give them shelter. The Highland Chieftain takes a dislike to David, but defers to the wily Breck's opinion of the lad. David is tended by Cluny's people and soon recovers, though in the meantime Alan loses all of their money playing cards with Cluny, only for Cluny to give it back. As David and Alan continue their flight, David becomes progressively more ill, and he nurses anger against Breck for several days over the loss of his money. The pair nearly come to blows, but eventually reach the house of Duncan Dhu, who is a brilliant piper. While staying there, Alan meets a foe of his, Robin Oig—son of Rob Roy MacGregor, who is a murderer and renegade. Alan and Robin nearly fight a duel, but Duncan persuades them to leave the contest to bagpipes. Both play brilliantly, but Alan admits Robin is the better piper, so the quarrel is resolved. Alan and David prepare to leave the Highlands and return to David's country. In one of the most humorous passages in the book, Alan convinces an innkeeper's daughter from Limekilns that David is a dying young Jacobite nobleman, in spite of David's objections, and she ferries them across the Firth of Forth. There they meet a lawyer of David's uncle, Mr. Rankeillor, who agrees to help David receive his inheritance. Rankeillor explains that David's father and uncle had once quarrelled over a woman, David's mother, and the older Balfour had married her, informally giving the estate to his brother while living as an impoverished school teacher with his wife. This agreement had lapsed with his death. David and the lawyer hide in bushes outside Ebenezer's house while Breck speaks to him, claiming to be a man who found David nearly dead after the wreck of the Covenant and is representing folk holding him captive in the Hebrides. He asks David's uncle whether to kill him or keep him. The uncle flatly denies Alan's statement that David had been kidnapped, but eventually admits that he paid Hoseason "twenty pound" to take David to "Caroliny". David and Rankeillor then emerge from their hiding places and speak with Ebenezer in the kitchen, eventually agreeing that David will be provided two-thirds of the estate's income for as long as his wicked uncle survived. The novel ends with David and Alan parting ways, Alan going to France, and David going to a bank to settle his money. At one point in the book, a reference is made to David's eventually studying at the University of Leyden, a fairly common practice for young Scottish gentry seeking a law career in the eighteenth century. | In eighteenth century Scotland, young David Balfour is directed by his recently-deceased father's letter to go to the House of Shaws, where he is greeted without much enthusiasm by his miserly uncle Ebenezer . An attempt to arrange a fatal accident makes it clear that Ebenezer has no affection for his nephew. However, David is not sufficiently on his guard. He accompanies Ebenezer to a meeting with a seafaring business associate, Captain Hoseason . The captain lures David aboard his ship and shanghais him, at Ebenezer's instigation. At sea, David learns that he is to be sold into indentured servitude. However, a thick fog comes up and the ship collides with a boat. Alan Breck Stewart , the only survivor of the latter, is brought aboard and pays for his passage, but the greedy captain plots to kill him for the rest of his money. David warns Alan, and the two are able to overcome the murderous crew. Alan coerces Hoseason into putting them ashore. The ship founders, but David manages to reach land alone. After several dangerous encounters, he is rescued by Alan, who turns out to be a Jacobite wanted by the authorities. Evading the soldiers, the two make their way back to the House of Shaws, where Alan tricks Ebenezer into admitting his crimes within the hearing of a hidden witness, allowing David to claim his inheritance. | 0.871684 | positive | 0.993892 | positive | 0.274136 |
1,757,150 | Phantom Lady | Phantom Lady | A man is first accused, and then convicted, of murdering his wife. As his execution date approaches, his friends frantically search for another woman who would be his alibi witness—but they cannot even find proof that she exists. | After a fight with his wife on their anniversary, Scott Henderson ([[Alan Curtis , a 32-year-old engineer, picks up an equally unhappy woman in a bar and they take a taxi to see a show. The woman refuses to tell him anything about herself. The star of the show, Estela Monteiro , becomes furious when she notices that both she and the mystery woman are wearing the same unusual hat. When Henderson returns home, he finds Police Inspector Burgess and two of his men waiting to question him; his wife has been strangled with one of his neckties. Henderson has a solid alibi, but the bartender, taxi driver and Monteiro deny seeing the phantom lady. Henderson cannot even clearly describe the woman. He is tried and sentenced to death. Carol Richman , a loyal secretary secretly in love with her boss, sets out to exonerate him. She starts with the bartender. She sits in the bar night after night, staring at and unnerving him. Finally, she follows him home one night. When he confronts her on the street, some bystanders step in to restrain him. He breaks free, runs into the street and is run over. Later, Burgess offers to help ; he has become convinced that only a fool or an innocent man would have stuck to such a weak alibi. Burgess provides her with information about the drummer at the show, Cliff , who had tried to make eye contact with the mystery lady. Richman dresses gaudily and goes to the show. Rhythmic inter-cutting between Cliff's frantic drumming and the leering responses of Richman leads to them going back to his apartment. Somewhat drunk, he brags that he was paid $500 for his false testimony. However, he becomes suspicious and finds a piece of paper with details about him. Richman manages to escape, leaving her purse behind. After she has gone, the real murderer, Henderson's best friend Jack Marlow , shows up at the apartment and strangles Cliff. Marlow, supposedly away on a job in South America, pretends to return to help Richman. She tracks down Monteiro's hatmaker, Kettisha . One of her employees admits to copying the hat for a regular customer and provides her name and address. With Burgess away on another case, Richman and Marlow go to see Ann Terry . They discover her under the care of Dr. Chase ; the man she was to marry had died suddenly, leaving her emotionally devastated. Richman is unable to get any information from her, but does find the hat. Marlow suggests they wait for Burgess at his apartment. However, while she is freshening up, Richman finds her purse and the paper with Cliff's particulars in a dresser drawer. Marlow admits he became enraged when Henderson's wife refused to run away with him; she was only toying with him. Fortunately for Richman, Burgess arrives just in time. Marlow throws himself out the window to his death. With Henderson freed, things appear to return to normal. However, Richman is delighted to learn that her boss returns her love. | 0.458571 | positive | 0.002086 | negative | -0.998179 |
13,963,229 | The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants | The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 | In the first novel in the series, we are introduced to four high school students, Lena Kaligaris, Tibby Rollins, Bridget Vreeland, and Carmen Lowell, who have been best friends "since birth" (their mothers attended prenatal exercise classes together). The summer before their junior year of high school, Carmen finds a pair of old jeans that fits each of them perfectly despite their different sizes, convincing the girls that the pants are magical. They share the "traveling pants" among themselves over the summer while they are separated. Lena spends the summer with her grandparents in Santorini, Greece. While there, she meets Kostos, the grandson of some of Lena's grandparents friends, and he becomes interested in Lena. Though she does reciprocate his feelings, she is shy and is unable to express them. Lena goes skinny-dipping and is accidentally seen by Kostos, and her grandparents assume she has been assaulted by him when she is unable to explain what happened. Later in the summer, Lena explains what happened in order to repair the rift between her and Kostos' grandparents, and confesses to Kostos that she loves him. Tibby spends the summer working at a department store, planning to make a documentary of her experiences there. She meets a 12-year-old girl named Bailey, whom she is initially annoyed with, but becomes close with by the end of summer as they work on Tibby's documentary. Bailey is hospitalized and dies at the end of the novel from leukemia, which results in Tibby refocusing her documentary to be about the summer they spent together. Carmen goes to South Carolina to spend the summer with her father, whom she has grown apart from since he and Carmen's mother divorced several years before. Carmen is surprised to learn that her father is engaged and lives with a woman with two grown children of her own. After being frustrated at feeling left out of her father's new family, she breaks a window in their house and returns home to her mother. She eventually reconciles with her father and attends his wedding at the urging of her friends. Bridget attends a soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico. While there, she meets Eric, one of the coaches, and immediately falls for him. Despite coach-camper relationships being completely off-limits, Bridget actively pursues him anyway by running with him and going to his room in her underwear. She eventually manages to seduce him and loses her virginity to him, which turns out to be too much for her to handle and after walking off the field during the championship, she takes to her bed for days. Eric later visits her and asks her to take a walk with him, where he tells her that if they had met under different circumstances, he would worship her the way she deserved to be worshiped. Lena comes to comfort her and takes her home. | {{Plot|dateSummer's BeginningBridget VreelandLena KaligarisTibby RollinsCarmen LowellSummer's End Brian breaks up with Effie to reunite with Tibby. Effie is upset, and steals the Pants and takes them to Greece to visit her grandmother, but loses them. The girls fight about whether the pants are worth saving. Lena travels to Greece to find them, and the Sisterhood follow to help and to reunite her with Kostos. She is frightened, but her friends convince her. The girls are unable to find the Pants, but the summer ends with a renewal of their commitment to each other. | 0.618084 | positive | 0.996412 | positive | 0.9966 |
8,191,245 | The Woman in White | Crimes at the Dark House | Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, is walking from Hampstead to London late one summer's evening, when he meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way to London, but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House, having been hired as a drawing master to the residents of the house; he had been recommended for the job by his friend, Pesca, an Italian language professor. The Limmeridge household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Several days after he arrives, Hartright is shocked to realize that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The mentally disadvantaged Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white. Walter and Laura quickly fall in love. Laura, however, has promised her father that she will marry Sir Percival Glyde, and Marian – knowing that Laura loves Walter in return – advises Walter to forget his love, and leave Limmeridge. Anne, after sending a letter to Laura warning her against Glyde, meets Hartright who becomes convinced that Glyde was responsible for shutting Anne in the asylum. Despite the misgivings of the Fairlie's lawyer over the financial terms of the marriage settlement, Laura and Glyde marry in December 1849 and travel to Italy for 6 months. Hartright also leaves England, joining an expedition to Honduras. After their honeymoon, Sir Percival and Lady Glyde return to his family estate, Blackwater Park, in Hampshire; they are accompanied by Glyde's friend, Count Fosco (who is married to Laura's aunt). Marian Halcombe is also living at Blackwater and learns that Glyde is in financial difficulties. Sir Percival unsuccessfully attempts to bully Laura into signing a document which would allow him to use her marriage settlement of £20,000. Determined to protect her sister, Marian crawls out onto a roof overlooking Percy and Fosco whilst they plot; but it begins to rain, and Marian, completely soaked, falls into a fever which shortly turns into typhus. While Marian is ill, Laura is tricked into travelling to London. Her identity and that of Anne Catherick are then switched. Anne Catherick dies of a heart condition and is buried in Cumberland as Laura, while Laura is drugged and placed in the asylum as Anne Catherick. When Marian recovers and visits the asylum, hoping to learn something from Anne Catherick, she finds Laura, supposedly suffering from the delusion that she is Lady Glyde. Marian bribes the nurse and Laura escapes. Hartright has safely returned from Honduras, and the three live together in obscure poverty, determined to restore Laura's identity. After some time Walter discovers Glyde's secret, which is that he was illegitimate, and therefore not entitled to inherit his parents' property. This secret was known only to Anne's mother, and while Anne never knew the secret, she spoke and acted as if she did. Many years earlier, Glyde had forged an entry in the marriage register at Old Welmingham Church to conceal his illegitimacy and hence unlawful inheritance of estate and title. Believing Walter either has discovered, or will discover his secret, Glyde attempts to destroy the register entry, but the church vestry catches fire and he perishes in the flames. Confronting Anne's mother, Hartright discovers that Anne was the illegitimate child of Laura's father, which accounts for their resemblance. On returning to London to resume his battle with Fosco, Hartright marries Laura. When he secretly tails Fosco to investigate about him, Hartright also discovers that Fosco belongs to, and has betrayed, an Italian secret society (dubbed "The Brotherhood"), of which Pesca is a high-ranking member with enough authority to dispatch him. Using Fosco's weakness as bargaining chip, Hartright now has the power to force a written confession from Fosco and Laura's identity is restored. Fosco departs from England in haste, only to be discovered by the Brotherhood's agents some time later and murdered. Since Hartright and Laura have married, on the death of Frederick Fairlie, their son becomes the Heir of Limmeridge. | In this lurid melodrama Tod Slaughter plays a villain who murders the wealthy Sir Percival Glyde in the gold fields of Australia and assumes his identity in order to inherit his estate in England. On arriving in England he schemes to marry an heiress for her money and, with the connivance of the enigmatic Count Fosco, embarks on a killing spree of all who suspect him to be an imposter and get in the way of his plans to be the Lord the Manor. | 0.401034 | positive | 0.981056 | positive | 0.989895 |
2,210,017 | Something Wicked This Way Comes | Something Wicked This Way Comes | The novel opens on an overcast October 23. Two friends, William "Will" Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both on the verge of their fourteenth birthdays, encounter a strange lightning rod salesman who claims that a storm is coming their way. Throughout that same night, Will and Jim meet up with townsfolk who also sense something in the air; the barber says that the air smells of cotton candy. Among the townspeople is Will's 54-year-old father, Charles Halloway (who works in the local library, and who broods philosophically about his position in life, including on how he misses being young like his son). Both Charles Halloway and the boys learn about the carnival that is to start the next day. Will's father sees a sign in a store window that advertises Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, while Jim and Will find a similar handbill in the street. The boys are excited that a carnival has come so late in the year, but Charles Halloway has a bad feeling about it. The boys run out to watch the carnival arrive at three in the morning, and they run home after seeing the tents get set up mysteriously. Mr. Halloway talks about this time of night as "soul's midnight", when men are closest to death, locked in the depths of despair. The boys go the next day to explore the carnival and they help their seventh grade teacher, Miss Foley, who is dazed after visiting the Mirror Maze. Later in the day, Jim goes into the maze and Will has to pull him out. Jim insists on coming back that night, and Will agrees, but when they bump into the lightning-rod salesman's bag, they realize that they must stay to learn what has happened to the man. Finally, after searching all of the rides, they go up to a carousel that is supposedly broken. A huge man grabs Will and Jim and tells them that the merry-go-round is broken. Another man tells him to put them down, introduces himself as Mr. Dark and tells them the huge man's name is Mr. Cooger. Mr. Dark is the Illustrated Man, covered in tattoos, and he pays attention only to Jim, who is enthralled by what he sees. Mr. Dark tells them to come back the next day and the boys run off but then hide and wait. What they see is unbelievable. Mr. Cooger rides backwards on the carousel (while the music plays backwards), and when he steps off he is twelve years old. They follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley's house, where he pretends to be her nephew who got lost earlier at the carnival. Jim tries to meet up with Mr. Cooger because he wants to ride the carousel, but Will stops him briefly before Jim takes off toward the carnival. When Will reaches the carnival Mr. Cooger is on the carousel, growing older, and Jim is about to join him. Will knocks the switch on the carousel and it flies out of control, spinning rapidly forward. Mr. Cooger ages over 100 years before the carousel stops, and Jim and Will take off. They return with the police, but Mr. Cooger is nowhere to be found. Inside the tents he is set up as a new act, Mr. Electrico, a man they run electricity through. Mr. Dark tells the boys to come back to the carnival the next day. Will tries to keep his father out of the situation, promising him that he will tell all soon. That night, the Dust Witch comes in her balloon to find Jim and Will, but Will outsmarts her and destroys her balloon. They later both dream of a bizarre funeral for the balloon, featuring a giant, misshapen coffin. The next day the boys see a young girl crying and realize after talking to her that she is Miss Foley. They go to her house but when they come back their path is blocked by a parade. The carnival is out searching the streets for them. They hide and the little girl is gone. Will's father sees them hiding under an iron grille in the sidewalk and the boys convince him to keep quiet because the Illustrated Man comes to talk to him. Will's father pretends not to know the two boys whose faces are tattooed on the man's hand, and then when the Witch comes and begins to sense the boys' presence he blows cigar smoke at her, choking her and forcing her to leave. Mr. Dark asks Charles Halloway for his name, and Will's father tells him where he works and who he is. Later that night Will and Jim meet Mr. Halloway at the library, where he has done research and found out some things about the carnival. He tells them that their best weapon is love, but they are not sure how to fight. Then Mr. Dark shows up and the boys hide. He finds them and crushes Charles Halloway's hand when the man tries to fight him. The Dust Witch casts spells on the boys to make them easy to handle and goes to stop Mr. Halloway's heart. Just before he is about to die, Charles Halloway looks at the Witch and begins to laugh hysterically, and his laughter wounds her deeply and drives her away. He goes to the carnival to get the boys. At the carnival Charles Halloway outsmarts Mr. Dark, finds his son, kills the Witch, and destroys the Mirror Maze in a matter of minutes, all through the use of laughter and happiness. Then he and Will search for Jim. Mr. Cooger turns to dust and blows away before he can be saved at the carousel, and Jim moves towards the merry-go-round. Jim starts to ride and Will tries to stop him. They both end up going for a ride before Will jumps off and rips Jim away from the machine. Jim falls into a stupor, close to death. A child comes begging them to help him, but Mr. Halloway recognizes the boy as Mr. Dark. He holds the boy tight and kills him with affection, because Mr. Dark cannot survive in such close contact with someone good. The carnival falls apart as Will tries to revive Jim. They save Jim by singing and dancing and laughing; their happiness bringing him back from the edge of death. | In Greentown, Illinois, a small town enjoying the innocence of an upcoming autumn as the days grow shorter, two young boys—reserved Will Halloway and somewhat rebellious Jim Nightshade—leave from an after-school detention for "whispering in class" and hurry off for home. When the boys hear about a strange traveling carnival, Mr. Dark's Pandemonium Carnival, from a lightning-rod salesman, they decide to see what it is all about, but Will is fearful, as most carnivals end their tours after Labor Day. When the ominous Mr. Dark, the Illustrated Man, rides into town on a dark midnight, setting up his massive carnival in a matter of seconds, the boys are both thrilled and terrified. It seems to be just another carnival at first, but it is not before long that the forces of darkness are manifesting from the haunting melodies of the carousel—which can change your age depending on which way you ride it—and from the glaring Mirror Maze. With his collection of freaks and oddities, such as the Fat Man, Mr. Electro, and the blind Dust Witch, Dark intends to take control of the town and seize more innocent souls to damn. It will take all the wit and hope of the two boys to save their families and friends, with aid from an unlikely ally, Will's father, the town librarian, who understands more than anyone else that "something wicked this way comes". | 0.834103 | positive | 0.993035 | positive | 0.993254 |
2,206,417 | Frankenstein | Frankenstein Created Woman | Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning. Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy family in Geneva, he is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him through science. He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends. When he is around 4 years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan whose mother has just died (she is Victor's biological cousin in the first edition, but an adopted child with no blood relation in the 1831 edition). Victor has a possessive infatuation with Elizabeth. He has two younger brothers: Ernest and William. As a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focus on achieving natural wonders. He plans to attend the University of Ingolstadt in Germany. Weeks before his planned departure, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, and develops a secret technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life. The details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, but Frankenstein finds himself forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. His creation, which he has hoped would be beautiful, is instead hideous, with dull yellow eyes, and a withered, translucent, yellowish skin that barely conceals the muscular system and blood vessels. After bringing his creation to life, Victor is repulsed by his work: he flees the room, and the monster disappears. Victor becomes ill from the experience. He is nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he determines that he should return home when his brother William is found murdered. Upon arriving in Geneva, he sees the monster near the site of the murder, and becomes certain it is the killer. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William's locket in her pocket. Victor, though certain the monster is responsible, doubts anyone would believe him, and does not intervene. Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him, ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear its tale. Intelligent and articulate, it tells Victor of its encounters with people, and how it had become afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage, observing the DeLacey family living there and growing fond of them. Through observing the De Lacey family, the monster became educated and self-aware. It also discovered a lost satchel of books and learned to read. Seeing its reflection in a pool, it realized that its physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans it watches. Though it eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their fellow, they were frightened by its appearance and drove it off, and then left the residence permanently. The creature, in a fit of rage, burned the cottage and left. In its travels some time later, the monster saw a young girl tumble into a stream and rescued her from drowning. A man, seeing it with the child in its arms, pursued it and fired a gun, wounding it. Traveling to Geneva, it met a little boy — Victor's brother William - in the woods outside the town of Plainpalais. The monster hoped the boy was too young to fear deformity, but upon its approach, William cried out, threatening the monster with the weight of his family - the Frankensteins. The creature grabbed the boy by the throat to silence him, and strangled him. It is unclear from the text whether this was an accident on the monster's part or a deliberate murder, but in either case, the monster took this as its first act of vengeance against its creator. It removed a locket from the boy's body and placed it in the folds of the dress of a young woman — William's nanny, Justine — who had been sleeping in a barn nearby, assuming she would be accused of the murder. The monster concludes its story with a demand that Frankenstein create for it a female companion like itself. It argues that as a living thing, it has a right to happiness and that Victor, as its creator, has a duty to obey it, with the chilling words, "You are my creator, but I am your master. Obey!" It promises that if Victor grants its request, it and its mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work. He is accompanied by Clerval, but they separate in Scotland. Through their travels, Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second being on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly as creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of monsters that could plague mankind. He destroys the unfinished example after he sees the monster looking through the window. The monster witnesses this and, confronting Victor, vows to be with Victor on his upcoming wedding night. The monster murders Clerval and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach, where Victor lands upon leaving the island. Victor is imprisoned for the murder of Clerval, and becomes seriously ill, suffering another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, and with his health renewed, he returns home with his father. Once home, Victor marries his cousin Elizabeth and prepares for a fight to the death with the monster. Wrongly believing the monster's vowed revenge was for his own life, he asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for the fiend. He searches the house and grounds, but the creature murders the secluded Elizabeth instead. Victor sees the monster at the window pointing at the corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and now Elizabeth, Victor's father dies. Victor vows to pursue the monster until one of them annihilates the other. After months of pursuit, the two end up in the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole. At the end of Victor's narrative, Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story. A few days after the vanishing of the creature, the ship becomes entombed in ice and Walton's crew insists on returning south once they are freed. In spite of a passionate speech from Frankenstein, encouraging the crew to push further north, Walton realizes that he must relent to his men's demands and agrees to head for home. Frankenstein dies shortly thereafter, not before imploring Captain Walton to carry his mission of vengeance to its completion. "The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to take up my unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue." Walton discovers the monster on his ship, mourning over Frankenstein's body. Walton hears the monster's adamant justification for its vengeance as well as expressions of remorse. Frankenstein's death has not brought it peace. Rather, its crimes have increased its misery and alienation; it has found only its own emotional ruin in the destruction of its creator. It vows to exterminate itself on its own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of its existence. Walton watches as it drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness. | Years later, Hans Werner ([[Robert Morris is working as an assistant to Baron Victor Frankenstein , helped by Dr Hertz who is in the process of discovering a way of trapping the soul of a recently deceased person. Frankenstein believes he can transfer that soul into another recently deceased body to restore it to life. Hans is now also the lover of Christina , daughter of innkeeper Herr Kleve. Christina's entire left side is disfigured and partly paralysed. Young dandies Anton , Johann and Karl frequent Kleve's inn where they taunt Christina and refuse to pay. Johann threatens to have his father revoke Kleve's license if he complains. The three insist that they be served by Christina and mock her for her deformities. The taunting angers Hans, who gets in a fight with the three of them and cuts Anton's face with a knife. Eventually Kleve throws the dandies out for non-payment. They return in the night to steal wine from his inn. Kleve catches them and they beat him to death. Hans, the son of a murderer known for his short temper, is convicted. Despite the Baron and Hertz's defences against the accusations, Hans is executed by the guillotine. Seeing this as an opportunity, Frankenstein gets hold of Hans' fresh body and traps his soul. Distraught over Hans's death and feeling the guilt for not defending him, Christina drowns herself. The peasants bring her body to Dr Hertz to see if he can do anything. Frankenstein and Hertz transfer Hans' soul into her body. Over months of treatment they completely cure her physical deformities. The result is a physically healthy female with no memory. She keeps asking who she is. Frankenstein insists on telling her nothing but her name and keeping her in Hertz's house. She kills Anton, Karl and Johann, driven mostly by the ghostly insistence of Hans. Frankenstein and Dr. Hertz become rather suspicious of her behavior surrounding the killings and take her to where Hans was executed. However, they believe she subconsciously retains her memories of her father's death rather than Hans. By the time they realize the truth, they find her already murdering Johann. Upon holding the severed head of Hans, the ghostly voice tells Christina she's avenged his death; though before either one can talk to her, she runs to the edge where there's a waterfall. Despite the doctor's pleas, Christina's made up her mind. She has no one left to live for and then drowns herself again leaving her to be with her lover forever... | 0.500798 | positive | 0.906665 | positive | 0.988304 |
7,558,804 | Lottie and Lisa | Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi | Two nine-year-old girls—rude Lisa Palfy (orig. Luise Palfy) from Vienna, and respectful shy Lottie Horn (orig. Lotte Körner) from Munich—meet on a summer camp in Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren (orig. 'Seebühl am Bühlsee'). Lisa has curly hair; Lottie wears braids. Apart from that, they look alike. They have never seen each other before, but soon find out that they are identical twins. It turns out that their parents divorced, each keeping one of the girls. The two girls decide it is unfair that neither of them has ever been told that she is a twin, or that her other parent is still living. They decide to trade places at the end of the summer so that Lottie will have a chance to get to know her father and Lisa will get to meet her mother. Lottie curls her hair, Lisa braids hers, and both go off to where they have never been before. The adventure begins. While many adults are surprised at the changes in each of the girls after they return from camp ("Lottie" has suddenly forgotten how to cook, gets in a fight at school, and becomes a terrible student, while "Lisa" has begun to keep a close eye on the housekeeper's bookkeeping, will no longer eat her favorite food, and becomes a model student), no one suspects that the girls are not who they claim to be. When Lottie (pretending to be Lisa) finds out that her father is planning to remarry, she becomes very ill and stops writing to her sister in Munich. Meanwhile, Lottie's mother comes across a picture of the two girls that was taken while they were at summer camp. She quickly realizes what has happened and Lisa tells her the entire story. The discovery turns out to have come just in time. The girls' mother calls her ex-husband in Vienna to tell him what has happened and to find out why Lottie has stopped writing. When she hears that her daughter is ill, she and Lisa immediately travel to Vienna to be with her. The four of them (father, mother, Lisa and Lottie) are still in Vienna for the girls' birthday. The girls tell their parents that they don't need any presents on this birthday or ever again as long as they don't have to be separated again. The parents talk it over, realize that they are still in love and decide to get remarried. | Raj Khanna is a wealthy businessman who lives with his wife Archana, stepsister Devyani, her spouse, and her son Teddy, in a mansion. Raj and Archana's lives are marred by marital discord, so much that they decide to separate. Shortly before separating, Archana gives birth to identical twins. One of these is taken by Devyani and handed over to Raj without Archana's knowledge. This infant subsequently grows up to be an embittered young woman sentimentially named Sweety. Raj becomes a helpless alcoholic. Archana has moved to London with the other daughter, Tina. In contrast to Sweety's ferocity, Tina is a meek, compassionate, sympathetic, demure person as a rule. Each year, Archana buys two identical presents and gives one to Tina on her birthday, locking the other into a closet to symbolize giving to Sweety, whom she believes is dead. Sweety is of marriageable age, but refuses to marry the man of her aunt's choice, and runs away to London. Once there, she is mistaken for her sister by Archana. Later, when the twins meet, become friends, and realize that Devyani has been scheming to keep Raj under her control, they change places in hope of freeing Raj and reuniting their family. Tina goes to India, where she works to cure Raj of his alcoholism and remove Devyani's influence on him. Sweety remains in England, where she surprises her mother by acting according to her own personality. The sisters have assumed each other's names, so as to keep their operation secret. When Tina meets with Raj, she finds out that he is having a sexual affair with a young woman named Savitri, who was introduced to him by Devyani. When Savitri attempts to drug and seduce him, in hope of having him impregnate her , Tina gives the drug to Raj's aged, faithful, comical servant Ballu Mamaji, who responds to the seduction instead of Raj. Savitri becomes pregnant with Ballu Mamaji's child; later, Sweety and Tina marry her off to a wealthy man they know, bribing her to agree by having this man throw money onto her. Ballu Mamaji attempts to counter this with his own offer, but is refused. Eventually, through a series of tricks, the twins fool Raj and Archana into reconciling. Devyani's plots to gain power are exposed. Ultimately Raj, of his own will, urges Archana to stay. | 0.443483 | positive | 0.990542 | positive | 0.996406 |
548,259 | Frankenstein | Van Helsing | Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning. Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy family in Geneva, he is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him through science. He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends. When he is around 4 years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan whose mother has just died (she is Victor's biological cousin in the first edition, but an adopted child with no blood relation in the 1831 edition). Victor has a possessive infatuation with Elizabeth. He has two younger brothers: Ernest and William. As a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focus on achieving natural wonders. He plans to attend the University of Ingolstadt in Germany. Weeks before his planned departure, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, and develops a secret technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life. The details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, but Frankenstein finds himself forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. His creation, which he has hoped would be beautiful, is instead hideous, with dull yellow eyes, and a withered, translucent, yellowish skin that barely conceals the muscular system and blood vessels. After bringing his creation to life, Victor is repulsed by his work: he flees the room, and the monster disappears. Victor becomes ill from the experience. He is nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he determines that he should return home when his brother William is found murdered. Upon arriving in Geneva, he sees the monster near the site of the murder, and becomes certain it is the killer. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William's locket in her pocket. Victor, though certain the monster is responsible, doubts anyone would believe him, and does not intervene. Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him, ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear its tale. Intelligent and articulate, it tells Victor of its encounters with people, and how it had become afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage, observing the DeLacey family living there and growing fond of them. Through observing the De Lacey family, the monster became educated and self-aware. It also discovered a lost satchel of books and learned to read. Seeing its reflection in a pool, it realized that its physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans it watches. Though it eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their fellow, they were frightened by its appearance and drove it off, and then left the residence permanently. The creature, in a fit of rage, burned the cottage and left. In its travels some time later, the monster saw a young girl tumble into a stream and rescued her from drowning. A man, seeing it with the child in its arms, pursued it and fired a gun, wounding it. Traveling to Geneva, it met a little boy — Victor's brother William - in the woods outside the town of Plainpalais. The monster hoped the boy was too young to fear deformity, but upon its approach, William cried out, threatening the monster with the weight of his family - the Frankensteins. The creature grabbed the boy by the throat to silence him, and strangled him. It is unclear from the text whether this was an accident on the monster's part or a deliberate murder, but in either case, the monster took this as its first act of vengeance against its creator. It removed a locket from the boy's body and placed it in the folds of the dress of a young woman — William's nanny, Justine — who had been sleeping in a barn nearby, assuming she would be accused of the murder. The monster concludes its story with a demand that Frankenstein create for it a female companion like itself. It argues that as a living thing, it has a right to happiness and that Victor, as its creator, has a duty to obey it, with the chilling words, "You are my creator, but I am your master. Obey!" It promises that if Victor grants its request, it and its mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work. He is accompanied by Clerval, but they separate in Scotland. Through their travels, Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second being on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly as creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of monsters that could plague mankind. He destroys the unfinished example after he sees the monster looking through the window. The monster witnesses this and, confronting Victor, vows to be with Victor on his upcoming wedding night. The monster murders Clerval and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach, where Victor lands upon leaving the island. Victor is imprisoned for the murder of Clerval, and becomes seriously ill, suffering another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, and with his health renewed, he returns home with his father. Once home, Victor marries his cousin Elizabeth and prepares for a fight to the death with the monster. Wrongly believing the monster's vowed revenge was for his own life, he asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for the fiend. He searches the house and grounds, but the creature murders the secluded Elizabeth instead. Victor sees the monster at the window pointing at the corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and now Elizabeth, Victor's father dies. Victor vows to pursue the monster until one of them annihilates the other. After months of pursuit, the two end up in the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole. At the end of Victor's narrative, Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story. A few days after the vanishing of the creature, the ship becomes entombed in ice and Walton's crew insists on returning south once they are freed. In spite of a passionate speech from Frankenstein, encouraging the crew to push further north, Walton realizes that he must relent to his men's demands and agrees to head for home. Frankenstein dies shortly thereafter, not before imploring Captain Walton to carry his mission of vengeance to its completion. "The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to take up my unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue." Walton discovers the monster on his ship, mourning over Frankenstein's body. Walton hears the monster's adamant justification for its vengeance as well as expressions of remorse. Frankenstein's death has not brought it peace. Rather, its crimes have increased its misery and alienation; it has found only its own emotional ruin in the destruction of its creator. It vows to exterminate itself on its own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of its existence. Walton watches as it drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness. | In 1887, Transylvanian Doctor Frankenstein brings to life his Monster with the aid of his assistant Igor ([[Kevin J. O'Connor , and Count Dracula . Dracula kills Victor Frankenstein after revealing that he helped him only so he could use Frankenstein's monster to bring his undead children to life. Frankenstein's monster then escapes to a windmill, which is burned down by a pursuing mob. The mob flees as Dracula and his three brides, Verona , Aleera and Marishka , mourn the loss of Victor and their chance to bring their children to life. One year later, the Knights of the Holy Order, stationed at the Vatican, dispatch Gabriel Van Helsing, who has amnesia, to kill Dracula. He is also tasked with preventing the last of the Valerious family from falling into purgatory; the family swore to kill Dracula nine generations ago and is unable to enter Heaven until they succeed. He is given a torn piece of paper with an insignia on it. He is joined by Carl , a friar who provides support and weapons. Arriving in Transylvania, the two meet Anna Valerious , who tells them her brother Velkan ([[Will Kemp was recently killed by a werewolf. Van Helsing then saves her from Dracula's brides as they attack the village, ending with Van Helsing killing Marishka as the others escape. Anna then takes the pair back to her castle. Anna is determined to kill Dracula herself, but Van Helsing is unwilling for her to take the risk, knowing that she is the last of the Valerious family. When she resists, he gasses her to sleep and puts her in her bed. Later in the night, Anna awakens from her deep, dreamless sleep and encounters Velkan, now a werewolf himself. After Velkan flees, Van Helsing and Anna track him to Frankenstein's castle, only to find Dracula attempting to give life to his children using Velkan as a substitute for the Monster, but it fails after the undead children expire and explode. Anna frees Velkan but he becomes a werewolf again. Dracula confronts Van Helsing, who recognizes him from his past and realizes that Dracula is impervious to all conventional methods of killing vampires. While escaping, Van Helsing and Anna fall into a cave. There, they find Frankenstein's Monster alive. Though the Monster pleads to be killed so that Dracula cannot use him, Van Helsing decides to take him to Rome so he can be protected. They flee in a carriage, but while crossing the Carpathian Mountains, the brides and Velkan, who have been pursuing the group, attack. The carriage plummets down a precipice and Verona tries to save the Monster, but on opening the door reveals that it is a decoy carriage containing only stakes bundled against explosives, which kill her when the carriage hits the bottom. The genuine carriage is attacked and Van Helsing kills Velkan, but not before Van Helsing is bitten by him; when the next full moon occurs, Van Helsing will become a werewolf. Anna is then captured by Aleera and taken to Budapest. In Budapest, Van Helsing agrees to a trade and hides the Monster in a cemetery before he and Carl head off to save Anna, who is at a masked ball for vampires. At the ball, Dracula offers to release the souls of Anna's family in exchange for her becoming his next bride. Van Helsing and Carl manage to rescue her, but the Monster is captured and taken away on a boat. Escaping from Dracula's Summer Palace, Van Helsing, Anna, and Carl return to Frankenstein's castle, where they find all the equipment has been removed. At Anna's castle, Carl explains that Dracula was the son of Anna's ancestor. Dracula was murdered by "The Left Hand of God", but not before making a Faustian Bargain, which gave him new life as a vampire. Carl explains that although Anna's ancestor made the vow to kill Dracula, he could not kill his own son. Instead, he banished Dracula to an icy fortress from which he should not have been able to return, but the Devil gave him wings and the power of flight, which allowed him to escape. Van Helsing then finds a portal to Dracula's castle disguised as a wall map, completed using the paper that Van Helsing brought from Rome. They enter the portal, emerging on a cliff near Castle Dracula. As the trio sees the Monster being lifted to the laboratory, he tells them that Dracula has a werewolf cure. Carl realizes that only a werewolf can kill Dracula and that he uses werewolves to do his bidding, but needs a cure in case they have the willpower to turn against him. Making his way to the laboratory, Van Helsing frees the Monster—but not before Dracula's spawn are given life. He then confronts Dracula. Dracula reveals that Van Helsing is really The Archangel Gabriel, the Left Hand of God—as well as the one who originally murdered him. He offers to restore Van Helsing's memories, but Van Helsing refuses, deciding that "some things are better left forgotten". Van Helsing tells Dracula that his children will die if he is killed. Dracula challenges him to "go ahead," whereupon Van Helsing becomes a werewolf and enters a final battle with Dracula . Anna and Carl retrieve the cure but are attacked by Aleera and Igor. Igor falls to his death off a bridge, and Aleera gets impaled by Anna with a silver stake. They make their way to the laboratory just as Van Helsing bites into Dracula's throat, killing him and his offspring. Anna injects Van Helsing with the cure, only to be killed by him at the same time, much to his grief. Van Helsing and Carl hold a quiet ceremony for Anna and cremate her as the Monster departs on a raft into the ocean, having been allowed a chance at life. As Anna's body burns, Van Helsing sees her and her family in Heaven at peace, thanks to Dracula's death. | 0.636529 | positive | 0.990056 | positive | 0.988304 |
2,140,002 | Murder in Amityville | Amityville II: The Possession | The plot tries to explain why Ronald Defeo Jr. killed his family at 112 Ocean Ave. It revolves around Ronald Jr. as he experiences strange events in the house up until he kills his entire family on November 13, 1974. It goes on to explain that he was possessed and that he did not want to kill his family. It introduces controversial events. It is also based on Defeo's explanation of why he says he killed his family. | The Montelli family move into what they think would be the house of their dreams. However, after discovering that there is a tunnel leading into the house, an evil presence is shown to be lurking within, unknown to the family. After unusual and parnormal activities, like unknown bangings on the door, an ugly message on the youngest kids of the Montelli family's room's wall , the Montelli mother, Dolores tries to have the local priest, Father Frank Adamsky , bless the house but he is driven away by her sacrilegious husband, Anthony , who is strict and abusive, before he can properly help. Soon afterward, the family go to church with Anthony, so he can "apologize" for being rude to Adamsky, but the Montelli's elder son, Sonny , stays as he is "not feeling well." He soon hears an alarming noise, and goes downstairs to get his father's gun, and hears laughter, following it, he then falls victim to demonic possession. Soon, a now possessed Sonny starts to have sexual feelings for his sister Patricia and decides to "play a game" with her where he is a famous photographer and she is his model. She agrees and eventually ends up having sex with him. She goes to tell Father Adamsky this, but has a breakdown while telling him; Sonny becomes more sinister and like a demon, as his face starts turning into a demon like face, startled he tries to keep his family away, but is unsuccessful due to the possession by the demon, who usually contacts Sonny through his earphones. On Sonny's birthday he isolates from his birthday party, and calls Patricia who comes up to check on him. However, due to his demon phases and his body becoming more like a demon, he sends her away calling her a "damn bitch." Patricia runs away, crying, and tries to tell Adamsky that she thinks Sonny is possessed or something, but he doesn't answer. Instead, Dolores slaps Patricia after eavesdropping on them. Later that night, the evil spirit tells Sonny to "kill 'em" to which he goes and gets his father's gun, shoots his father, then his mother, his younger sister, his younger brother, and after a chase finally kills Patricia. The next day the cops have arrived and pick up the bodies; Sonny is arrested, but states he does not recall of ever killing his family, and is taken away. Adamsky then realizes that Sonny is possessed and asks the church if he can perform an exorcism on Sonny but they refuse, not believing him. He therefore takes it upon himself to free Sonny, and frees him from the prison and takes him to church where Sonny escapes after seeing the crosses on the doors. Adamsky soon runs after Sonny and traces him to the house, where he performs the exorcism, releasing Sonny's soul. As the cops arrive, Adamsky asks Father Tom to take Sonny away from him, while Adamsky is revealed to be possessed. His whereabouts and what happens afterwards is unknown. | 0.437726 | negative | -0.916392 | positive | 0.99567 |
5,878,174 | The Way West | The Way West | Former senator William Tadlock leads a wagon train along the Oregon Trail from Missouri with the help of hired guide Dick Summers. After several accidents which cost settlers lives, a mutiny of sorts develops and his position is overtaken by Lije Evans. Soon, different factions develop amongst the people of the train as they try to survive their trek to Oregon. | U.S. Senator William Tadlock is leaving his home in Missouri in 1843, heading west on the Oregon Trail by wagon train. His son and slave come along, with Dick Summers as a hired guide. Joining them on the expedition are farmer Lije Evans, his wife Rebecca and 16-year-old son Brownie. Among others there are also the newlyweds Johnnie and Amanda Mack, plus the Fairman and McBee families. Shy young wife Amanda isn't satisfying his needs, so Johnnie gets drunk and strays with young Mercy McBee. He also shoots at what he drunkenly thinks is a wolf and ends up killing a Sioux chief's son. Tadlock knows that no other form of justice will do for the Indians if the wagon train is to be permitted to go on its way, so he hangs young Johnnie. On the trail, it turns out Mercy is now pregnant as well. Brownie proposes marriage to her. Tadlock's son is killed in a stampede, causing the senator to be so distraught, he asks his slave to take a whip to his back. Lije Evans has seen enough. The last straw comes when Tadlock fakes a smallpox scare to keep soldiers away from the wagons. Tadlock is attacked by Evans, who takes charge of the trek. Nearly to the end, Rebecca Evans shows the others Tadlock's grand plan, just beyond a steep ravine. They treacherously lower possessions, animals and each other down the steep grade to reach their destination. Amanda Mack, however, emotionally destroyed by the loss of Johnnie, cuts a rope and causes Tadlock to plunge to his death. | 0.761288 | negative | -0.924332 | positive | 0.978255 |
2,035,109 | Frankenstein | Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed | Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning. Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy family in Geneva, he is encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world around him through science. He grows up in a safe environment, surrounded by loving family and friends. When he is around 4 years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan whose mother has just died (she is Victor's biological cousin in the first edition, but an adopted child with no blood relation in the 1831 edition). Victor has a possessive infatuation with Elizabeth. He has two younger brothers: Ernest and William. As a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focus on achieving natural wonders. He plans to attend the University of Ingolstadt in Germany. Weeks before his planned departure, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, and develops a secret technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life. The details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, but Frankenstein finds himself forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body. His creation, which he has hoped would be beautiful, is instead hideous, with dull yellow eyes, and a withered, translucent, yellowish skin that barely conceals the muscular system and blood vessels. After bringing his creation to life, Victor is repulsed by his work: he flees the room, and the monster disappears. Victor becomes ill from the experience. He is nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he determines that he should return home when his brother William is found murdered. Upon arriving in Geneva, he sees the monster near the site of the murder, and becomes certain it is the killer. William's nanny, Justine, is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William's locket in her pocket. Victor, though certain the monster is responsible, doubts anyone would believe him, and does not intervene. Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him, ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear its tale. Intelligent and articulate, it tells Victor of its encounters with people, and how it had become afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage, observing the DeLacey family living there and growing fond of them. Through observing the De Lacey family, the monster became educated and self-aware. It also discovered a lost satchel of books and learned to read. Seeing its reflection in a pool, it realized that its physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans it watches. Though it eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their fellow, they were frightened by its appearance and drove it off, and then left the residence permanently. The creature, in a fit of rage, burned the cottage and left. In its travels some time later, the monster saw a young girl tumble into a stream and rescued her from drowning. A man, seeing it with the child in its arms, pursued it and fired a gun, wounding it. Traveling to Geneva, it met a little boy — Victor's brother William - in the woods outside the town of Plainpalais. The monster hoped the boy was too young to fear deformity, but upon its approach, William cried out, threatening the monster with the weight of his family - the Frankensteins. The creature grabbed the boy by the throat to silence him, and strangled him. It is unclear from the text whether this was an accident on the monster's part or a deliberate murder, but in either case, the monster took this as its first act of vengeance against its creator. It removed a locket from the boy's body and placed it in the folds of the dress of a young woman — William's nanny, Justine — who had been sleeping in a barn nearby, assuming she would be accused of the murder. The monster concludes its story with a demand that Frankenstein create for it a female companion like itself. It argues that as a living thing, it has a right to happiness and that Victor, as its creator, has a duty to obey it, with the chilling words, "You are my creator, but I am your master. Obey!" It promises that if Victor grants its request, it and its mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear. Fearing for his family, Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work. He is accompanied by Clerval, but they separate in Scotland. Through their travels, Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second being on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly as creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of monsters that could plague mankind. He destroys the unfinished example after he sees the monster looking through the window. The monster witnesses this and, confronting Victor, vows to be with Victor on his upcoming wedding night. The monster murders Clerval and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach, where Victor lands upon leaving the island. Victor is imprisoned for the murder of Clerval, and becomes seriously ill, suffering another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, and with his health renewed, he returns home with his father. Once home, Victor marries his cousin Elizabeth and prepares for a fight to the death with the monster. Wrongly believing the monster's vowed revenge was for his own life, he asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for the fiend. He searches the house and grounds, but the creature murders the secluded Elizabeth instead. Victor sees the monster at the window pointing at the corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and now Elizabeth, Victor's father dies. Victor vows to pursue the monster until one of them annihilates the other. After months of pursuit, the two end up in the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole. At the end of Victor's narrative, Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story. A few days after the vanishing of the creature, the ship becomes entombed in ice and Walton's crew insists on returning south once they are freed. In spite of a passionate speech from Frankenstein, encouraging the crew to push further north, Walton realizes that he must relent to his men's demands and agrees to head for home. Frankenstein dies shortly thereafter, not before imploring Captain Walton to carry his mission of vengeance to its completion. "The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to take up my unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue." Walton discovers the monster on his ship, mourning over Frankenstein's body. Walton hears the monster's adamant justification for its vengeance as well as expressions of remorse. Frankenstein's death has not brought it peace. Rather, its crimes have increased its misery and alienation; it has found only its own emotional ruin in the destruction of its creator. It vows to exterminate itself on its own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of its existence. Walton watches as it drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness. | Baron Victor Frankenstein is staying at a boarding house while a former fellow-scientist resides in a nearby insane asylum, slowly dying through lack of oxygen in the brain. After discovering that the landlady's fiance has been stealing narcotics in order to support an ailing mother, Frankenstein blackmails them to help to transfer the brain of his friend into another body, thus saving him. While he recovers, Frankenstein and the lovers relocate the Creature to a deserted manor house as the police begin to close in. The Creature awakens, and horrified by his appearance, escapes to his wife, who is too terrified to believe he is her husband. Wanting revenge, he pours paraffin around the house and allows his wife to go free. Meanwhile, Frankenstein notices the Creature has escaped. He then finds the Creature at its wife's house where the Creature sets it alight, stating: "...You must choose between the flames and the police, Frankenstein..." | 0.758382 | positive | 0.989077 | positive | 0.988304 |
217,776 | They Shoot Horses, Don't They? | They Shoot Horses, Don't They? | The story follows the narrator, Robert Syverten, a naive young man from Hollywood who dreams of being a film director. The story begins with Robert's sentencing for murder. He confesses that he "killed her," and that he doesn't "have a leg to stand on." He is advised to beg for mercy from the Court. The story of his relationship with the girl he killed, Gloria Beatty, is thereafter intercut after every few chapters with short excerpts from the judge's sentencing. The excerpts of the judge's words are written in larger and larger type until the last page of the book concludes with the words written in small print: "And may God have mercy on your soul". Robert meets Gloria on a morning when they have both failed to get parts as extras. She talks him into participating in a marathon dance contest. Like Robert, she is struggling to find work in Hollywood, and believes the contest may be a way to get noticed by studio producers or movie stars. Gloria and Robert enter the dance contest, which is held at a large amusement pier on the beach, somewhere near Hollywood. The contests are long and grueling affairs, taking place over several weeks. Contestants dance for an hour and fifty minutes, then receive a ten minute break. One hundred and forty four couples start the contest. Robert and Gloria, like most of the contestants, are young, jobless, and drawn as much by the free food as by the $1,000 prize money. From the start, Gloria tells Robert that she wishes she were dead, a point she repeats in most of their conversations. Her parents are dead. She ran away to Dallas from a farm in West Texas where her uncle always made passes at her. In Dallas, she tried to commit suicide, then ran away to Hollywood with dreams of being in movies, but is finding only rejection. Robert considers her plain-looking and unlikely to find work as an actress. She tells Robert frequently that she doesn't have the courage to kill herself. The promoters of the contest try various schemes to increase attendance. They publicize the arrest of a contestant for murder. Every evening, they stage an elimination race, called a derby, in which the couples speed-walk around a track, the last-place couple being disqualified. The promoters stage a marriage of two contestants, who then lose a derby and should be eliminated. Instead, the promoters disqualify another couple. As the dance goes on, into the second and third week, the crowds grow larger. Newspapers cover the contest. Some couples receive sponsorships from local businesses, usually in the form of clothes. Hollywood personalities arrive to watch and are announced by the promoters. Gloria goads Robert into speaking with a famous director he recognizes in the crowd. A woman named Mrs. Layden attends the contest regularly and tells Robert that he and Gloria are her favorite couple. She later gets Robert and Gloria a sponsorship. As the contest grinds on, couples break down physically and drop out. Robert is consumed with claustrophobia and a desire to get outside into the sun. Gloria is tiring and having difficulty walking for the derby without Robert's help. Gloria is revealed throughout as angry, bitter and outspoken. She curses another male contestant because he won't allow his pregnant partner to get an abortion. Robert learns indirectly that Gloria is having sex with one of the promoters, presumably to gain an advantage in the event the fix should be put in again. When Robert tells her of his suspicions, Gloria tells him she doesn't feel she is worthy of doing anything else. When two elderly women from the local morals society threaten the promoters with shutting down the dance, Gloria is asked to witness the meeting and curses the women as spoiled, interfering hypocrites. After 879 hours of dancing and with 20 couples remaining, the contest is shut down when there is a murder at the dance hall's bar. A stray bullet from the shooting hits and kills Mrs. Layden. The promoters decide to give the remaining dancers $50 each for their efforts. Robert and Gloria go outside for the first time in five weeks and sit on the pier looking at the ocean. Gloria takes a pistol out of her bag and asks Robert to shoot her, which he does. He remembers when he was young, and his grandfather shot the beloved family horse, which had broken its leg. The police ask Robert why he shot Gloria, and he answers, "Because she asked me to." The policeman persists. Robert answers, "They shoot horses, don't they?" | Robert Syverton , who once dreamed of being a great film director, recalls the events leading to an unstated crime. In his youth, he saw a horse break its leg, after which it was shot and put out of its misery. Years later, in 1932, he wanders into a dance marathon about to begin in the shabby La Monica Ballroom, perched over the Pacific Ocean on the Santa Monica Pier, near Los Angeles. He is recruited by MC Rocky as a substitute partner for a cynical malcontent named Gloria , when her original partner is disqualified due to an ominous cough. Among the other contestants competing for a cash prize of $1500 are Harry Kline , a middle-aged sailor; Alice , a would-be Jean Harlow with delusions of grandeur, and her partner Joel , an aspiring actor; and impoverished farm worker James and his pregnant wife Ruby . Early in the marathon the weaker pairs are eliminated quickly, while Rocky observes the vulnerabilities of the stronger contestants and exploits them for the audience's amusement. Already frayed nerves are exacerbated by the theft of one of Alice's dresses and Gloria's displeasure at the attention Alice receives from Robert. In retaliation, she takes Joel as her partner, but when he receives a job offer and departs, she aligns herself with Harry. Weeks into the marathon, in order to spark the paying spectators' enthusiasm, Rocky stages a series of derbies in which the exhausted remaining contestants, clad in track suits, must race around the dance floor, with the last three couples eliminated. Harry suffers a fatal heart attack during one of these, and an undeterred Gloria lifts him on her back and crosses the finish line. It is clear that Harry dies as Gloria drags him. Alice, witnessing this at the end of her rope, suffers a breakdown and is taken away. Robert and Gloria, now without partners, once again pair up. Rocky suggests the couple marry during the marathon, a publicity stunt guaranteed to earn them some cash in the form of gifts from supporters such as Mrs. Laydon . When Gloria refuses, he reveals the contest is not what it appears to be on the surface. Numerous expenses will be deducted from the prize money, leaving the winner with close to nothing. Shocked by the revelation, the couple drops out of the competition. Distraught and despondent, Gloria confesses how empty inside she is. She tells Robert that she wants to kill herself, but when she takes out a gun and points it at herself, she cannot pull the trigger. Desperate, she asks Robert, "Help me." He obliges. Questioned by the police as to the motive for his action, Robert responds: "They shoot horses, don't they?" This final line of dialogue, echoing the film's title, is the "coup de grâce": the "blow of mercy." In committing assisted suicide, Robert is found guilty of murder and sentenced to be executed. His fate is not explicitly stated or depicted, but it is suggested through the film's use of flash-forwards and symbolism. The marathon continues with its few remaining couples, including James and Ruby. The eventual winners are never revealed. | 0.827206 | positive | 0.991472 | positive | 0.325928 |
18,016,293 | Breakheart Pass | Breakheart Pass | The story begins with a perilous winter railroad journey through the Nevada Territory in the 1870s in the midst of a blizzard. Aboard the train are Nevada governor Fairchild and his niece Marica, along with U.S. cavalry Colonel Claremont and two carloads of troops. Joining them are U.S. Marshal Pearce, the governor's aide, and Pearce's old Army buddy Major O'Brien. Pearce, a lawman and Indian agent is transporting dangerous murderer and gunman John Deakin. Their destination is the remote Fort Humboldt deep in the Nevada mountains, whose troops have recently been decimated by a cholera epidemic. Dr. Molyneaux, a tropical disease expert, is also accompanying the group. As the journey continues we slowly learn that all is not what it seems, and that none of the characters is telling the whole truth. Maclean meticulously obliterates the lines defining exactly which characters are the good guys are and which are the bad. As the story winds down, the cunningly devious nature of the plan is finally revealed. | In the 1870s, residents of the garrison at the Fort Humboldt Army outpost are supposedly suffering from a diphtheria epidemic. A train is heading towards the fort filled with reinforcements and medical supplies. There are also civilian passengers on the train – Nevada governor Fairchild and his mistress Marica , among others. The train stops briefly in Myrtle, where it takes on board a local lawman ([[Ben Johnson and his prisoner, John Deakin , a notorious outlaw who was identified via a picture in a newspaper article. However, Deakin is actually an undercover federal agent. Deakin, along with his partner, the Reverend, discovers en route that there is no epidemic at the outpost and the "epidemic" is actually a conspiracy between a group of killers and a tribe of Indians. One by one, though, men aboard the train keep dying as it steams toward Breakheart Pass. | 0.724197 | positive | 0.987817 | positive | 0.99763 |
2,213,107 | Sense and Sensibility | Kandukondain Kandukondain | When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate, Norland Park, passes directly to his only son John, the child of his first wife. His second wife, Mrs. Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, are left only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood extracts a promise from his son, that he will take care of his half-sisters; however, John's selfish and greedy wife, Fanny, soon persuades him to renege. John and Fanny immediately take up their place as the new owners of Norland, while the Dashwood women are reduced to the position of unwelcome guests. Mrs. Dashwood begins looking for somewhere else to live. In the meantime, Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, a pleasant, unassuming, intelligent but reserved young man, visits Norland and soon forms an attachment with Elinor. Fanny disapproves the match and offends Mrs. Dashwood with the implication that Elinor is motivated by money rather than love. Mrs. Dashwood indignantly speeds her search for a new home. Mrs. Dashwood moves her family to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, near the home of her cousin, Sir John Middleton. Their new home lacks many of the conveniences that they have been used to, however they are warmly received by Sir John, and welcomed into the local society, meeting his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings and his friend, the grave, quiet and gentlemanly Colonel Brandon. It soon becomes apparent that Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs. Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers Colonel Brandon, at thirty-five, to be an old bachelor incapable of falling in love, or inspiring love in anyone else. Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips and sprains her ankle. The dashing, handsome John Willoughby sees the accident and assists her. Marianne quickly comes to admire his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music, art and love. Mr. Willoughby's attentions are so overt that Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor cautions Marianne against her unguarded conduct, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions, believing this to be a falsehood. Unexpectedly one day, Mr. Willoughby informs the Dashwoods that his aunt is sending him to London on business, indefinitely. Marianne is distraught and abandons herself to her sorrow. Edward Ferrars then pays a short visit to Barton Cottage but seems unhappy and out of sorts. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her, but feels compelled, by a sense of duty, to protect her family from knowing her heartache. Soon after Edward departs, Anne and Lucy Steele, the vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor of her secret four year engagement to Edward Ferrars, displaying proofs of her veracity. Elinor comes to understand the inconsistencies of Edward's behaviour to her and acquits him of blame. She is charitable enough to pity Edward for being held to a loveless engagement by his gentlemanly honour. As winter approaches, Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs. Jennings' to London. Upon arriving, Marianne writes a series of letters to Mr. Willoughby which go unanswered. When they finally meet, Mr. Willoughby greets Marianne reluctantly and coldly, to her extreme distress. Soon Marianne receives a curt letter enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a young lady of large fortune. Marianne is devastated, and admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and he led her to believe he loved her. In sympathy for Marianne, and to illuminate his character, Colonel Brandon reveals to Elinor that Mr. Willoughby had seduced Brandon's fifteen-year-old ward, and abandoned her when she became pregnant. In the meantime, the Steele sisters have come to London as guests of John and Fanny Dashwood. Lucy sees her invitation to the Dashwoods' as a personal compliment, rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor. In the false confidence of their popularity, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is entreated to break the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, honourably, refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining widespread respect for his gentlemanly conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne who understand how much he has sacrificed. In her misery over Mr. Willoughby's marriage, Marianne neglects her health and becomes dangerously ill. Traumatised by rumours of her impending death, Mr. Willoughby arrives drunkenly to repent and reveals to Elinor that his love for Marianne was genuine. Threatened with disinheritance because of his immoral behaviour, he felt he must marry for money rather than love, but he elicits Elinor's pity because his choice has made him unhappy. When Marianne is recovered, Elinor tells her of Mr. Willoughby's visit. Marianne comes to assess what has passed with sense rather than emotion, and sees that she could never have been happy with Mr Willoughby's immoral and expensive nature. She comes to value Elinor's conduct in a similar situation and resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense. Upon learning that Lucy has married Mr. Ferrars, Elinor is grieved, until Edward himself arrives to reveal that Lucy has jilted him in favour of his wealthy brother, Robert Ferrars. Edward and Elinor are soon married and in a very few years Marianne marries Colonel Brandon. | Kandukondain Kandukondain opens with army commando Major Bala fighting in a war and losing his left leg in a grenade explosion. After the opening credits, Sowmya ([[Tabu and Meenakshi "Meenu" are shown as the adult daughters of Pathma living in a Chettiar mansion in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu with their maternal grandfather Chandrasekhar , maidservant Chellatha and younger sister Kamala . Sowmya is a school principal while Meenu is passionate about classic Tamil poetry, music and dance. Major Bala, one of the rich men in their village falls in love with Meenu, but Meenu falls in love with Srikanth ([[Abbas . Manohar is a director who comes to Meenu's house for a film shoot. Sowmya and Manohar fall for each other but an issue crops up between the two and whether Manohar manages to win her back forms the rest of their part of the story. Chandrasekhar, on his deathbed, tries to say something about the will which was written by him and kept in a box, a long time ago. No one understands him. After his death, their lawyer breaks open the box and found out that he had bequeathed all his property to his younger son Swaminathan , remembering the fact that his elder daughter Pathma had eloped and married without his knowledge. Unable to bear Swaminathan's wife's arrogant behaviour upon inheriting the mansion, Sowmya and her family move to Chennai. In Chennai, Sowmya finds a respectable job in a software company while Meenu becomes a playback singer with the help of Major Bala. Meanwhile, Srikanth's finance company goes bankrupt and he has to pay back his investors. A minister offers to bail out Srikanth and his company if Srikanth marries his daughter. Srikanth agrees and when Meenu finds this out by chance, she is shocked and overwhelmed at Srikanth's hypocrisy. She falls into an open manhole and gets rescued by Bala. Realising Bala's true love for her, Meenu falls in love with him. Manohar's first movie project is in disarray and he is thrown out. He plans his own movie, a path-breaking action one with Nandhini Varma as the heroine. Nandhini falls for Manohar's charm although not with any serious intentions. Rumours of an affair spread which hurt Sowmya deeply. The movie becomes a big commercial success. When he visits Sowmya's house in Chennai, he finds out that Sowmya is going to California. Tearful exchanges of resentment are exchanged between them as Manohar tries to convince Sowmya after some tearful drama. | 0.266013 | positive | 0.997019 | positive | 0.937174 |
1,401,912 | The Cruel Sea | The Cruel Sea | The action commences in 1939. Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson, after service in the Merchant Navy, is recalled to the Royal Navy and given command of the fictitious Flower-class corvette HMS Compass Rose, newly built to escort convoys. His officers are mostly new to the Navy, especially the two new Sub-Lieutenants, Lockhart and Ferraby. Only Ericson, and some of the Petty Officers are in any way experienced. Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship and crew work up a routine and gain experience. Bennett, the First Lieutenant, a mean and shirking disciplinarian with a penchant for bullying and canned sausages, snorkers, leaves the ship ostensibly for health reasons, and the junior officers are able to mature, with Lockhart gaining promotion to First Lieutenant. The crew cross the Atlantic many times on escort duty in all kinds of weather, often encountering fierce storms in one of the smallest ships to provide escort services to the Allied convoys. The men endure the ship's constant rolling and pitching in the huge waves, freezing cold, the strain of maintaining station on the convoy on pitch black nights and the fear that at any second a torpedo from a German U-boat could blow them to oblivion. Somehow the tradition of the Royal Navy and the knowledge of the importance of their work carries them through. They continue the monotonous and dangerous but vital duty of convoy escort and after one particularly difficult convoy they use all their hard won knowledge to sink a German submarine. They are nearly sunk several times until in 1943 they are finally torpedoed and forced to abandon ship. Most of the crew die in the freezing waters, but Ericson, Lockhart, and a few others are rescued the next day. Ericson, now promoted to Commander, and Lockhart, now a Lieutenant-Commander, take command of a new ship, the fictitious River class frigate HMS Saltash. (In the film The Cruel Sea, the ship is called Saltash Castle and is portrayed by a Castle class corvette HMS Portchester Castle, as no River class vessels were available.) The Royal Navy is now finally gaining the upper hand over the U-boats and Saltash adds to the growing number of kills due to Ericson's determination and patience. When the war ends, the ship returns to port as a guard to several German submarines that have surrendered. A secondary plotline concerns Lockhart's poignant romance with a beautiful Women's Royal Naval Service officer. | The film begins with a voice-over by Ericson ; This is a story of the Battle of the Atlantic, the story of an ocean, two ships, and a handful of men. The men are the heroes; the heroines are the ships. The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea, that man has made more cruel... Opening in 1939 just as the Battle of the Atlantic begins, Lieutenant Commander George Ericson, after service in the British Merchant Navy, is recalled to the Royal Navy as a member of the RNR and given command of HMS Compass Rose, a newly-built Flower class corvette intended for convoy escort duties. His officers Lockhart and Ferreby, are both newly-commissioned and without experience at sea. The new First Lieutenant, James Bennett , is an abusive martinet. Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship's company gains hard experience and becomes an effective fighting unit. At first their worst enemy is the weather, since German submarines lack the range to attack shipping far into the Atlantic. When French ports fall to the Germans, U-boats can attack convoys anywhere in the Atlantic - ironically making bad weather the convoys' greatest advantage. The first lieutenant is put ashore, the junior officers mature and the ship crosses the Atlantic many times escorting convoys, often in brutal weather. They witness the sinking of many merchant vessels they are charged with protecting and the tragic deaths of merchant navy crewmen. A key scene involves Ericson's decision to carry out a depth charge attack even though the blast will kill merchant seamen floating in the water. After close to three years of service, including one U-boat sunk, the Compass Rose is herself torpedoed and her crew forced to abandon ship. Most of the crew are lost to drowning and hypothermia. Taking to a couple of liferafts, Ericson survives this ordeal along with his First Lieutenant, Lockhart , and with the few crew left are picked up the next day. Together with Lockhart his now-promoted "Number One", Ericson takes command of a new ship, HMS Saltash Castle a new frigate , and with Ericson leading an anti-submarine escort group they continue the monotonous but vital duty of convoy escort. Late in the war, while serving with the Arctic convoys, they doggedly pursue and sink another U-boat, Saltash Castles only 'kill'. As the war ends the ship is shown returning to port, as guard to a number of German submarines that have surrendered.{{cite news}} | 0.808652 | positive | 0.997123 | positive | 0.996632 |
5,663,440 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying dead on the grounds of his country house, Baskerville Hall. The cause is ascribed to a heart attack. Fearing for the safety of Sir Charles's nephew and only known heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, coming from America to claim his inheritance, Dr James Mortimer travels to London and asks Sherlock Holmes for help. Mortimer explains that the Baskerville family is afflicted by a curse. According to an old account, over two centuries ago Hugo Baskerville was infatuated with a farmer's daughter. He kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his bedroom. She escaped and the furious Baskerville offered his soul to the devil if he could recapture her. Aided by friends, he pursued the girl onto the desolate moor. Baskerville and his victim were found dead. She had died from fright, but a giant spectral hound stood guard over Baskerville's body. The hound tore out Baskerville's throat, then vanished into the night. Sir Charles Baskerville had become fearful of the legendary curse and its hellhound. Mortimer decided that Sir Charles had been waiting for someone when he died. His face was contorted in a ghastly expression, while his footprints suggested he was running from something. The elderly man's heart was not strong, and he had planned to go to London the next day. Mortimer says he had seen the footprints of a "gigantic hound" near Sir Charles's body, something not revealed at the inquest. Intrigued by the case, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from America. Sir Henry is puzzled by an anonymous note delivered to his London hotel room, warning him to avoid the Devon moors. Holmes says that the note had been composed largely of letters cut from The Times, probably in a hotel, judging by other clues. The fact that the letters were cut with nail scissors suggested an authoress, as did a remnant whiff of perfume. Holmes keeps this last detail to himself. When Holmes and Watson later join Sir Henry at his hotel, they learn one of the baronet's new boots has gone missing. No good explanation can be found for the loss. Holmes asks if there were any other living relatives besides Sir Henry. Mortimer tells him that Charles had two brothers, Rodger and John. Sir Henry is the sole child of John, who settled in America and raised his son there. Another brother, Rodger, was known to be the black sheep of the family. A wastrel and inveterate gambler, he fled to South America to avoid creditors. He is believed to have died there alone. Despite the note's warning, Sir Henry insists on visiting Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry leaves Holmes' Baker Street apartment, Holmes and Doctor Watson follow him. They realise that a man with a fake-looking black beard in a cab is also following him. Holmes and Watson pursue this man, but he escapes; however, Holmes memorises the cab number. Holmes stops in at a messenger office and employs a young boy, Cartwright, to go visit London's hotels and look through wastepaper in search of cut-up copies of The Times. By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has had another, newer boot stolen. When the first missing boot is discovered before the meeting is over, Holmes begins to realise they must be dealing with a real hound (hence the emphasis on the scent of the used boot). When conversation turns to the man in the cab, Mortimer says that Barrymore, the servant at Baskerville Hall, has a beard, and a telegram is sent to check on his whereabouts. It is decided that, with Holmes being tied up in London with other cases, Watson will accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and report back by telegram in detail. Later that evening, telegrams from Cartwright (who was unable to find the newspaper) and Baskerville Hall (where Barrymore apparently is) bring an end to those leads. A visit from John Clayton, who was driving the cab with the black-bearded man, is of little help. He says that the man had identified himself as Holmes, much to the surprise and amusement of the actual Holmes. Mortimer, Watson, and Sir Henry set off for Baskerville Hall the following Saturday. The baronet is excited to see it and his connection with the land is clear, but finds the moor dampened. Soldiers are about the area, on the lookout for an escaped murderer named Selden. Barrymore and his wife wish to depart Baskerville Hall as soon as is convenient, and the Hall is, in general, a somber place. Watson has trouble sleeping that night, and hears a woman crying. The next morning Barrymore denies that it was his wife, who is one of only two women in the house. Watson sees Mrs. Barrymore later in the morning, however, and observes clear evidence that she has indeed been weeping. Watson checks with the postmaster in Coombe Tracey and learns that the telegram was not actually delivered into the hands of Barrymore, so it is no longer certain that he was at the Hall, and not in London. On his way back, Watson meets Jack Stapleton, a naturalist familiar with the moor even though he has only been in the area for two years. They hear a moan that the peasants attribute to the hound, but Stapleton attributes it to the cry of a bittern, or possibly the bog settling. He then runs off after a specimen of the butterfly Cyclopedes, which was still found on Dartmoor until the 1860s. Watson is not alone for long before Beryl Stapleton, Jack's sister, approaches him. Mistaking him for Sir Henry, she urgently warns him to leave the area, but drops the subject when her brother returns. The three walk to Merripit House (the Stapletons’ home), and during the discussion, Watson learns that Stapleton used to run a school in Yorkshire. Though he is offered lunch and a look at Stapleton’s collections, Watson departs for the Hall. Before he gets far along the path, Miss Stapleton overtakes him and retracts her warning. Watson notices that the brother and sister don't look very much alike. Sir Henry soon meets Miss Stapleton and becomes romantically interested, despite her brother’s intrusions. Watson meets another neighbour, Mr. Frankland, an elderly lawyer. Barrymore draws increasing suspicion, as Watson and Sir Henry see him late at night walk with a candle into an empty room, hold it up to the window, and then leave. Realising that the room has a view out on the moor, Watson and Sir Henry determine to figure out what is going on. Barrymore's wife confesses that her brother is Selden, the escaped murderer, and that she was giving him food while he was out on the moor. Meanwhile, during the day, Sir Henry continues to pursue Beryl Stapleton until her brother runs up on them and yells angrily. He later explains to the disappointed baronet that it was not personal, he was just afraid of losing his only companion so quickly. To show there are no hard feelings, he invites Sir Henry to dine with him and his sister on Friday. Sir Henry then becomes the person doing the surprising, when he and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with a candle. Barrymore refuses to answer their questions, since it is not his secret to tell, but Mrs. Barrymore’s. She tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother and the candle is a signal to him that food has been left for him. When the couple return to their room, Sir Henry and Watson go off to find the convict, despite the poor weather and frightening sound of the hound. They see Selden by another candle, but are unable to catch him. Watson notices the outlined figure of another man standing on top of a tor with the moon behind him, but he likewise gets away. Barrymore is upset when he finds out that they tried to capture Selden, but when an agreement is reached to allow Selden to flee the country, he is willing to repay the favour. He tells them of finding a mostly burnt letter asking Sir Charles to be at the gate at the time of his death. It was signed with the initials L.L. Mortimer tells Watson the next day those initials could stand for Laura Lyons, Frankland’s daughter. She lives in Coombe Tracey. When Watson goes to talk to her, she admits to writing the letter in hopes that Sir Charles would be willing to help finance her divorce, but says she never kept the appointment. Frankland has just won two law cases and invites Watson in to help him celebrate. Barrymore had previously told Watson that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Frankland unwittingly confirms this, when he shows Watson through his telescope the figure of a boy carrying food. Watson departs the house and goes in that direction. He finds the prehistoric stone dwelling where the unknown man has been staying, goes in, and sees a message reporting on his own activities. He waits, revolver at the ready, for the unknown man to return. The unknown man proves to be Holmes. He has kept his location a secret so that Watson would not be tempted to come out and so he would be able to appear on the scene of action at the critical moment. Watson’s reports have been of much help to him, and he then tells his friend some of the information he has uncoveredStapleton is actually married to the woman passing as Miss Stapleton, and was also promising marriage to Laura Lyons to get her cooperation. As they bring their conversation to an end, they hear a ghastly scream. They run towards the sound and finding a body, mistake it for Sir Henry. They realise it is actually the escaped convict Selden, the brother of Mrs Barrymore, dressed in the baronet’s old clothes (which had been given to Barrymore by way of further apology for distrusting him). Then Stapleton appears, and while he makes excuses for his presence, Holmes announces that he will return to London the next day, his investigations having produced no result. Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall where, over dinner, the detective stares at Hugo Baskerville's portrait. Calling Watson over after dinner he covers the hair to show the face, revealing its striking likeness to Stapleton. This provides the motive in the crimewith Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. When they return to Mrs. Lyons’s apartment, Holmes' questioning forces her to admit Stapleton’s role in the letter that lured Sir Charles to his death. They go to the railway station to meet Det. Inspector Lestrade, whom Holmes has called in by telegram. Under the threat of advancing fog, Watson, Holmes, and Lestrade lie in wait outside Merripit House, where Sir Henry has been dining. When the baronet leaves and sets off across the moor, Stapleton looses the hound. Holmes and Watson manage to shoot it before it can hurt Sir Henry seriously, and discover that its hellish appearance was acquired by means of phosphorus. They find Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room of Merripit House. When she is freed, she tells them of Stapleton’s hideout; an island deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, and he is presumed dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent and find the remains of Dr Mortimer's dog in the mire. Some weeks later, Watson questions Holmes about the Baskerville case. Holmes reveals that although believed to have died unmarried, Sir Charles' younger brother Rodger Baskerville had married and had a son with the same name as his father. The son John Rodger Baskerville, after embezzling public money in Costa Rica, took the name Vandeleur and fled to England where he used the money to fund a Yorkshire school. Unfortunately for him, the tutor he had hired died of consumption, and after an epidemic of the disease killed three students the school itself failed. Now using the name Stapleton, Baskerville/Vandeleur fled with his wife to Dartmoor. He apparently supported himself by burglary, engaging in four large robberies and pistolling a page who surprised him. Having learned the story of the hound, he resolved to kill off the remaining Baskervilles so that he could come into the inheritance as the last of the line. He had no interest in the estate and simply wanted the inheritance money. He purchased the hound and hid it in the mire at the site of an abandoned tin mine. On the night of his death, Sir Charles had been waiting for Laura Lyons. The cigar ash at the scene ("the ash had twice dropped from his cigar") showed he had waited for some time. Instead he met the hound that had been trained by Stapleton and covered with phosphorus to give it an unearthly appearance. Sir Charles ran for his life, but then had the fatal heart attack which killed him. Since dogs do not eat or bite dead bodies, it left him there untouched. Stapleton followed Sir Henry in London, and also stole his new boot but later returned it, since it had not been worn and thus lacked Sir Henry's scent. Holmes speculated that the hotel bootblack had been bribed to steal an old boot of Henry's instead. The hound pursued Selden to his death in a fall because he was wearing Sir Henry's old clothes. On the night the hound attacked Sir Henry, Stapleton's wife had refused to have any further part in Stapleton's plot, but her abusive husband beat and tied her to a pole to prevent her from warning him. In Holmes' words: "..he (Stapleton) has for years been a desperate and dangerous man.." It was his consuming interest in entomology that allowed Holmes to identify him as the same man as Vandeleur, the former schoolmaster. | The infamous and cruel aristocrat, Sir Hugo Baskerville , is hosting a party at Baskerville Hall, when a dead man's daughter escapes from the mansion, angry at Baskerville for treating her badly. In spite his friends' warnings, Baskerville pursues her throughout the moor and stabs her to death in the nearby abbey ruins. However, a huge dog-like creature suddenly appears and kills Baskerville. From then on, the hound of hell has become known as the Hound of the Baskervilles and, any strange night a Baskerville is alone on the moor, the hound will come and kill him. Several centuries later, the death of Sir Charles Baskerville is being reported by his best friend Dr. Richard Mortimer to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson , who are willing to meet the new owner of Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry . After meeting Sir Henry, Holmes remembers that he is going to be away on the day Sir Henry arrives at Baskerville Hall, so he puts Watson in charge of watching over him. A tarantula attacks Sir Henry briefly; Holmes suspects foul play. Before he leaves, Holmes reminds Watson to not let Sir Henry go out onto the moor at dark. On the way to Baskerville Hall, the coach driver Perkins warns of a convict named Selden has escaped from nearby Dartmoor Prison two days ago. Watson recalls Seldon's case about Seldon murdering a number of street women; plus due to some talk of him being insane, he was sentenced to life imprisonment instead of hanging. While at Baskerville Hall, Watson meets a man named Stapleton and his daughter Cecille , who save him from sinking into the Grippen Mire. Cecille seems to act strangely around both Sir Henry and Watson. At night, Watson sees a light shining out upon the moor, and starts to suspect something is going on. He and Sir Henry investigate the mysterious light. While out upon the moor, the Baskerville hound howls, causing Sir Henry to suffer from heart problems. As they leave, a strange man rushes past. The two pursue the man, but he gets away; they go back to Baskerville Hall. Soon, Watson discovers that the strange man was actually Holmes in disguise; Holmes had arrived hours after Watson did. They find out that the convict, Selden is actually the butler Barrymore's brother-in-law, was the one signaling with the light the other night, and that Barrymore and his wife were the ones returning the signal. Several events occur, such as Sir Henry being invited to dinner by Cecille and Stapleton, the hound mistakenly killing Selden because Selden is wearing Sir Henry's clothes, and finally Holmes' almost being trapped inside an old mine while investigating. Cecille takes Sir Henry out to the moor one night. By now, Holmes has solved the case: The Stapletons are actually illegitimate descendants of Sir Hugo, and are next in line to get the Baskerville fortune and mansion if all of the Baskervilles are killed off. Cecile has taken Sir Henry out onto the moor so that he may be killed by the hound - an actual, living dog bought by Stapleton, not a ghost as many were led to believe. Holmes and Watson rush out just on time to hear Cecile reveal her intentions to a horrified Sir Henry. Stapleton appears and attacks from behind, but in turn is shot in the side by Watson. The hound of the Baskervilles suddenly appears and attacks the group but desists when shot by Holmes; Stapleton is then mauled to death by the animal. Cecille flees while Holmes kills the beast, revealing it to be a normal dog with a mask on to make it look more terrifying. Cecile accidentally falls into the mire and slowly sinks to her death. Holmes and Watson take a shocked Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall, as the case is solved. | 0.884818 | positive | 0.991309 | positive | 0.407832 |
6,982,919 | Elmer Gantry | Elmer Gantry | The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry, who then becomes a notorious and cynical alcoholic. Gantry is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister, briefly acts as a "New Thought" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He acts as manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Gantry becomes her lover but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. During his career, Gantry contributes to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including a genuine minister, Frank Shallard. Ultimately Gantry marries well and obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith. | Elmer Gantry is a hard-drinking, fast-talking traveling salesman with a charismatic personality. He is drawn to the road show of Sister Sharon Falconer and is immediately attracted to the saintly revivalist. Gantry soon cons his way into Sister Sharon's good graces and joins the troupe as a fiery preacher. Gantry and Falconer develop what her manager calls a "good cop/bad cop" routine, with Elmer telling the audience members that they will burn in Hell for their sins and Sharon promising salvation if they repent. The group makes its way out of exclusively provincial venues and into Zenith, Winnemac, a larger city. Falconer eventually admits to Gantry that her real name is Katie Jones and that her origins are humbler than she publicly admits. Falconer also becomes Gantry's lover and loses her virginity to him. Gantry's on-stage antics draw the attention of a big-city reporter, the skeptical Jim Lefferts ([[Arthur Kennedy . Lefferts is shown to be torn between his disgust for religious hucksterism and his genuine admiration for Gantry's charm and cunning. The two men begin a public feud which increases the notoriety of both. The success of the Falconer-Gantry team comes to the attention of Lulu Baines , a former girlfriend of Elmer's who fell into disrepute and became a prostitute when her affair with Gantry ruined her standing in her minister father's eyes. Gantry, acting as a moralist, unwittingly invades the brothel where Lulu works. With police and media in tow, he sends the prostitutes out of town. Lulu proceeds to frame Gantry out of revenge for this and out of jealousy for his relationship with Falconer. Lulu blackmails him. Falconer is asked to bring $25,000 in exchange for the negatives of incriminating pictures. Falconer brings the money, but Lulu refuses to accept; it is unclear why she has had a change of heart. Lulu had at first offered Lefferts the exclusive story of Gantry's sexual indiscretion, but he refused, shrugging the pictures off as merely proof that Gantry is as human as anyone else. Later, when an angry mob threatens Gantry at the tent revival following the publication of the incriminating photos in another newspaper, Lefferts fights in Gantry's defense. Lulu joins the congregation at this tent revival and is a witness to Gantry's humiliation. As she watches the mob curse Gantry and smear him with eggs and other produce, she is emotionally shaken and flees the scene. Lulu returns to the brothel, which is now in a dilapidated state from Gantry's publicity stunt. Her pimp, who with the photographer had helped frame Gantry, is there to collect the $25,000. Lulu tells him she did not take Falconer's money, whereupon he beats her. Gantry comes to Lulu's rescue. He disposes of the pimp and apologizes to Lulu, who then publicly confesses to having framed Gantry. Elmer returns to Sharon on the night her new tabernacle opens. He wants them to live like a more normal couple. Sharon is unable to give up her soul-saving ventures, though, and insists that she and Elmer were brought together by God to do His work. Sharon then tragically dies in a fire at the tabernacle, unable or unwilling to see past her own religious zeal when the place is engulfed in flames. Deeply saddened by Sharon's death and having reached something of a moral awakening, Elmer decides to stop evangelizing, quoting from the Bible: "When I was a child, I understood as a child and spake as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things." | 0.721989 | positive | 0.329255 | positive | 0.997081 |
22,591,470 | The Incredible Journey | The Incredible Journey | The animals' owners, the Hunters, leave go to England for several months because Jim, the father, is scheduled to give a series of university lectures there. They leave their pets in the care of John Longridge, a family friend and godfather of their daughter, Elizabeth. One day, after John Longridge leaves for a two week duck hunting trip, the animals, feeling the lack of their human companions, set out to try to find their owners, the Hunters. Mrs. Oakes, who is taking care of Longridge's home, doesn't find the animals and thinks that John must have taken them with him. The animals follow their instincts and move forward toward home, nearly 300 miles ways. * Luath: Luath is a young Labrador. His fur is red-gold, his eyes are brown, and he is of strong build. Luath is a loyal and brave companion and the natural leader of the group. Of the three pets, he is the most recent addition. He is also the most determined to push forward and reach home and the Hunters. Luath usually walks on Bodger's left side to guide him since the older dog is almost blind in his left eye. He is arguably the one who suffers the most from lack of food because after a porcupine hits him in the face with its quills, the wounds become infected, making it difficult for him to open his mouth. * Bodger: Bodger (whose full name is Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune) is an old English bull terrier. His fur is white with a slight pinkish tint. Bodger's left eye is nearly blind. The dog was born to fight and endure (as he does in the book). Because he is eleven years old, Bodger tires easily; but he is a brave, loyal, persevering and tenacious companion. He is very fond of humans, particularly children, and whenever the group comes across humans in their travels, he tries to charm them for affection and snacks, with varying results. He has an intense hostility towards all cats save Tao, who earned his respect by standing up to him when he first joined the Hunter family as a small kitten. Though they care deeply for Luath, Bodger and Tao have a special bond. Bodger is the first of the animals to have joined the Hunter family. Despite his advanced age and diminished senses, Bodger is still every bit the fighter he was in his prime, at one point saving Luath from a Border Collie sicced on them by an irate farmer. * Tao: Tao is a slender, seal-pont, old style Siamese cat with sapphire eyes. An element of humor in the book is that Tao, like Bodger, despises other cats, and the two once shared many adventures terrorizing the other felines in their neighborhood; when they encounter other domesticated cats in their travels, Tao often fights them, successfully. Tao is able to open most doors, a help to the dogs in several situations. Tao is a tireless, bold, and loyal animal. Tao is probably the best equipped of the three to survive in the wilderness, and has no difficulty surviving on his own when separated from the two dogs; despite this, he spends all his time seeking to rejoin them, a testament to the bond between the animals. The cat is an independent and natural hunter, catching small birds for the group. When Tao is separated from them, the dogs fare more poorly without Tao than Tao does without them. Therefore, Tao is crucial to the dogs' survival. * John Longridge: John Longridge is Elizabeth Hunter's godfather. He lives in a stone house in a small village about 300 miles from the college town where the Hunters live. Mr. Longridge wrote several historical books, is a writer by profession, and a bachelor. * The Hunter Family: The Hunter Family consists of the father Jim, the mother and their two children, 11 year old Peter and 9 year old Elizabeth. Jim owns Luath, Elizabeth owns Tao, and Peter owns Bodger. * Mrs. Oakes: Mrs. Oakes is the caretaker of the three animals while John is gone on his trip. Her husband is Bert. * The Nurmi Family: The Nurmi family are a family of Finnish immigrants. 10 year old Helvi takes a liking to Tao after she discovers him unconscious in the water while walking home from school. * The Mackenzies: James and his wife, Nell, are an older couple who live alone, now that their eight children have grown up. They find Bodger and Luath, and provide them with a place to stay. | The Hunter Family leaves their two dogs and cat with their friend John Longridge to watch while they are abroad. When Longridge leaves for a hunting trip, the animals also depart on their own journey in an attempt to get back to their real home. Longridge believes the animals are being cared for by a neighbor who is taking care of his house, while the neighbor thinks he has taken them along with him, so it is a while before anyone knows the pets are missing. The three animal friends travel 250 miles through the sparsely populated wilderness of northern Canada, helping and encouraging each other as they encounter hunger, rugged terrain and various dangerous situations before finally arriving back home. | 0.773287 | positive | 0.998518 | positive | 0.997928 |
3,819,855 | Amerika | Intervista | :The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled "The Stoker". The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a sixteen-year-old European emigrant named Karl Roßmann in the United States, who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ship arrives in USA, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him; together they go to see the captain of the ship. In a surreal turn of events, Karl's uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle's friend without his uncle's full approval. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. They promise to find him a job, but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he's offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental. He works there as a lift-boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Robinson, in turn, gets injured after fighting with some of the lift-boys. Being dismissed, Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson to Delamarche's place. Once there, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy, and quite obese lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape. One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this. Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a "technical worker". He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys. | Interviewed by a Japanese TV crew for a news report on his latest film, Fellini takes the viewer behind the scenes at Cinecittà. A nighttime set is prepared for a sequence that Fellini defines as “the prisoner’s dream” in which his hands grope for a way out of a dark tunnel. With advancing age and weight, Fellini is finding it difficult to escape by simply flying away but when he does, he contemplates Cinecittà from a great height. The next morning, Fellini accompanies the Japanese TV crew on a brief tour of the studios. As they walk past absurd TV commercials in production, Fellini’s casting director presents him with four young actors she’s found to interpret Karl Rossmann, the leading role in the maestro's film version of Kafka’s Amerika. Fellini introduces the Japanese to the female custodian of Cinecittà but she succeeds in putting off the interview by disappearing into the deserted backlot of Studio 5 to gather dandelions to make herbal tea. Meanwhile, Fellini’s assistant director is on location with other crew members at the Casa del Passeggero, a once cheap hotel now converted into a drugstore. Fellini wants to include it in his film about the first time he visited Cinecittà as a journalist in 1938 during the Fascist era.Interviewed by Alain Finkielkraut for the Messager européen, Fellini explained that the “first time I visited Cinecittà, I was 18 years old, a journalist from Rimini who considered Cinecittà as something legendary.” In Fellini, Intervista, 228. Past and present intermingle as Fellini interacts with his younger self played by aspiring actor, Sergio Rubini. After the crew reconstruct the facade of the Casa del Passeggero elsewhere in Rome, a fake tramway takes young Fellini/Rubini from America’s Far West with Indian warriors on a clifftop to a herd of wild elephants off the coast of Ethiopia. Arriving at Cinecittà, he sets off to interview matinee idol, Greta Gonda."I came to interview an actress named Greta Gonda and it was the first interview I conducted, the first time I went to Cinecittà, and the first encounter with an actress I liked very much.” Fellini, Intervista, 228 Seamlessly, the illusion takes over the realities of moviemaking as the viewer is thrown into two feature films being directed by tyrannical directors. But only for a short while; for the rest of the film, Fellini and his assistant director scramble to recruit the right cast and build the sets for the film version of Amerika, a fictitious adaptation that Fellini uses as a pretext to shoot his film-in-progress. This allows Fellini/Rubini to go back and forth in time to experience filmmaking first-hand including disgruntled actors who failed their auditions, Marcello Mastroianni in a TV commercial as Mandrake the Magician, a bomb threat, a visit to Anita Ekberg’s house where she and Mastroianni re-live their La Dolce Vita scenes, screen tests of Kafka’s Brunelda caressed in a bathtub by two young men, and an inconvenient thunderstorm that heralds the production collapse of Amerika with an attack by bogus Indians on horseback wielding television antennae as spears. Back inside Studio 5 at Cinecittà, Intervista concludes with Fellini’s voiceover, “So the movie should end here. Actually, it’s finished.” In response to producers unhappy with his gloomy endings, the Maestro ironically offers them a ray of sunshine by lighting an arc lamp. | 0.353833 | positive | 0.331818 | positive | 0.995402 |
12,224,231 | The Dying Animal | Elegy | Kepesh is fascinated by the beautiful young Consuela Castillo, a student in one of his courses. An erotic liaison is formed between the two; Kepesh becomes obsessively enamored of his lover's breasts, a fetish developed in the previous novels. Despite his fevered devotion to Consuela, the sexually promiscuous professor maintains a concurrent affair with a previous lover, now divorced. He is also reluctant to expose himself to the scrutiny or ridicule that might follow from an introduction to Consuela's family. It is implied that he fears such a meeting would expose the implausible age gap in their relationship. Ultimately, Kepesh limits their relationship to the physical instead of embarking upon any deeper arrangement. In the end, Kepesh is destroyed by his indecisiveness, the fear of senescence, his lust and jealousy. Consuela never subsequently finds a lover who can show the same level of devotion to her body as Kepesh had. After some years of estrangement, she asks him to take nude photographs of her because she will be losing one of her breasts to a life-saving mastectomy. Most editions display a cover picture, Le grand nu (1919) by Amedeo Modigliani. In the novel, Consuela sends Kepesh a postcard depicting Le grand nu, and Kepesh surmises that the figure in the painting is her alter ego. | David Kepesh is a cultural critic and professor, in a state of 'emancipated manhood'. Previously married, he has a son who has never forgiven him for leaving his mother. His relationships with women are usually casual, brief and sexual in nature. His Pulitzer Prize-winning friend, George O'Hearn, suggests that he "bifurcate" his life: have conversations and enjoy art with a wife, and "keep the sex just for sex". Believing himself to be an independent and self-actualized individual, he encounters Consuela Castillo, a beautiful and confident student who attends one of his lectures. She captures his attention like no other woman, and they begin a serious relationship. David is also in a casual 20-year relationship with Caroline, another former student. Over dinner, Consuela invites David to her graduation party. George advises him to leave her before she leaves him. Consuela waits for an answer, but David only promises, "I'll have to check my schedule." Consuela is frustrated. In the end, he agrees to attend. On the day of the event, David phones Consuela and claims he has blown a tire and is stuck in bad traffic and it will be unavoidably delayed. In reality, he is sitting in his car, anxious about meeting Consuela's family. Heartbroken and annoyed, Consuela hangs up. Sometime over the course of the next two years, David introduces his friend, George at a poetry conference; George collapses on the stage and later passes away. David's son Kenny is embroiled in an affair. Two years pass before Consuela and David come in contact again. On New Year's Eve, David arrives home to find a message from Consuela. She mentions that she needs to tell him something before he finds out from someone else. At his apartment, Consuela announces that she has found a lump in her breast and will need surgery. Grief-stricken, David cries and asks her why she didn't tell him sooner. Consuela then asks David to take photos of her breasts, before the doctors 'ruin' them in the surgery. David agrees. In the final scene, David visits Consuela at the hospital where she is recovering from her surgery. Consuela says, "I will miss you". David responds, "I am here" as he climbs into the hospital bed and gently kisses her face. In a fantasy scene, the film flashes back to David and Consuela on the beach where Consuela told David she loves him. | 0.547324 | positive | 0.856452 | positive | 0.991189 |
1,726,126 | A History of Violence | A History of Violence | The story concerns a small town Michigan cafe owner, Tom McKenna, who becomes a local hero after defending his store from an attempted robbery. When his story receives national attention, several members of the New York City Mafia arrive in town, believing him to be someone named Joey, who crossed them 20 years earlier. Tom protests his innocence to everyone, but eventually his façade is dropped and he is forced to confess his history of violence to his wife and son and eventually the police. Namely, he and his friend performed a well planned and spectacular assassination and robbery of mobsters in their youth in retaliation for the murder of a relative. Unfortunately, Tom's friend foolishly decided to flaunt his take, which allowed the mob to identify him as one of the assailants and abduct him for revenge. Meanwhile, Tom barely escaped the same fate and fled the city with the intent of starting over with a new identity. Fortunately for McKenna and his family, their lawyer arrives and learns that the police failed to Mirandize him, which makes his confession inadmissible in court. However, as the McKenna family is transported to the father's original city to deal with related legal matters, the mobsters learn of McKenna's detention and plan their revenge with a horrific surprise. | Tom Stall is a local restaurant owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana. One night two men attempt to rob the restaurant. When one of the criminals is about to kill the waitress, Tom deftly kills both robbers, and his actions make him an overnight celebrity. He is soon visited by scarred gangster Carl Fogarty who alleges that Tom is actually a gangster named Joey Cusack, who had dealings with him in the Irish Mob in Philadelphia many years ago. Tom vehemently denies these accusations and claims he has never been to Philadelphia, as well as never meeting him before, but Fogarty remains persistent in his claims and continues to stalk the Stall family. Under pressure from Fogarty and his newfound fame, Tom's relationships with his wife Edie , teenage son Jack , and young daughter Sarah become strained. After an argument with Tom over the use of violence after he brutally assaults a bully at school, Jack runs off and is caught by Fogarty. With Jack as his hostage, Fogarty and his men go to the Stall house and demand that "Joey" return with them to Philadelphia. Tom kills Fogarty's men with the same precision he used against the robbers, while Jack kills Fogarty with a shotgun in defense of his father. At the hospital, Edie confronts Tom, claiming that while he was attacking Fogarty's men, she saw the real "Joey" that Fogerty was talking about. Tom shocks Edie by admitting that he is actually Joey Cusack, and that he had killed for both money and pleasure. He tells Edie that he ran away from Philadelphia to escape his criminal past. Tom stated he spent 3 years changing his life around in order to rid himself of the violent gangster in him, and to start a normal life as "Tom Stall". After Tom gets out of the hospital, Sam, the local sheriff pays him a visit. Sam expresses his confusion about everything that happened. He tells them that these mobsters wouldn't go to all this trouble if they weren't sure they had the right man. Just when Tom is about to confess, Edie defends him and lies to Sam, claiming that Tom is who he says he is, and their family has suffered enough. At a loss for words after Edie breaks down into tears, Sam leaves. This furthers the tensions in their marriage. Tom receives a call from his brother Richie Cusack , who also demands his return to Philadelphia, or else he will come see him. After traveling to Philadelphia and confronting his brother, Tom learns that the other mobsters whom he had offended in Philadelphia took out their frustrations on Richie, preventing him from moving up in the criminal organization. Tom offers to make peace, but Richie orders his men to kill him. Tom defends himself and kills Richie and the guards. Tom returns home, but the atmosphere is tense and silent as the Stalls sit around the dinner table. The fate of his marriage and the future of his life as Tom Stall is uncertain, but Jack and Sarah indicate their acceptance of their father by setting a plate for him and passing him some food. | 0.650372 | positive | 0.9924 | positive | 0.995496 |
105,434 | Trainspotting | Trainspotting | The Skag Boys, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mother Superior - Narrated by Renton. Mark and Simon (aka Sick Boy) are watching a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie when they decide to go buy heroin from Johnny Swan (aka Mother Superior) since they are both feeling symptoms of withdrawal. They cook up with Raymie (who kisses Sick Boy on the mouth) and Alison (who states about heroin "That beats any meat injection...that beats any fuckin' cock in the world..."). After being informed that he should go see Kelly, who has just had an abortion, Renton instead eagerly returns home to watch the rest of his movie. Junk Dilemmas No. 63 - Narrated by Renton. A short (less than a page) piece comparing his high to an internal sea, while noting: "more short-term sea, more long-term poison". The First Day of the Edinburgh Festival - Narrated by Renton. Mark initially makes an attempt to come off heroin by acquiring a bare room and all the things he will require when coming down. When withdrawal begins to set in however, he resolves to get another hit to ease the decline. Unable to find any heroin, he acquires opium suppositories which, after a heavy bout of diarrhea, he must recover from a public toilet (a notable scene recreated for the film--"The Worst public Toilet in Scotland") showing just how far a junkie will go for a hit (punctuated by the fact that he had to put up with Mikey Forrester to get them, a dealer he loathes). In Overdrive - Narrated by Sick Boy. Simon attempts to pick up girls while being annoyed by Mark, who wants to watch videos. Sick Boy loses Renton and launches into an internal self-glorifying, nihilistic diatribe. Growing Up in Public - Third person narration following Nina, Mark's cousin. Nina is with her family after her Uncle Andy's recent death. She initially feigns indifference but then breaks down without even realising it. It is also revealed that Mark had a catatonic younger brother who died several years before. Victory on New Year's Day - Third person narration following Stevie. At a party consisting of almost all the key characters in the novel, Stevie cannot stop thinking about his girlfriend who he has asked to marry, but has been left waiting for an answer. They optimistically reunite at the train station following a couple of phone calls. It Goes without Saying - Narrated by Renton. Lesley's baby, Dawn, has died. Though it appears to be a cot death, it could also have been from neglect. The Skag Boys are uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond to the tragedy as Lesley cries hysterically. However, Simon/Sick Boy becomes notably more emotional and distressed than the others and eventually breaks down and cries as well, stating he is kicking heroin for good and clearly implying Dawn was his daughter. Mark wants to comfort his friend, but is unable to form the words and simply cooks a shot for himself in order to deal with the situation. A sobbing Lesley asks him to also cook her up a hit, which Mark does but makes sure he injects himself before her, stating the action "goes without saying" and proving the harsh truth that no matter what, junk comes first for them all. Junk Dilemmas No. 64 - Narrated by Renton. Mark's mother is knocking on his door while crying. He ignores her pleas and cooks up a shot. He feels guilty about letting her down, but continues to use drugs anyway. Her Man - Narrated by Rab "Second Prize" McLaughlin. Second Prize and Tommy are in the pub and Tommy confronts a man who is openly punching his own girlfriend. They are shocked to find the woman supports her abusive boyfriend instead of her would-be liberators by digging her nails into Tommy's face, inciting a brawl. Speedy Recruitment - Varied narration (third person while together in the pub, first person for each interview.) Spud and Renton both have a job interview for the same job, but neither of them wants the job as they would prefer to be unemployed and to continue to receive social security. Both Renton and Spud take Amphetamine prior to their interview, where Renton pretends to be an upper-class heroin addict, while Spud rambles incoherently. Scotland Takes Drugs in Psychic Defence - Narrated by Tommy. He goes to an Iggy Pop gig on the same day as his girlfriend's birthday. He spends the entire chapter using speed and alcohol. The chapter's title refers to an Iggy Pop lyric, which Tommy vehemently affirms. The Glass - Narrated by Renton. Focuses on his "friendship" with Begbie. Renton, Begbie and their girlfriends meet up for a drink before going to a party, but it ends when Begbie throws a glass off a balcony, hitting someone and splitting open their head. After this, Begbie smiles at Renton and proceeds to announce to the party he will find whoever threw that glass before attacking random innocent people in the pub and setting off a huge pub brawl. Renton concludes his thoughts on Begbie saying "He really is a cunt ay the first order. Nae doubt about that. The problem is, he's a mate n aw. What kin ye dae?" A Disappointment - Narrated by Begbie. Continues the theme of the last chapter. Begbie recalls an ordinary story of being in the pub and staring at a man whom he wanted to fight. Cock Problems - Narrated by Renton. Tommy comes round to Renton's flat (shortly after Renton injected a shot into his penis, hence the title) after being dumped by his girlfriend. Tommy asks Renton to give him some heroin, which he reluctantly does. This sets off Tommy's gradual decline into addiction. Traditional Sunday Breakfast - Narrated by Davie. Davie has woken up at the house of his girlfriend's mother in a puddle of urine, vomit and faeces, after a night of drinking. Embarrassed, he attempts to make off with the sheets and wash them himself. However, Gail's mother starts tugging at the sheets, he resists, and the contents fly all over the family, their kitchen, and their breakfast. (In the film, this unfortunate event is attributed to Spud.) Junk Dilemmas No. 65 - Narrated by Renton. Mark has been lying in a heroin induced daze with someone (whom he ascertains to be Spud), wondering how long they've been there and noting that it could be days since anybody said anything. Renton stresses how cold he is to Spud. Spud is completely unresponsive and Mark thinks he may be dead, seeming unsurprised if he is. Grieving and Mourning in Port Sunshine - third person narration. Renton's brother Billy and his friends Lenny, Naz Peasbo, and Jackie are waiting for their friend Granty to arrive for a game of cards, as he is holding the money pot. They later find out that Granty is dead and his girlfriend has disappeared with the money, prompting them to beat Jackie, whom they knew to have been sleeping with her. Inter Shitty - Narrated by Begbie. Begbie and Renton have pulled an unknown crime and have decided to lie low in London. The chapter covers their train journey. Na Na and Other Nazis - Narrated by Spud, who has managed to kick heroin. He visits his grandmother, where his mixed-race uncle Dode is staying. He recounts the trouble that Dode has had with racism growing up, particularly an event when he and Spud went to a pub and were soon assaulted by white power skinheads saying slogans such as "ain't no black in the Union Jack". This abuse led to a fight, which left Dode hospitalised, where Spud visits him. "I've had worse in the past and I'll have worse in the future" Dode tells Spud, who begs him not to say such things. "He looks at us like I'll never understand and I know he's probably right." The First Shag in Ages - Third person narration. Renton has kicked heroin and is restless. He ends up picking up a girl at a nightclub, Dianne, and sleeping with her, unaware that she is only fourteen. He is later forced to repeatedly lie to her parents at breakfast the following morning. Despite his guilt and discomfort, he presumably sleeps with Dianne again when she shows up at his apartment. Strolling Through the Meadows - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Renton and Sick Boy take some Ecstasy and stroll to the Meadows where an excited Sick Boy and Renton try to kill a squirrel but stop after Spud becomes upset by their actions towards the animal. He states to the reader that you can't love yourself if you hurt animals as it's wrong and compares their innocence to that of Simon's dead baby Dawn. He also notably states that squirrels are "lovely" and "free" and that "that's maybe what Rents can't stand" indicating Mark envies those he feels are completely unbound and free. Mark, in reaction to Spud's distress and disappointment in his actions, is clearly ashamed and Spud forgives him quickly and the pair embrace, before Simon humorously breaks them up by stating they should either "go fuck each other in the trees" or help him find Begbie and Matty. Courting Disaster - Narrated by Renton. Renton and Spud are in court for stealing books. Renton gets a suspended sentence due to his attempts at rehabilitation, while Spud is given a short prison sentence. Renton becomes increasingly despairing at the "celebrations" and the people around him. Junk Dilemmas No. 66 - An extremely short passage, presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects that his heroin hit has removed his ability to move. Deid Dugs - Narrated by Sick Boy. Using an air rifle, Sick Boy shoots a Bull Terrier, which then attacks its skinhead owner, giving Sick Boy the excuse he needs to kill the dog, which he proceeds to do, using its own collar. He delights when a police officer arrives and informs Sick Boy that he will be recommended for a commendation. Searching for the Inner Man - Narrated by Renton. An important chapter in which Renton reflects on why he used heroin after seeing several psychiatrists, all of whom have different unrelenting approaches to clinical psychology taken from various 20th century psychologists. Renton's cynicism has stopped him from forming meaningful relationships with anyone, and he is unable to get any enjoyment out of anything. Mark confesses he had a hard childhood because of his catatonic younger brother. House Arrest - Narrated by Renton. Renton relapses and has to suffer heroin withdrawal at his parents' house, where his hallucinations of dead baby Dawn, the television programme he is watching, and the lecture provided by his father. He is later visited by Sick Boy and goes out to a pub with his parents, whose unnverving enthusiasm acts as a veneer for their authoritative treatment. Mark is confronted with the tedium and triviality of "normal" life, and it is hinted that he will begin using again. Bang to Rites - Narrated by Renton. Renton's brother Billy dies in Northern Ireland with the British Army. Renton attends the funeral; there, he almost starts a fight with some of his father's unionist relatives, and ends up having sex with Billy's pregnant girlfriend in the toilets. Demonstrating some topicality, Renton discusses the hypocrisy of Unionism, and the British in Northern Ireland (commencing with an internal rant against his father's family, who are largely bigoted Orangemen). Junk Dilemmas No. 67 - Another extremely short passage, also presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects on the depravity of the world, concluding that deprivation is "relative", as well as considers the problems the pills he is about to use will cause to his veins when injected. He concludes that that there are never any dilemmas with junk, and that the ones there are only show up when the junk "runs oot". London Crawling - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself stranded in London with no place to sleep. He tries to fall asleep in an all-night porno theatre, but there he meets an Italian man named Gi, who makes a pass at him. Renton says he's not gay and after Gi apologetically offers him a place to sleep, Renton takes him up on the offer. However, in the middle of the night, Renton wakes to find Gi masturbating over him and his semen on his cheeks and face. Renton reacts violently, but then takes pity on the sobbing old man. He then decides to take Gi to a late night party. On the way, Gi tells him the tragedy of his life — how he had a wife and children who he cared about deeply, yet he could not help falling in love with another man named Antonio and after their affair was revealed the two suffered extremely violent homophobic abuse, leading his lover Antonio to kill himself. At the party, Renton notes sadly how frightened and confused Gi looks and decides to take him to a party at his friends house. Bad Blood - Narrated by Davie. Davie, now HIV-positive, takes a particularly horrible revenge upon the man he suspects raped his girlfriend and gave her HIV, leading to his own contraction of the disease. Davie befriends the man, and when the man is on his deathbed Davie tells him that he just savagely raped and violently murdered the man's six-year-old son after dating the man's ex, going so far as to provide photos of the murdered child. After the man's death, Davie reveals to the reader that he never actually hurt the boy; the whole story was made up and that he had actually chloroformed the child in order to create the fake photos. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Third person narration. After a marathon drinking and partying session, Renton, Spud, Begbie, Gav, Alison and others venture out for another drink and then something to eat. Spud and others reflect upon their sex lives. The chapter is named after a song by The Smiths, in whose lyrics Spud finds solace after his failed attempt at making a pass at a woman. Feeling Free - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly and Alison create a scene in front of a construction site by getting into an argument with some construction workers. They meet some backpacking women and the foursome end up returning to Kelly's where they get high and their new found friends reveal they are in fact lesbians from New Zealand. The girls have a general laugh about, then Renton arrives on a surprise visit for Kelly. The girls pick on him, making particular fun of his masculinity; he takes it in good humour and leaves, noting that Kelly is already busy. Immediately afterwards the women feel guilty for ganging up on him, though Kelly feels that men are only alright "when in the minority". The Elusive Mr Hunt - Third person narration. Sick Boy prank calls Kelly's pub where she works from across the street. He asks her to look for a "Mark Hunt" and only after she has called the name out ("This boy is wantin Mark Hunt") around the pub a few times does she realise how much the men in the pub are laughing at her and how the name sounds like "my cunt (when said in a Scottish accent)" causing her a great deal of embarrassment. Renton is present in the pub at the time and laughing along with the other men at Kelly, until he realises she has tears in her eyes. At first he thinks she is being silly and shouldn't take the laughter to heart, but then he recognises the laughter from the men in the pub isn't friendly. "It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?" Easy Money for the Professionals - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Begbie, and a teenager have engaged in a criminal robbery. Spud recounts the crime and comments on Begbie's paranoia and how the teenager is likely to get ripped off by the pair. A Present - Narrated by Renton. Gav tells Renton the story of how Matty died of toxoplasmosis after attempting to rekindle his relationship with his ex using a kitten (a scene re-created for Tommy's funeral in the film version). Memories of Matty - Third person narration. The group attends Matty's funeral, where they reflect on his downfall. Straight Dilemmas No. 1 - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself at a small gathering in a London flat surrounded by casual drug users. While the others at the party indulge in joints containing opium and try to berate Renton as a 'suit and tie' light-weight, Renton muses on the idea that they have no clue what true drug addiction entails. Eating Out - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly is working as a waitress in an Edinburgh restaurant and gets revenge on some unpleasant customers. Trainspotting at Leith Central Station - Narrated by Renton. Renton returns to Leith for Christmas. He meets Begbie, who beats up an innocent man after having seen his alcoholic father in the disused Leith Central railway station. A Leg-Over Situation - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to see a previous drug dealer, Johnny Swann, who has had his leg amputated due to heroin use. Winter in West Granton - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to visit Tommy, who is dying of AIDS. A Scottish Soldier - Third person narration. Johnny Swann is reduced to begging, pretending to be a soldier who lost his leg in the Falklands War. Swann is quite optimistic and exclaims that he is making more money begging rather than dealing heroin. Station to Station - Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Second Prize go to London to engage in a low-key heroin deal and see a Pogues gig. The book ends with Renton stealing the cash and going to Amsterdam. As the movie and sequel, Porno, both imply, Spud is compensated, in the novel, Renton thinks to himself that he will send Spud his cut, as he is the only 'innocent' party. | {{Plot}} Mark Renton and Spud are running down Princes Street pursued by security guards. Renton's close circle of football enthusiast friends are introduced: James Bond-obsessed amoral con artist Sick Boy , clean-cut athlete Tommy , simpleminded, good-natured Spud, and violent sociopath Begbie . Sick Boy, Spud and Renton are all heroin addicts and spend their time shooting up at the flat of their drug dealer "Mother Superior" Swanney . After awaking from a heroin induced state, Renton decides to quit heroin. Realizing he needs one last high he buys opium rectal suppositories from Mikey Forrester . After this final hit he locks himself into a cheap hotel room to endure withdrawal. He realises that being around his friends sober, he feels that he is missing something. He later goes with his friends to a club, finding that his sex drive has returned and eventually leaves with a young woman named Diane . After sex Diane refuses to let him sleep in her room and he spends the night on a sofa in the hallway of the flat. In the morning he realizes that Diane is a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl and that her "flatmates" are actually her parents. Horrified, Renton tries to shake the incident but is forced to remain in touch after Diane blackmails him. Tommy had been dumped by his girlfriend Lizzy after a chain of events initiated by Renton. Renton had stolen one of Tommy and Lizzy's personal sex tapes, hiding it in the case of a football video. Lizzy angrily believed that Tommy had returned their tape to the video store. Sick Boy, Spud and Renton decide to start using heroin again and a brokenhearted Tommy begins using as well, despite Renton's reluctance to get him started. One day the group's heroin-induced stupor at Swanney's flat is violently interrupted when Allison, their friend and fellow addict, discovers that her infant daughter Dawn has died from neglect. All are horrified and grief-stricken especially Sick Boy who is implied to be Dawn's father. Renton and Spud are later caught stealing from a book shop and are pursued by security guards and arrested. Due to prior convictions Spud goes to prison but Renton avoids punishment by entering a Drug Interventions Programme, where he is given methadone. Despite support from his family Renton is constantly depressed and bored with life and escapes to Swanney's flat where he nearly dies of an overdose. Renton's parents take him home and lock him in his old bedroom so he can beat the addiction. As Renton lies in his bed and goes through severe withdrawal symptoms, he hallucinates Diane singing on the bed, his friends giving him advice and Allison's dead baby crawling on the ceiling. The heroin withdrawal is inter-cut with an imagined TV game show in which host Dale Winton asks Renton's parents questions about HIV. Renton is finally roused from his nightmares and hallucination by his parents who tell him he needs to get tested. Despite years of sharing syringes with other addicts Renton tests negative. Though clean of heroin, Renton is nevertheless bored and depressed, feeling that his life has no purpose. He visits Tommy in his now dark filthy flat. Tommy is now a full-on heroin addict and is HIV positive. On Diane's advice, Renton moves to London and starts a job as a property letting agent. He begins to enjoy his new life of sobriety and saves up money on the side while corresponding with Diane. Begbie commits an armed robbery and arrives at Renton's London flat seeking a hiding place. Sick Boy, who now sees himself as a well-connected pimp and drug pusher also shows up at Renton's doorstep. They soon learn of Tommy's death from toxoplasmosis and travel back to Edinburgh for his funeral. Back home, they meet Spud, who has been released from prison. Sick Boy suggests a profitable but dangerous heroin transaction, but needs Renton to supply half of the initial £4,000. After the purchase, Renton injects a dose of heroin to test the purity. The four then sell the heroin to a dealer for £16,000. They go to a pub and celebrate, discussing possible plans for the money. As Begbie and Sick Boy leave to order another round of drinks, Renton suggests to Spud that they steal the money, but Spud is too frightened of Begbie to consider it. Renton believes that neither Sick Boy nor Begbie deserve the cash. Early in the morning as the others sleep, Renton quietly takes the money. Spud sees him leave but does not tell the others. When Begbie awakens he destroys the hotel room in a violent rage which attracts the police. Renton travels to London and vows to live a stable, traditional life. Later, Spud finds £2,000 Renton has left for him, so he can have a clean start. | 0.78779 | negative | -0.359064 | positive | 0.65509 |
2,111,318 | Jane Eyre | I Walked with a Zombie | The novel begins with a ten-year-old orphan named Jane Eyre, who is living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as her uncle's dying wish. Jane's parents died of typhus. Jane’s aunt Sarah Reed does not like her and treats her worse than a servant and discourages and at times forbids her children from associating with her. She claims that Jane is not worthy of notice. She and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically and emotionally. She is unacceptably excluded from the family celebrations and had a doll to find solace in. One day Jane is locked in the red room, where her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Lowood School for Girls. Before she leaves, she stands up to Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her "aunt" again, that she'd tell everyone at Lowood how cruel Mrs. Reed was to her, and says that Mrs. Reed and her daughter, Georgiana, are deceitful. John Reed, her son, is very rude and disrespectful, even to his own mother, who he sometimes had called "old girl", and his sisters. He treats Jane worse than the others do, and she hates him above all the others. Mr. Reed had been the only one in the Reed family to be kind to Jane. The servant Abbot is also always rude to Jane. The servant Bessie is sometimes scolding and sometimes nice. Jane likes Bessie the best. Jane arrives at Lowood Institution, a charity school, the head of which (Brocklehurst) has been told that she is deceitful. During an inspection, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, and Mr. Brocklehurst, the self-righteous clergyman who runs the school, brands her a liar and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns. Miss Temple, a caring teacher, facilitates Jane's self-defense and writes to Mr. Lloyd, whose reply agrees with Jane's. Ultimately, Jane is publicly cleared of Mr. Brocklehurst's accusations. The eighty pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes. Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst's neglect and dishonesty are discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and conditions at the school improve dramatically. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to leave Lowood, like her friend and confidante Miss Temple. She advertises her services as a governess, and receives one reply. It is from Alice Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. She takes the position, teaching Adele Varens, a young French girl. While Jane is walking one night to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him to the horse. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He teases her, asking whether she bewitched his horse to make him fall. Adele is his ward, left in Mr. Rochester's care when her mother died. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company and spend many hours together. Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr. Rochester's room, on which Jane throws water, and an attack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane receives word that her aunt was calling for her, after being in much grief because her son has died. She returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month caring for her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed gives Jane a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr John Eyre, asking for her to live with him. Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon after, Jane's aunt dies, and she returns to Thornfield. Jane begins to communicate to her uncle John Eyre. After returning to Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But on a midsummer evening, he proclaims his love for Jane and proposes. As she prepares for her wedding, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to drunkenness on the part of Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason’s sister Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true, but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, his wife escapes, and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield. Jane learns that her own letter to her uncle John Eyre, which happened to be seen by Mr. Mason, who knew John Eyre and was there, was how Mr. Mason found out about the bigamous marriage. Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France, and live as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. Jane travels through England using the little money she had saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on a coach and has to sleep on the moor, trying to trade her scarf and gloves for food. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She faints on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains reserved. The sisters leave for governess jobs and St. John becomes closer with Jane. St. John discovers Jane's true identity, and astounds her by showing her a letter stating that her uncle John Eyre has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to over £1.3 million in 2011, calculated using the RPI). When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance, but have since resigned themselves to nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding her family, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come to Moor House to stay. Thinking she will make a suitable missionary's wife, St. John asks Jane to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India, but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As soon as Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes and they are married. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their first-born son. | Betsy Connell , a Canadian nurse, relates in a voiceover how she once "walked with a zombie." Betsy is hired to care for the wife of Paul Holland , a sugar plantation owner on the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian. Saint Sebastian is inhabited by a small white community and descendants of African slaves. Betsy is told the story of how the Hollands brought slaves to the island, and that the statue of "Ti-Misery" in the courtyard is the figurehead from a slave ship. That night at dinner, Betsy meets Paul's half-brother and employee, Wesley Rand ([[James Ellison . While getting ready for bed, Betsy hears crying. When she investigates, a woman in a white robe walks towards her, her eyes staring. Betsy screams, waking the rest of the household. Paul takes charge of Jessica Holland, the woman Betsy is to care for. The next morning, Dr. Maxwell tells Betsy that Jessica's spinal cord was irreparably damaged, leaving her totally without the willpower to do anything for herself. On her day off, Betsy encounters Wesley in town. While he drinks himself into a stupor, a calypso singer ([[Sir Lancelot sings about how Jessica was going to run away with Wesley, but Paul would not let them go. Then she was struck down by the fever. Betsy meets Mrs. Rand , Paul and Wesley's doctor mother. That night, at dinner, Paul tries to persuade Wesley to reduce his drinking , but he accuses Paul of trying to impress Betsy and of driving Jessica insane in the first place. Later, Betsy is drawn to the sound of Paul playing the piano. He apologizes for bringing her to the island and admits that he may have been the cause of his wife's condition. Betsy has been falling in love with her moody employer. She determines to make him happy by curing Jessica. Betsy gets Paul to agree to try a potentially fatal treatment of insulin shock on Jessica, but it has no effect. Housemaid Alma then tells her that a Voodoo priest cured a woman of a similar condition. Betsy takes her patient without permission through cane fields past a crossroads guarded by the towering figure of the eerie Carre-Four to the houmfort . There, they watch a man wield a saber during a ritual. People are given advice through a shack door by a Voodoo priest. Betsy is summoned inside, where she is shocked to find that the priest is none other than Mrs. Rand. Mrs. Rand explains that she uses Voodoo to convince the natives to accept conventional medical practices and tells Betsy that Jessica can never be cured. Outside, the locals stab Jessica in the arm with the sword as a test. When she does not bleed, they are convinced she is a zombie. Betsy takes her back to the house, but the natives demand that Jessica be returned to them for "ritual tests". Later, Carre-Four approaches the residence, but Mrs. Rand orders him to leave. Paul suggests that Betsy return to Canada, as he is fearful of demeaning and abusing her as he did Jessica. She is convinced that he is not really like that. The next day, Doctor Maxwell reports that the unrest has sparked an official inquiry into Jessica's illness. Mrs. Rand shocks everyone by claiming that Jessica is a zombie. Although she had never taken Voodoo seriously, Mrs Rand reveals that when she discovered that Jessica was planning to run away with Wesley and break up her family, she felt herself possessed by a Voodoo god. She then put a curse on Jessica. Paul, Maxwell and Betsy dismiss her story, but Wesley becomes obsessed with freeing Jessica from her zombie state. He asks Betsy if she would consider euthanasia, but she refuses. Using an effigy of Jessica, the Sabreur takes control of her and draws her to him. Paul and Betsy stop her the first time, but they are not around when he tries again. Wesley opens the gate, letting Jessica out. Then he pulls an arrow out of the statue of Ti-Misery and follows. As the Sabreur stabs the doll with a pin, Wesley thrusts the arrow into Jessica. He then carries her body into the sea, pursued slowly by Carre-Four. Later, the natives discover the bodies of Jessica and Wesley floating in the surf. Paul comforts Betsy. | 0.428756 | positive | 0.986165 | positive | 0.992662 |
473,273 | Jurassic Park | Jurassic Park III | The narrative begins in August 1989 by slowly tying together a series of incidents involving strange animal attacks in Costa Rica and on Isla Nublar, the main setting for the story. One of the species, a strange small lizard-like creature with three toes, is identified later as a Procompsognathus. Paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student, Ellie Sattler, are abruptly whisked away by billionaire John Hammond—founder and chief executive officer of International Genetic Technologies, or InGen—for a weekend visit to a "biological preserve" he has established on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. Upon arrival, the preserve is revealed to be Jurassic Park, a theme park showcasing cloned dinosaurs. The animals have been recreated using damaged dinosaur DNA found in mosquitoes preserved in prehistoric amber. Gaps in the genetic code have been filled in with reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA. To control the population, all specimens on the island are lysine-deficient females. Hammond proudly touts InGen's advances in genetic engineering and shows his guests through the island's vast array of automated systems. Recent events in the park have spooked Hammond's investors. To placate them, Hammond means for Grant and Sattler to act as fresh consultants. They stand in counterbalance to a well-known mathematician and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm and a lawyer representing the investors, Donald Gennaro. Both are pessimistic about the park's prospects. Malcolm, having been consulted before the park's creation, is especially emphatic in his prediction that the park will collapse, as it is an unsustainable simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system. Countering Malcolm's dire predictions with youthful energy, Hammond groups the consultants with his grandchildren, Tim and Alexis "Lex" Murphy. While touring the park with the children, Grant finds a Velociraptor eggshell, which seems to prove Malcolm's earlier assertion that the dinosaurs have been breeding against the geneticists' design. Malcolm suggests a flaw in their method of analyzing dinosaur populations, in that motion detectors were set to search only for the expected number of creatures in the park and not for any higher number. The park's controllers are reluctant to admit that the park has long been operating beyond their constraints. Malcolm also points out the height distribution of the Procompsognathus forms a Gaussian distribution, the curve of a breeding population, rather than the distinctive pattern that a population reared in batches ought to display. In the midst of this, the chief programmer of Jurassic Park's controlling software, Dennis Nedry, attempts corporate espionage for Lewis Dodgson, a geneticist and agent of InGen's archrival, Biosyn. By activating a backdoor he wrote into the park's computer system, Nedry manages to shut down its security systems and quickly steal fifteen frozen embryos, one for each of the park's fifteen species. He then attempts to smuggle them out to a contact waiting at the auxiliary dock deep in the park; however, during a sudden tropical storm, he exits his stolen vehicle to get his bearings and is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Without Nedry to reactivate the park's security, the electrified fences remain off, and dinosaurs escape. The adult and juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex attack the guests on tour, destroying the vehicles, killing public relations manager Ed Regis, and leaving Grant and the children lost in the park. Malcolm is gravely injured during the incident but is soon found by Gennaro and park game warden Robert Muldoon and spends the remainder of the novel slowly dying as, in between lucid lectures and morphine-induced rants, he tries to help those in the main compound understand their predicament and survive. The park's upper management—engineer and park supervisor John Arnold, chief geneticist Henry Wu, Muldoon, and Hammond—struggle to return power to the park, while the veterinarian, Dr. Harding, takes care of the injured Malcolm. For a time they manage to get the park largely back in order, restoring the computer system by shutting down and restarting the power, resetting the system. Unfortunately, a series of errors on their part soon plunge the park into greater disarray. During their time trying to restore the park to working order, they fail to notice that the system has been running on auxiliary power since the restart; this power soon runs out, shutting the park down a second time. Furthermore, since the auxiliary generators didn't create enough electricity to power the fences, they weren't reactivated when the system was reset, meaning all the fences—including the holding pen containing the park's Velociraptors, quarantined due to their intelligence and aggression—had been offline the whole time. Escaping their enclosure, the raptors kill Wu and Arnold and injure Muldoon, Gennaro, and Harding. Meanwhile, Grant and the children slowly make their way back to the Visitor's Center by rafting down the jungle river, carrying news that several young raptors, bred and raised in the island's wilds, were on board the Anne B, the island's supply ship, when it departed for the mainland. While Ellie distracts the raptors, Grant manages to turn the park's main power back on. After escaping from several raptors, Grant, Gennaro, Tim, and Lex are able to make it to the control room, where Tim is able to contact the Anne B and tell them to return. The survivors are then able to organize themselves and eventually secure their own lives. Word soon reaches them that the crew of the Anne B has discovered and killed the raptor stowaways. Gennaro tries to order the island destroyed as a dangerous asset, but Grant rejects his authority, claiming that even though they cannot control the island, they have a responsibility to understand just what happened and how many dinosaurs have already escaped to the mainland. Grant, Ellie, and Muldoon set out into the park to find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally. Cautious in this pursuit, they emerge unharmed. Meanwhile, Hammond, taking a walk around the park and contemplating making a park improving on his previous mistakes, hears the T-Rex roar and falls down a hill where he is eaten by a pack of Procompsognathus. Concerning the dinosaurs' breeding, it is eventually revealed that using frog DNA to fill gaps in the dinosaurs' genetic code enabled a measure of dichogamy, in which some of the female animals changed into males in response to the all-female environment. In the conclusion, before boarding helicopters the group tell the Costa Rican Air Force that the dinosaurs had been killing people. The Air Force then say that the island is dangerous and releases napalm over the island, destroying the island and the dinosaurs. It is implied that Malcolm has died. Grant asks Muldoon of Malcolm's condition when they depart via helicopter, Muldoon's nonverbal response is merely shaking his head and on the second to last page it says that the Costa Rican government wouldn't permit a burial for Hammond or Malcolm -->. Survivors of the incident are indefinitely detained by the United States and Costa Rican governments. Weeks later, Grant is visited by Dr. Martin Guitierrez, an American doctor who lives in Costa Rica and has found a Procompsognathus corpse. Guitierrez informs Grant that an unknown pack of animals has been migrating through the Costa Rican jungle, eating lysine-rich crops and chickens. He also informs Grant that none of them, with the possible exception of Tim and Lex, are going to leave any time soon. | Eric Kirby and Ben Hildebrand, go parasailing off the restricted coast of Isla Sorna. The men piloting their boat goes missing, causing the boat to crash and the parasail to glide towards the island. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler remained close since their incident at Isla Nublar but never married, with Sattler having married a lawyer named Mark Degler. After dinner, Grant tells Sattler that recent research indicates that Velociraptors were far more intelligent than previously perceived. At Grant's excavation site at Fort Peck Lake, Montana, Grant's graduate school assistant Billy Brennan reveals a replica of a Velociraptor's larynx created from scanning a raptor skull. Grant is approached by Paul and Amanda Kirby, owners of a corporation called Kirby Enterprises. They inform Grant that they wish to hire him to give them an aerial tour of Isla Sorna. He initially refuses, but is persuaded by their offer to fund his excavation. The plane carrying Grant, Billy, the Kirbys, Nash, Udesky and Cooper arrives at Isla Sorna. Grant objects when he learns the team intends to land on the island, but is knocked unconscious by the mercenary Cooper. Grant regains consciousness when he hears Amanda use a megaphone to call out to somebody in the jungle, which draws the attention of a Spinosaurus. The mercenaries usher the group onto the plane. The plane starts down the runway, but Cooper appears, drawing the Spinosaurus into the plane's path and devouring Cooper. The plane's propellor gets damaged on the Spinosaurus's sail and it crashes in a tree. The Spinosaurus attacks the plane, Nash slips and falls into the mouth of the Spinosaurus and is eaten alive. The plane falls from the tree and the Spinosaurus rolls it around. The group flees. They encounter a Tyrannosaurus, which chases them back to the Spinosaurus. The Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus fight until the Spinosaurus snaps the Tyrannosaurus neck, replacing it as king of the dinosaurs. The group flees the site. Grant learns that the Kirbys are actually a divorced couple and owners of a small business. They are in search of their son Eric, who was stranded on the island along with Amanda's friend Ben Hildebrand eight weeks earlier. The group heads towards the coast, hoping to be rescued. They discover a parasail with Ben's corpse and a video camera containing footage from their crash. The group comes across a derelict InGen laboratory. After exploring the compound, they are attacked by a Velociraptor, which calls to its pack for assistance. Outside, Paul, Amanda, and Billy lose Grant and Udesky. Udesky is trying to find the group only to be killed by a Velociraptor . Grant is surrounded by a Velociraptor pack but is rescued by Eric who uses tear gas on them. The group reunites after Eric hears the ringtone of his father's satellite phone, which emanated from within the Spinosaurus that had attacked them at the runway. Grant discovers that Billy stole two eggs from a Velociraptor nest, intending to use revenue from them to fund the excavation. Grant berates Billy as being no better than InGen. Grant decides to store the eggs in his bag instead, reasoning that they could bargain with the Velociraptors for the eggs, in exchange for their lives. The group sets out for a boat docked at a nearby river. They pass through a Pteranodon's cage. Billy rescues Eric from the pterasaurs, but is viciously attacked and presumed dead. The group escapes onto a boat and while navigating down the river, the phone is heard from within Spinosaurus's excrement and is recovered. While Grant is calling Ellie for assistance, the Spinosaurus attacks them again. As the boat is capsizing, Grant is only able to get out the words, "The river! Site B!". Paul and Grant manage to drive away the Spinosaurus, but are unsure if Ellie will be able to send help. The group is close to shore, when they are confronted by Velociraptors. Grant delivers the eggs and uses Billy's Velociraptor resonating chamber to communicate. On the beach, U.S. Marine helicopters and infantry arrive, scaring off the Velociraptors. The party boards the helicopter where they are reunited with Billy, who is still alive but seriously injured. As they depart, three Pteranodons fly off into the distance. | 0.682121 | negative | -0.332737 | positive | 0.598487 |
1,591,831 | Miss Lonelyhearts | Lonelyhearts | In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column which the newspaper staff considers a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper. (A shrike is type of predatory bird.) Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches to escape the terribly painful letters he has to read: religion, trips to the countryside with his fiancée Betty, and affairs with Shrike's wife and Mrs. Doyle, a reader of his column. However, Miss Lonelyheart's efforts do not seem to ameliorate his situation. After his sexual encounter with Mrs. Doyle, he meets her husband, a poor crippled man. The Doyles invite Miss Lonelyhearts to have dinner with them. When he arrives, Mrs. Doyle tries to seduce him again, but he responds by beating her. Mrs. Doyle tells her husband that Miss Lonelyhearts tried to rape her. In the last scene, Mr. Doyle hides a gun inside a rolled newspaper and decides to take revenge on Miss Lonelyhearts. Lonelyhearts, who has just experienced a religious enlightenment after three days of sickness, runs toward Mr. Doyle to embrace him. The gun "explodes", and the two men roll down a flight of stairs together. | The story opens on a small-town street. A man throws a bundle of papers onto the sidewalk from the back of a truck labeled "Chronicle". Clift is sitting in a bar when a woman offers him a drink. He refuses, telling her how alcohol seems to be poisonous to him. After talking with her for a while, he finds out that she is married to the editor of the paper where he is hoping to work. The editor shows up to meet his wife only to find her talking to Monty. When he asks how Monty found him, Monty says, "I heard that there was a bar where newspaper people hang out. I came here since it is the closest to the Chronicle, the only paper in town." The Mrs. says that Monty can write and that he deserves the chance to prove it. Ryan says, "OK, so write!" Clift hems and haws momentarily, but then delivers the following story: "The Chronicle is pleased to announce the addition of a new member to our staff. He met the Editor in Chief, who went so far as to insult his own wife in an effort to provoke the new staff member. Instead of punching the editor in the face, he accepted a position on the paper." | 0.534409 | positive | 0.991846 | positive | 0.980703 |
422,269 | Contact | Contact | Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway is the director of "Project Argus," in which scores of radio telescopes in New Mexico have been dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The project discovers the first confirmed communication from extraterrestrial beings. The communication is a repeating series of the first 261 prime numbers (a sequence of prime numbers is a commonly predicted first message from alien intelligence, since mathematics is considered a "universal language," and it is conjectured that algorithms that produce successive prime numbers are sufficiently complicated so as to require intelligence to implement them). Further analysis reveals that a second message is contained in polarization modulation of the signal. The second message is a retransmission of Earth's first television signal broadcast powerful enough to escape the ionosphere and be received in interstellar space; in this case, Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. A third message is discovered containing over 30,000 pages describing plans for a machine that appears to be a kind of highly advanced vehicle, with seats for five human beings. But they cannot understand the third message until they find the fourth message, a primer hidden in phase modulation. The primer allows them to translate the alien language to human language. Ultimately, a machine is successfully built and activated, transporting five passengers – including Ellie – through a series of wormholes to a place near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where they meet the senders in the guise of persons significant in the lives of the travelers, whether living or dead. Some of the travelers' questions are answered by the senders, with the senders suggesting a message is contained within one of the transcendental numbers. Upon returning to Earth, the passengers discover that what seemed like many hours to them passed by in only 20 minutes on Earth, and that all their video footage has been erased, presumably by the time changing magnetic fields they were exposed to inside of the wormholes. They are left with no proof of their stories and are accused of fabrication. Therefore, though Ellie has traveled across the galaxy and actually encountered extraterrestrial beings, she cannot prove it. The government officials deduce an international conspiracy, blaming the world's richest man in an attempt to perpetuate himself, embarrass the government, and get lucrative deals from the machine consortium's multi-trillion-dollar project. The message is claimed to be a fabrication from a secret artificial man-made satellite(s) that cannot be traced, because the message stopped once the machine was activated, a feat that is impossible unless one considers time travel feasible, and Ellie and other scientists are implicated. Ellie, a lifelong religious skeptic, finds herself asking the world to take a leap of faith and believe what she and the others say happened to them. She finds only one person willing to take that leap: Palmer Joss, a minister introduced early in the book. Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the message, works on a program which computes the digits of pi to record lengths in different bases. Very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle. The extraterrestrials suggest that this is a signature incorporated into the Universe itself. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly. They also make reference to older artifacts built from space time itself (namely the wormhole transit system) abandoned by a prior civilization. A line in the book suggests that the image is a foretaste of deeper marvels hidden even further within pi. This new pursuit becomes analogous to SETI; it is another search for meaningful signals in apparent noise. | Encouraged to explore as a child by her late father ([[David Morse , Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway works for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. She listens to radio transmissions in hope of finding signals sent by extraterrestrial life. Government scientist David Drumlin pulls the funding from SETI because he believes the endeavor is futile. Arroway gains backing from mysterious and secretive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden , who has been following her career and allows her to continue her studies at the Very Large Array in Socorro County, New Mexico. Four years later, with Drumlin seeking to close SETI, Arroway finds a strong signal repeating a sequence of prime numbers, apparently sent from the star Vega. This announcement causes both Drumlin and the National Security Council, led by National Security Advisor Michael Kitz , to attempt to take control of the facility. As Arroway, Drumlin, and Kitz argue, members of the team at the VLA discover a video source buried in the signal: Adolf Hitler{{'}}s welcoming address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Arroway and her team postulate that this would have been the first significantly strong television signal to leave Earth's atmosphere, which was then transmitted back from Vega, 26 light years away. The project is put under tight security and its progress followed fervently worldwide. Arroway learns that the signal contains more than 60,000 "pages" of what appear to be technical drawings. Hadden succeeds in decoding the pages; he explains that the drawings are meant to be interpreted in three dimensions. This reveals a complex machine allowing for one human occupant inside a pod to be dropped into three rapidly spinning rings. The nations of the world fund the construction of the machine in Cape Canaveral at the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39. An international panel is assembled to choose one of ten possible candidates to travel in the machine. Although Arroway is one of the top selections, Christian philosopher Palmer Joss , a panel member whom Arroway met in Puerto Rico and with whom she had a brief romantic encounter, brings attention to her lack of religious faith. As this differentiates her from most humans, the panel selects Drumlin as more representative. On the day the machine is tested, a religious fanatic destroys the machine in a suicide bombing, killing Drumlin and many others. After the destruction, however, Hadden reveals to Arroway that a second machine is hidden in Hokkaido, Japan, and that Arroway will be its pilot. Arroway, outfitted with several recording devices, is locked into the pod of the Japanese machine, dropped into the rapidly spinning, rotating rings, and disappears. When the pod travels through a series of wormholes, she experiences displacement and can observe the outside environment. This environment includes a radio array–like structure at Vega and signs of a highly advanced civilization on an unknown planet. Arroway finds herself in a surreal beachfront landscape similar to a childhood picture she drew of Pensacola, Florida, and a blurry figure approaches that becomes her deceased father. Arroway recognizes him as an alien taking her father's form and she attempts to ask numerous questions. The alien deflects her inquiries, explaining that this journey was just humanity's first step to joining other spacefaring species. Arroway considers these answers and falls unconscious. She later awakens to find herself on the floor of the pod; the machine's control team is repeatedly calling for her. She learns that from outside the machine it appears the pod merely dropped through the machine's spinning rings and landed in the safety net. Arroway insists that she was gone for approximately 18 hours, but her recording devices show only static. Kitz resigns as national security advisor to lead a congressional committee to determine whether the machine was an elaborate hoax designed by Hadden, who has since died. Arroway is described as an unwitting accomplice in the hoax; she asks them to accept her testimony on faith. Kitz and White House Chief of Staff Rachel Constantine together reflect on the fact that while Arroway's recording device only recorded static, it recorded 18 hours of it. Arroway and Joss reunite, and Arroway receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the Very Large Array. | 0.673394 | positive | 0.366872 | positive | 0.988479 |
286,836 | Jude the Obscure | Jude | The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the southern English region of Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modeled on Oxford. In his spare time, while working in his aunt's bakery, he teaches himself Greek and Latin. Before he can try to enter the university, the naïve Jude is manipulated, through a process he later calls erotolepsy, into marrying a rather coarse and superficial local girl, Arabella Donn, who deserts him within two years. By this time, he has abandoned the classics altogether. After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. Jude shortly introduces Sue to his former schoolteacher, Mr. Phillotson, whom she later marries. Sue is satisfied by the normality of her married life, but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one; in addition to being in love with Jude, not her husband, she is physically disgusted by her spouse, and, apparently, by sex in general. Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship; they are both afraid to get married because their family has a history of tragic unions, and think that being legally bound to one another might destroy their love. Jude eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him and, over the years, they have two children together. They are also bestowed with a child "of an intelligent age" from Jude's first marriage to Arabella, whom Jude did not know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed "Little Father Time" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness. Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find out, and landlords evict them. Their socially-disturbed boy, "Little Father Time," comes to believe that he and his half-siblings are the source of the family's woes. He murders Sue's two children and commits suicide by hanging. He leaves behind a note that simply reads, "Done because we are too menny." Shortly thereafter, Sue has a miscarriage. Beside herself with grief and blaming herself for "Little Father Time's" actions, which were, in part, instigated by a conversation the two had had the previous night, Sue turns to the church that has ostracized her and comes to believe that the children's deaths were divine retribution for her relationship with Jude. Although horrified at the thought of resuming her marriage with Phillotson, she becomes convinced that, for religious reasons, she should never have left him. Arabella discovers Sue's feelings and informs Phillotson, who soon proposes they remarry. This results in Sue leaving Jude for Phillotson. Jude is devastated and remarries Arabella after she plies him with alcohol to once again trick him into marriage. After one final, desperate visit to Sue in freezing weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year. It is revealed that Sue has grown "staid and worn" with Phillotson. Arabella fails to mourn Jude's passing, instead setting the stage to ensnare her next suitor. | In the Victorian period, Jude Fawley is a bright young lower-class man who dreams of a university education. Circumstances conspire against him, and he is forced into a job as a stonemason and an unhappy marriage to a country girl, Arabella . He remains true to his dream and, months later, after his wife's sudden departure, he heads for the city. He thinks education is available for any man who is willing to work hard. There he encounters his cousin, Sue Bridehead , who is beautiful and intelligent, and shares his disdain for convention. Whilst Jude is enraptured by Sue, she decides to marry Jude's former school teacher, Phillotson , after Jude tells her he is married to Arabella. Meanwhile, Jude is rejected for the university based primarily on his lower-class status. The marriage of Sue and Phillotson is not a success, as she refuses to give herself sexually or romantically to her husband. She leaves Phillotson to join Jude in what turns out to be a rough life, moving from place to place as Jude picks up occasional work as a stonemason. The two are in love and, over the course of years, Sue gives birth to several children. Agnostic and independent, she refuses to legalize their arrangement by marriage. Jude learns that Arabella bore a son, which she named Jude soon after she left Jude. The boy comes to live with his father Jude, Sue and his half-siblings. Sue and Jude are forbidden a permanent rental lodging because their living arrangement without marriage is considered scandalous. Sue tells Juey that the family cannot stay long at their present lodging because there are too many of them. The next day Sue and Jude return to their lodging to find that Juey has killed his half-siblings and committed suicide, hanging himself. His suicide note says the reason: "Becos we were to menny." Each of the couple falls into a deep depression after the deaths of their children. Turning to the religion she previously rejected, Sue comes to believe that God has judged and punished the couple for not having married. She decides to return to Phillotson, although she finds him sexually repugnant, as he is her true husband in the eyes of God. A year after the death of their children, Jude and Sue happen to meet when separately visiting the tombstones of their children. They both look worse for wear. Jude demands that Sue tell him whether she still loves him, to which she replies, "You've always known". After a passionate kiss, she walks away from Jude to return to Phillotson. As Sue walks away, Jude shouts to her, "We are man and wife, if ever two people were on this earth!" | 0.879767 | positive | 0.99042 | positive | 0.971163 |
5,028,092 | Murder on the Orient Express | Murder on the Orient Express | Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself. That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeks out his door, he sees the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett's door and ask if he is all right. A man replies in French "Ce n'est rien. Je me suis trompé", which means "It's nothing. I was mistaken", and the conductor moves on to answer a bell down the passage. Poirot decides to go back to bed, but he is disturbed by the fact that the train is unusually still and his mouth is dry. As he lies awake, he hears a Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rings the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learns that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone had been in her compartment. He also learns that the train has stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance. The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence. However, the clues and circumstances of Ratchett's death are very mysterious. Some of the stab wounds are very deep, only three are lethal, and some are glancing blows. Furthermore, some of them appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. Poirot finds several more clues in the victim's cabin and on board the train, including a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial "H", a pipe cleaner, and a button from a conductor's uniform. All of these clues suggest that the murderer or murderers were somewhat sloppy. However, each clue seemingly points to different suspects, which suggests that some of the clues were planted. By reconstructing parts of a burned letter, Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was a notorious fugitive from the U.S. named Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old American heiress Daisy Armstrong. Though the Armstrong family paid a large ransom, Cassetti murdered the little girl and fled the country with the money. Daisy's mother, Sonia, was pregnant when she heard of Daisy's death. The shock sent her into premature labour, and both she and the baby died. Her husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself out of grief. Daisy's nursemaid, Susanne, was suspected of complicity in the crime by the police, despite her protests. She threw herself out of a window and died, after which she was proved innocent. Although Cassetti was caught, his resources allowed him to get himself acquitted on an unspecified technicality, although he still fled the country to escape further prosecution for the crime. As the evidence mounts, it continues to point in wildly different directions and it appears that Poirot is being challenged by a mastermind. A critical piece of missing evidence–the scarlet kimono worn the night of the murder by an unknown woman–turns up in Poirot's own luggage. After meditating on the evidence, Poirot assembles the thirteen suspects, M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine in the restaurant car. He lays out two possible explanations of Ratchett's murder. The first explanation is that a stranger–some gangster enemy of Ratchett–boarded the train at Vinkovci, the last stop, murdered Ratchett for reasons unknown, and escaped unnoticed. The crime occurred an hour earlier than everyone thought, because the victim and several others failed to note that the train had just crossed into a different time zone. The other noises heard by Poirot on the coach that evening were unrelated to the murder. However, Dr. Constantine says that Poirot must surely be aware that this does not fully explain the circumstances of the case. Poirot's second explanation is rather more sensational: all of the suspects are guilty. Poirot's suspicions were first aroused by the fact that all the passengers on the train were of so many different nationalities and social classes, and that only in the "melting pot" of the United States would a group of such different people form some connection with each other. Poirot reveals that the twelve other passengers on the train and the train conductor were all connected to the Armstrong family in some way: *Hector MacQueen, Ratchett/Cassetti's secretary, devoted to Sonia Armstrong; MacQueen's father was the district attorney for the kidnapping case. He knew from his father the details of Cassetti's escape from justice. *Masterman, Ratchett/Cassetti's valet, was Colonel Armstrong's batman during the war and later his valet; *Colonel Arbuthnot was Colonel Armstrong's comrade and best friend; *Mrs. Hubbard in actuality is Linda Arden (née Goldenberg), the most famous tragic actress of the New York stage, and was Sonia Armstrong's mother and Daisy's grandmother; *Countess Andrenyi (née Helena Goldenberg) was Sonia Armstrong's sister; *Count Andryeni was the husband of Helena Andrenyi; *Princess Natalia Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's godmother as she was a friend of her mother; *Miss Mary Debenham was Sonia Armstrong's secretary and Daisy Armstrong's governess; *Fräulein Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff's maid, was the Armstrong family's cook; *Antonio Foscarelli, a car salesman based in Chicago, was the Armstrong family's chauffeur; *Miss Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary, was Daisy Armstrong's nurse; *Pierre Michel, the train conductor, was the father of Susanne, the Armstrong's nursemaid who committed suicide; *Cyrus Hardman, a private detective ostensibly retained as a bodyguard by Ratchett/Cassetti, was a policeman in love with Susanne. All these friends and relations had been gravely affected by Daisy's murder and outraged by Cassetti's subsequent escape. They took it into their own hands to serve as Cassetti's executioners, to avenge a crime the law was unable to punish. Each of the suspects stabbed Ratchett once, so that no one could know who delivered the fatal blow. Twelve of the conspirators participated to allow for a "twelve-person jury", with Count Andrenyi acting for his wife, as she–Daisy's aunt–would have been the most likely suspect. One extra berth was booked under a fictitious name–Harris–so that no one but the conspirators and the victim would be on board the coach, and this fictitious person would subsequently disappear and become the primary suspect in Ratchett's murder. (The only person not involved in the plot would be M. Bouc, for whom the cabin next to Ratchett was already reserved.) The main inconvenience for the murderers was the occurrence of a snowstorm and the presence of a detective, which caused complications to the conspirators that resulted in several crucial clues being left behind. Poirot summarizes that there was no other way the murder could have taken place, given the evidence. Several of the suspects have broken down in tears as he has revealed their connection to the Armstrong family, and Mrs. Hubbard/Linda Arden confesses that the second theory is correct and that Colonel Arbuthnot and Mary Debenham are in love. She then appeals to Poirot, M. Bouc, and Dr. Constantine, not to turn them in to the police. Fully in sympathy with the Armstrong family, and feeling nothing but disgust for the victim, Bouc pronounces the first explanation as correct, and Poirot and Dr. Constantine agree, Dr. Constantine suggesting that he will edit his original report of Cassetti's body to comply with Poirot's first deduction as he now 'recognizes' some mistakes he has made. His task completed, Poirot states he has "the honour to retire from the case." Arrangement of the Calais Coach: {| width="1450" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin:0 0; background-color: #FFFFFF" style="text-align: center; font-size: 80%" |-bgcolor="#F5F5DC" |style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| || style="background:#98FB98" width="50"| || colspan="12" width="1200" style="text-align: center;"| Corridor ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| |-style="height:60px" |style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| Athens-Paris Coach ||style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#98FB98" width="50"| Michel ||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 16. Hardman||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 15. Arbuthnot || style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 14. Dragomiroff ||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 13. R. Andrenyi || style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 12. H. Andrenyi ||style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 3. Hubbard || style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#FF7F50" width="100"| 2. Ratchett || style="background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 1. Poirot ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 10. Ohlsson11. Debenham ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 8. Schmidt9. ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 6. MacQueen7. ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 4. Masterman5. Foscarelli ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| Dining Car |} | {{plot|section|dateThe murderCluesSuspectsMotive After concluding his enquiries on the suspects, Poirot gathers all of them in the dining room to present his solution to the crime. He has concluded into two possible scenarios of the murder. The first scenario, which he calls the simple solution, is based on several clues, planted by the suspects to imply that Ratchett's/Cassetti's murder was a result of a mafia feud, intending to throw off-track any investigations. Then Poirot analyzes his second solution, referring to it as a more complex one than the previous, according to which every passenger of the Calais coach, including the steward, Michel, were linked to the Armstrong case, thus providing them with sufficient motives: *McQueen was the son of the District Attorney who prosecuted the case and was very fond of Mrs. Armstrong; *Beddoes was Colonel Armstrong's army batman and the family butler; *Miss Debenham was Mrs Armstrong's secretary; *Col. Arbuthnott was an army friend of Col. Armstrong; *Princess Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's godmother; *Miss Schmidt was the Armstrongs' cook; *Countess Andrenyi was Mrs Armstrong's sister; *Count Andrenyi was Mrs Armstrong's brother in law. *Miss Ohlsson was Daisy's nursemaid; *Mrs Hubbard was Mrs Armstrong's mother; *Foscarelli was the Armstrongs' chauffeur; *Hardman was, at the time, a policeman who was in love with Paulette; *Michel was Paulette's father. Ratchett was sedated by Beddoes and McQueen. Each of the passengers then stabbed him in turn. As soon as Poirot finishes his explanation, everyone in the car is dumbfounded. Poirot suggests that Bianchi should choose which explanation they should present to the police: the simple or the complex one. Bianchi decides that this "simple" solution will be more than enough for the local police and that Ratchett deserved everything he got. A cover-up is therefore instigated. Poirot agrees with the decision, and he departs to conduct his report to the police, even though he admits he will struggle with his conscience. The train becomes unbound with snow and starts on its way as everyone toasts one another. | 0.877415 | positive | 0.994461 | positive | 0.661826 |
22,012,794 | The Naked and the Dead | The Naked and the Dead | Set on an island in the South Pacific where the American Army under General Cummings is trying to drive out the Japanese, The Naked and the Dead focuses on a single reconnaissance platoon. The novel is split between alternating chapters depicting ongoing action on the island and retrospective chapters focusing on a particular character's personality and past. The Naked and the Dead contains several combat scenes and a great deal of description of Army protocol, as well as detailed descriptions of the many trials and agonies of the enlisted man. The novel deals with the difficulties of the campaign, the danger posed by the Japanese, the conflict between officers and regulars, each man's own internal conflicts and fears, and the aggression between squad members. Everyone, from the General down, has character flaws, and there are few depictions of lasting happy family life or of good male-female relations. Later in the book, a former general's aide, Hearn, becomes the Lieutenant of the squad, to the ire of Croft, the ruthless Sergeant previously in command, who withholds information from Lieutenant Hearn, leading to Hearn's death in combat. The novel questions the competence and motives of high-ranking officers, as well as the integrity of each of the many men depicted. The men suffer physical hardship and even casualties, but there is little mourning or kindness. There is no mercy shown to the Japanese. Occasionally, individual soldiers show sparks of sensitivity or thoughtfulness. The Naked and the Dead was Mailer's first published novel and is still his top ranked novel by sales; it established his reputation as a novelist and brought international recognition. | Filled with flashbacks, the film relates the story of Lt Hearn who is an aide to General Cummings , who treats Hearn as a son and a friend. The General believes that commanding officers ought to inspire fear in their subordinates, in order to enforce discipline. Hearn expresses distaste for these views, preferring instead that soldiers should have mutual respect for each other, regardless of rank. Hearn is eventually transferred to lead an intelligence and reconnaissance platoon on a dangerous reconnaissance mission. The platoon had originally been led by Sgt Croft , who now must serve under Hearn. Croft is a professional soldier with a reputation for cruelty. Hearn's relatively idealistic approach is contrasted with Croft's desire to win at all costs. When Hearn considers abandoning the mission due to excessive Japanese presence, Croft tricks him into underestimating the enemy. This eventually leads to several deaths in the platoon, and Hearn himself is wounded. Some of the men head back, carrying Hearn on a stretcher. Meanwhile, Croft presses onward with the remaining men. Croft is killed in action, but his men accomplish their mission, relaying vital intelligence to headquarters. Hearn's men consider leaving him to die, as they can escape faster on their own, but decide to continue carrying him despite the risk. The survivors, including Hearn, make it back to headquarters. Once there, Hearn tells the General that the men who carried him on a stretcher did so out of love, not fear. | 0.542733 | positive | 0.996275 | positive | 0.998663 |
26,790,467 | Jane Eyre | Jane Eyre | The novel begins with a ten-year-old orphan named Jane Eyre, who is living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as her uncle's dying wish. Jane's parents died of typhus. Jane’s aunt Sarah Reed does not like her and treats her worse than a servant and discourages and at times forbids her children from associating with her. She claims that Jane is not worthy of notice. She and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically and emotionally. She is unacceptably excluded from the family celebrations and had a doll to find solace in. One day Jane is locked in the red room, where her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Lowood School for Girls. Before she leaves, she stands up to Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her "aunt" again, that she'd tell everyone at Lowood how cruel Mrs. Reed was to her, and says that Mrs. Reed and her daughter, Georgiana, are deceitful. John Reed, her son, is very rude and disrespectful, even to his own mother, who he sometimes had called "old girl", and his sisters. He treats Jane worse than the others do, and she hates him above all the others. Mr. Reed had been the only one in the Reed family to be kind to Jane. The servant Abbot is also always rude to Jane. The servant Bessie is sometimes scolding and sometimes nice. Jane likes Bessie the best. Jane arrives at Lowood Institution, a charity school, the head of which (Brocklehurst) has been told that she is deceitful. During an inspection, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, and Mr. Brocklehurst, the self-righteous clergyman who runs the school, brands her a liar and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns. Miss Temple, a caring teacher, facilitates Jane's self-defense and writes to Mr. Lloyd, whose reply agrees with Jane's. Ultimately, Jane is publicly cleared of Mr. Brocklehurst's accusations. The eighty pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes. Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst's neglect and dishonesty are discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and conditions at the school improve dramatically. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to leave Lowood, like her friend and confidante Miss Temple. She advertises her services as a governess, and receives one reply. It is from Alice Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. She takes the position, teaching Adele Varens, a young French girl. While Jane is walking one night to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him to the horse. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He teases her, asking whether she bewitched his horse to make him fall. Adele is his ward, left in Mr. Rochester's care when her mother died. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company and spend many hours together. Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr. Rochester's room, on which Jane throws water, and an attack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane receives word that her aunt was calling for her, after being in much grief because her son has died. She returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month caring for her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed gives Jane a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr John Eyre, asking for her to live with him. Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon after, Jane's aunt dies, and she returns to Thornfield. Jane begins to communicate to her uncle John Eyre. After returning to Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But on a midsummer evening, he proclaims his love for Jane and proposes. As she prepares for her wedding, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to drunkenness on the part of Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason’s sister Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true, but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, his wife escapes, and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield. Jane learns that her own letter to her uncle John Eyre, which happened to be seen by Mr. Mason, who knew John Eyre and was there, was how Mr. Mason found out about the bigamous marriage. Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France, and live as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. Jane travels through England using the little money she had saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on a coach and has to sleep on the moor, trying to trade her scarf and gloves for food. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She faints on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains reserved. The sisters leave for governess jobs and St. John becomes closer with Jane. St. John discovers Jane's true identity, and astounds her by showing her a letter stating that her uncle John Eyre has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to over £1.3 million in 2011, calculated using the RPI). When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance, but have since resigned themselves to nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding her family, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come to Moor House to stay. Thinking she will make a suitable missionary's wife, St. John asks Jane to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India, but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As soon as Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes and they are married. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their first-born son. | The film begins with Jane Eyre running away from Thornfield Hall in the middle of the night and finding herself alone on the moors, in the pouring rain. She manages to reach the doorstep of Moor House, the home of Mr. St. John Rivers, a clergyman, and his two sisters. They take Jane in, saving her life. There follows a flashback, to the ten-year-old Jane Eyre, an orphan, living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, at Gateshead. Jane’s aunt, Sarah Reed, doesn't like Jane and is very cruel to her; Mrs. Reed's three children are also abusive towards her. One day, Jane is locked in the Red Room, where her uncle died, and which Jane believes is haunted. She knocks herself unconscious on the door, after a huge puff of smoke comes down the chimney. Jane's aunt sends her to Lowood School for Girls, which is run by a cruel clergyman, Mr. Brocklehurst. Mrs Reed tells him that Jane is a deceitful child and is not to be trusted. Jane tells her aunt how much she hates her and that she is a hard-hearted woman. Jane arrives at Lowood. While another pupil, Helen Burns, is being beaten, Jane accidentally drops her tray. Mr. Brocklehurst brands her a liar and makes her stand on a chair all day. Jane and Helen become close friends, but Helen later dies of typhus. Eight years later, Jane leaves Lowood and takes up a post with Alice Fairfax of Thornfield Hall. She will be a governess to Adele Varens, a young French orphan girl. When she first arrives at Thornfield, a gloomy, isolated mansion, Jane mistakes Mrs. Fairfax for her employer, but she finds out that she is only the housekeeper for her absent master. While Jane is walking into town, to post a letter, a horse passes her and throws its rider. Jane helps the gentleman to his horse. Later, back at the mansion, she learns that the horse rider is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He jokingly tells her that she must have bewitched his horse to make him fall. They gradually fall in love with each other. One night, Jane is awoken by a strange noise at her door, to find that Mr. Rochester's room is on fire, which the two of them manage to extinguish. He thanks her for saving his life and holds her hand affectionately. The next day, Rochester leaves Thornfield to visit Lady Blanche Ingram, his future wife; he brings her back to Thornfield with him a few weeks later. When a man named Richard Mason, of Spanish Town, Jamaica, shows up, Jane can see that Rochester is disturbed. That night, a scream awakens everyone. Rochester assures his guests it is just a servant's reaction to a nightmare, but after they go back to their rooms, he has Jane secretly tend a bleeding Mason, while he fetches a doctor. Rochester has the doctor take Mason away. Jane receives a letter from her old nurse, Bessie. Jane's cousin, John Reed, has committed suicide, the news of which has so shocked his mother, Sarah Reed, that it has brought on a stroke. Apparently, Mrs. Reed has been asking to see Jane. Jane returns to Gateshead, where her dying aunt shows her a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, John Eyre, asking for her to go to live with him in Madeira. He wants to adopt Jane and bequeath her at his death. Jane notices that the letter was dated three years ago. Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of typhus at Lowood School. She tells Jane that she has been cursed by her. Jane forgives her aunt and returns to Thornfield, where she begins corresponding with John Eyre. Jane informs Rochester that she must leave Thornfield, due to his impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But Rochester suddenly proclaims his love for Jane and proposes to her; they kiss passionately. However, during the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason appears, along with a lawyer, declaring that Mr. Rochester cannot marry Jane, because he is still married to Mr. Mason’s sister, Bertha; he adds that his sister is still living at Thornfield Hall. Mr. Rochester admits this is true and takes Jane to meet his wife, calling her his own demon; they find her locked away in a room at Thornfield. Rochester tells Jane that his father wanted him to marry Bertha for her money. Once they were married, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and was forced to lock her away in Thornfield; she was the one responsible for the strange happenings in the house. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for Rochester, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. After Jane regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. One night, St. John appears, informing her that her uncle, John Eyre, has died, leaving her all his property and that she is rich, to the tune of 20,000 pounds. Jane offers to share the money with St. John and his sisters, suggesting that they live together at Moor house; they agree to the offer. St. John asks Jane to marry him and go with him to India. Jane agrees to go to India with him, but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting that they travel as brother and sister, as that's how she sees their relationship. On the moor, Jane suddenly hears Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane returns to Thornfield, only to find the house a blackened ruin. She learns from Mrs. Fairfax that Rochester's wife set the house on fire and died, jumping from the roof. Jane finds Rochester, but in the rescue attempt he has lost his eyesight. Jane reunites with him and they embrace. | 0.956236 | positive | 0.99492 | positive | 0.992662 |
5,269,245 | The Purple Cloud | The World, the Flesh and the Devil | The story, a recording of a medium's meditation over the future writing of the text, details the narrator's (Adam Jeffson's) expedition to the North Pole during the 20th century on board the Boreal. Jeffson's fiancée, the Countess Clodagh, poisons her own cousin in order to secure a place on the ship for Jeffson, because the expedition was known to be one of the best ever planned. A millionaire, who died some years previously, had ordered in his will that he would pay 175,000,000 dollars to the first person standing at the North Pole. Before Jeffson leaves, he hears a sermon by a Scottish priest named Mackay, speaking against Polar research, calling the failure of all previous expeditions the will of God, and prophesying a terrible fate for those who attempt to go against God's will in this. The narrator at the same time remembers his meeting with a man who claimed that the universe is a place of strife between vague "powers", "The White" and "The Black", for dominance. Throughout the events of the polar journey, the narrator gradually discovers that his course has been, for many years, guided by these forces, all the way up to the point where he reaches the pole first. He finds a huge, clear lake of spinning water with a rock island inlaid with inscriptions. Upon seeing this, Jeffson falls into a faint. When he returns to his camp he, along with his dogs, feels nauseous after having smelled a peculiar peach-like odour. He also notices a moving purple cloud, spreading in the far heavens. During the progress of his journey, he discovers dead animals, all without the slightest sign of injury, and he gradually learns of the death of his entire crew on board the Boreal. The ship being fairly easy to operate, he sets out by himself. First he travels towards northern islands, but upon seeing dead of all various races from around the world there (the result of an exodus, escaping the death-bringing cloud) and meeting ships crowded with corpses, he comes instead to the dead continent, walking through London, searching for news of the cloud. Later, he looks for any survivors in shut land mines, but finds all barricades broken through by mad crowds. He travels the country by locomotive wherever possible, using cars for further progress. Later, he goes to the house of Arthur Machen (an actual close friend of Shiel's), whom he finds dead, having been writing a poem until the very end. There, he finds the notebook into which he writes his whole narrative. The later parts of the book describe Jeffson's descent into mad pompousness: adopting Turkish attire, declaring himself monarch and burning down cities (including Paris, Bordeaux, London and San Francisco) for pleasure. He then willingly puts his life into one task, the construction of a huge and colossal golden palace on the isle of Imbros, which he means to dedicate as an altar to God and a palace to himself. He spends seventeen years on the palace, several times abandoning the work, until its completion, when he recognizes the vanity of it. Later, while going through Constantinople, which he also burns down, he stumbles upon a twenty-year-old naked woman who is without the slightest knowledge of anything in the world. She keeps on following him, however he shuns and mistreats her, going as far as throwing her into a locked chamber with her leg bleeding, while he himself goes to sleep on cushions in another part of the house, and many times meditates on killing her. Gradually, he accepts her, but forces her to wear a veil over her mouth. But her speed at learning astonishes him. So he teaches her to speak, read, cook, fish and dress. The girl (who is unable to pronounce "r",instead saying "l") reveals that she had been living her whole previous life in a cellar below the royal palace of Turkey, and that she knew nothing of the world until she was freed when Jeffson burned down Constantinople. She becomes absorbed in the Bible and declares the humans who sought for riches as "spoiled". Jeffson struggles mightily against his growing affection towards the girl, wishing to end the human race. At the very end, when he leaves to go to England, she telephones him about the re-appearance of the Purple Cloud over France. He rushes to her, embracing her as his wife. He concludes his writing by saying that he has accepted his role and that after three weeks have passed no purple cloud has appeared. | African-American coal mine inspector Ralph Burton becomes trapped underground in a cave-in while inspecting a mine in Pennsylvania. He can hear rescuers digging towards him, but after a few days they slow down and then stop completely. Alarmed, he digs his own way out. Reaching the surface, he finds a deserted world. Some discarded newspapers provide an explanation: one proclaims "UN Retaliates For Use Of Atomic Poison", another that "Millions Flee From Cities! End Of The World". Ralph later plays tapes at a radio station that indicate that a dust of radioactive isotopes that became harmless after five days was used as a weapon. Travelling to New York City in search of other survivors, he finds the city vacant. Ralph busies himself restoring power to a building where he takes up residence. Just as the loneliness starts to become intolerable, he encounters a second survivor: Sarah Crandall , a Caucasian-American woman in her twenties. The two become fast friends, but Ralph grows distant when it becomes clear that Sarah is developing stronger feelings for him. Despite living in a post-apocalyptic world, he cannot overcome the inhibitions instilled in him in a racist American society. Ralph regularly broadcasts on the radio, hoping to contact other people. One day, he receives a signal from Europe. Things become vastly more complicated when an ill, white Benson Thacker arrives by boat. Ralph and Sarah nurse him back to health, but once he recovers, Ben sets his sights on Sarah and sees Ralph as a rival. Ralph is torn by conflicting emotions. He avoids Sarah as much as possible, to give Ben every opportunity to win her affections, but cannot quite bring himself to leave the city. Ben finally grows tired of the whole situation, realizing he stands little chance with Sarah as long as Ralph remains nearby. He warns Ralph that the next time he sees him, he will try to kill him. The two armed men hunt each other through the empty streets. Finally, Ralph passes by the United Nations headquarters, climbs the steps in Ralph Bunche Park, and reads the inscription "They shall beat their swords into plowshares. And their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more", from the Book of Isaiah 2:4. He throws down his rifle and goes unarmed to confront Ben, who in turn finds himself unable to shoot his foe. Defeated, he starts walking away. Sarah appears. When Ralph starts to turn away from her, she makes him take her hand; then she calls to Ben and gives him her other hand. Together, the three walk down the street to build a new future together. The film ends not with "The End" but with "The Beginning". | 0.408578 | positive | 0.989818 | positive | 0.991485 |
558,970 | Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH | The Secret of NIMH | Mrs. Frisby's son, Timothy, is ill just as the farmer Mr. Fitzgibbon begins preparation for spring ploughing in the field where the Frisby family lives. Normally she would move her family, but Timothy would not survive the cold trip to their summer home. Mrs. Frisby obtains medicine from her friend Mr. Ages, the older white mouse. On the return journey, she saves the life of Jeremy, a young crow, from Dragon, the farmer's cat - the same cat who had killed her husband, Jonathan. Jeremy suggests she seek help in moving Timothy from an owl who dwells in the forest. Jeremy flies Mrs. Frisby to the owl's tree, but the owl says he can't help until he finds out that she is the widow of Jonathan Frisby. He suggests that Mrs. Frisby seek help from the rats who live in a rosebush near her. Mrs. Frisby discovers the rats have human-level intelligence, with a literate and mechanized society. They have technology such as elevators. They have tapped the electricity grid to provide lighting and heating, and have acquired other human skills, such as storing food for the winter. Their leader, Nicodemus, tells Mrs. Frisby of the rats' capture by scientists working for a laboratory located at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the subsequent experiments that the humans performed on the rats, which increased the rats' intelligence to the point of being able to read, write, and operate complicated machines, as well as enhancing their longevity and strength. This increased intelligence and strength allowed them to escape from the NIMH laboratories and migrate to their present location. Jonathan Frisby and Mr. Ages were the only two survivors of a group of eight mice who had been part of the experiments at NIMH, and made the rats' escape possible. Out of respect for Jonathan, Nicodemus agrees to help Mrs. Frisby's family. The rats move her house to a location safe from the plough. The rats are preparing "The Plan," which is to abandon their lifestyle of dependence on humans, which some rats regard as theft, for a new, independent farming colony. Before Mrs. Frisby's arrival, a group of seven rats led by a rat named Jenner left the colony because they disagreed with "The Plan", and are presumed to have died in an accident at a nearby hardware store. This incident has attracted the attention of a group of men, who never identify themselves, and they have offered to exterminate the rat colony on Fitzgibbon's land free of charge for him. To move the house, the rats have to drug Dragon, the farmer's cat, as it is too dangerous to work in the open without any place to hide. However, Mr. Ages has a broken leg and cannot dash to Dragon's bowl to put in the drug. Since the other rats are too big to fit into the hole in the wall to enter the house, Mrs. Frisby volunteers to go. Unfortunately, she is caught by the family's son, Billy, who puts her in a cage. At night, Justin comes to save her and manages to get her out of the cage. They plan the house move. The successful house move allows the mouse family to remain while Timothy recovers before moving to their summer home. Mrs. Frisby overhears the Fitzgibbons discussing the men during her captivity and reports back to the rats. Thanks to her warning, the rats have time to plan their escape. | Mrs. Brisby , a shy and timid field mouse, lives in a cinderblock with her children in a field on the Fitzgibbons' farm. She is preparing to move her family out of the field they live in as plowing time approaches; however, her son Timothy has fallen ill. She visits Mr. Ages , another mouse and old friend of her late husband, Jonathan, who diagnoses Timothy with pneumonia and provides her with some medicine from his laboratory. Mr. Ages warns her that Timothy cannot go outside for at least three weeks or he will die. On her way back home she encounters Jeremy , a clumsy but compassionate crow. They both narrowly escape being eaten by the Fitzgibbons' cat Dragon. The next day, Mrs. Brisby discovers to her horror that Farmer Fitzgibbons has started spring plowing early. Although Auntie Shrew helps her disable his tractor, Mrs. Brisby knows she must come up with another plan. With the help of Jeremy, she visits the Great Owl , a wise creature living in the nearby woods, to ask for help. He tells her to visit a mysterious group of rats who live beneath a rose bush on the farm and ask for Nicodemus. Mrs. Brisby enters the rose bush and makes her way down to the rats' home, where she is amazed to see their use of electricity and other human technology. She meets Nicodemus , the wise and mystical leader of the rats, Justin , a kind and friendly rat who is the Captain of the Guards, and a ruthless, power-hungry rat named Jenner . From Nicodemus she learns that many years ago her late husband, along with the rats and Mr. Ages, were once part of a series of experiments at a place known as NIMH . The experiments had boosted their intelligence to human level, allowing them to easily escape. However, the rats have concocted "The Plan", which is to leave the farm and live without stealing electricity from humans. Nicodemus then gives Mrs. Brisby an amulet called 'The Stone', that gives magical power when its wearer is courageous. Because of her husband's prior relationship with the rats, they agree to help Mrs. Brisby move her home out of the path of the plow. She volunteers to drug Dragon, so that they can complete the move safely. Only mice are small enough to fit through the hole leading into the house; Jonathan was killed by Dragon in a previous attempt, while Mr. Ages broke his leg in another. Later that night, she successfully puts the drug into the cat's food dish, but the Fitzgibbons' son Billy catches her and convinces his mother to let him keep her as a pet. While trapped in a birdcage, she overhears a telephone conversation between Farmer Fitzgibbons and NIMH and learns that NIMH intends to come to the farm to exterminate the rats the next day. She manages to escape from the cage and runs off to warn Justin. Meanwhile, the rats are in the process of moving the Brisby home using a rope and pulley system during a thunderstorm. However, Jenner, who is strongly opposed to The Plan and wishes to remain in the rose bush, sabotages the ropes with his hesitant accomplice Sullivan , causing the cinder block to fall and crush Nicodemus, killing him and making it look like an accident. Mrs. Brisby arrives and tries to convince the rats that NIMH is coming and that they must leave immediately, but Jenner, angered by her claims, attacks her and attempts to take the amulet from her neck. Alerted to the situation by Sullivan, Justin rushes to Mrs. Brisby's aid; a sword duel between Justin and Jenner ensues, ending with a mortally wounded Sullivan killing Jenner and saving Justin's life. Mrs. Brisby suddenly realizes that the house is sinking in the mud it landed in. Despite the best efforts of the rats, they are unable to raise it from the muck. However, Mrs. Brisby's will to save her children gives power to the amulet, which she uses to lift the house out of the mud and move it to safety from the plow. The next morning, the rats have already gone to Thorn Valley with Justin as their new leader and Timothy has begun to recover. Jeremy also finds "Miss Right", an equally clumsy crow, and the two fly away together. | 0.865772 | positive | 0.99199 | positive | 0.995481 |
750,694 | Stuart Little | Stuart Little 2 | The story is episodic. First we learn of Stuart's birth to a family in New York City and how the family adapts, socially and structurally, to having such a small son. He has an adventure in which he gets caught in a window-blind while exercising, and Snowbell, the family cat, places Stuart's hat and cane outside a mouse hole, panicking the family. He is accidentally released by his brother George. Then two chapters describe Stuart's participation in a boat race in Central Park. A bird named Margalo is adopted by the Little family, and Stuart protects her from their malevolent cat. The bird repays his kindness by saving Stuart when he is trapped in a garbage can and shipped out for disposal at sea. Margalo flees when she is warned that one of Snowbell's friends intends to eat her, and Stuart strikes out to find her and bring her home. A friendly dentist, who is also the owner of the boat Stuart had raced in Central Park, gives him use of a gasoline-powered model car, and Stuart departs to see the country. He works for a while as a substitute teacher and comes to the town of Ames Crossing, where he meets a girl named Harriet Ames who is no taller than he is. They go on one date, and then Stuart leaves town. As the book ends, he has not yet found Margalo, but feels confident he will do so. | Three years after the first film, Stuart Little questions his ability after a grueling soccer match alongside George, who kicked him with a soccer ball. He becomes even more downhearted after George's toy airplane gets broken in an accident because of him. However, Stuart's father, Frederick Little, tells him that for every Little, there is a "silver lining", a good thing that comes out of an apparently bad situation. On his way home from school, Stuart saves a female canary named Margalo who is being pursued by a peregrine falcon, and they become friends. But she is secretly working with Falcon to case and steal from households. When he presses her to find and take an object of value, or lose the sanctuary he promised her, she can't seem to concentrate on her assignment, as she is beginning to fall in love with Stuart. Falcon eventually loses patience and threatens to kill him if she doesn't deliver. Worried for his safety, she takes Eleanor Little's diamond ring. When the Littles see that the ring is missing, they think it has fallen down the sink. Stuart offers to be lowered down the drain on a string to get it, and nearly succeeds. When it breaks Margalo saves him, and his thanks to her only makes her feel even more guilty, so she decides to leave. When he can't find her, he assumes she has been kidnapped - and that Falcon is somehow involved. He leaves on a quest to rescue her with the household's reluctant cat Snowbell, but not before setting up a plan with George. Stuart and Snowbell enlist the help of Monty, who tells them that Falcon's lair is at the disused observation deck of the nearby Pishkin Building. They use balloons to get Stuart to the top, where he finds out that Margalo is Falcon's slave, and was forced to take the ring. He tries to save her, but Falcon captures him, and drops him in a garbage truck. Unaware of this, Margalo tells Snowbell that Falcon killed Stuart. On a garbage scow where he has ended up, Stuart blames himself for everything, and has almost lost all hope. Suddenly, he finds George's broken plane, fixes it up, and flies to save Margalo, who, having been freed by Snowbell, just fled from Falcon. The Littles, who have discovered his absence and whereabouts follow him by taxi as he begins an aerial adventure through the park, with Margalo at his side. They lose Falcon, but he catches up and makes an attempt to kill Stuart, when he detaches the plane's upper wing, damaging the main one and causing it to enter a steep nose dive, which fails when Stuart recovers from the dive, nearly missing the Littles. Unable to run from Falcon, he lets Margalo off. He turns and flies the damaged plane in a kamikaze run while Falcon goes into an attack dive. He uses Mrs. Little's ring to temporarily blind him, and jumps out using a bandana as a parachute. The kamikaze attack works and Falcon is struck head on and defeated. Although he survives the attack, he falls out of the sky and lands in a garbage can that Monty is scavenging in, and is presumably eaten by him, but not before Stuart falls when his parachute is sliced apart by the propeller of the shattered plane, and then is rescued by Margalo. Stuart is congratulated by his family, and Margalo, who gives Mrs. Little her ring back, and Snowbell reunites with them as well. That evening, Margalo leaves with the other birds to migrate south, but not before saying goodbye to her friends. Stuart says the "silver lining" is that she'll be back in the spring, and his baby sister, Martha, says her first words: "Bye bye, birdie.", as the family head inside to the comfort of their home. | 0.683205 | positive | 0.993985 | positive | 0.9966 |
21,013,036 | Captain Blood: His Odyssey | Captain Pirate | The protagonist is the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, a fictional Irish physician who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. The book opens with him attending to his geraniums while the town prepares to fight for the Duke of Monmouth. He wants no part in the rebellion, but while attending to some of the rebels wounded at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Peter is arrested. During the Bloody Assizes, he is convicted by the infamous Judge Jeffreys of treason on the grounds that "if any person be in actual rebellion against the King, and another person—who really and actually was not in rebellion—does knowingly receive, harbour, comfort, or succour him, such a person is as much a traitor as he who indeed bore arms." The sentence for treason is death by hanging, but King James II, for purely financial reasons, has the sentence for Blood and other convicted rebels commuted to transportation to the Caribbean, where they are to be sold into slavery. Upon arrival on the island of Barbados, he is bought by Colonel Bishop, initially for work in the Colonel's sugar plantations but later hired out by Bishop when Blood's skills as a physician prove superior to those of the local doctors. When a Spanish force attacks and raids the town of Bridgetown, Blood escapes with a number of other convict-slaves (including former shipmaster Jeremy Pitt, the one-eyed giant Edward Wolverstone, former gentleman Nathaniel Hagthorpe, former Royal Navy petty officer Nicholas Dyke and former Royal Navy master gunner Ned Ogle), captures the Spaniards' ship and sails away to become one of the most successful pirates/buccaneers in the Caribbean, hated and feared by the Spanish. After the Glorious Revolution, Blood is pardoned, and as a reward for saving the colony of Jamaica from the French ends up as its governor. | Captain Blood is pardoned by the Crown for his crimes against Spain on the Spanish Main. By 1690 he is living in the West Indies on his plantation where he practices medicine and is to be married to Isabella. His new life is put in danger when he is arrested on a piracy charge after somebody raids the island making him look guilty. To prove otherwise he has to sail again.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044475/plotsummary/ | 0.561645 | positive | 0.989752 | positive | 0.9963 |
1,335,380 | Exodus | Exodus | Egypt's Pharaoh, fearful of the Israelites' numbers, orders that all newborn boys be thrown into the Nile. A Levite woman saves her baby by setting him adrift on the river in an ark of bulrushes. Pharaoh's daughter finds the child, names him Moses, and brings him up as her own. But Moses is aware of his origins, and one day, when grown, he kills an Egyptian overseer who is beating a Hebrew slave and has to flee into Midian. There he marries the daughter of Jethro the priest of Midian, and encounters God in a burning bush. Moses asks God for his name: God replies: "I AM that I AM." God tells Moses to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrews into Canaan, the land promised to Abraham. Moses returns to Egypt, where God again reveals his name Yahweh to him. Yahweh instructs Moses to appear before the pharaoh and inform him of God's demand that he let God's people go. Moses and his brother Aaron do so, but Pharaoh refuses. Yahweh causes a series of ten plagues to strike Egypt, but whenever Pharaoh begins to relent God causes him to harden his heart. # Blood - The waters of Egypt are turned into blood. All the fish die and water becomes undrinkable. # Frogs - Hordes of frogs swarm the land of Egypt. # Gnats or Lice - Masses of gnats or lice invade Egyptian homes and plague the Egyptian people. # Wild Animals - Wild animals invade Egyptian homes and lands, causing destruction and wrecking havoc. # Pestilence - Egyptian livestock are struck down with disease. # Boils - The Egyptian people are plagued by painful boils that cover their bodies. # Hail - Severe weather destroys Egyptian crops and beats down upon them. # Locusts - Locusts swarm Egypt and eat any remaining crops and food. # Darkness - Darkness covers the land of Egypt for three days. # Death of the Firstborn - The firstborn of every Egyptian family is killed. Even the firstborn of Egyptian animals die. God instructs Moses' to have his people mark their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificed lamb to indicate that they would be "passed over" by this plague, hence this has become the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Exodus begins. The Israelites, enumerated at 603,550 able-bodied adult males (not counting Levites) and their families, with their flocks and herds, set out for the mountain of God. Yahweh causes Pharaoh to change his mind about allowing the Israelites to depart; he pursues them, but God destroys the Egyptian army at the crossing of the Red Sea (Yam Suf) and the Israelites celebrate Yahweh's victory. The desert proves arduous, and the Israelites complain and long for Egypt, but God provides manna and miraculous water for them. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where Moses' father-in-law Jethro visits Moses; at his suggestion Moses appoints judges over Israel. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where God asks whether they will agree to be his people. They accept. The people gather at the foot of the mountain, and with thunder and lightning, fire and clouds of smoke, and the sound of trumpets, and the trembling of the mountain, God appears on the peak, and the people see the cloud and hear the voice [or possibly "sound"] of God. Moses and Aaron are told to ascend the mountain. God pronounces the Ten Commandments (the Ethical Decalogue) in the hearing of all Israel. Moses goes up the mountain into the presence of God, who pronounces the Covenant Code (a detailed code of ritual and civil law), and promises Canaan to them if they obey. Moses comes down the mountain and writes down God's words and the people agree to keep them. God calls Moses up the mountain together with Aaron and the elders of Israel, and they all feast in the presence of God. God calls Moses up the mountain to receive a set of stone tablets containing the law, and he and Joshua go up, leaving Aaron in charge. God gave Moses instructions for the construction of the tabernacle so that God could dwell permanently among his chosen people, as well as instructions for the priestly vestments, the altar and its appurtenances, the procedure to be used to ordain the priests, and the daily sacrifices to be offered. Aaron was appointed as the first high priest, with the priesthood to be hereditary in his line. God gave Moses the two tables of stone containing the words of the ten commandments spoken to the people in the day of the assembly, written with the "finger of God". While Moses is with God, Aaron makes a golden calf, which the people worship. God informs Moses of their apostasy and threatens to kill them all, but relents when Moses pleads for them. Moses comes down from the mountain, smashes the stone tablets in anger, and commands the Levites to massacre the unfaithful Israelites. God commands Moses to make two new tablets on which He will personally write the words that were on the first tablets. Moses ascends the mountain, God dictates the Ten Commandments (the Ritual Decalogue), and Moses writes them on the tablets. Moses descends from the mountain, and his face is transformed, so that from that time onwards he has to hide his face with a veil. Moses assembles the Hebrews and repeats to them the commandments he has received from God, which are to keep the Sabbath and to construct the Tabernacle. "And all the construction of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting was finished, and the children of Israel did according to everything that God had commanded Moses", and from that time God dwelt in the Tabernacle and ordered the travels of the Hebrews. | The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 as well as events dealing with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews - Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who won't let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan , a Hagannah rebel who previously was a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Meanwhile, Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen , a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for her father, from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to take young Karen to America so that she can begin a new life there. During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up, and Karen's young beau Dov Landau proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist underground network. Dov goes to an Irgun address, only to get caught in a police trap. After he is freed, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben Canaan's uncle Akiva . Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and that he was raped by Nazis. Due to his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak , who heads the mainstream Jewish Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the Irgun will damage his efforts, especially since the British have put a price on Akiva's head. When Dov successfully bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism, leading to dozens of fatalities, Akiva is arrested and sentenced to hang. Meanwhile, Karen's father has been found, but he is ill in hospital in Jerusalem and does not recognize her. Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor at which Ari was raised. An actual kibbutz named Dafna is located near the present Lebanese border. Kitty and Ari have fallen in love, but uncle Akiva's imprisonment is an obstacle, and Ari must devise a plan to free the prisoners. Dov Landau, who had managed to elude the arresting soldiers, turns himself in so that he can use his knowledge of explosives to rig the Acre prison and plan an escape route. All goes according to plan; hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, manage to escape. For the historical incident on which this is based, see Acre Prison break. Akiva is fatally shot by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escaped prisoners. Ari is also badly wounded. He makes his way to Abu Yesha, an Arab village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, is the mukhtar. Kitty is brought there and treats his wound. An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and kill its villagers. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, and he manages to get the younger children of the town out in a mass overnight escape. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of a new nation, finds Dov and proclaims her love for him; Dov assures her that they will marry someday. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and killed by a gang of Arab militiamen. Dov discovers her lifeless body the following morning. That same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by Arab extremists with a Star of David symbol carved on his body. Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the Jewish burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace, not only in death but also in life. The movie then ends with Ari, Kitty, and a Palmach contingent entering trucks and heading toward battle. | 0.365575 | positive | 0.993447 | positive | 0.983949 |
1,335,380 | Exodus | Exodus | In the year 2100, 15-year-old Mara lives on the island of Wing, with fellow villagers. The melting ice cap has caused the shoreline to rise and they are now almost out of land. Through her cyberwizz, a laptop-like gadget, she navigates through information to find where they can go. She meets a mysterious creature called Fox, who demands to know where she is. Mara is excited because beyond him she can see a new world, but she loses connection before she can learn more. Mara tells the villagers about New Mungo, a place where they can go which is a new land raised high above sea level. They eventually leave in fishing boats, but are forced to leave behind the elder generation who couldn't part from their home. Once they reach New Mungo, they realize it is actually not a welcoming place; a huge outer wall surrounds the whole sky-city. They then are forced to join a refugee boat camp and some of them die there, including Mara's best friend Gail. The Sky Police, from New Mungo, occasionally take the strong up to the city in a procedure called Pickings, but Mara has a bad feeling about this. Mara learns all her family drowned in the perilous journey to New Mungo, and attempts to commit suicide. When she realizes her will to live is too strong, Mara manages, with the help of an urchin she names Wing (after her drowned island), to enter the city gates. There she meets the people of the Netherworld (a strange twilight place in the shadow of the sky city, with the roofs of the drowned city of Glasgow jutting above the sea), who are known as the treenesters. They immediately recognise her as their messiah, the Face in the Stone, from an old prophecy called the Stone Telling. She lives with them for some time, exploring and helping them to survive. One day, while she is with her friend Gorbals (a treenester) in the forbidden university, Gorbals and Wing are taken by the Sky Police, along with many sea urchins (a wild breed of children without language, but hairy bodies and webbed hands) are slaughtered. Determined to save her friends, she takes the uniform of a police woman that the police accidentally killed in the massacre and sneaks up to the city. She is overwhelmed by its superficial beauty and shallow entertainments. At first, she needed some help with searching. Doll, a computer worker, helps her with the computers. While searching through the Noos, a virtual, evoluted version of the world wide web, she meets Fox. She discovers it is David, the quiet, hard-working grandson of Caledon, creator of the Sky City and the one who allowed many people to drown if they couldn't pass an intelligence test to allow them entrance to the new world. Together, they organize an escape plan that involves David crashing the Noos with a 20th century virus, allowing Mara to free the slaves and then leave the city unnoticed. The only catch is that David would not be able to leave with Mara, with whom he has fallen in love, because he must stay to begin a rebellion against the unfair New World. While executing her plan, Mara fatally stabs Tony Rex, a man she believes is a spy, with an ancient bone dagger, and then rescues Gorbals, Wing and all the people chosen in the Pickings, who have become slaves. They slide down air vents into the Netherworld and board a supply ship. They break free of the city walls, also saving the people in the refugee boat camp and the Netherworld. The boats are programmed to Greenland, a place that is thought to have risen high above the water like a cork. Fox also slides down the air vents, to begin his rebellion outside the reach of his grandfather. The book finishes with Mara wondering how far people will go to save themselves, and if Caledon was right to save a special few. The book ends with the hope that the refugees will reach safety in Greenland. A screenplay for this book is currently under way. The movie adaptation of Exodus is not yet scheduled for release. | The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 as well as events dealing with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews - Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who won't let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan , a Hagannah rebel who previously was a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Meanwhile, Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen , a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for her father, from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to take young Karen to America so that she can begin a new life there. During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up, and Karen's young beau Dov Landau proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist underground network. Dov goes to an Irgun address, only to get caught in a police trap. After he is freed, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben Canaan's uncle Akiva . Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and that he was raped by Nazis. Due to his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak , who heads the mainstream Jewish Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the Irgun will damage his efforts, especially since the British have put a price on Akiva's head. When Dov successfully bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism, leading to dozens of fatalities, Akiva is arrested and sentenced to hang. Meanwhile, Karen's father has been found, but he is ill in hospital in Jerusalem and does not recognize her. Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor at which Ari was raised. An actual kibbutz named Dafna is located near the present Lebanese border. Kitty and Ari have fallen in love, but uncle Akiva's imprisonment is an obstacle, and Ari must devise a plan to free the prisoners. Dov Landau, who had managed to elude the arresting soldiers, turns himself in so that he can use his knowledge of explosives to rig the Acre prison and plan an escape route. All goes according to plan; hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, manage to escape. For the historical incident on which this is based, see Acre Prison break. Akiva is fatally shot by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escaped prisoners. Ari is also badly wounded. He makes his way to Abu Yesha, an Arab village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, is the mukhtar. Kitty is brought there and treats his wound. An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and kill its villagers. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, and he manages to get the younger children of the town out in a mass overnight escape. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of a new nation, finds Dov and proclaims her love for him; Dov assures her that they will marry someday. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and killed by a gang of Arab militiamen. Dov discovers her lifeless body the following morning. That same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by Arab extremists with a Star of David symbol carved on his body. Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the Jewish burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace, not only in death but also in life. The movie then ends with Ari, Kitty, and a Palmach contingent entering trucks and heading toward battle. | 0.407762 | positive | 0.993447 | positive | 0.996037 |
1,335,380 | Exodus | Exodus | Advanced aliens depart their homeworld in order to flee their stars impending nova. Decades after the Terran Civil War the aliens arrive and attempt to colonize an inhabited human world. They are not able to recognize the intelligence of the planet's inhabitants, because they do not recognize human forms of communication as communication. The miscommunication leads to warfare, where these new aliens throw themselves at their opponents with suicidal fury. The old "anti Bug" alliance partners join together to fight off this new threat. | The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 as well as events dealing with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews - Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who won't let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan , a Hagannah rebel who previously was a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Meanwhile, Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen , a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for her father, from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to take young Karen to America so that she can begin a new life there. During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up, and Karen's young beau Dov Landau proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist underground network. Dov goes to an Irgun address, only to get caught in a police trap. After he is freed, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben Canaan's uncle Akiva . Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and that he was raped by Nazis. Due to his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak , who heads the mainstream Jewish Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the Irgun will damage his efforts, especially since the British have put a price on Akiva's head. When Dov successfully bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism, leading to dozens of fatalities, Akiva is arrested and sentenced to hang. Meanwhile, Karen's father has been found, but he is ill in hospital in Jerusalem and does not recognize her. Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor at which Ari was raised. An actual kibbutz named Dafna is located near the present Lebanese border. Kitty and Ari have fallen in love, but uncle Akiva's imprisonment is an obstacle, and Ari must devise a plan to free the prisoners. Dov Landau, who had managed to elude the arresting soldiers, turns himself in so that he can use his knowledge of explosives to rig the Acre prison and plan an escape route. All goes according to plan; hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, manage to escape. For the historical incident on which this is based, see Acre Prison break. Akiva is fatally shot by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escaped prisoners. Ari is also badly wounded. He makes his way to Abu Yesha, an Arab village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, is the mukhtar. Kitty is brought there and treats his wound. An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and kill its villagers. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, and he manages to get the younger children of the town out in a mass overnight escape. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of a new nation, finds Dov and proclaims her love for him; Dov assures her that they will marry someday. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and killed by a gang of Arab militiamen. Dov discovers her lifeless body the following morning. That same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by Arab extremists with a Star of David symbol carved on his body. Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the Jewish burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace, not only in death but also in life. The movie then ends with Ari, Kitty, and a Palmach contingent entering trucks and heading toward battle. | 0.32103 | positive | 0.993447 | positive | 0.992266 |
5,444,213 | The Winter of Our Discontent | The Winter of Our Discontent | Feeling the pressure from his family and acquaintances to achieve more than his current station, Ethan considers letting his normally high standards of conduct take a brief respite in order to attain a better social and economic position. Ethan's decision to gain wealth and power is influenced by criticisms and advice from people around him. His acquaintance Margie urges him to take bribes; the bank manager (whose ancestors Ethan blames for his family's fall from grace) urges him to be more ruthless. Ethan's friend Joey, a bank teller, even gives Ethan a rundown on how to rob a bank and get away with it. On discovering that the current store owner, Italian immigrant Alfio Marullo, might be an illegal immigrant, he places an anonymous tip with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After Marullo is taken into custody, he transfers ownership of the store to Ethan through the actions of the very government agent that caught him. Marullo gives Ethan the store because he believes Ethan is so honest and deserving. Ethan also considers, plans, and mentally rehearses a bank robbery, stopping short of carrying it out only because of external circumstances. Eventually, he manages to become powerful in the town by taking possession of a strip of land needed by local businessmen to build an airport; he gets the land from Danny Taylor, the town drunkard and Ethan's childhood best friend, through a will made out by Danny and slipped under the door of the store. The will was drawn up without any spoken agreement some time after Ethan gave Danny money under the auspices of sending Danny to receive treatment for alcoholism. Danny assures him that drunks are liars and that he will just drink the money away, and this is indeed confirmed when Danny is found dead with empty bottles of whiskey and sleeping pills. In this way, Ethan gets to a position where he's able to control the behind-the-scenes dealings of the corrupt town businessmen and politicians. Ethan seems to accept what he has done but is confident that he will not become corrupted by it. He considers that while he had to kill men in the war, he never became a murderer thereafter. When he discovers that his son won a nationwide essay contest by plagiarizing classic American authors and orators, a conversation ensues with his son in which his son denies any kind of guilty feelings. The son maintains that everyone cheats and lies and that this is in fact the way of things. Perhaps after seeing his own moral decay in his son's actions, and experiencing the guilt of Marullo's deportation and especially the death of Danny, Ethan sets out to commit suicide. His daughter, intuitively understanding his intent, slips a family talisman into his pocket during a long embrace. When Ethan decides to commit the act, he reaches into his pocket to find razorblades and instead comes across the talisman. As the tide comes into the alcove in which he has sequestered himself, he struggles to get out in order to return the talisman to his daughter, in hopes that the light does not go out of her. | The story is about a Long Islander named Ethan Allen Hawley who works as a clerk in a grocery store he used to own, but is now owned by an Italian immigrant . His wife and kids want more than what he can give them because of his lowly position. He finds out that the immigrant that owns his store is an illegal alien, turns him into the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and receives the store by deceiving the immigrant. Ethan continues to have feelings of depression and anxiety brought about by his uneasy relationship with his wife and kids, risky flirtation with Margie Young-Hunt , and consideration of a bank robbery scheme. | 0.580962 | positive | 0.996053 | positive | 0.981226 |
217,800 | Women in Love | Women in Love | Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are two sisters living in the Midlands of England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich. The four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun eventually begins a love affair with Gerald. All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of his youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her, while her parents are asleep in another room. Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The four vacation in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by the internal violence of his own self, tries to strangle Gudrun. Before he has killed her, however, he realizes that this is not what he wants--he leaves Gudrun and Loerke and on his skis climbs ever upward on the mountains, eventually slipping into a snow valley where he falls asleep, a frozen sleep from which he never awakens. The impact on Birkin of Gerald's death is profound; the novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death, with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her--her for the perfect relationship with a woman, and Gerald for the perfect relationship with a man. | In 1920 in the Midlands mining town of Beldover, two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen , discuss marriage on their way to watch the wedding of Laura Crich , daughter of the town's wealthy mine owner ([[Alan Webb , to Tibby Lupton , a naval officer. At the village's church each sister is especially fascinated by a particular member of the wedding party – Gudrun by Laura's brother Gerald and Ursula by Gerald's best friend Rupert Birkin . Ursula is a school teacher and Rupert is a school inspector; she remembers his coming to her classroom and interrupting her botany lesson to discourse on the sexual nature of the catkin. The four are later brought together at a house party at the estate of Hermione Roddice , a rich woman whose relationship with Rupert is falling apart. When Hermione devises as an entertainment for the guest a dance in the style of the Russian ballet, Rupert becomes impatient with her pretensions and tells the pianist to play some ragtime. This sets off spontaneous dancing among the whole group and angers Hermione. When Birkin follows her into the next room, she smashes a glass paperweight against his head, and he staggers outside. He discards his clothes and wanders through the woods. Later, at the Criches' annual picnic, to which most of the town is invited, Ursula and Gudrun find a secluded spot, and Gudrun dances before some Highland cattle while Ursula sings "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". When Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun's behaviour impossible and ridiculous, and then says he loves her. "That's one way of putting it", she replies. Ursula and Birkin wander away discussing death and love and end up making love. The day ends in tragedy. Laura and Tibby drown while swimming in the lake: she pulls him under. During one of Gerald and Rupert's discussions, Rupert suggest Japanese style wrestling, and they strip off their clothes and wrestle in the firelight. Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other implicitly, but Gerald cannot understand Rupert's idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man as well as an emotional and physical union with a woman. Ursula and Birkin decide to marry while Gudrun and Gerald continue to see each other. One evening, emotionally exhausted after his father's illness and death, Gerald sneaks into the Brangwen house to spend the night with Gudrun and leaves at dawn. Later, after Ursula and Birkin's marriage, Gerald suggest that the four of them go to the Alps for Christmas. At their inn in the Alps, Gudrun irritates Gerald with her interest in Loerke , a homosexual German sculptor. An artist herself, Gudrun is fascinated with Loerke's idea that brutality is necessary to create art. While Gerald grows increasingly jealous and angry, Gudrun only derides and ridicules him. Finally he can endure it no longer. After attempting to strangle her, he trudges off into the snow to die. Rupert and Ursula and Gudrun return to their cottage in England where he grieves for his dead friend. Ursula and Rupert discuss love; you can't have two kinds of love. Why should you? Ursula says. "It seems as if I can't" Rupert responds, "yet I wanted it ". | 0.835918 | positive | 0.980409 | positive | 0.997638 |
9,210,380 | Felidae | Felidae | The novel begins with Francis, a tomcat, moving to a new neighborhood with his owner. Francis soon finds the corpse of Sascha. Bluebeard, a deformed local cat, is convinced that humans are responsible for the death and other recent murders. Francis disagrees with this assessment, convinced that the slash on Sascha's neck was caused by teeth. The discovery of the body marks the start of terrible nightmares that inflict Francis and intertwine him with the murders. Tomcat Deeply Purple is the next victim; while visiting the body, Francis notices that he, like Sascha, was sexually aroused before death. That night, Francis hears yowling from the uninhabited upper floors of his house. He finds a strange religious meeting taking place, in which a cat named Joker preaches about a cat known as Claudandus, who allegedly sacrificed himself and ascended to Heaven. Meanwhile, cats jump into frayed wires and electrocute themselves. Francis accidentally alerts Joker to his presence and is chased by the cult members. He escapes and falls through a skylight. He then meets Felicity, a blind Turkish Angora who has heard the murderer and his victims shortly before their death. Additionally, Felicity says that she sees images in her mind alongside feelings of fear and pain. Francis believes that the images are actually memories retained from childhood. After leaving Felicity's home, Bluebeard takes Francis to Pascal, an intelligent Havana Brown who has learned to use his owner's computer. With it, he has compiled a list of the local cats. Francis learns from Pascal that Felicity has been reportedly murdered. Francis experiences another nightmare that night, inspired by Pascal's words that Felidae deserve admiration and the large portrait of Gregor Mendel in Pascal's house. Unnerved, Francis hunts for rats and finds the journal of Julius Preterius, a scientist who used the house as a laboratory years prior. Francis learns that Preterius was attempting to create a flesh-binding glue with assistants Ziebold and Gray. The glue is unsuccessful, and, desperate, Preterius uses the glue on a stray cat. Due to a genetic abnormality, the glue seals the wounds on the cat. Preterius names the cat Claudandus (one who must or should be sealed) and plans to breed him and replicate the mutation. Preterius descends into madness, but continues with his project long after funding ceases. The journal's last entry reveals that Preterius had heard Claudandus speak to him and was planning to free the cat. Francis later encounters the strange Persian Jesaja, who alludes to escaping from Preterius' lab and proclaims to be the Guardian of the Dead. He lives in ancient catacombs, keeping a tomb housing hundreds of cat skeletons. Jesaja says that he serves "the Prophet" (Claudandus), who delivers corpses for him to guard. That night, Francis experiences another dream, this time involving a white cat who states he is Felidae. He is surrounded by hundreds of others, many of whom Francis recognizes. The white cat invites Francis to join them on a journey to Africa. Francis wakes and answers the call of a female in heat. He inquires about her breed, but she states that her breed has no name and is both old and new. He mates with her and learns from Bluebeard that her race is more wild than standard cats. Francis, Pascal, and Bluebeard continue to research the murders. Their new data suggests that the murderer has been active since the demise of Preterius and has killed approximately 450 cats. Joker has gone missing and cannot be located. The three present this information to the local cats and Pascal presents a logical explanation that places the blame on Joker. The crowd is placated, but Francis is not; he visits Joker's home. He finds the cat dead among porcelain statues. Unlike previous murders, there appears to have been no struggle. Francis returns home and reads an encyclopedia entry on genetics, which mentions Mendel as the founder of modern genetics through his experiments on plant hybridization. He realizes that the new-old cats are being specifically bred to bear attributes of their ancient Egyptian ancestors. Francis immediately begins to connect his dreams to the murders, and makes sense of Felicity's past comments: a cat had been attempting to keep standard males from breeding with the special females, and killed them after they failed to comply. He also recalls that Pascal's owner idolizes Mendel, that Pascal offhandedly mentioned his owner's name being Ziebold, and that Pascal spoke of Felidae with yearning. Francis concludes that Pascal is Claudandus, and goes to confront him. He finds a program on the computer that catalogs the new breed's genetics and breeding, as well as the cats killed to keep from contaminating the lines. Pascal reveals himself, explaining that he harbors a deep hatred of humanity due to the suffering inflicted upon him by Preterius. He had killed Preterius and set free the other cats before being rescued by Ziebold. Pascal had wanted Francis to take over the program, hoping that the cats would eventually overthrow the human race. Francis and Pascal begin to battle, with Pascal destroying the computer and setting the house afire in the process. Pascal dies after Francis slits his throat. In the epilogue, Francis states that he never told any others the true identity of the murderer and that Joker's name was eventually cleared. Jesaja was coaxed out of the catacombs and found a home with a bartender. Francis muses that Pascal had succumbed to hatred and lost his innocence and, in the process, became human. He states that all animals have the ability to lose their innocence and humans, who descended from animals, still carry a hint of innocence. The novel ends with Francis urging the reader to never cease believing in a world where animals and humans coexist, including those "more sublime and intelligent than the latter--for example, Felidae." | A cat named Francis moves with his owner to a new neighborhood, and no sooner has he set paw into his new home than he is greeted by the slain body of another cat. Local street cat Bluebeard is convinced that this, and the other three recent killings, must have been committed by a "can-opener" - cat slang for a human. Francis disagrees, and as he finds out more about the victims, he is sure that not only is the murderer a cat, but that the killings are all connected by one common factor - each of the victims was sexually aroused at the time of death. He is aided in his investigations by fierce, gluttonous Bluebeard, blind but wise Felicity, and the elderly, technology-savvy cat Pascal. His sleep is haunted by terrifying and vivid nightmares, which offer insight into the mind of the murderer. Francis soon runs afoul of the local bully Kong and the suicidal Claudandus Sect, and he discovers that his new home was once the site of a laboratory owned by Doctor Preterius. Preterius, in his search to create a bonding glue that would heal any flesh wound, performed painful and deadly experiments on countless cats, including the legendary Claudandus. This particular cat was the first upon which the bonding glue worked, something Preterius attributed to superior genetics. He continued routine vivisection on Claudandus, and as his experiments continued to fall short of expectations, the doctor descended into alcoholic madness. One day, the long-suffering Claudandus attacked Preterius, tearing open his throat. After Preterius's death, the abandoned lab became a meeting site for the Claudandus Sect, who believe that Claudandus was imbued with powers that could help the cat species evolve into something greater. Some believe that Claudandus has ascended to another life, and that by sacrificing themselves through ritual suicide, they may attain perfection. It is eventually revealed that Claudandus lives on, having taken on the identity of Pascal, Francis' mentor. Old and embittered, Claudandus, now Pascal, seeks revenge against humanity, citing them as the only truly evil animal. Through selective breeding, he aims to give rise to a 'new breed' of feline - one perfect enough to overtake the humans. Using his owner's computer to keep a listing of every cat in the city, Pascal is systematically killing the cats he deems unworthy of breeding. He calls his database and his plan simply, "Felidae." When Francis confronts him, Pascal reveals that he is terminally ill with a form of stomach cancer. Having been impressed by Francis' intelligence, he hopes that the younger cat will continue the Felidae project after he dies. Appalled, Francis deletes Felidae and destroys the computer, sparking an electrical fire. The two cats fight, and Francis disembowels Pascal, who remarks as he dies that he, too, was once as pure as Francis. Francis escapes the burning building, and all remaining traces of Pascal and the Felidae project are destroyed. Looking over the remains of Pascal's home, he muses that there must be optimism for a brighter future for both humans and felidae alike. | 0.870755 | positive | 0.013076 | positive | 0.993746 |
24,931,095 | Les Misérables | Ezhai Padum Padu | The story starts in 1815 in Digne. The peasant Jean Valjean has just been released from imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon after nineteen years (five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family, and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts). Upon being released, he is required to carry a yellow passport that marks him as a prisoner, despite having already paid his debt to society by serving his time in prison. Rejected by innkeepers, who do not want to take in a convict, Valjean sleeps on the street. This makes him even angrier and more bitter. However, the benevolent Bishop Myriel, the bishop of Digne, takes him in and gives him shelter. In the middle of the night, Valjean steals Bishop Myriel’s silverware and runs away. He is caught and brought back by the police, but Bishop Myriel rescues him by claiming that the silverware was a gift and at that point gives him his two silver candlesticks as well, chastising him to the police for leaving in such a rush that he forgot these most valuable pieces. After the police leave, Bishop Myriel then "reminds" him of the promise, which Valjean has no memory of making, to use the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself. Valjean broods over the Bishop's words. Purely out of habit, he steals a 40-sous coin from chimney-sweep Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. Soon afterwards, he repents and decides to follow Bishop Myriel's advice. He searches the city in panic for the child whose money he stole. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities, who now look for him as a repeat offender. If Valjean is caught, he will be forced to spend the rest of his life in prison, so he hides from the police. Six years pass and Valjean, having adopted the alias of Monsieur Madeleine to avoid capture, has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor of his adopted town of Montreuil-sur-Mer (referred to as "M--- Sur M---" in the unabridged version). While walking down the street one day, he sees a gentleman named Fauchelevent pinned under the wheels of his cart. When no one volunteers to lift the cart, even for pay, he decides to rescue Old Fauchelevent himself. He crawls underneath the cart and manages to lift it, freeing him. The town's police inspector, Inspector Javert, who was an adjutant guard at the Bagne of Toulon during Valjean's incarceration, becomes suspicious of the mayor after witnessing his heroics. He knows the ex-prisoner Jean Valjean is also capable of such strength. Years earlier in Paris, a grisette named Fantine was very much in love with a gentleman named Félix Tholomyès. His friends, Listolier, Fameuil, and Blachevelle were also paired with Fantine’s friends Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favourite. The men later abandon the women as a joke, leaving Fantine to care for Tholomyès' daughter, Cosette, by herself. When Fantine arrives at Montfermeil, she leaves Cosette in the care of the Thénardiers, a corrupt innkeeper and his selfish, cruel wife. Fantine is unaware that they abuse her daughter and use her as forced labor for their inn, and continues to try to pay their growing, extortionate and fictitious demands for Cosette's "upkeep." She is later fired from her job at Jean Valjean's factory, because of the discovery of her daughter, who was born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the Thénardiers' letters and monetary demands continue to grow. In desperation, Fantine sells her hair, her two front teeth, and is forced to resort to prostitution to pay for her daughter's "care." Fantine is also slowly dying from an unnamed disease (probably tuberculosis). While roaming the streets, a dandy named Bamatabois harasses Fantine and puts snow down her back. She reacts by attacking him. Javert sees this and arrests Fantine. She begs to be released so that she can provide for her daughter, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean, hearing her story, intervenes and orders Javert to release her. Javert strongly refuses but Valjean persists and prevails. Valjean, feeling responsible because his factory turned her away, promises Fantine that he will bring Cosette to her. He takes her to a hospital. Later, Javert comes to see Valjean again. Javert admits he had accused him of being Jean Valjean to the French authorities after Fantine was freed. However, he tells Valjean that he no longer suspects him because the authorities have announced that another man has been identified as the real Jean Valjean after being arrested and having noticeable similarities. This gentleman's name is Champmathieu. His trial is set the next day. At first, Valjean is torn whether to reveal himself, but decides to do so to save the innocent gentleman. He goes to the trial and reveals his true identity. Valjean then returns to Montreuil-sur-Mer to see Fantine, followed by Javert, who confronts him at her hospital room. After Javert grabs Valjean, Valjean asks for three days to bring Cosette to Fantine, but Javert refuses. Fantine discovers that Cosette is not at the hospital and fretfully asks where she is. Javert orders her to be quiet, and then reveals to her Valjean’s real identity. Shocked, and with the severity of her illness, she falls back in her bed and dies. Valjean goes to Fantine, speaks to her in an inaudible whisper, kisses her hand, and then leaves with Javert. Fantine's body is later cruelly thrown in a public grave. Valjean escapes, only to be recaptured and sentenced to death. This was commuted by the king to penal servitude for life. While being sent to the prison at Toulon, a military port, Valjean saves a sailor about to fall from the ship's rigging. The crowd begins to call "This man must be pardoned!" but when the authorities reject the crowd's pleas, Valjean fakes a slip and falls into the ocean to escape, relying on the belief that he has drowned. Valjean arrives at Montfermeil on Christmas Eve. He finds Cosette fetching water in the woods alone and walks with her to the inn. After ordering a meal, he observes the Thénardiers’ abusive treatment of her. He also witnesses their pampered daughters Éponine and Azelma treating Cosette badly as well when they tell on her to their mother for holding their abandoned doll. Upon seeing this, Valjean goes out and returns a moment later holding an expensive new doll. He offers it to Cosette. At first, she is unable to comprehend that the doll really is for her, but then happily takes it. This results in Mme. Thénardier becoming furious with Valjean, while Thénardier dismisses it, informing her that he can do as he wishes as long as he pays them. It also causes Éponine and Azelma to become envious of Cosette. The next morning on Christmas Day, Valjean informs the Thénardiers that he wants to take Cosette with him. Mme. Thénardier immediately accepts, while Thénardier pretends to have love and concern for Cosette and how reluctant he is to give her up. Valjean pays 1,500 francs to them, and he and Cosette leave the inn. However, Thénardier, hoping to swindle more out of Valjean, runs after them, holding the 1,500 francs, and tells Valjean he wants Cosette back. He informs Valjean that he cannot release Cosette without a note from the mother. Valjean hands Thénardier a letter, which is signed by Fantine. Thénardier then orders Valjean to pay a thousand crowns, but Valjean and Cosette leave. Thénardier regrets to himself that he did not bring his gun, and turns back toward home. Valjean and Cosette flee to Paris. Valjean rents new lodgings at Gorbeau House, and he and Cosette live there happily. However, Javert discovers Valjean's lodgings there a few months later. Valjean takes Cosette and they try to escape from Javert. They soon successfully find shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent with the help of Fauchelevent, the man whom Valjean rescued and who is a gardener for the convent. Valjean also becomes a gardener and Cosette becomes a student. Eight years later, the Friends of the ABC, led by Enjolras, are preparing an act of anti-Orléanist civil unrest on the eve of the Paris uprising on 5–6 June 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. They are also joined by the poor of the Cour des miracles, including the Thénardiers' oldest son Gavroche, who is a street urchin. One of the students, Marius Pontmercy, has become alienated from his family (especially his grandfather M. Gillenormand) because of his liberal views. After the death of his father Colonel Georges Pontmercy, Marius discovers a note from him instructing his son to provide help to a sergeant named Thénardier who saved Pontmercy's life at Waterloo – in reality Thénardier was looting corpses and only saved Pontmercy's life by accident; he had called himself a sergeant under Napoleon to avoid exposing himself as a robber. At the Luxembourg Gardens, Marius falls in love with the now grown and beautiful Cosette. The Thénardiers have also moved to Paris and now live in poverty after losing their inn. They live under the surname "Jondrette" at Gorbeau House (coincidentally, the same building Valjean and Cosette briefly lived in after leaving the Thénardiers' inn). Marius lives there as well, next door to the Thénardiers. Éponine, now ragged and emaciated, visits Marius at his apartment to beg for money. To impress him, she tries to prove her literacy by reading aloud from a book and by writing "The Cops Are Here" on a sheet of paper. Marius pities her and gives her some money. After Éponine leaves, Marius observes the "Jondrettes" in their apartment through a crack in the wall. Éponine comes in and announces that a philanthropist and his daughter are arriving to visit them. In order to look poorer, Thénardier puts out the fire and breaks a chair. He also orders Azelma to punch out a window pane, which she does, resulting in cutting her hand (as Thénardier had hoped). The philanthropist and his daughter enter—actually Valjean and Cosette. Marius immediately recognizes Cosette. After seeing them, Valjean promises them he will return with rent money for them. After he and Cosette leave, Marius asks Éponine to retrieve her address for him. Éponine, who is in love with Marius herself, reluctantly agrees to do so. The Thénardiers have also recognized Valjean and Cosette, and vow their revenge. Thénardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-known and feared gang of murderers and robbers. Marius overhears Thénardier's plan and goes to Javert to report the crime. Javert gives Marius two pistols and instructs him to fire one into the air if things get dangerous. Marius returns home and waits for Javert and the police to arrive. Thénardier sends Éponine and Azelma outside to look out for the police. When Valjean returns with rent money, Thénardier, with Patron-Minette, ambushes him and he reveals his real identity to Valjean. Marius recognizes Thénardier as the man who "saved" his father's life at Waterloo and is caught in a dilemma. He tries to find a way to save Valjean while not betraying Thénardier. Valjean denies knowing Thénardier and tells that they have never met. Valjean tries to escape through a window but is subdued and tied up. Thénardier orders Valjean to pay him 200,000 francs. He also orders Valjean to write a letter to Cosette to return to the apartment, and they would keep her with them until he delivers the money. After Valjean writes the letter and informs Thénardier his address, Thénardier sends out Mme. Thénardier to get Cosette. Mme. Thénardier comes back alone, and announces the address is a fake. It was during this time that Valjean manages to free himself. Thénardier decides to kill Valjean. While he and Patron-Minette are about to do so, Marius remembers the scrap of paper that Éponine wrote on earlier. He throws it into the Thénardiers’ apartment through the wall crack. Thénardier reads it and thinks Éponine threw it inside. He, Mme. Thénardier and Patron-Minette try to escape, only to be stopped by Javert. He arrests all the Thénardiers and Patron-Minette (except Claquesous, who escapes during his transportation to prison; Montparnasse, who stops to run off with Éponine instead of joining in on the robbery; and Gavroche, who was not present and rarely participates in his family's crimes, a notable exception being his part in breaking his father out of prison). Valjean manages to escape the scene before Javert sees him. After Éponine’s release from prison, she finds Marius at "The Field of the Lark" and sadly tells him that she found Cosette’s address. She leads him to Valjean and Cosette's house at Rue Plumet, and Marius watches the house for a few days. He and Cosette then finally meet and declare their love for one another. Thénardier, Patron-Minette and Brujon manage to escape from prison with the aid of Gavroche. One night, during one of Marius’ visits with Cosette, the six men attempt to raid Valjean and Cosette's house. However, Éponine, who was sitting by the gates of the house, threatens to scream and awaken the whole neighbourhood if the thieves do not leave. Hearing this, they reluctantly retire. Meanwhile, Cosette informs Marius that she and Valjean will be leaving for England in a week’s time, which greatly troubles the pair. The next day, Valjean is sitting in the Champ de Mars. He is feeling troubled due to seeing Thénardier in the neighbourhood several times. Unexpectedly, a note lands in his lap, which says "Move Out." He sees a figure running away in the dim light. He goes back to his house, tells Cosette they will be staying at their other house at Rue de l'Homme Arme, and reconfirms with her about moving to England. Marius tries to get permission from M. Gillenormand to marry Cosette. His grandfather seems stern and angry, but has been longing for Marius' return. When tempers flare, he refuses, telling Marius to make Cosette his mistress instead. Insulted, Marius leaves. The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of Paris. Gavroche spots Javert and informs Enjolras that Javert is a spy. When Enjolras confronts him of this, he admits his identity and his orders to spy on the students. Enjolras and the other students tie him up to a pole in the Corinth restaurant. Later that evening, Marius goes back to Valjean and Cosette’s house at Rue Plumet, but finds the house no longer occupied. He then hears a voice telling him that his friends are waiting for him at the barricade. Distraught over Cosette gone, he heeds the voice and goes. When Marius arrives at the barricade, the "revolution" has already started. When he stoops down to pick up a powder keg, a soldier comes up to shoot Marius. After, a man covers the muzzle of the soldier's gun with his hand. The soldier fires, fatally shooting the man, while missing Marius. Meanwhile, the soldiers are closing in. Marius climbs to the top of the barricade, holding a torch in one hand, a powder keg in the other. He yells at the soldiers "Begone! Or I’ll blow up the barricade!" After confirming this, the soldiers retreat from the barricade. Marius decides to go to the smaller barricade, which he finds empty. As he turns back, the man who took the fatal shot for Marius earlier calls Marius by his name. Marius, and the reader, discovers that it is actually Éponine, dressed in men's clothes. As she lies dying on his knees, she confesses that she was the one who told him to go to the barricade, in hoping that the two would die together. She also confesses to saving his life because she wanted to die first (although she does not provide further explanation to this). The author also states to the reader that Éponine anonymously threw the note to Valjean. Éponine then tells Marius that she has a letter for him. She also confesses to have obtained the letter the day before, originally not planning to give it to him, but decides to do so in fear he would be angry at her in the afterlife. After Marius takes the letter, Éponine then asks him to kiss her on the forehead when she is dead, which he promises to do. With her last breath, she confesses that she was "a little bit in love" with him, and dies. Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter (in consideration that it would be inappropriate to read it beside her corpse). It is written by Cosette. He learns Cosette's new whereabouts and writes a farewell letter to her. The letter is delivered to Valjean by Gavroche. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, is at first relieved, but an hour later, he puts on a National Guard uniform, arms himself with a gun and ammunition, and leaves his home. Valjean arrives at the barricade and immediately saves a man's life, though he is still not certain if he wants to protect Marius or to kill him. Marius recognizes Valjean upon seeing him. Enjolras announces that they are almost out of cartridges. Overhearing this, Gavroche goes to the other side of the barricade to collect more from the dead National Guardsmen. While doing so, he is shot and killed by the soldiers. Later, Valjean saves Javert from being killed by the students. He volunteers to execute Javert himself, and Enjolras grants permission. Valjean takes Javert out of sight, and then shoots into the air while letting him go. As the barricade falls, Valjean carries off the injured and unconscious Marius. All the other students, including Enjolras, are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius' body on his shoulders. He manages to evade a police patrol. He eventually finds a gate to exit the sewers, but to his disappointment, the gate is locked. Valjean suddenly hears a voice behind him, and he turns and sees Thénardier. Valjean recognizes him but his composure is calm, for he perceives that Thénardier does not recognize him due to his dirty appearance. Thinking Valjean to be a simple murderer, Thénardier offers to open the gate for money. He then proceeds to search Valjean and Marius' pockets. While doing this, he secretly tears off a piece of Marius’ coat so he can later find out his identity. Finding only thirty francs, Thénardier reluctantly takes the money, opens the gate, and Valjean leaves. At the exit, Valjean runs into Javert, whom he persuades to give him time to return Marius to his family. Javert grants this request. After leaving Marius at M. Gillenormand’s house, Valjean makes another request that he be permitted to go home shortly, which Javert also allows. They arrive at Rue de l'Homme Arme and Javert informs Valjean that he will wait for him. As Valjean walks upstairs, he looks out the landing window and finds Javert gone. Javert is walking down the street alone, realizing that he is caught between his strict belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him. He feels he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities but also cannot ignore his duty to the law. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. Marius slowly recovers from his injuries and he and Cosette are soon married. Meanwhile, Thénardier and Azelma are attending the Mardi Gras as "masks." Thénardier spots Valjean among the wedding party heading the opposite direction and bids Azelma to follow them. After the wedding, Valjean confesses to Marius that he is an ex-convict. Marius is horrified by the revelation. Convinced that Valjean is of poor moral character, he steers Cosette away from him. Valjean loses the will to live and takes to his bed. Later, Thénardier approaches Marius in a disguise, but Marius is not fooled and recognizes him. Thénardier attempts to blackmail Marius with what he knows of Valjean, but in doing so, he inadvertently corrects Marius' misconceptions about Valjean and reveals all of the good he has done. He tries to convince Marius that Valjean is actually a murderer, and presents the piece of coat he tore off as evidence. Stunned, Marius recognizes the fabric and realizes that it was Valjean who rescued him from the barricade. Marius pulls out a fistful of five hundred and one thousand franc notes and flings it at Thénardier's face. He then confronts Thénardier with his crimes and offers him an immense amount of money if he departs and promises never to return. Thénardier accepts the offer, and he and Azelma travel to America where he becomes a slave trader. As Marius and Cosette rush to Valjean's house, he informs her that Valjean saved his life at the barricade. They arrive to see him, but the great man is dying. In his final moments, he realizes happiness with his adopted daughter and son-in-law by his side. He also reveals Cosette's past to her as well as her mother's name. Joined with them in love, he dies. | Tough and ruthless Police Inspector Javert recaptures a small time criminal Kandhan who has escaped from prison. Kandhan turns a new leaf with the help of a Christian Bishop . When he is released from prison he starts a glass making company. He changes his identity and becomes successful. He becomes the mayor of his town. Inspector Javert finds out about his new life and threatens to expose him. One one occasion Kandhan saves Javert's life. Javert commits suicide unable to turn Kandhan in to the authorities out of his sense of gratitude. | 0.538679 | positive | 0.995004 | positive | 0.688231 |
11,540,062 | True Grit | True Grit: A Further Adventure | Portis’ novel is narrated by Mattie Ross, a thrifty, churchgoing older spinster distinguished by intelligence, independence and strength of mind. Speaking in 1903, she recounts the story of her adventures many years earlier, when, at the age of fourteen, she undertook a quest to avenge her father’s death at the hands of a drifter named Tom Chaney. She is joined on her quest by Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn and a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (pronounced "La-beef"). As Mattie's tale begins, Chaney is employed on the Ross’ family farm in west central Arkansas, near the town of Dardanelle in Yell County. Chaney is not adept as a farmhand, and Mattie has only scorn for him, referring to him as "trash", and noting that her kind-hearted father, Frank, only hired him out of pity. One day, Frank Ross and Chaney go to Fort Smith to buy some horses. Ross takes $250 with him to pay for the horses, along with two gold pieces he always carried. He ends up spending only $100 on the horses. When Ross tries to intervene in a barroom confrontation involving Chaney, Chaney kills him, robs the body of the remaining $150 and two gold pieces, and flees into Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) on his horse. Hearing that Chaney has joined an outlaw gang led by the infamous "Lucky" Ned Pepper, Mattie wishes to track down the killer, and upon arriving at Fort Smith she looks for the toughest deputy U.S. Marshal in the district. That man turns out to be Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, and although he is an aging, one-eyed, overweight, trigger-happy, hard-drinking man, Mattie is convinced that he has "grit", and that he is best suited for the job due to his reputation for violence. Playing on Cogburn's need for money, Mattie persuades him to take on the job, insisting that, as part of the bargain, she accompany him. During their preparation, a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf appears. He too is tracking Chaney, and has been for four months, for killing a senator and his dog in Texas, with the hopes of bringing him back to Texas dead or alive for a cash reward. Cogburn and LaBoeuf take a dislike to each other, but after some haggling, they agree to join forces in the hunt realizing that they can both benefit from each other's respective talents and knowledge. Once they reach a deal the two men attempt to leave Mattie behind, but she proves more tenacious than they had expected. They repeatedly try to lose her, but she persists in following them and seeing her transaction with Marshal Cogburn through to the end. Eventually she is jumped by Cogburn and LaBoeuf, who had hid themselves from view and LaBoeuf begins to spank Mattie. Mattie appeals to Cogburn and he orders LaBoeuf to stop. At this point Mattie is allowed to join their posse. Together, but with very different motivations, the three ride into the wilderness to confront Ned Pepper's gang. Along the way, they develop an appreciation for one another. | The further adventures of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn in which he battles injustice in his own unorthodox way while dealing with a teenage girl hellbent on reforming him. | 0.44076 | positive | 0.998388 | positive | 0.996346 |
18,983,347 | The Four Feathers | Storm Over the Nile | The novel tells the story of a British officer, Harry Feversham, who resigns from his commission in the East Surrey Regiment just prior to Sir Garnet Wolseley's 1882 expedition to Egypt to suppress the rising of Arabi Pasha. He is faced with censure from three of his comrades, Captain Trench as well as Lieutenants Castleton and Willoughby for cowardice, which is signified by the delivery of three white feathers to him. He loses support of his Irish fiancée, Ethne Eustace, who too presents him with the fourth feather. His best friend in the regiment, Captain Durrance becomes his rival for Ethne. Harry talks with Lieutenant Sutch, a friend of his father, who is an imposing retired general and questions his own true motives, moreover he talks of his resolution to redeem himself by acts that will force his critics to take back the feathers, this might in turn encourage Ethne to take back the feather, which she gave him. He travels on his own to Egypt and Sudan, where in 1882 Muhammad Ahmed proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Guided One) and raised a Holy War. On January 26, 1885, his forces which were called Dervishes, captured Khartoum and killed its British governor, General Charles George Gordon. It was mainly in the eastern Sudan, where the British and Egyptians held Suakin, where the action takes place over the next six years. Durrance is blinded by sunstroke and invalided. Castleton is reportedly killed at Tamai,where a British square is briefly broken. Harry's first success came when he recovers lost letters of Gordon. He is aided by a Sudanese Arab, Abou Fatma. Later, disguised as a mad Greek musician, Harry gets imprisoned in Omdurman, where he rescues the Colonel Trench, who had been captured on a reconnaissance mission and they escape. Harry has his honour restored by Willoughby and then Trench giving to Ethne the feathers they've taken back. He returns to England, and sees Ethne for one last time as she has determined to devote herself to Col. Durrance, but Durrance explains that his travel to Germany to seek a cure for his blindness has been a pretense, to wait for Harry to redeem himself. Ethne and Harry wed, and Durrance travels to 'the East' as a civilian. The story is rich in characters and sub-plots, which the filmed versions perforce trim, along with making major changes in the story line, with the best known 1939 version centered on the 1898 campaign and battle of Omdurman, only hinted at as a future event in the novel. | The film depicts Harry Faversham, a sensitive child who is terrified by his father and his Crimean War friends relating tales of cowardice that often ended in suicide. Young Harry follows his father's wishes of being commissioned in the Royal North Surrey Regiment. A year after his father's death, the North Surreys are given orders to deploy to the Sudan Campaign to join General Kitchener's forces to avenge General Gordon's death at Khartoum. Harry resigns his commission on the eve of his regiment's departure where he is given four feathers as a symbol of his cowardice from his three fellow officers and his fiancee, the daughter of his father's friend General Burroughs. Unable to live as a coward, Harry contacts a sympathetic friend of his father's, Dr. Sutton, to obtain his help and contacts to join the campaign in the Sudan. Meeting Dr. Sutton's friend Dr Harraz in Egypt, Harry is disguised as a member of a tribe that had their tongues cut out for their treachery by the supporters of the Mahdi. The tribe is identified with a brand that Harry undergoes as well as dyeing his skin colour. The extreme disguise is done to disguise the fact that he cannot speak Arabic or any other native language. Following as a native worker, Harry follows his old company who have been sent independently from the main force as a distraction to the enemy. His former comrade and romantic rival Captain Durrance loses his helmet on a reconnaissance patrol. He is unable to retrieve it or move from a position facing the sun as a result of Sudanese searching for him. The hours forced to look at the hot sun destroy the nerves of his eyes, making him blind. Harry warns the company of the enemy's night assault but he is knocked unconscious. His company is wiped out with Harry's former friends, the subalterns Burroughs and Willoughby captured by the enemy and imprisoned in Omdurman. Harry plays mute with the blind Durrance to take him to British lines, then enters Omdurman to find his old friends. | 0.783022 | positive | 0.000095 | positive | 0.99558 |
2,706,589 | The Black Dahlia | The Black Dahlia | In June, 1943 patrol officer Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, a former boxer and a member of the Los Angeles Police Department is caught up in the Zoot Suit Riots. Bleichert comes to the rescue of Officer Lee Blanchard, who is in the middle of the rampage between American servicemen and Mexican zoot suit gangs. Together they apprehend a wanted criminal, Don Santos, and take refuge in an abandoned home while waiting out the riot. They size each other up as boxers and cops and Blanchard tells Bleichert of his plans to eventually be promoted to Sergeant while Dwight continues his mundane job as a radio car patrolman in the Bunker Hill section of L.A. The story continues three years later, in November 1946, as Bucky is invited to fight in a boxing match against Lee in hopes it will help raise support for a political bond issue and a pay raise. After realizing that his fathers' health is failing and to prove he can still fight he decides to take up the offer, have a friend make a bet against him with his money and lose on purpose to put his father in a retirement home. He also meets Kay Lake, a former artist who lives with Lee. After the fight he is transferred to Homicide-Warrants Division as a reward and partnered with Blanchard. Lee. Buckey and Kay begin to spend time together. On January 15, 1947 while Bucky and Lee are on a stakeout they see a commotion on the corner lot of 39th street and South Norton Avenue, where they discover the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short. Dubbed "The Black Dahlia" by the press, the case shocks the public, overwhelms the LAPD and hits Lee especially hard. During his investigation Bucky observes a mysterious young woman named Madeleine Sprague, a wealthy and promiscuous socialite who resembles Elizabeth Short, at a lesbian bar. Bucky follows her over the course of many nights, eventually questionning her and the two begin an affair. While the case continues on in circus fashion, Lee, becoming more emotionally detached begins taking bezadrine and acts erratically, collecting his own copies of the Dahlia case evidence and storing them in an El Nino hotel room. Lee eventually disappears after a confrontation with police superiors. Bucky, who is simultaneously juggling two relationships, also suffers a series of personal setbacks: breaking up with Madeline, romantic tension with Kay, and blowing an assignment for the D.A, resulting in demotion from the Warrants Bureau. He then sets out for Tijuana searching for Lee. During his trip he learns of Lee's fate and returns to L.A. to marry Kay. Two years pass, and with Bucky's detective career destroyed and his marriage quickly deteriorating, he transfers to the Science Investigation Division of the force and becomes a lab technician. While working with his old case supervisor Russ Millard during a suicide investigation of a wealthy businessman, he happens to notice a painting of a clown. He uncovers some clues and people associated with Elizabeth Short, piquing his curiosity about Madeline Sprague and her family. His obsession with Short and Madeline destroys his relationship with Kay, who leaves him when she finds out. As his life spirals out of control, his obsession taking its toll, he finally discovers the truth behind the murder of Short and its connection to the Sprague family, as well as Lee's disappearance. The novel ends with Bucky on a plane to Boston, where he and a pregnant Kay will try to rebuild their relationship. | In Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947, police officers Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert and Lee Blanchard , investigate the murder of Elizabeth Short . As he is investigating, Bucky learns that Elizabeth was an aspiring actress, although she had not had any big breaks in her career. However, Elizabeth had become desperate for money and was paid to make a "stag" film with a friend of hers, Lorna Mertz. Through questioning a former roommate of Elizabeth, Bucky is told that Elizabeth liked to hang out with "sisters" or lesbians. He goes to a lesbian nightclub and meets a woman, Madeleine Linscott , who looks like Elizabeth. She tells him that she knew Elizabeth well, but because she is from a prominent family, she insists that her name be kept out the papers. In exchange for his silence, she promises him sexual favors and the two sleep together. Through his own investigation of the murder, Lee becomes obsessed with the case and trying to track the killer. His obsession leads him to become erratic and slightly abusive towards his longtime girlfriend Katherine 'Kay' Lake , who is also close friends with Bucky. Through his relations with Madeleine, he meets her father, Emmett Linscott, her mother, Ramona, who is addicted to prescription medication, and her sister, Martha. A few days later, after having an argument with Lee about an old case, Lee and Bucky have a fight and Bucky leaves. He later goes to Kay and Lee's home looking for him, only to find him gone. He questions Kay as to where he is and she confesses that there was a tip about a drug deal occurring with a recently released convict, Bobby DeWitt, that Lee had helped send to jail. Bucky goes to the location of the drug deal, and is involved with an altercation with Bobby DeWitt on the main stairs in the atrium of the building. Bobby gets away, and Bucky chases him up the stairs, only to find Bobby shot to death. Bucky looks up to see that it was Lee, standing on the stairs across the lobby, who had murdered Bobby. Bucky sees a shadowed figure holding a rope sneak up behind Lee, and Bucky calls out to warn him. However, the shadowed man is able to wrap his rope around Lee's neck, but Lee fights back until they are both backed up against the railing of the stairs. Bucky is in shock and is unable to help Lee. As Lee continues to struggle, another shadowed figure walks up to Lee and the man with the rope and slits Lee's neck, causing both men to fall over the railing and onto a fountain several floors below, leading to the death of both. While dealing with the grief of losing Lee, Kay and Bucky sleep together and begin dating. Bucky is still intent on solving Elizabeth's murder, along with Lee's, and his search for answers leads him to an old housing site that Madeleine's father helped build. In one of the houses, Bucky sees the set that was used to film the porn movie that Elizabeth was in. Bucky also finds a barn on the property, which is below the Hollywoodland sign and a drawing of a man with a Glasgow smile drawn on the wall with blood. It is also the picture that Madeleine has in her parents' house, and is also the same smile that was carved into Elizabeth's face during her murder. Bucky then accuses Madeleine's father Emmett ([[John Kavanagh and Madeleine of murdering Elizabeth. However, Madeleine's mother Ramona reveals that she was the one to kill Elizabeth, one of the reasons being that she looked so much like her Madeleine. A few moments after her confession, Ramona kills herself in front of Bucky, Madeleine, and Emmett. A few days later, Bucky goes to the Linscott's house again, and after speaking with Madeleine's sister, he discovers that it was Madeleine who had murdered Lee, as Lee was trying blackmail her father, as he was desperate for money. Bucky finds Madeleine at a motel, and although she insists that he won't shoot her because he would rather have sex with her, he tells her she is wrong and shoots her dead. Bucky later goes to Kay's house, and when she opens the door he sees a crow chirping by Elizabeth's body on the front lawn, then realizes that it was only a hallucination. Kay tells him to come in and closes the door as the film ends. | 0.695051 | positive | 0.339432 | positive | 0.995073 |
203,841 | Starship Troopers | Starship Troopers | Starship Troopers takes place in the midst of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation of Earth and the Arachnids (referred to as "The Bugs") of Klendathu. It is narrated as a series of flashbacks by Juan Rico, and is one of only a few Heinlein novels set out in this fashion. The novel opens with Rico aboard the corvette Rodger Young (named after Medal of Honor winner Rodger Wilton Young), serving with the platoon known as "Rasczak's Roughnecks" (named after the platoon leader, Lt. Rasczak) about to embark on a raid against the planet of the "Skinnies," who are allies of the Arachnids. We learn that he is a cap(sule) trooper in the Terran Federation's Mobile Infantry. The raid itself, one of the few instances of actual combat in the novel, is relatively brief: the Roughnecks land on the planet, destroy their targets, and retreat, suffering a single casualty in the process (Dizzy Flores, who dies in the retrieval boat of wounds received in action). The story then flashes back to Rico's graduation from high school, and his decision to sign up for Federal Service over the objections of his father, who disowns him. This is the only chapter that describes Rico's civilian life, and most of it is spent on the monologues of two people: retired Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois, Rico's school instructor in "History and Moral Philosophy," and Fleet Sergeant Ho, a recruiter for the armed forces of the Terran Federation. Some see Dubois as speaking for Heinlein throughout the novel; he delivers what is probably the book's most famous soliloquy on violence, it "... has settled more issues in history than has any other factor." Fleet Sergeant Ho's monologues examine the nature of military service, and his anti-military tirades seem primarily to be a contrast with Dubois. We learn, later, that his rants are part of a policy intended to scare off applicants signing up without conviction. Interspersed throughout the book are other flashbacks to Rico's high school History and Moral Philosophy course, which describe how in the Terran Federation of Rico's day, the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through some form of volunteer Federal service. Those residents who have not exercised their right to perform this Federal Service retain all other rights generally associated with a modern democracy (free speech, assembly, etc.), but they cannot vote or hold public office. This structure arose ad hoc after the collapse of the "20th century Western democracies", brought on by both social failures at home (among which appear to be poor handling of juvenile delinquency) and military defeat by the Chinese Hegemony overseas. In the next section of the novel, after being denied all his higher preferred Service choices, Rico goes to boot camp at Camp Arthur Currie, on the northern prairies. Five chapters are spent exploring Rico's experience there, including his adjustment to a very different situation, entering the service under the training of the leading instructor, career Ship's Sergeant Charles Zim. Camp Currie is rigorous by design; less than ten percent of the recruits finish basic training. The rest either resign, are expelled, or die in training. One of the chapters deals with Ted Hendrick, a fellow recruit and constant complainer who is flogged and expelled for striking a superior officer during a simulated combat exercise (he caught Sgt. Zim by surprise after being struck by the sergeant for failure to perform during the exercise). Another recruit, a deserter who murdered a baby girl while AWOL, is hanged by his battalion after his arrest by civilian police and return to Camp Currie. Rico himself is flogged for poor handling of (simulated) nuclear weapons during a drill; despite these experiences he eventually graduates and is assigned to a unit in the Fleet. At some point during Rico's training, the "Bug War" has changed from border incidents to formal war, and Rico finds himself taking part in combat operations. The war "officially" starts with an Arachnid attack that annihilates the city of Buenos Aires (which kills Juan's mother who was visiting there), although Rico makes it clear that prior to the attack there had been many "'incidents,' 'patrols,' or 'police actions.'" Rico briefly describes the Terran Federation's loss at the Battle of Klendathu during which his unit is decimated and his ship destroyed. Following Klendathu, the Terran Federation is reduced to making hit-and-run raids similar to the one described at the beginning of the novel (which, chronologically would be placed between chapters 10 and 11). Rico meanwhile finds himself posted to Rasczak's Roughnecks. This part of the book focuses on the daily routine of military life, as well as the relationship between officers and non-commissioned officers, personified in this case by Rasczak and Sergeant Jelal. Eventually, Rico decides to become a career soldier, and one of his fellow troopers claims he is officer material and should consider volunteering for Officer Candidate School. He applies and is accepted. It turns out to be just like boot camp, only "squared and cubed with books added." Rico manages to make it through to the final exam, "in the Fleet". He is commissioned a temporary Third Lieutenant for his field-test and commands his own unit during Operation Royalty. It is revealed at the end of the chapter that one of the enlisted men he leads into combat is his former basic training instructor, Sergeant Zim. Although personally convinced that he badly mismanaged his men, he passes the final exam, and graduates as a Second Lieutenant. There is also an account of the meeting between Rico and his father, who volunteered for Service after his wife, Rico's mother, was killed at Buenos Aires. The final chapter serves as more of a coda, depicting Rico aboard the Rodger Young as the lieutenant in command of Rico's Roughnecks, preparing to drop to Klendathu as part of a major strike, his father being his senior sergeant and a Native American Third Lieutenant-in-training (James Bearpaw, known as "Jimmie") of his own under instruction. | In the future, humans are a space-faring Federation and contend for planets with a hostile species of large insects known as the Arachnids or "Bugs," whose home-world is the distant planet Klendathu. In the Federation citizenship is not a birthright, but a privilege earned by those who serve society through such activities as military service; citizens are granted many opportunities prohibited to non-citizens. Athlete John "Johnny" Rico, his girlfriend Carmen Ibanez, and best friend Carl Jenkins attend high school in Buenos Aires. Fellow student Dizzy Flores is in love with Rico, but he does not return her affections. After graduation all decide to enlist in Federation service. Carmen excels academically and becomes a spaceship pilot while Carl, who is psychic, is assigned Military Intelligence for scientific research on the Bugs. Rico enlists in the Mobile Infantry mainly to see Carmen, but is surprised to see Dizzy, who has enlisted there to be near him. At Mobile Infantry training the brutal but effective Career Sergeant Zim heads the recruits. Rico is promoted to squad leader and finds a friend in Ace Levy, but his hopes for continued romance with Carmen are dashed as she desires a career with the fleet and serves under Rico's high school sports rival, Zander Barcalow. After a live-fire training incident that results in the death of one of Rico's squad, he is demoted and publicly flogged. He decides to resign and calls his parents, but the call unexpectedly drops; an asteroid launched by the Arachnids has obliterated Buenos Aires, killing millions including Rico's family. Rico rescinds his resignation and remains with the Infantry as an invasion force is deployed to Klendathu. The first strike on Klendathu is a disaster, with heavy casualties. Rico himself is wounded and mistakenly labeled KIA, causing Carmen to believe he is dead. Rico, Ace, and Dizzy are reassigned to the Roughnecks, commanded by Rico's high school teacher Lieutenant Jean Rasczak. Dizzy and Rico begin a romance and The Roughnecks respond to a distress call from Planet "P", where they discover a deserted outpost that had been overrun by Bugs. The distress call is a trap by the Arachnids, who swarm the outpost. Rico euthanises a mortally wounded Rasczak at his own request and Dizzy is fatally wounded, dying in Rico's arms as they are retrieved by a rescue ship piloted by Carmen and Zander. Rico and Carmen reconnect at Dizzy's funeral, where they encounter Carl, now a high-ranking Intelligence officer. Carl reveals that the reason for the ill-fated mission on P was to confirm the existence of an intelligent "brain bug", directing the other Bugs and showing that the Bugs have a desire to learn about their human enemy. He field-promotes Rico to lieutenant and gives him command of the Roughnecks, ordering the infantry to capture the brain bug. As Rico's Roughnecks join the mission on the planet, the Fleet encounters fire from the Bugs, and Carmen's ship is destroyed. The dying Captain Deladier orders them to abandon ship. Carmen and Zander leave in an escape pod but crash into the Bug tunnel system near Rico's location. Rico, unknowingly guided by a psychic suggestion from Carl, takes Ace and teammate Sugar Watkins into the tunnels to rescue Carmen. They find a wounded Carmen and Zander disarmed in a cavern with several Arachnids, including the brain bug, which drains the contents of Zander's cranial cavity with a proboscis. Before it can do so to Carmen, she severs it with a knife. Rico threatens the Bugs with a small nuclear bomb, so the brain bug reluctantly allows them to escape. When Arachnids pursue them, Watkins is mortally wounded and sacrifices himself by detonating the nuke while the others escape. After returning to the surface, they find that former Sergeant Zim, who had demoted himself to private so that he could serve, has captured the brain bug. Carl congratulates Rico and tells him and Carmen that the humans will soon be victorious, now that Intelligence can study the brain bug. | 0.763769 | positive | 0.988575 | positive | 0.9956 |
5,028,212 | Murder on the Orient Express | Murder on the Orient Express | Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself. That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeks out his door, he sees the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett's door and ask if he is all right. A man replies in French "Ce n'est rien. Je me suis trompé", which means "It's nothing. I was mistaken", and the conductor moves on to answer a bell down the passage. Poirot decides to go back to bed, but he is disturbed by the fact that the train is unusually still and his mouth is dry. As he lies awake, he hears a Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rings the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learns that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone had been in her compartment. He also learns that the train has stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance. The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence. However, the clues and circumstances of Ratchett's death are very mysterious. Some of the stab wounds are very deep, only three are lethal, and some are glancing blows. Furthermore, some of them appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. Poirot finds several more clues in the victim's cabin and on board the train, including a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial "H", a pipe cleaner, and a button from a conductor's uniform. All of these clues suggest that the murderer or murderers were somewhat sloppy. However, each clue seemingly points to different suspects, which suggests that some of the clues were planted. By reconstructing parts of a burned letter, Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was a notorious fugitive from the U.S. named Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old American heiress Daisy Armstrong. Though the Armstrong family paid a large ransom, Cassetti murdered the little girl and fled the country with the money. Daisy's mother, Sonia, was pregnant when she heard of Daisy's death. The shock sent her into premature labour, and both she and the baby died. Her husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself out of grief. Daisy's nursemaid, Susanne, was suspected of complicity in the crime by the police, despite her protests. She threw herself out of a window and died, after which she was proved innocent. Although Cassetti was caught, his resources allowed him to get himself acquitted on an unspecified technicality, although he still fled the country to escape further prosecution for the crime. As the evidence mounts, it continues to point in wildly different directions and it appears that Poirot is being challenged by a mastermind. A critical piece of missing evidence–the scarlet kimono worn the night of the murder by an unknown woman–turns up in Poirot's own luggage. After meditating on the evidence, Poirot assembles the thirteen suspects, M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine in the restaurant car. He lays out two possible explanations of Ratchett's murder. The first explanation is that a stranger–some gangster enemy of Ratchett–boarded the train at Vinkovci, the last stop, murdered Ratchett for reasons unknown, and escaped unnoticed. The crime occurred an hour earlier than everyone thought, because the victim and several others failed to note that the train had just crossed into a different time zone. The other noises heard by Poirot on the coach that evening were unrelated to the murder. However, Dr. Constantine says that Poirot must surely be aware that this does not fully explain the circumstances of the case. Poirot's second explanation is rather more sensational: all of the suspects are guilty. Poirot's suspicions were first aroused by the fact that all the passengers on the train were of so many different nationalities and social classes, and that only in the "melting pot" of the United States would a group of such different people form some connection with each other. Poirot reveals that the twelve other passengers on the train and the train conductor were all connected to the Armstrong family in some way: *Hector MacQueen, Ratchett/Cassetti's secretary, devoted to Sonia Armstrong; MacQueen's father was the district attorney for the kidnapping case. He knew from his father the details of Cassetti's escape from justice. *Masterman, Ratchett/Cassetti's valet, was Colonel Armstrong's batman during the war and later his valet; *Colonel Arbuthnot was Colonel Armstrong's comrade and best friend; *Mrs. Hubbard in actuality is Linda Arden (née Goldenberg), the most famous tragic actress of the New York stage, and was Sonia Armstrong's mother and Daisy's grandmother; *Countess Andrenyi (née Helena Goldenberg) was Sonia Armstrong's sister; *Count Andryeni was the husband of Helena Andrenyi; *Princess Natalia Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's godmother as she was a friend of her mother; *Miss Mary Debenham was Sonia Armstrong's secretary and Daisy Armstrong's governess; *Fräulein Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff's maid, was the Armstrong family's cook; *Antonio Foscarelli, a car salesman based in Chicago, was the Armstrong family's chauffeur; *Miss Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary, was Daisy Armstrong's nurse; *Pierre Michel, the train conductor, was the father of Susanne, the Armstrong's nursemaid who committed suicide; *Cyrus Hardman, a private detective ostensibly retained as a bodyguard by Ratchett/Cassetti, was a policeman in love with Susanne. All these friends and relations had been gravely affected by Daisy's murder and outraged by Cassetti's subsequent escape. They took it into their own hands to serve as Cassetti's executioners, to avenge a crime the law was unable to punish. Each of the suspects stabbed Ratchett once, so that no one could know who delivered the fatal blow. Twelve of the conspirators participated to allow for a "twelve-person jury", with Count Andrenyi acting for his wife, as she–Daisy's aunt–would have been the most likely suspect. One extra berth was booked under a fictitious name–Harris–so that no one but the conspirators and the victim would be on board the coach, and this fictitious person would subsequently disappear and become the primary suspect in Ratchett's murder. (The only person not involved in the plot would be M. Bouc, for whom the cabin next to Ratchett was already reserved.) The main inconvenience for the murderers was the occurrence of a snowstorm and the presence of a detective, which caused complications to the conspirators that resulted in several crucial clues being left behind. Poirot summarizes that there was no other way the murder could have taken place, given the evidence. Several of the suspects have broken down in tears as he has revealed their connection to the Armstrong family, and Mrs. Hubbard/Linda Arden confesses that the second theory is correct and that Colonel Arbuthnot and Mary Debenham are in love. She then appeals to Poirot, M. Bouc, and Dr. Constantine, not to turn them in to the police. Fully in sympathy with the Armstrong family, and feeling nothing but disgust for the victim, Bouc pronounces the first explanation as correct, and Poirot and Dr. Constantine agree, Dr. Constantine suggesting that he will edit his original report of Cassetti's body to comply with Poirot's first deduction as he now 'recognizes' some mistakes he has made. His task completed, Poirot states he has "the honour to retire from the case." Arrangement of the Calais Coach: {| width="1450" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin:0 0; background-color: #FFFFFF" style="text-align: center; font-size: 80%" |-bgcolor="#F5F5DC" |style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| || style="background:#98FB98" width="50"| || colspan="12" width="1200" style="text-align: center;"| Corridor ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| |-style="height:60px" |style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| Athens-Paris Coach ||style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#98FB98" width="50"| Michel ||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 16. Hardman||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 15. Arbuthnot || style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 14. Dragomiroff ||style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 13. R. Andrenyi || style="border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 12. H. Andrenyi ||style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 3. Hubbard || style="border-right: 1px solid black;background:#FF7F50" width="100"| 2. Ratchett || style="background:#DA70D6" width="100"| 1. Poirot ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 10. Ohlsson11. Debenham ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 8. Schmidt9. ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 6. MacQueen7. ||style="border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE" width="100"| 4. Masterman5. Foscarelli ||style="border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0"| Dining Car |} | Hercule Poirot is travelling on the Orient Express. While on the journey, Poirot meets a very close friend Bouc, who works for the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. The train is stopped when a landslide blocks the line on the second night out from Istanbul, and American millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett is found stabbed to death the next morning. Since no footprints are visible around the train and the doors to the other cars were locked, it seems that the murderer must still be among the passengers in Ratchett's car. Poirot and Bouc work together to solve the case. They are aided by Pierre Michel, the middle-aged French conductor of the car. A key to the solution is Ratchett's revealed involvement in the Armstrong tragedy in America several years earlier, in which a baby was kidnapped and then murdered. | 0.843339 | positive | 0.997309 | positive | 0.661826 |
255,049 | I Know What You Did Last Summer | I Know What You Did Last Summer | In an unnamed town, high school senior Julie James receives a sinister note from an elusive stalker telling her, "I Know What You Did Last Summer", referring to the previous year when Julie, her boyfriend Ray Bronson, Ray's best friend Barry Cox and Barry's girlfriend, Helen Rivers, accidentally killed a young boy named David Gregg after driving home from a party in the mountains to celebrate Ray and Barry's high school graduation. The four made a vow to never mention it to anyone, and drifted apart, Barry going to the local college, Helen dropping out of school, Ray taking off for California and Julie continuing to attend school. Fearful, Julie visits Helen, and informs her about the note. Barry is called but he assures the girls it is a prank and nothing more, as if anyone did know about their crime, they would inform the authorities and not write notes. The girls buy it, and Ray returns home to Julie, but is disheartened when she reveals she is now dating a man named Bud, and no longer wants to continue their relationship. It is revealed that shortly after the night of the incident, Helen was chosen via a beauty contest to be the Channel Five Golden Girl, meaning she would be the studio's new television personality, much to the fury of Elsa, her sullen, envious and unattractive elder sister. At the Four Seasons, a luxury apartment complex where she lives, Helen is suntanning when she meets a boy, Collingsworth "Collie" Wilson, just out of the army. After she is done talking to Collie, she goes to her apartment and finds a magazine cut out of a boy riding a bicycle taped to the door. Meanwhile, Ray is at his house and finds that he has been sent a newspaper clipping though the mail about the boy he, Barry, Helen, and Julie had killed last summer, David Gregg. In the article, it is revealed that his parents are Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gregg. Afterwords, the book takes the reader into a memory of Ray's, in which his father commented on his life; about having a popular football friend (Barry) and a cheerleader girlfriend (Julie) and Ray's father first meeting Barry. Ray then painfully remembers about the day it in which they ran over David Gregg and then called for help from a phone booth. On Memorial Day, Barry receives a call. After he hangs up, he walks out of the University frat house where he leaves to meet the person who had called him. As it is dark, he does not see too well and is shot. When Ray finds out, he calls St. Joseph's Hospital to ask how Barry is doing. He is told that Barry is in surgery. Helen finds out about Barry being shot when she is in the TV studio. When Collie finds out about Barry he immediately goes to the studio to pick up Helen and take her to the hospital. When they reach the hospital, Helen and Collie are sent away by Barry's mother, who accuses Helen of calling Barry and getting him shot. After Julie finds out, she receives a phone call from Ray asking if they could discuss what has been happening. She agrees to go with him. During the discussion the only thing the agree on is the shooter is not Helen. Then Julie suggests going to the Gregg's house to see if it is one of David's family members who is coming after them. After a little debating, Ray agrees to go. When Ray and Julie get to the house, they use the excuse they had car trouble to get in the house. Megan Gregg lets them in. Ray goes to her kitchen and fakes making a call while Julie talks to Megan. While Julie and Megan talk, it is revealed that Megan is David Gregg's sister. Megan also says that her mother broke down after David's death and was sent to a hospital in Las Lunas. Her father moved to be close to her mother. To comfort her, Julie reveals she had lost her father at a young age. After Ray is done making his fake call, Ray and Julie leave. When they get back to the car, Julie confirms it obviously wasn't the Gregg family after them and tells Ray what she found out. They decide to go to Helen's apartment and tell her what they had learned from Megan. Elsa is at the apartment, tormenting Helen about the attack on Barry and reluctantly leaves after Julie and Ray arrive. Julie suggests it may be Elsa responsible for the threats and the shooting, as she has always resented Helen, and may have learned about it by accident, as Helen used to share a room with her. Ray calls the Cox family at the hospital. He finds out that since Barry was shot in the spine, he has paralysis and it may be permanent. Ray then goes to the hospital and sneaks in to see Barry. While there, Ray tries to talk Barry into dissolving the pact of keeping the accident a secret. After Barry says no and lies that the shooting was a robbery and nothing to do with the accident, Ray leaves the hospital. Barry, however, thinks back to the night of the shooting, where he was lured out by an anonymous caller that supposedly had photographic evidence of the accident and would give the photos to Barry in exchange for money. Barry fell for it, agreed to meet the anonymous person at the University athletic field, and was shot. On the way out of the hospital, Ray sees Bud and they decide to go have coffee together. While they talk over coffee, Ray says that he will get Julie back. Bud challenges him then says Julie will not go to Smith because of him. Later, Helen unexpectedly meets Collie in her apartment, who solemnly reveals himself to be David's older brother. He, darkly remembering, tells Helen that he was the one that shot Barry and is the one that left the picture on her door. He then tells her that he is going to kill her and the girl he is going out with later tonight. Panicking, she immediately runs to the bathroom and locks the door. When Collie begins to take the door off the hinges so that he can get in, Helen breaks the glass of the bathroom window and desperately escapes. Julie prepares to go on a date with Bud, but then decides not to when her mother says she is worried and would like her to stay home. When she tells Bud, he convinces her to at least walk him to his car so they can talk. To Julie, Buds seems impatient and she realizes that she has never seen him act so angry. She remembers the first moment she saw Ray, after he came back from California, and realizes she doesn't want to date Bud anymore because she will always have feelings for Ray. When they get to Bud's car, he reveals that his name is really Collingsworth Wilson and that he was David Gregg's half brother. He tells Julie that he found out who had run down his little brother by asking a man who sold Julie the flowers she sent to David's funeral. He then starts to choke her. Julie is to the point of passing out when Ray saves her by beating Bud (Collie) with a flashlight. When the paramedics show up, they tell Julie and Ray about Helen's accident. Helen sent them to Julie's house, saying there would be someone trying to kill her. Julie then asks Ray how he knew of Bud intending to kill her and he tells her that Barry called him earlier and released him from the pact. After the phone call, he realized who Bud was. Then Julie asks Ray why Bud never tried to hurt him. Ray answers, "He did, tonight. He knew the worst thing for me would be to stay alive in a world without you." | After winning a beauty pageant, Helen , along with Julie , Barry , and Ray go out of town to celebrate. Returning in Barry's new car, they hit and apparently kill a man, who is unknown to them. They dump the corpse in the ocean and agree to never discuss again what had happened. One year later, Julie is returning home from college. She has not spoken with Helen, Barry or Ray since the accident. Upon returning home, Julie receives a letter that says "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER!" Panicking, Julie goes to see Helen at Shivers, a department store where she works. Julie shows Helen the letter and they decide to visit Barry. After going over the incident, Barry accuses Max. The trio go to see Max , but Barry insists on going in the factory alone. Barry persuades Max to go into the back room and angrily attacks him, telling Max he should keep his mouth shut. Julie finds Ray working on the docks. Ray tries to make up with Julie but she runs off. Inside the factory, Max is brutally murdered with a meat hook to his neck by an anonymous figure. The killer attacks Barry next, running him over with his own car. The killer is shown wearing a black raincoat and wielding the meat hook. Julie arrives at the hospital to see Barry and finds Helen and Ray there. Julie believes the man they hit was named David Egan, because a newspaper article a few weeks after the accident mentioned his body washing up on shore. Helen and Julie go to visit Missy , David's sister. The duo is convinced that she is innocent. Missy tells them she had a visit from a man claiming to be David's friend named Billy Blue. At Helen's home that night, the killer breaks in, hiding in her closet. The next morning, Helen wakes up with the crown on her head with most of her hair cut off to bits with "SOON" written in lipstick on her mirror she screams out in horror and smashes the mirror. Julie gets a call from Barry, who tells her to come to Helen's. On the way, Julie hears rattling in her trunk. She opens the trunk to find it full of live crabs and Max's dead body. She shuts the trunk, runs to Helen's and brings her and Barry to her car, but the body and crabs have disappeared. Julie is convinced the killer took the body and that they are not safe. Later they run into Ray back at the house, in which Barry punches Ray in the face, fell to the ground and tells them he got a letter. Julie decides to see Missy again while Helen and Barry watch each other's backs at the parade. Julie meets Missy again and Missy admits that David committed suicide that night. David had been wracked with guilt after accidentally killing his fiance, Susie, in a car accident on the same road on the same night a year before. Missy shows Julie an alleged suicide note written in the same style as Julie's letter from the killer. Julie tries to explain that she was in a car that hit and killed David that night, but Missy becomes irate and tells Julie to leave. At the Croaker pageant, Helen sees Barry murdered by the killer during a performance of Irene Cara's "Fame" by one of the beauty pagent entrants who had entered the year before. However, neither the killer nor the body are found afterwards. A police officer drives Helen home. The killer lures the cop into an alley and kills him after tricking him into believing that his car has broken down. Helen runs to the store where Elsa is working, but the killer finds both of them and, whilst Elsa is locking the back door, he kills Elsa. Helen manages to elude the killer by jumping out of the window into a dumpster and she flees through the back alleys to the parade. Helen then turns around and is then stopped by the killer who shoves her into a stack of tires and slashes her to death, her screams are to no avail as the noise of the parade drowns them out. Julie learns that the killer is Ben Willis , a fisherman. He murdered David Egan after David and Ben's daughter Susie were involved in a car crash near where the four teenagers hit Ben. Susie was killed in the accident and David was unharmed. Ben blamed David and killed him a year later, making it look like a suicide. On the way home, Ben was hit by the group. Julie goes to see Ray on his boat and tells him the story, but he does not believe her. Julie notices the name on his boat is "Billy Blue", the same name used by David's friend who had visited Missy, and accuses him of the murders. He chases her but is knocked unconscious by a man who tells Julie to get on his boat. After she does, she learns he is Ben Willis, the real killer. She is chased around the boat while Ray regains consciousness and steals a boat to save Julie. In a room full of ice, Julie finds Helen and Barry's bodies. Ray climbs aboard and is almost killed by Ben, but is caught in the boat's net. He climbs back aboard and saves Julie. Ben gets his hand caught in a rope and Ray hoists him into the air where Ben's hand is cut off by the pulley and Ben falls into the ocean. On land, Ray tells Julie that the reason he went to see Missy was because he was guilty and had to know who they hit. He tells her he loves her and they embrace. When a policeman asks for any reason why Ben would want to kill them, Julie and Ray both say they don't know. Ben's body is not recovered. A year later, Julie is in her sophomore year of college and is planning a trip to New York with Ray. Julie receives a cell phone call from Ray as she is in the bathroom turning on the shower. She steps out to take the call, and she receives a letter resembling the one she had got from Ben, but it only contains a pool party invitation. Julie returns to the bathroom, which has now filled with steam. On the shower door, "I STILL KNOW" is written. Ben jumps through the shower door and attacks her. Julie screams, and the credits begin with the popular song, "Hush" by Kula Shaker. | 0.790582 | positive | 0.110355 | positive | 0.652467 |
2,711,663 | The Maltese Falcon | Satan Met a Lady | Sam Spade and Miles Archer are hired by a Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who has allegedly run off with Wonderly's younger sister. Spade and Archer take the assignment because the money is good, but Spade implies that the woman looks like trouble. That night, Spade receives a phone call telling him that Archer is dead. When questioned by Sgt. Polhaus about Archer's activities, Spade says that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to reveal their client's identity. Later that night, Polhaus and Lieutenant Dundy visit Spade and inquire about his recent whereabouts, and say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect. They have no evidence against Spade, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The next day, Archer's wife Iva asks Spade if he killed Miles. He tells her to leave, and orders his secretary Effie Perine to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. Visiting his client at her hotel, he learns her real name is Brigid O'Shaughnessy, she never had a sister, and Thursby was an acquaintance who had betrayed her. Later, Spade is visited by Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5,000 if he can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived in San Francisco. Cairo suddenly pulls a gun, declaring his intention to search Spade's office, but Spade knocks him unconscious. When O'Shaughnessy contacts Spade, he senses a connection between her and Cairo, and casually mentions that he has spoken to Cairo. O'Shaughnessy becomes nervous, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting with Cairo. Spade agrees. When they meet at Spade's apartment, Cairo says he is ready to pay for the figurine, but O'Shaughnessy says she does not have it. They also refer to a mysterious figure, "G", of whom they seem to be scared. As the two begin to argue, Polhaus and Dundy show up, but Spade refuses to let them in. As they are about to leave, Cairo screams, and they force their way in. Spade says that Cairo and O'Shaughnessy were merely play-acting, which the officers seem to accept. But they take Cairo with them to the station. Spade tries to get more information from O'Shaughnessy, who stalls. Spade confronts a kid named Wilmer Cook, telling him that his boss, "G," will have to deal with Spade. He later receives a call from Casper Gutman, who wishes to meet him. Gutman says he will pay handsomely for the black bird. Spade bluffs, saying he can get it, but wants to know what it is first. Gutman tells him that the figurine was a gift from the Knights of Malta to the King of Spain, but was lost in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel to conceal its value. Gutman had been looking for it for seventeen years. He traced it to Russian general Kemidov, and sent Cairo, Thursby, and O'Shaughnessy to retrieve it. The latter pair stole the figurine, but kept it. Spade feels dizzy, and when he tries to leave, Wilmer trips him and kicks him in the head. After Spade returns to his office, Captain Jacobi of the La Paloma arrives, drops a package on the floor, and then dies. Spade opens the package, and finds the falcon. He receives a call from O'Shaughnessy, asking for his help. He stores the item at a bus station luggage counter and mails himself the collection tag. At the dock, the La Paloma is on fire. He goes to the address O'Shaughnessy gave him, and finds a drugged girl, her stomach scratched by a pin in order to keep her awake. She gives him information about Brigid, but it is a false lead. When he returns to his apartment, O'Shaughnessy, Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman are waiting. Gutman gives Spade $10,000 for the bird. Spade takes the money, but says that they need a "fall guy" to take the blame for the murders. Cairo and Gutman agree to give him Wilmer. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the rest of the story. Gutman then warns Spade not to trust O'Shaughnessy. Spade calls his secretary and asks her to pick up the figurine. She brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade gives it to Gutman. He quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes that the Russian must have discovered its true value and made a copy. Meanwhile, Wilmer escapes. Gutman regains his composure, and decides to continue the search. Gutman asks Spade for the $10,000. Spade keeps $1,000 for expenses. Cairo and Gutman leave. Immediately after Cairo and Gutman leave, Spade phones Sgt. Polhaus, and tells him about Gutman and Cairo. Spade then asks O'Shaughnessy why she killed Archer. She says she hired Archer to scare Thursby. When Thursby did not leave, she killed Archer, to pin the crime on Thursby. When Thursby was killed, she knew that Gutman was in town, so she came back to Spade for protection. Spade says that the penalty for murder is most likely twenty years, but if they hang her, he will always remember her. O'Shaughnessy begs him not to turn her in, but he replies that he has no choice. When the police arrive, Spade turns over O'Shaughnessy. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived. | Private detective Ted Shane returns to work with his former partner Ames, who is not particularly happy about the situation because his wife Astrid dated Ted before they were wed. Valerie Purvis hires the detectives to locate a man called Farrow, and when both Ames and Farrow are found dead, Shane is suspected of both murders. Shane finds his office and apartment have been ransacked and his secretary Miss Murgatroyd has been locked in a closet by Anthony Travers, who is in search of an 8th century ram's horn rumored to be filled with jewels. Madame Barabbas is also searching for the treasure and sends a gunman to bring Shane to her. Working all sides of the street, Shane makes deals with each of them to find the horn, and eventually winds up in possession of a package allegedly containing it, but it turns out to be full of sand instead of jewels. The police round up all the suspects, but Shane and Valerie escape. He baits her into confessing to Ames's murder and tries to apprehend her for the $10,000 reward, but Valerie thwarts him by allowing a washroom attendant to turn her in to the police instead. Miss Murgatroyd then shows up and claims Shane for her own. | 0.444643 | positive | 0.991926 | positive | 0.926199 |
3,600,824 | A Time to Kill | A Time to Kill | In the fictional Clanton, Mississippi, 10-year-old Tonya Hailey is viciously raped and beaten by two white racists—James Louis "Pete" Willard and Billy Ray Cobb. Shortly thereafter, Tonya is found and rushed to a hospital, while Pete and Billy Ray are heard bragging in a roadside bar about what they did to Tonya. Tonya's distraught and enraged father, Carl Lee Hailey, recalls a similar case from the year before, in which four white men raped a black girl in a nearby town and were acquitted. Carl Lee is determined not to allow that to happen in this case. Consequently, while Deputy DeWayne Powell Looney is escorting Pete and Billy Ray up a flight of stairs inside the courthouse, Carl Lee emerges from a nearby closet with an assault rifle and kills Pete and Billy Ray and accidentally wounds Looney, resulting in the amputation of his lower leg. (During his testimony in the trial Looney forgives Hailey, saying he has a daughter himself, and that if someone raped her, he would gladly do the same as Carl Lee.) Carl Lee is later arrested at his home by the highly respected, honorable and beloved black county sheriff Ozzie Walls (who must uphold the law but, as the father of two daughters of his own, privately supports what Carl Lee did and gives him special treatment while in jail) and charged with capital murder. Despite the efforts of the NAACP and his old military friend Cat to persuade Carl Lee to retain their high-powered attorneys, Carl Lee elects to be represented by his friend, Jake Brigance. Helping Jake on the case are his two most loyal friends--his heavy-drinking former boss Lucien Wilbanks (who has since been disbarred for his involvement in a fight resulting from a union strike, but still consults and aides Jake from the background), and sleazy divorce lawyer Harry Rex Vonner. Later, the crew is joined and greatly assisted by rabid ACLU feminist and law student Ellen Roark, who has prior experience with death penalty cases and offers Jake her services for free as a temporary clerk for the duration of the case. Ellen appears to be interested in Jake romantically, but Jake resists her not-so-subtle overtures and is completely loyal to his wife. The prosecuting attorney is Rufus Buckley, a corrupt shark with no concern or respect for ethics and with sky high political ambitions, hoping to win the case so as to gain the publicity that a win would generate, in hopes of being elected to a higher public office (governor). To annoy Buckley and call attention to this fact, Jake often addresses the D.A. as "governor" in pre-trial conferences. Presiding over the trial is white (but generally impartial) judge Omar "Ichabod" Noose. It is claimed, however, that Noose has been intimidated, both politically and criminally, a rumor given significant merit when, despite having no history of racist tendencies in his decisions, he refuses Jake's perfectly reasonable request for a change of venue, further handicapping the defense, as the racial make-up of Ford County virtually guarantees an all-white jury. At the same time, Billy Ray Cobb's brother, Freddy Lee Cobb, is seeking revenge for Carl Lee's killing of his brother. To this end, Freddy enlists the help of the Mississippi branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which is led by Mississippi grand dragon Stump Sisson. Subsequently, a KKK member attempts to plant a bomb under Jake's porch but is thwarted by the sheriff and a deputy after they receive a tip-off from a confidential informant (apparently inside the Klan) going by the code name "Mickey Mouse." The informant is later exposed and murdered by the Klan, and it is revealed that he was a former client of Jake's and a frequent patron of the coffee shop where Jake has long dined every morning and has become something of a folk-hero there. After the thwarted bombing, Jake sends his wife and daughter out of town to his wife's parents' home until the trial is over and begins spending most nights either in his office or at Lucien's house. Later, Jake's secretary Ethel Twitty and her frail husband Bud are attacked by the KKK, killing Bud. On the day the trial begins, there is a riot outside the court building between the KKK and the area's black residents, and Stump is killed by a molotov cocktail. Believing that the black people were at fault, Freddy and the KKK increase their attacks. As a result, the National Guard is called to Clanton to keep the peace during the trial. Undeterred, Freddy continues his efforts to get revenge for Billy Ray's death. They shoot at Jake one morning as he is being escorted into the courthouse, missing Jake but seriously wounding one of the guardsmen assigned to protect Jake. They continue to burn crosses throughout Clanton, and Jake's house is burnt down while Jake is sleeping at Lucien's. The case proceeds, and after reeling from the loss of his house and the revealing of a decades-old (and long-expunged) criminal conviction of the defense's psychiatrist whom Jake had called to testify to Carl Lee's "temporary insanity" at the time of the killings, Jake perseveres. He badly discredits the state's expert doctor in a powerful and snarky cross-examination in which he establishes that the doctor has never conceded to the insanity of any defendant in any criminal case in which he has been asked to testify, even when multiple other doctors have been in consensus otherwise. He traps the doctor with a revelation that several previous defendants found insane in their trials are currently under his care despite his having testified to their "sanity" in their respective trials. Eventually the doctor loses any favor with the jury when Jake frustrates him to such an extent that he blurts out "You just can't trust juries!" Jake follows this up with his own captivating closing statement (ignoring Lucien's advice to use a statement he had prepared for Jake). After lengthy deliberations during which a massive pro-acquittal demonstration is held, the jury acquits Carl Lee by reason of temporary insanity. Carl Lee returns to his family, and the story ends with Jake, Lucien, and Harry Rex having a celebratory drink before Jake is to hold a press conference and then leave town for a while to reunite with his wife and daughter. One major difference between the novel and the film adaptation is the origin of the assault rifle. In the book, Carl Lee and his brother get the rifle from a Memphis mogul whom Carl Lee rescued in the Vietnam War; in the movie, there is no explanation as to where Carl Lee got the rifle. Another major difference between the book and the movie is the powerful closing argument. In the film, the visual and graphic story is told by Jake Brigance, along with imploring the jury to imagine that the victim was white. However, in the book, Jake and Harry Rex discover through a post trial interview that a woman on the jury made that speech during jury deliberations. There is, in fact, a bit of a recurring theme throughout the book in that Jake is about the only character who does not appear in any way to see the case through a racial lens. He repeatedly refuses to play the "race card" even when baited to do so by several reporters, is clearly much more politically conservative than an attorney arguing such a case at the time might have been expected to be, and is shown to be in sharp contrast with Lucien on such matters, as well as with Ellen, to whom he expresses his strong support for the death penalty (just not for Carl Lee) and his contempt for the ACLU and, to a lesser extent, the NAACP. In short, he seems to see the situation (and thus approaches the case) only from the perspective of the father of a daughter for whom he, too, would kill to protect. However, as a defense attorney, strictly speaking, this perspective is all he is required to defend. | Two white racists, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard , come across a 10-year-old black girl named Tonya Hailey in rural Mississippi. They violently rape and beat Tonya and dump her in a nearby river after a failed attempt to hang her. She survives, and the men are arrested. Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey , seeks out Jake Brigance , an easygoing white lawyer. Carl Lee is worried that the men may be acquitted due to deep-seated racism in the Mississippi Delta area. They discuss a similar case further south in which four white teenagers were acquitted of the rape of a black girl. Brigance admits the possibility that the rapists will walk free in this case as well. Carl Lee acquires an M16 rifle, goes to the county courthouse and opens fire. This results in the deaths of both rapists and also in the unintended injury of Deputy Looney ([[Chris Cooper , who has to have his leg amputated. Carl Lee is soon arrested without resistance. Brigance agrees to provide defense for Carl Lee for a much smaller amount of money than such a trial would usually require. He intends to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. The rape and subsequent revenge killing gain national media attention. The Ku Klux Klan begins to organize in the area. Freddie Lee Cobb , the brother of Billy Ray, calls Brigance and his family with death threats and organizes the formation of a Klan chapter in the county. The district attorney, Rufus Buckley , decides to seek the death penalty, and presiding Judge Omar Noose denies Brigance a change of venue. Brigance seeks help for his defense team from sleazy divorce lawyer and close friend Harry Rex Vonner . He seeks guidance from long-time liberal activist Lucien Wilbanks , a once-great civil rights lawyer who was disbarred for violence on a picket line. Brigance is approached by Ellen Roark , a fiery liberal law student from Massachusetts who belongs to the ACLU. Brigance is initially reluctant to accept Ellen's cooperation, but he later agrees to let her help with the case. The trial begins amid much attention from the media and public. The Klan, which has a member inside the sheriff's department, burns a cross on Brigance's lawn. This incident causes an argument between Brigance and his wife to the effect that if Jake had heeded Carl Lee's warning, this wouldn't have happened. The police evacuate Jake's family out the house. Brigance and the police capture one of the Klan members, and they find a case with a bomb inside it. Brigance throws the bomb into the air, where it explodes. This motivates Jake to send his wife and young daughter away while the trial continues. As the trial begins, the KKK march down Canton's streets and meet a large group of mostly black protesters at the courthouse. Chaos ensues outside the courthouse as the police lose control of the crowd. A black teenager kills the KKK Grand Dragon with a Molotov cocktail, burning him to death. Brigance's attraction to Roark grows, and they nearly begin an affair before Brigance regains his wits. He goes home, finding that arsonists have burned down his house. The next morning, as the Mississippi National Guard is called in to take care of the rioting, Brigance sits on the still-smoking steps of his house. Harry Rex arrives at the remains of the Brigance home and tells Jake that it is time to quit the case. Brigance argues that to quit now would make his sacrifices meaningless. The jury secretly discusses the case in a restaurant, going against the judge's instructions. All but one are leaning toward a guilty verdict and Carl Lee's fate looks sealed. Freddie Lee Cobb shoots at Brigance as he exits the courthouse, but misses. The bullet hits a national guardsman policing the demonstrations, paralyzing him. Roark is kidnapped by Klansmen, beaten, tied to a stake in the wilderness in her underwear and left to die. She is saved by an informant called "Mickey Mouse," who is one of the Klansmen: Tim Nunley ([[John Diehl . Out of options, Brigance goes to see Carl Lee in his jail cell and advises accepting a lesser guilty plea. Carl Lee refuses, telling Brigance that his views on justice and race are wrong, adding: "our kids will never play together." He then tells Jake that the reason he chose Jake as his defense lawyer is that he believed that Jake, a white man who knows Carl Lee well, would be the one person who would know exactly what to say to the jury to convince them to acquit. The courthouse is packed to see the attorneys' closing arguments. Brigance tells the jury to close their eyes and listen to a story. He describes, in slow and painful detail, the rape of a young 10-year-old girl, mirroring the story of Tonya's rape. He then asks the jury, in his final comment, to "now imagine she's white." This final burst of imagery challenges the very nature of the trial itself, raising the very real specter - within the racist culture of the community in which the crime took place - that the actions of Hailey would not have been called to question before the court of law had the victim been white. Had it been so, it is implied that the father's motive in murdering the rapists would have been seen by the public as justified, and there would not have been any prosecution. The argument Brigance then makes is that if the jury can - at any time - be compelled to spare the life of a white man for a vengeful murder, then they must be able to do the same for a black man. After deliberation, an African-American child runs out of the courthouse and screams, "he's innocent!" Jubilation ensues amongst the supporters outside. The KKK, enraged, become violent again. Sheriff Ozzie Walls arrests Freddie Lee, as well as his own racist deputy. The movie ends when Brigance brings his wife and daughter to a family cookout at Carl Lee's house. Carl Lee is surprised and standoffish. Jake explains, "just thought our kids could play together," and Carl Lee smiles at that. | 0.895127 | positive | 0.988064 | positive | 0.334688 |
6,000,549 | The Razor's Edge | The Razor's Edge | Maugham begins by characterising his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell’s lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fiancée’s uncle, Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and a shallow and unrepentant yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the Church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the 13th century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck. Wounded and traumatized by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago, Illinois, and his fiancée, Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to work and instead will "loaf" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Larry’s childhood friend, Sophie, settles into a happy marriage, only later tragically losing her husband and baby in a car accident. Larry moves to Paris and immerses himself in study and bohemian life. After two years of this "loafing," Isabel visits and Larry asks her to join his life of wandering and searching, living in Paris and traveling with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave the coal mine and travel together for a time before parting ways. Larry then meets a Benedictine monk named Father Ensheim in Bonn, Germany while Father Ensheim is on leave from his monastery doing academic research. After spending several months with the Benedictines and being unable to reconcile their conception of God with his own, Larry takes a job on an ocean liner and finds himself in Bombay. Larry has significant spiritual adventures in India and comes back to Paris. What he actually found in India and what he finally concluded are held back from the reader for a considerable time until, in a scene late in the book, Maugham discusses India and spirituality with Larry in a café long into the evening. He starts off the chapter by saying "I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of the story as I have to tell, since for most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. However, I should add that except for this conversation, I would perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book…" Maugham then initiates the reader to 'Advaita philosophy' and reveals how, through deep meditation, Larry goes on to realize God and thus become a saint—in the process gaining liberation from the cycle of human suffering, birth and death that the rest of the earthly mortals are subject to. The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live in her uncle Elliott Templeton’s grand Parisian house. Gray is often incapacitated with agonizing migraines due to a general nervous collapse. Larry is able to help him using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Sophie has also drifted to the French capital, where her friends find her reduced to alcohol, opium, and promiscuity — empty and dangerous liaisons that seem to help her to bury her pain. Larry first sets out to save her and then decides to marry her, a plan that displeases Isabel, who is still in love with him. Isabel tempts Sophie back into alcoholism with a bottle of Żubrówka, and she disappears from Paris. Maugham deduces this after seeing Sophie in Toulon, where she has returned to smoking opium and promiscuity. He is drawn back into the tale when police interrogate him after Sophie has been found murdered with an inscribed book from him in her room, along with volumes by Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Meanwhile in Antibes, Elliott Templeton is on his deathbed. Despite the fact that he has throughout his life compulsively sought out aristocratic society, none of his titled friends come to see him, which makes him alternately morose and irate. But his outlook on death is somewhat positive: "I have always moved in the best society in Europe, and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven." Isabel inherits his fortune, but genuinely grieves for her uncle. Maugham confronts her about Sophie, having figured out Isabel’s role in Sophie’s downfall. Isabel’s only punishment will be that she will never get Larry, who has decided to return to America and live as a common working man. He is uninterested in the rich and glamorous world that Isabel will move in. Maugham ends his narrative by suggesting that all the characters got what they wanted in the end: "Elliott social eminence; Isabel an assured position; ... Sophie death; and Larry happiness." | The film, in which W. Somerset Maugham is himself a minor character, drifting in and out of the lives of the major players, opens at a party held following World War I in 1919 at a country club in Chicago, Illinois. Elliott Templeton , an expatriate, has returned to the United States for the first time since before the war to visit his sister, Edith Bradley , and his niece, Isabel , engaged to be married to Larry Darrell , of whom Elliott strongly disapproves for rejecting both inclusion in their social stratum and working in the common world. Larry is traumatized by the death of a comrade who sacrificed himself on the last day of the war to save Larry and announces that he plans to "loaf" on his small inheritance of $3,000 a year. He refuses a job offer from the father of his friend Gray , a millionaire who is hopelessly in love with Isabel, too. Larry and Isabel agree to postpone their marriage so that he can go to Paris to try to clear his muddled thoughts. Meanwhile, Larry’s childhood friend, Sophie Nelson , settles into a happy marriage with Bob MacDonald , only to lose him and their baby in a tragic car accident. In Paris, Larry immerses himself in a Bohemian life. After a year, Isabel visits and Larry asks her to marry him immediately. Isabel does not understand his search for meaning and breaks their engagement. Before she returns to Chicago she cannot carry through with a scheme to seduce Larry and trick him into making an "honest woman" of her. She marries Gray to provide her the elite social and family life she craves. Meanwhile, Larry works in a coal mine in France, where a defrocked priest, Kosti , urges him travel to India to learn from a mystic. Larry studies at a monastery in the Himalayas under the tutelage of the Holy Man , then makes a lone pilgrimage to the mountaintop where he finds enlightenment. The Holy Man tells Larry to return to the world to share what he now knows about life. Back in Paris, Maugham meets Elliott by chance and learns that Isabel and her family are living with Elliott after being financially ruined by the stock market crash of 1929. Gray has had a nervous breakdown and suffers from terrible headaches. Elliott "sold short" before the crash and "made a killing" in the market. Maugham arranges a lunch for Elliott and his household to meet an old friend, who turns out to be Larry. Larry is able to help Gray using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Later at a disreputable nightclub, they encounter Sophie, now a drunkard. Larry reforms and arranges to marry Sophie, but when he tells Isabel, who is still in love with him, she ploys to prove to Larry that Sophie's reform is only temporary. She successfully tempts Sophie back into drinking and Sophie disappears. Sophie is murdered and her death reunites Larry and Maugham during the police investigation. Maugham and Larry visit Elliott on his deathbed in the South of France. Larry gives Elliott peace of mind after he is deliberately excluded from an important soiree hosted by a princess with whom he had a row, herself once an American Midwesterner like Elliott. Larry persuades Miss Keith , her social secretary, to allow him to use a blank invitation to counterfeit one for Elliott. Isabel inherits her uncle's fortune, which she can use to underwrite Gray's attempt to rebuild his father's bankrupt brokerage. Larry refuses to reconcile with Isabel, deducing that she caused Sophie's return to drinking, and ultimately, her murder. Instead he decides to work his way back to America aboard a tramp steamer. Maugham tries to console Isabel with the knowledge that Larry is happy because he has found in himself the quality of true "goodness." | 0.845121 | positive | 0.337113 | positive | 0.495424 |
1,343,352 | Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ | Ben Hur | Biblical references: Matt. 2:1-12, Luke 2:1-20 Three Magi have come from the East. Balthasar sets up a tent in the desert, where he is joined by Melchior, a Hindu, and Gaspar from Athens. They discover they have been brought together by their common goal. They see a bright star shining over the region, and take it as a sign to leave, following it through the desert toward the province of Judaea. At the Joppa Gate in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph pass through on their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. They stop at the inn at the entrance to the city, but there is no room. Mary is pregnant and, as labor begins, they head to a cave on a nearby hillside, where Jesus is born. In the pastures outside the city, a group of seven shepherds watch their flocks. Angels announce the Christ's birth. The shepherds hurry towards the city and enter the cave on the hillside to worship the Christ. They spread the news of the Christ's birth and many come to see him. The Magi arrive in Jerusalem and inquire for news of the Christ. Herod the Great is angry to hear of another king challenging his rule and asks the Sanhedrin to find information for him. The Sanhedrin deliver a prophecy written by Micah, telling of a ruler to come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, which they interpret to signify the Christ's birthplace. Biblical references: Luke 2:51-52 Judah Ben-Hur is a prince descended from a royal family of Judaea. Messala, his closest childhood friend and the son of a Roman tax-collector, leaves home for five years of education in Rome. He returns as a proud Roman. He mocks Judah and his religion and the two become enemies. Judah decides to go to Rome for military training in order to use his acquired skills to fight the Roman Empire. Valerius Gratus, the fourth Roman prefect of Judaea, passes by Judah's house. As Judah watches the procession, a roof tile happens to fall and hit the governor. Messala betrays Judah, who is arrested. There is no trial; Judah's family is secretly imprisoned in the Antonia Fortress and all the family property is seized. Judah vows vengeance against the Romans. He is sent as a slave to work aboard a Roman warship. On the way to the ship he meets Jesus, who offers him water, which deeply moves Judah. In Italy, Greek pirate-ships have been looting Roman vessels in the Aegean Sea. The prefect Sejanus orders the Roman Quintus Arrius to take warships to combat the pirates. Chained on one of the warships, Judah has survived three hard years as a Roman slave, kept alive by his passion for vengeance. Arrius is impressed by Judah and finds out more about his life and his story. When the ship is attacked by pirates, it starts to sink. Arrius unlocks Judah's chains so he has a chance to survive, and Judah ends up saving the Roman from drowning. They share a plank as a raft until being rescued by a Roman ship. They return to Misenum, where Arrius adopts Judah, making him a freedman and a Roman citizen. Judah Ben-Hur trained in wrestling for five years in the Palaestra in Rome before becoming the heir of Arrius after his death. While traveling to Antioch on state business, Judah learns that his real father's chief servant, the slave Simonides, lives in a house in this city, and has the trust of Judah's father's possessions. Judah visits Simonides, who listens to his story but demands more proof of his identity. Ben-Hur says he has no proof, but asks if Simonides knows of the fate of Judah's mother and sister. He says he knows nothing and Judah leaves the house. Simonides hires his servant Malluch to spy on Judah to see if his story is true and to learn more about him. Malluch meets and befriends Judah in the Grove of Daphne, and they go to the games stadium together. There, Ben-Hur finds his old rival Messala racing one of the chariots, preparing for a tournament. The Sheik Ilderim announces that he is looking for a chariot driver to race his team in the coming tournament. Judah, wanting revenge, offers to drive the sheik's chariot, as he intends to defeat Messala. Balthasar and his daughter Iras are sitting at a fountain in the stadium. Messala's chariot nearly hits them but Judah intervenes. Balthasar thanks Ben-Hur and presents him with a gift. Judah heads to Sheik Ilderim's tent. The servant Malluch accompanies him, and they talk about the Christ; Malluch relates Balthasar's story of the Magi. They realize that Judah saved the man who saw the Christ soon after his birth. Esther, Simonides and Malluch talk together, and conclude that Ben-Hur is who he claims to be, and that he is on their side in the fight against Rome. Messala realizes that Judah Ben-Hur has been adopted into a Roman home and his honor has been restored. He threatens to take revenge. Meanwhile, Balthasar and his daughter Iras arrive at the Sheik's tent. With Judah they discuss how the Christ, approaching the age of thirty, is ready to enter public leadership. Judah takes increasing interest in the beautiful Iras. Messala sends a letter to Valerius Gratus about his discovery of Judah, but Sheik Ilderim intercepts the letter and shares it with Judah. He discovers that his mother and sister were imprisoned in a cell at the Antonia Fortress, and Messala has been spying on him. Ilderim is deeply impressed with Judah's skills with his racing horses as his charioteer. Simonides comes to Judah and offers him the accumulated fortune of the Hur family business, of which the merchant has been steward. Judah Ben-Hur accepts only the money, leaving property and the rest to the loyal merchant. They each agree to do their part to fight for the Christ, whom they believe to be a political savior from Roman authority. A day before the race, Ilderim prepared his horses. Judah appoints Malluch to organize his support campaign for him. Meanwhile, Messala organizes his own huge campaign, revealing Judah Ben-Hur's former identity to the community as an outcast and convict. Malluch challenges Messala and his cronies to a large wager, which, if the Roman loses, would bankrupt him. The day of the race comes. During the race Messala and Judah become the clear leaders. Judah deliberately scrapes his chariot wheel against Messala's and Messala's chariot breaks apart. Judah is crowned winner and showered with prizes, claiming his first strike against Rome. After the race, Judah Ben-Hur receives a letter from Iras asking him to go to the Roman palace of Idernee. When he arrives, he sees that he has been tricked. Thord, a Saxon, hired by Messala, comes to kill Judah. They duel, and Ben-Hur offers Thord four thousand sestercii to let him live. Thord returns to Messala claiming to have killed Judah, so collects money from them both. Supposedly dead, Judah Ben-Hur goes to the desert with Ilderim to plan a secret campaign. For Ben-Hur, Simonides bribes Sejanus to remove the prefect Valerius Gratus from his post, who is succeeded by Pontius Pilate. Ben-Hur sets out for Jerusalem to find his mother and sister. Pilate's review of the prison records reveals great injustice, and he notes Gratus concealed a walled-up cell. Pilate's troops reopen the cell to find two women suffering from leprosy. Pilate releases them, and they go to the old Hur house, which is vacant. Finding Judah asleep on the steps, they give thanks but don't wake him. As lepers, they are to be banished, and they leave. Amrah, the Egyptian maid who once served the Hur house, discovers Ben-Hur and wakes him. She reveals having stayed in the Hur house for all these years. Keeping touch with Simonides, she discouraged many potential buyers of the house by acting as a ghost. They pledge to find out more about the lost family. Judah discovers an official Roman report about the release of two leprous women. Amrah hears rumors of the mother and sister's fate. Romans make plans to use funds from the corban treasury, of the Temple in Jerusalem, to build a new aqueduct. The Jewish people petition Pilate to veto the plan. Pilate sends his soldiers in disguise to mingle with the crowd, who at an appointed time, massacre the protesters. Judah kills a Roman guard in a duel, and becomes a hero in the eyes of a group of Galilean protesters. Biblical references: John 1:29-34 At a meeting in Bethany, Ben-Hur and his Galileans organize a resistance force to revolt against Rome. Gaining help from Simonides and Ilderim, he sets up a training base in Ilderim's territory in the desert. After some time, Malluch writes announcing the appearance of a prophet believed to be a herald for the Christ. Judah journeys to the Jordan to see the Prophet, meeting Balthasar and Iras traveling for the same purpose. They reach Bethabara, where a group has gathered to watch John the Baptist. A man walks up to John, and asks to be baptized. Judah recognizes him as the man who gave him water at the well in Nazareth many years before. Balthasar worships the Christ. Biblical references: Matthew 27:48-51, Mark 11:9-11, 14:51-52, Luke 23:26-46, John 12:12-18, 18:2-19:30 During the next three years, Jesus preaches his gospel around Galilee, and Ben-Hur becomes one of his followers. He notices that Jesus chooses fishermen, farmers, and similar people, considered "lowly", as apostles. Judah has seen Jesus perform miracles, and is convinced that the Christ really had come. During this time, Malluch has bought the old Hur house and renovated it. He invites Simonides and Balthasar, with their daughters, to live in the house with him. Judah Ben-Hur seldom visits, but the day before Jesus plans to enter Jerusalem and proclaim himself, Judah returns. He tells all in the house of what he has learned while following Jesus. Amrah realizes that Judah's mother and sister could be healed, and brings them from a cave where they are living. The next day, the three await Jesus and seek his healing for the women. Amidst the celebration of his Triumphal Entry, Jesus heals the women. When they are cured, they reunite with Judah. Several days later, Iras talks with Judah, saying he has trusted in a false hope, for Jesus had not started the expected revolution. She says that it is all over between them, saying she loves Messala. Ben-Hur remembers the "invitation of Iras" that led to the incident with Thord, and accuses Iras of betraying him. That night, he resolves to go to Esther. While lost in thought, he notices a parade in the street and falls in with it. He notices that Judas Iscariot is leading the parade, and many of the temple priests and Roman soldiers are marching together. They go to the olive grove of Gethsemane, and he sees Jesus walking out to meet the crowd. Understanding the betrayal, Ben-Hur is spotted by a priest who tries to take him into custody; he breaks away and flees. When morning comes, Ben-Hur learns that the Jewish priests have tried Jesus before Pilate. Although originally acquitted, the leader has been sentenced to crucifixion at the crowd's demand. Ben-Hur is shocked at how his supporters have deserted Christ in his time of need. They head to Calvary, and Ben-Hur resigns himself to watch the crucifixion of Jesus. The sky darkens. Ben-Hur offers Jesus wine vinegar to return Jesus' favor to him. Jesus utters his last cry. Ben-Hur and his friends commit their lives to Jesus, realizing he was not an earthly king, but a heavenly king and a savior of mankind. Five years after the crucifixion, Ben-Hur and Esther have married and had children. The family lives in Misenum. Iras visits Esther and tells her she has killed Messala, discovering that the Romans were brutes. After Esther tells Ben-Hur of the visit, he tries unsuccessfully to find Iras. In the tenth year of Emperor Nero's reign, Ben-Hur is staying with Simonides, whose business has been successful. With Ben-Hur, the two men have given most of the fortunes to the church of Antioch. Now, as an old man, Simonides has sold all his ships but one, and that one has returned for probably its final voyage. Learning that the Christians in Rome are suffering at the hands of Emperor Nero, Ben-Hur and his friends decide to help. Ben-Hur, Esther, and Malluch sail to Rome, where they decided to build an underground church. It will survive through the ages and comes to be known as the Catacomb of San Calixto. | The animated version tells the same story as the 1959 film, with some differences. The story begins with Balthazar waiting in the desert for the two other wise men for a journey to Bethlehem. The story of Ben-Hur begins 30 years after the birth of Christ. In contrast to the 1925 and 1959 versions, the face of Jesus is shown and his words are heard in this film. The character of Messala is different from the 1959 film. Appearing lame, he approaches Ben-Hur for forgiveness, and joins Ben-Hur's family and Balthazar to witness the passion of Jesus. Ben-Hur gives water to Jesus on the way to Calvary. As Jesus dies, Ben-Hur and his family, with Balthazar, Messala, and Esther, clasp their hands in prayer. Miracles occur when Jesus heals Ben-Hur's family of leprosy, and enables Messala to walk again. He comes near the cross thanking Jesus for the miracle. At the film's end, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus emerge from the tomb and he ascends into heaven, giving the promise to the apostles to preach the gospel. Ben-Hur, now married to Esther, shares with his children his story and faith in Jesus. | 0.656952 | positive | 0.998281 | positive | 0.994502 |
8,905,156 | King Solomon's Mines | King Solomon's Mines | Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party. Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of "Sheba's Breasts") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of José Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to "give him a companion". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal. They soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves "white men from the stars" – sorcerer-gods – and are required to give regular proof of their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity. They are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by ordering regular witch hunts and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life. Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a solar eclipse to claim that they will black out the sun as proof of Ignosi's claim. The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a duel. The Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the living rock and full of gold, diamonds and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's vast stone door. Unfortunately for Gagool, a brief scuffle with a beautiful native named Foulata – who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries sustained in the battle – causes her to be crushed under the stone door, though not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich. The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live comfortable lives. | In 1882, Irish dream chaser Patrick "Patsy" O'Brien ([[Arthur Sinclair and his daughter Kathy have failed to strike it rich in the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa. They persuade a reluctant Allan Quatermain to give them a lift to the coast in his wagon. Along the way, they encounter another wagon carrying two men in bad shape. Umbopa recovers, but Silvestra dies after boasting to Quatermain that he has found the way to the fabled mines of Solomon. Patsy finds the dead man's map. He sneaks off during the night, unwilling to risk his daughter's life. Kathy is unable to persuade Quatermain to follow him. Instead, they rendezvous with Quatermain's new clients, Sir Henry Curtis ([[John Loder and retired navy Commander Good , out for a bit of big game hunting. Kathy steals Quatermain's wagon to go after her father. When they catch up with her, she refuses to go back with them, so they and Umbopa accompany her across the desert and over the mountains, as shown on the map. During the arduous trek, Curtis and Kathy fall in love. On the other side of the mountains, they are surrounded by unfriendly natives and taken to the kraal of their chief, Twala ([[Robert Adams , to be questioned. Twala takes them to see the entrance of the mines, guarded by the feared witch doctor Gagool . That night, Umbopa reveals that he is the son of the former chief, who was treacherously killed by the usurper Twala. He meets with dissidents, led by Infadoos , who are fed up with Twala's cruel reign. Together, they plot an uprising for the next day, during the ceremony of the "smelling out of the evildoers". However, Umbopa needs Quatermain to come up with something that will counter the magic of Gagool. During the rite, Gagool chooses several natives, who are killed on the spot. Good notices in his diary that there will be a total solar eclipse that day. The quick-thinking Quatermain predicts it as Gagool approaches Umbopa. Umbopa reveals his true identity to the people during the height of the eclipse and the rebellion erupts. Both sides gather their forces; during the ensuing battle, Curtis kills Twala, ending the civil war. In the fighting, Kathy slips away to the mine to look for her father. She finds him inside, immobilized by a broken leg, but clutching a pouch full of diamonds. It is then learned that the mine is also cojoined with a volcano. Quatermain, Curtis and Good follow her, but Gagool sets off a rockfall to seal them in. Umbopa pursues Gagool back into the mine, where the witch doctor is crushed by falling rocks. The new chief manages to free his friends and gives them an escort to help them cross the desert. | 0.641132 | positive | 0.993976 | positive | 0.990438 |
583,407 | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | Return to Oz | Dorothy is a young orphaned girl raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog Toto, who is her sole source of happiness on the dry, gray prairies. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy and Toto inside, is caught up in a cyclone and deposited in a field in Munchkin Country, the eastern quadrant of the Land of Oz. The falling house kills the evil ruler of the Munchkins, the Wicked Witch of the East. The Good Witch of the North comes with the Munchkins to greet Dorothy and gives Dorothy the silver shoes (believed to have magical properties) that the Wicked Witch had been wearing when she was killed. In order to return to Kansas, the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she will have to go to the "Emerald City" or "City of Emeralds" and ask the Wizard of Oz to help her. Before she leaves, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from trouble. On her way down the road of yellow bricks, Dorothy frees the Scarecrow from the pole he is hanging on, restores the movements of the rusted Tin Woodman with an oil can, and encourages them and the Cowardly Lion to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow wants to get a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, courage. All four of the travelers believe that the Wizard can solve their troubles. The party finds many adventures on their journey together, including overcoming obstacles such as narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, vicious Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies. When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to wear green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates as long as they remain in the city. The four are the first to ever successfully meet with the Wizard. When each traveler meets with the Wizard, he appears each time as someone or something different. To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. The Wizard agrees to help each of them—but only if one of them kills the Wicked Witch of the West who rules over the western Winkie Country. The Guardian of the Gates warns them that no one has ever managed to harm the very cunning and cruel Wicked Witch. As the friends travel across the Winkie Country, the Wicked Witch sees them coming and attempts various ways of killing them: * First, she sends her 40 great wolves to kill them. The Tin Woodman manages to kill them all. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West sends her 40 crows to peck their eyes out. The Scarecrow manages to kill them by grabbing them and breaking their necks. * Then the Wicked Witch summons a swarm of bees to sting them to death. Using the Scarecrow's extra straw, the others hide underneath them while the bees try to sting the Tin Woodman. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West uses her Winkie soldiers to attack them. They are scared off by the Cowardly Lion. * Using the power of the Golden Cap, the Wicked Witch of the West summons the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. When the Wicked Witch gains one of Dorothy's silver shoes by trickery, Dorothy in anger grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the Wicked Witch. To her shock, this causes the Witch to melt away, allowing Dorothy to recover the shoe. The Winkies rejoice at being freed of the witch's tyranny, and they help to reassemble the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The Winkies love the Tin Woodman, and they ask him to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy, after finding and learning how to use the Golden Cap, summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions back to the Emerald City. and the King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and the other monkeys were bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, he tries to put them off. Toto accidentally tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of "courage", respectively. Because of their faith in the Wizard's power, these otherwise useless items provide a focus for their desires. In order to help Dorothy and Toto get home, the Wizard realizes that he will have to take them home with him in a new balloon, which he and Dorothy fashion from green silk. Revealing himself to the people of the Emerald City one last time, the Wizard appoints the Scarecrow, by virtue of his brains, to rule in his stead. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon, the ropes break, leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone. Dorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz, subsequently wasting her second wish. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers advises that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, tread carefully through the China Country where they meet Mr. Joker, and dodge the armless Hammer-Heads on their hill. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas. Dorothy uses her third wish to fly over the Hammer-Heads' mountain, almost losing Toto in the process. At Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She tearfully embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective kingdoms: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. Then she will give the Golden Cap to the King of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. Having bid her friends farewell one final time, Dorothy knocks her heels together three times, and wishes to return home. When she opens her eyes, Dorothy and Toto have returned to Kansas to a joyful family reunion. | In October 1899, six months after returning from the Land of Oz, Dorothy Gale has become a melancholic child who cannot sleep, as she is obsessed with her memories of Oz. This concerns Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, who don't believe her, and are worried she cannot help them on the farm, which is at risk of foreclosure after the tornado. The two decide to take her to see Doctor Worley, known for his revolutionary electric healing treatments. Before going, Dorothy, while looking hopefully for any eggs laid by her favorite chicken Billina , finds a key with the OZ glyph, which she believes her friends from Oz sent to her the previous night by shooting star. Aunt Em leaves Dorothy at Dr. Worley's laboratory under the strict care of Nurse Wilson. As she is taken to have treatment during the onset of a huge thunderstorm, the lab has a blackout, and Dorothy is saved by a mysterious blonde girl who reveals that some patients have been driven insane by Worley's treatment and are hidden in the basement. The two escape the building with Nurse Wilson in pursuit, and then fall into a river. The blonde girl vanishes underwater, but Dorothy survives by clambering on board a chicken coop. Upon awakening, Dorothy finds herself back in Oz with Billina, who can now talk, for company. The two discover the ruined Yellow Brick Road, which leads them to the Emerald City, now in ruins, missing its emeralds, and all of its citizens including the Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion turned to stone. Pursued by Wheelers , Dorothy and Billina hide in a secret room using the key, and meet a clockwork mechanical man named Tik-Tok. Taking charge, Tik-Tok explains that King Scarecrow is missing and has been captured by the Nome King. When the three go to visit a head-exchanging witch named Mombi for more information, they end up imprisoned. While imprisoned, Dorothy, Billina, and Tik-Tok meet Jack Pumpkinhead, a man made of tree limbs with a pumpkin for a head. Jack refers to Dorothy as his mother since she resembles his own creator and reveals he was brought to life via Mombi's Powder of Life. They formulate a plan to escape to the Nome King's mountain. Dorothy steals the Powder of Life and uses it to vivify The Gump, the head of a moose-like animal whose body is made from a sofa, palm fronds, and rope gathered from their surroundings. They escape and fly across the Deadly Desert with Mombi and the Wheelers pursuing underground. The Gump's body falls apart while airborne and the group lands on the Nome King's mountain. The Nome King brings Dorothy into his domain and argues that the Scarecrow stole the emeralds from his kingdom to build the Emerald City. Dorothy and Scarecrow reunite briefly, but the Nome King turns him into an ornament and hides him among his large collection. The Nome King offers Dorothy's group a chance to locate the Scarecrow, but three guesses wrong and they will be turned to ornaments as well. All meet this fate and with each one changed, the Nome King becomes increasingly human . When it is Tik-Tok's turn, he pretends that his gears have run down, and Dorothy is allowed in to wind him. Before she enters the ornament room, The Nome King reveals to her that he conquered the Emerald City courtesy of her discarded Ruby Slippers. He offers to use them to send her back home on the condition that she will lose all her memories of OZ, but she refuses and goes to find her friends. Tik-Tok lets Dorothy in on his plan—if he guesses incorrectly, she can see what ornament he will be transformed into, giving her a clue as to which one the Scarecrow is hidden as. But as he makes his last guess, there is a bright flash and Dorothy cannot find him. On her last guess, Dorothy manages to locate the Scarecrow, who was changed into a green ornament. With the Scarecrow back to normal, he and Dorothy begin restoring the others who are all green ornaments. Upon learning this, the enraged Nome King traps Mombi in a cage for her failure and then confronts Dorothy and company in a gigantic, monstrous form. Intent on killing each one of them, he has his minions block off any possible escape route. He then tries to eat them, but Billina lays an egg in fright and it falls into the Nome King's mouth. The Nome King drops Jack and he, his minions, and his kingdom begin crumbling to pieces as eggs are poisonous to Nomes. As the palace crumbles and they seem to have no means of escaping, Dorothy finds the Ruby Slippers and wishes for the Emerald City to return to normal and for her and her friends to escape, which they do. At the Emerald City, during a victory celebration, Dorothy spots the girl who had helped her escape the hospital in Kansas named Princess Ozma, Jack's long-lost creator and the rightful ruler of Oz who had been enchanted into a mirror by Mombi. Taking her place on the throne, Dorothy hands over the Ruby Slippers. After Mombi is imprisoned, Ozma then invites Dorothy to visit Oz any time she likes before sending her home, promising that she will check in with Dorothy from time-to-time to make sure that she is all right. Ozma also promises that if Dorothy ever wishes to return to Oz, she will make it so. Dorothy says goodbye to her friends and disappears in a flash of bright, white light. Back in Kansas, Dorothy is located on a riverbank by her family. Aunt Em reveals that Worley's hospital was struck by lightning and burned down. Dr. Worley was killed in the fire after he had gone back in to rescue his machines. Nurse Wilson is carried away in a prison cart eerily similar to the one Mombi was trapped in. Upon returning to the farmhouse, Dorothy sees Billina and Ozma peering at her through her bedroom mirror. When Dorothy entreats Aunt Em to come to her room to see Ozma, Ozma silently instructs her to keep her and Oz a secret. Dorothy and Toto then run outside and play. | 0.817428 | positive | 0.496119 | positive | 0.994896 |
673,682 | Falling Angel | Angel Heart | In 1959, a popular crooner before and during the Second World War, entertainer Johnny Favorite, hasn't been seen or heard since he was critically wounded during a 1943 Luftwaffe raid on Allied forces in Tunisia. When private investigator Harry Angel is hired to locate him on behalf of a mysterious client who calls himself Louis Cyphre, he finds himself enmeshed in a disturbing occult milieu. | The movie opens in New York City, in January 1955. Harry Angel , a downtrodden but competent private investigator, is contacted by an attorney named Herman Winesap and instructed to meet a client named Louis Cyphre in a Harlem church. Cyphre, an elegant, mysterious man, tells Angel about a once-popular big band crooner named Johnny Favorite who was drafted during World War II and suffered severe neurological trauma in action. Favorite's incapacitation disrupted a contract with Cyphre regarding unknown collateral, and Cyphre believes that the hospital has falsified records, preventing the contract from being fulfilled. He hires Angel to discover the truth, and in the process, locate Favorite. Angel travels to the hospital and discerns that the records were altered by a morphine-addicted veteran physician named Fowler ([[Michael Higgins who admits he was paid $25,000 by a wealthy friend of Favorite's and a woman to do so; Fowler turns up dead shortly thereafter and Angel fears being suspected. He meets Cyphre to update him and end the job, but Cyphre pays him $5,000 to continue the search. Angel uses a journalist lover to find out most of Favorite's background, including his pre-war friendship with a Coney Island fortune teller. He learns that her name is Margaret Krusemark , now a prominent figure in voodoo, and travels to New Orleans to find her. Margaret divulges little information to Angel and tells him that Johnny is dead to her. To circumvent her obstruction, he tracks down Johnny's former secret love and discovers her daughter Epiphany Proudfoot , who was conceived during her relationship with Favorite. Epiphany is equally reluctant to speak, so Angel locates Toots Sweet , a blues guitarist and former Favorite bandmate. After witnessing Toots at a voodoo ceremony attended by Epiphany, Angel uses force to extract details of Favorite's last known whereabouts from Toots. In the morning, the New Orleans police inform Angel that Toots was murdered after he left; Angel later finds Margaret murdered in her home and her heart removed with a sacrificial knife. Epiphany stops by Angel's hotel and they have sex; during this time she reveals that Johnny Favorite was considered an extremely evil man who turned on everyone he knew. Angel suspects that Favorite is in hiding and killing off his former friends to prevent his discovery. Angel forces an attacker to take him to his employer, who is actually Ethan Krusemark, a very wealthy, powerful Louisiana patriarch and father of Margaret. Krusemark invites Angel into a shed at his racetrack and in a heated conversation, reveals the final horrible news to him about Favorite: Favorite was a powerful magician who, with the assistance of the Krusemarks, conjured and sold his soul to Lucifer in exchange for stardom, but afterward sought to renege on the bargain. Using an obscure rite and the help of his now-dead friends, Favorite kidnapped a soldier, murdered and cannibalized him in a ritual killing to steal his soul and assume the man's identity, but his sudden conscription and the amnesia from his injuries ruined the plan's fruition. The Krusemarks released him into Times Square after sneaking him out of the hospital and hoped for the best. Angel has a panic attack upon hearing this and ducks into the bathroom, wanting to know who the soldier was; he emerges to find Krusemark's body in a boiling gumbo cauldron and flees to Margaret's home to search for the soldier's personal effects. Angel finds a vase and breaks it open, revealing a set of dog tags with the name "ANGEL, HAROLD" stamped on them; Angel was and has been Johnny Favorite the whole time. Louis Cyphre, a pseudonym for Lucifer, appears in Margaret's living room and tells him that Winesap is dead, and that he has known Angel's true identity since the beginning; he has come to collect because of Favorite's attempt to break the contract. Angel refuses to believe him and is convinced that Cyphre is merely posing as the devil and trying to frame him for the murders. Cyphre exposes his true self and unleashes Angel's repressed memories of killing Fowler, Toots, and the Krusemarks in a fugue state induced by Cyphre. When Cyphre disappears, Angel runs back to his hotel and finds the police in his bedroom, looking over the body of Epiphany, who was killed with his pistol and is wearing his dog tags. With Johnny finally remembering the truth, and since he will be executed for the murders, Cyphre can at last claim what is his: Favorite's immortal soul. Over the end credits, there is a lengthy sequence of a silhouetted Angel descending in an ancient iron Otis elevator cage, on his way to his execution and, ultimately, to Hell. As the screen fades to black, Cyphre can be heard saying, "Harry" and "Johnny," showing his dominion over their souls. | 0.629079 | negative | -0.494814 | positive | 0.9875 |
4,350,811 | The Grapes of Wrath | The Grapes of Wrath | The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his journey to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, he meets former preacher Jim Casy whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at his childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, he and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them that the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. He goes on to tell them that the banks have evicted all the farmers off their land, but he refuses to leave the area. Tom and Casy get up the next morning to go to Uncle John's. There, Tom finds his family loading a converted Hudson truck with what remains of their possessions; the crops were destroyed in the Dust Bowl and, as a result, the family had to default on their loans. With their farm repossessed, the Joads cling to hope, mostly in the form of handbills distributed everywhere in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, describing the fruitful state of California and the high pay to be had in that state. The Joads are seduced by this advertising and invest everything they have into the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides that it is a risk worth taking. Casy is invited to join the family as well. Going west on Route 66, the Joad family discovers that the road is saturated with other families making the same trek, ensnared by the same promise. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some coming back from California, and are forced to confront the possibility that their prospects may not be what they hoped. Along the road, Grampa dies and is buried in the camp; Granma dies close to the California state line, both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family; the remaining members, led by Ma, realize they have no choice but to go on, as there is nothing remaining for them in Oklahoma. Upon arrival, they find little hope of making a decent wage, as there is an oversupply of labor and a lack of rights, and the big corporate farmers are in collusion, while smaller farmers are suffering from collapsing prices. A gleam of hope is presented at Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that has been established to help the migrants, but there is not enough money and space to care for all of the needy. As a Federal facility, the camp is also off-limits to California deputies who constantly harass and provoke the newcomers. In response to the exploitation of laborers, there are people who attempt for the workers to join unions, including Casy, who had gone to jail after taking the blame for attacking a rogue deputy. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers on a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. Tom Joad witnesses the killing of Casy and kills the attacker, becoming a fugitive. They later leave the orchard for a cotton farm where Tom is at risk of being identified for the murder he committed. He bids farewell to his mother, promising that no matter where he runs, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn; however, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. When the rains arrive, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground. | The film opens with Tom Joad , released from prison and hitchhiking his way back to his parents' family farm in Oklahoma. Tom finds an itinerant ex-preacher named Jim Casy sitting under a tree by the side of the road. Casy was the preacher who baptized Tom, but now Casy has "lost the spirit" and his faith . Casy goes with Tom to the Joad property only to find it deserted. There, they meet Muley who is hiding out. In a flashback, he describes how farmers all over the area were forced from their farms by the deed holders of the land. A local boy , hired for the purpose, is shown knocking down Muley's house with a Caterpillar tractor. Following this, Tom and Casy move on to find the Joad family at Tom's Uncle John's place. His family is happy to see Tom and explain they have made plans to head for California in search of employment, as their farm has been foreclosed by the bank. The large Joad family of twelve leaves at daybreak, along with Casy who decides to come. They pack everything into a dilapidated 1926 Hudson "Super Six" sedan adapted to serve as a truck in order to make the long journey to the promised land of California. The trip along Highway 66 is arduous, and it soon takes a toll on the Joad family. The elderly Grandpa dies along the way. After he dies, they pull over to the shoulder of the road, unload him, and bury him. Tom writes the circumstances surrounding the death on a page from the Family Bible and places it on the body so that if his remains were found, his death would not be investigated as a possible homicide. They park in a camp and meet a man, a migrant returning from California, who laughs at Pa's optimism about conditions in California. He speaks bitterly about his experiences in the West. The family arrives at the first transient migrant campground for workers and finds the camp is crowded with other starving, jobless and desperate travelers. Their truck slowly makes its way through the dirt road between the shanty houses and around the camp's hungry-faced inhabitants. Tom says, "Sure don't look none too prosperous." After some trouble with a so-called "agitator," the Joads leave the camp in a hurry. The Joads make their way to another migrant camp, the Keene Ranch. After doing some work in the fields, they discover the high food prices in the company store for meat and other products. The store is the only one in the area, by a long shot. Later they find a group of migrant workers are striking, and Tom wants to find out all about it. He goes to a secret meeting in the dark woods. When the meeting is discovered, Casy is killed by one of the camp guards. As Tom tries to defend Casy from the attack, he inadvertently kills the guard. Tom suffers a serious wound on his cheek, and the camp guards realize it won't be difficult to identify him. That evening the family hides Tom under the mattresses of the truck just as guards arrive to question them; they are searching for the man who killed the guard. Tom avoids being spotted and the family leaves the Keene Ranch without further incident. After driving for a while, they have to stop at the top of a hill when the engine overheats due to a broken fan belt; they have little gas, but decide to try coasting down the hill to some lights. The lights are from a third type of camp: Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Camp , a clean camp run by the Department of Agriculture, complete with indoor toilets and showers, which the Joad children had never seen before. Tom is moved to work for change by what he has witnessed in the various camps. He tells his family that he plans to carry on Casy's mission in the world by fighting for social reform. He leaves to seek a new world and to join the movement committed to social justice. Tom Joad says: I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too. As the family moves on again, they discuss the fear and difficulties they have had. Ma Joad concludes the film, saying: I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain't no good and they die out, but we keep on coming. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, cos we're the people. The first part of the film version follows the book fairly accurately. However, the second half and the ending in particular are significantly different from the book. While the book ends with the downfall and break-up of the Joad family, the film switches the order of sequences so that the family ends up in a "good" camp provided by the government, and events turn out relatively well.{{citation needed}} In the novel Rose-of-Sharon Rivers gives birth to a stillborn baby. Later she offers her milk-filled breasts to a starving man, dying in a barn. These scenes were not included in the film. While the film is somewhat stark, it has a more optimistic and hopeful view than the novel, especially when the Joads land at the Department of Agriculture camp – the clean camp.{{citation needed}}Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath, 1939. Penguin Classics; Reissue edition October 1, 1992. Ivy and Sairy Wilson, who attend to Grandpa's death and travel with the Joads until they reach California, are left out of the movie. Noah's departure from the family is passed over in the movie. In the book, Floyd tells Tom about how the workers were being exploited, but in the movie he does not appear until after the deputy arrives in Hooverville. Sandry, the religious fanatic who scares Rose of Sharon, is left out of the movie. Vivian Sobchack argued that the film uses visual imagery to focus on the Joads as a family unit, whereas the novel focuses on their journey as a part of the "family of man". She points out that their farm is never shown in detail, and that the family members are never shown working in agriculture; not a single peach is shown in the entire film. This subtly serves to focus the film on the specific family, as opposed to the novel's focus on man and land together.{{cite journal}} | 0.85201 | positive | 0.599876 | positive | 0.995565 |
17,917,662 | The Notebook | The Notebook | The story begins with Noah, an 80-year-old man, reading to a woman in a nursing home. He tells her the following story: : Noah, 31, returns from World War II to his town of New Bern, North Carolina. He finishes restoring an antebellum-style house, after his father's death. Meanwhile Allie, 29, sees the house in the newspaper and decides to pay him a visit. : They are meeting, again, after a 14-year separation, which followed their brief but passionate summer romance when her family was visiting the town. They were separated by class, as she was the daughter of a wealthy family, and he worked as a laborer in a lumberyard then. Seeing each other brings on a flood of memories and strong emotions in both of them. They have dinner together and talk about their lives and the past. Allie learns that Noah had written letters to her, every day of one year, 365 letters after their breakup. She realizes that her mother must have intercepted his letters. They talk about what could have happened between them without her mother's interference. At the end of the night, Noah invites Allie to come back the next day and promises her a surprise. She decides to see him again. During this time, her fiancé, Lon, tries to reach her at the hotel. When Allie does not respond to his calls, he begins to worry. : The next day, Noah takes Allie on a canoe ride in a small lake where swans and geese swim. She is enchanted. On their way back, they are caught in a storm and end up soaked. When they return to his house, they talk again about how important they were to each other, and how their feelings have not changed. Noah and Allie share a kiss and make love. : Allie's mother shows up the next morning and gives Allie the letters from Noah. When her mother leaves, Allie is torn and has a decision to make. She knows she loves Noah, but she does not want to hurt Lon. Noah begs her to stay with him, but she decides to leave. She cries all the way back to the hotel and starts reading the letters her mother returned to her. At the hotel, her fiancé, Lon, is waiting in the lobby. The man stops reading the story at this point, and tells the reader that he is reading to his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and does not recognize him. He explains that he is also ill, battling a third cancer, and suffering heart disease, kidney failure, and severe arthritis in his hands. He resumes reading the story and describing their life together: her career as a famous painter, their children, growing old together, and finally the diagnosis of Alzheimer's. He had changed the names in the story to protect her, but he is Noah and she is Allie. They walk together and Allie, although she does not recognize him, says she might feel something for him. That night they have dinner together. Referring to the story, she says that she thinks Allie chose Noah. Recognizing her husband, she tells him that she loves him. They embrace and talk, but after almost four hours, Allie fades and begins to panic and hallucinate. She forgets who he is again. | At a modern-day nursing home, an elderly man named Duke begins to read a romantic story from his notebook to a fellow patient . The story he tells begins in 1940. In Seabrook Island, South Carolina, local country boy Noah Calhoun is smitten with seventeen-year-old heiress Allie Hamilton after seeing her at a carnival, and they share an idyllic summer love affair. Noah takes Allie to an abandoned house, which he explains that he intends to buy for them. Later that evening, she asks him to make love to her, but they are interrupted by Noah's friend Fin ([[Kevin Connolly with the news that Allie's parents have the police out looking for her. When Allie and Noah return to her parents' mansion, they ban her from seeing Noah, whom they say is "trash, trash, trash not for you!". The two break up and the next morning, Allie's mother announces that the family is returning home to Charleston. Noah writes a letter each day to Allie for one year, but Allie's mom intercepts them all and keeps them hidden from Allie. As each lover sees there is no contact from the other, Noah and Allie have no choice but to move on with their lives; Noah and Fin enlist to fight in World War II and Fin is killed in battle. Allie becomes a volunteer in a hospital for wounded soldiers, where she meets an officer named Lon Hammond, Jr. , a young lawyer who is handsome, sophisticated, charming and comes from old Southern money. The two eventually become engaged, to the delight of Allie's parents, but Allie sees Noah's face when Lon asks her to marry him. When Noah returns home from the war, he discovers his father has sold their home so that Noah can buy the abandoned house, fulfilling his lifelong dream to buy it for the departed Allie, whom by now he hasn't seen for several years. While visiting Charleston, Noah witnesses Allie and Lon kissing at a restaurant; he convinces himself that if he fixes up the house, Allie will come back to him. Later, Allie is startled to read in the newspaper that Noah has completed the house and she visits him in Seabrook. In the present, it is made clear that the elderly woman is in fact Allie, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and cannot remember any of the events of the film so far. Duke, the man who is reading to her, is her husband, but Allie cannot recognize him. Back in the forties, the day after Allie arrives in Seabrook, she and Noah renew their relationship and make love. In the morning, Allie's mother appears on Noah's doorstep, telling Allie that Lon has come to Seabrook to take her home. She takes Allie out for a drive, and reveals that 25 years earlier, she also loved a common man. She leaves Allie with a bundle of letters -- all of Noah's letters, and hopes that Allie will make the right choice. Allie confesses to Lon that she has been spending time with Noah. He is angry but says that he still loves her. Allie tells him she knows she should be with him, but she remains indecisive. In the present, Duke asks Allie whom she chose. Becoming lucid, she remembers that the story Duke was reading is the story of how they met. Young Allie appears at Noah's doorstep, having left Lon at the hotel and chosen Noah. Elderly Allie suddenly remembers her past; after finding out about her illness, she herself wrote their story in the notebook with instructions for Noah to "read this to me, and I'll come back to you". But only minutes later Allie relapses, losing her memories of Noah. She panics, not understanding who he is, and has to be sedated. The elderly Noah has a heart attack, and we see Allie is alone for a time. However, as soon as he is sufficiently recovered, Noah goes to Allie's room one evening to find her lucid again. Allie questions Noah about what will happen to them when she won't be able to remember anything anymore, and he reassures her that he will never leave her. She asks him if he thinks their love for each other is strong enough to "take them away together"; he replies that he thinks their love could do anything. After telling each other that they love one another, they both fall asleep in Allie's bed. The next morning, a nurse finds them dead in each others' arms. | 0.901236 | positive | 0.994833 | positive | 0.327162 |
571,383 | The Exorcist | Exorcist II: The Heretic | An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. Following the discovery of a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demigod) and a modern-day St. Joseph medal curiously juxtaposed together at the site, a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he has battled before in an exorcism in Africa. Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young girl named Regan MacNeil living with her famous mother, actress Chris MacNeil, becomes inexplicably ill. After a gradual series of poltergeist-like disturbances, she undergoes disturbing psychological and physical changes, appearing to become "possessed" by a demonic spirit. After several unsuccessful psychiatric and medical treatments, Regan's mother turns to a local Jesuit priest. Father Damien Karras, who is currently going through a crisis of faith coupled with the loss of his mother, agrees to see Regan as a psychiatrist, but initially resists the notion that it is an actual demonic possession. After a few meetings with the child, now completely inhabited by a diabolical personality, he turns to the local bishop for permission to perform an exorcism on the child. The bishop with whom he consults does not believe Karras is qualified to perform the rites, and appoints the experienced Merrin, who has recently returned to the United States, to perform the exorcism; although he does allow the doubt-ridden Karras to assist him. The lengthy exorcism tests the priests both physically and spiritually. When Merrin, who had previously suffered cardiac arrhythmia, dies during the process, completion of the exorcism ultimately falls upon Father Karras. When he demands that the demonic spirit inhabit him instead of the innocent Regan, the demon seizes the opportunity to possess the priest. Karras surrenders his own life in exchange for Regan's by jumping out of her bedroom window. | Philip Lamont, a priest struggling with his faith, attempts to exorcise a possessed South American girl, who claims to "heal the sick." Afterwards, Lamont is assigned by the Cardinal to investigate the death of Father Lankester Merrin, who had been killed four years prior in the course of exorcising the Assyrian demon Pazuzu from Regan MacNeil. The Cardinal informs Lamont that Merrin is up on posthumous heresy charges due to his controversial writings. Apparently, Church authorities are trying to modernize and do not want to acknowledge that Satan as an actual evil entity exists. Regan, although now seemingly normal and staying with guardian Sharon Spencer in New York, continues to be monitored at a psychiatric institute by Dr. Gene Tuskin. Regan claims she remembers nothing about her plight in Washington, D.C., but Tuskin believes her memories are only buried or repressed. Father Lamont visits the institute but his attempts to question Regan about the circumstances of Father Merrin's death are rebuffed by Dr. Tuskin, believing that Lamont's approach would do Regan more harm than good. In an attempt to plumb her memories of the exorcism, specifically the circumstances in which Merrin died, Dr. Tuskin hypnotizes the girl, to whom she is linked by a "synchronizer"{{spaced ndash}}a biofeedback device used by two people to synchronize their brainwaves. After a guided tour by Sharon of the Georgetown house where the exorcism took place, Lamont returns to be coupled with Regan by synchronizer. The priest is spirited to the past by Pazuzu to observe Father Merrin exorcising a young boy, Kokumo, in Africa. Learning that the boy developed special powers to fight Pazuzu, who appears as a swarm of locusts, Lamont journeys to Africa, defying his superior, to seek help from the adult Kokumo. Lamont learns that Pazuzu attacks people who all have some form of psychic healing ability. Kokumo has since become a scientist, studying how to prevent grasshoppers from becoming locust swarms. Regan is able to reach telepathically inside the minds of others; she uses this to help an autistic girl to speak, for instance. Father Merrin belonged to a group of theologians who believed that psychic powers were a spiritual gift which would one day be shared by all humanity in a kind of global consciousness; and thought people like Kokumo and Regan were foreshadowers of this new type of humanity. In a vision, Merrin asks Lamont to watch over Regan. Lamont and Regan return to the old house in Georgetown. The pair are followed by Tuskin and Sharon, concerned about Regan's safety. En route, Pazuzu tempts Lamont by offering him unlimited power, appearing as a succubus doppelganger of Regan. Lamont initially succumbs to the demon but is brought back by Regan and attacks the Regan doppelganger while a swarm of locusts deluge the pair and the entire house begins to crumble around them. However, Lamont manages to kill the Regan doppelganger by beating open its chest and pulling out its heart. In the end, Regan banishes the locusts by enacting the same ritual attempted by Kokumo to get rid of locusts in Africa . Outside the house, Sharon dies from burn injuries after she immolates herself and Tuskin tells Lamont to watch over Regan. Regan and Lamont leave and Tuskin remains at the house to answer the police's questions. | 0.770832 | positive | 0.992471 | positive | 0.988088 |
8,351,040 | The Painted Veil | The Painted Veil | Somerset Maugham uses a third-person - limited, point-of-view in this story, where Kitty is the Focal character. Kitty Garstin, a very pretty upper-middle class debutante, squanders her early youth amusing herself at cotillions and social events - during which her domineering mother attempts to arrange a “brilliant match” for her. By age 25, Kitty has flirted with – and declined the marriage proposals of – dozens of suitors. Her mother, convinced that her eldest daughter has “missed her market”, urges Kitty to settle for the rather “odd” Walter Fane, a bacteriologist and M.D., who is madly in love with Kitty. In a panic that her much younger – and less attractive - sister, Doris, will upstage her by marrying first, Kitty consents to Walter’s ardent marriage proposition with the words, “I suppose so.” Shortly before Doris’ much grander wedding, Kitty and Walter depart as newlyweds to his post in Hong Kong. Just weeks after settling in the far East, Kitty meets Charles Townsend, the Assistant Colonial Secretary. He is tall, handsome, able and extremely charming, and they begin to have an affair. Almost two years hence, Walter, unsuspecting, and still devoted to his wife, observes Kitty and Charles during an assignation, and the lovers, suspecting they’ve been discovered, reassure themselves that Walter will not intervene in the matter. Charles promises Kitty that, come what may, he will stand by her. Aware that the cuckolded Walter is his administrative inferior, Charles feels confident that the bacteriologist will avoid scandal to protect his career and reputation. For her part, Kitty, who has never felt real affection for her husband, grasps that, in fact, he is fully aware of her infidelity (though he initially refrains from confronting her) and she begins to despise his apparent cowardice. She discerns, however, an ominous change in his demeanor, masked by his “scrupulously polite” behavior. Walter suddenly confronts Kitty with an ultimatum: She must either accompany him to the Chinese interior to deal with a cholera epidemic, risking death, or he will file for divorce, with the caveat that Townsend divorce and remarry immediately with Kitty. Kitty goes to see Townsend who reveals his perfidy and refuses to leave his wife. Their conversation, when she realizes he doesn't wish to make a sacrifice for the relationship, unfolds gradually, as Kitty grasps Charlie's true nature. She is surprised to find when she returns home that Walter has already had her clothes packed—he knew Townsend would let her down. Heartbroken and disillusioned, Kitty decides she has no option but to accompany Walter to the cholera-infested mainland of China. At first suspicious and bitter, Kitty finds herself embarked on a journey of self-appraisal. She meets Waddington, a British deputy commissioner, who, though an inveterate skeptic – and an alcoholic - provides Kitty with insights as to the unbecoming character of her lover, Charles. He further introduces her to the French nuns who are nursing, at great personal risk, the sick and orphaned children of the cholera epidemic. Her husband Walter, has immersed himself in the difficulties of managing the cholera crisis. His character is held in high esteem by the nuns and the native officials, due to his self-sacrifice and tenderness towards the suffering children. Kitty, however, remains unable to feel attraction towards him as man and husband. Kitty meets with the Mother Superior, an individual of great personal force, yet loved and respected. The nun allows Kitty to assist in caring for the older children at the convent, but will not permit her to engage with the sick and dying. Kitty’s regard for her deepens and grows. Kitty discovers that she is pregnant and suspects that Charles Townsend is the father. Rather than answering Walter’s simple inquiry as to whether he is the father with a “yes”, she tells him the truth – “I don’t know”. She cannot bring herself to deceive her husband again, though she knows that to lie would be to deny him what he longs for most. Kitty has undergone a profound personal transformation. Soon after, Walter falls ill in the epidemic – possibly through experimenting upon himself to find a cure for cholera - and Kitty, at his deathbed, hears his last words. She returns to Hong Kong where she is met by Dorothy Townsend, Charles' wife, who convinces Kitty to come to stay with them - as Kitty is now mistakenly regarded as a heroine who voluntarily and faithfully followed her husband into great danger. At the Townsend house, much against her intentions, she is seduced by Charles and makes love with him one more time despite admitting he is vain and shallow, much as she once was. She is disgusted with herself and tells him what she thinks of him. Kitty returns to the UK, en route finding her mother has died. Her father, an only moderately successful barrister, is appointed Chief Justice of a minor British colony in the Caribbean and she persuades her father to allow her to accompany him there where she intends to dedicate her life to her father and to ensuring her child is brought up to avoid the mistakes she had made. | After her sister Olga marries and leaves home, Katrin Koerber, the daughter of an Austrian medical professor, fights loneliness and dreams of a more exciting life outside Austria. Consequently, when Dr. Walter Fane, a British bacteriologist, asks her to marry him and move to Hong Kong, she agrees, even though she is not in love with him. As soon as the newlyweds arrive in Hong Kong, however, Walter becomes subsumed in his medical work, and Katrin becomes the romantic target of Jack Townsend, the unhappily married attaché to the British embassy. While showing her the city's exotic sights, Jack flirts with Katrin and kisses her. Katrin, unnerved by Jack's actions, retreats to her house, but soon rejoins him to observe local dancers performing at a Buddhist festival. Stimulated by the dancing and the atmosphere of a Buddhist temple, Jack confesses his love to Katrin, and Katrin admits that she is not in love with Walter. At home, Katrin then treats Walter coolly and reveals that his chronic lateness and fatigue annoy her. To make amends, Walter comes home early the next day, but discovers Katrin's bedroom door locked and Jack's hat on a table. That evening, Walter confronts Katrin with his suspicions, and she admits that she loves Jack. Distraught, Walter tells Katrin that he will grant her a divorce only if Jack promises in writing that he will divorce his wife and marry her. When Katrin presents Walter's conditions to Jack, he tells her that a divorce would ruin both his career and his reputation and backs out of the affair. Heartbroken, Katrin reluctantly accompanies Walter to an inland region of China, where a cholera epidemic is raging. While Walter struggles to arrest the epidemic, Katrin grows more and more despondent and lonely. Eventually, Walter's inundation in the death and destruction wrought by the epidemic causes him to see his animus toward Katrin as insignificant. He tells her that he still loves her and will end her suffering by sending her back to Hong Kong, while he prepares to leave for a remote river village that has been identified as the root of the epidemic. She replies that although she is still conflicted in her feelings for Jack, she nonetheless now understands what a good man Walter is and that she's ashamed of having cuckolded him. After Walter has left, Jack realizes his genuine love for Katrin and leaves Hong Kong for the inland. Walter returns from the village after ordering it to be burned to combat the spread of the disease. He is overjoyed to find that Katrin has remained to help young cholera victims at a local orphanage, rather than returning to Hong Kong. Walter is stabbed by villagers angry over having their houses burned and Katrin rushes to be near him. While waiting to see her husband, Katrin is confronted by Jack, but tells him that she now loves only Walter and at last understands the sacrifices he makes for medicine. After Jack departs, Katrin assures the wounded Walter that she at last has fallen in love with him. | 0.708788 | positive | 0.001591 | positive | 0.005745 |
31,176 | Lottie and Lisa | The Parent Trap | Two nine-year-old girls—rude Lisa Palfy (orig. Luise Palfy) from Vienna, and respectful shy Lottie Horn (orig. Lotte Körner) from Munich—meet on a summer camp in Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren (orig. 'Seebühl am Bühlsee'). Lisa has curly hair; Lottie wears braids. Apart from that, they look alike. They have never seen each other before, but soon find out that they are identical twins. It turns out that their parents divorced, each keeping one of the girls. The two girls decide it is unfair that neither of them has ever been told that she is a twin, or that her other parent is still living. They decide to trade places at the end of the summer so that Lottie will have a chance to get to know her father and Lisa will get to meet her mother. Lottie curls her hair, Lisa braids hers, and both go off to where they have never been before. The adventure begins. While many adults are surprised at the changes in each of the girls after they return from camp ("Lottie" has suddenly forgotten how to cook, gets in a fight at school, and becomes a terrible student, while "Lisa" has begun to keep a close eye on the housekeeper's bookkeeping, will no longer eat her favorite food, and becomes a model student), no one suspects that the girls are not who they claim to be. When Lottie (pretending to be Lisa) finds out that her father is planning to remarry, she becomes very ill and stops writing to her sister in Munich. Meanwhile, Lottie's mother comes across a picture of the two girls that was taken while they were at summer camp. She quickly realizes what has happened and Lisa tells her the entire story. The discovery turns out to have come just in time. The girls' mother calls her ex-husband in Vienna to tell him what has happened and to find out why Lottie has stopped writing. When she hears that her daughter is ill, she and Lisa immediately travel to Vienna to be with her. The four of them (father, mother, Lisa and Lottie) are still in Vienna for the girls' birthday. The girls tell their parents that they don't need any presents on this birthday or ever again as long as they don't have to be separated again. The parents talk it over, realize that they are still in love and decide to get remarried. | Identical twins Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick meet at summer camp, unaware that they are sisters. Their identical appearance initially creates rivalry, and they continually pull pranks on one another. Eventually, their mischief ruins the camp dance. As punishment, they must live together in an isolated cabin for what remains of the summer. After both admit they come from broken homes, they soon realize they are twin sisters and that their parents, Mitch and Maggie , divorced shortly after their birth, with each parent having custody of one of them. The twins, each eager to meet the parent they never knew, switch places. While Susan is in Boston masquerading as Sharon, Sharon goes to California pretending to be Susan. Sharon telephones Susan in Boston with news that their father is planning to marry a gold-digger, and their mother needs to be rushed to California to prevent the union. In Boston, Susan tells her mother the truth about the switched identities and the two fly there. With all four in California, the twins set about sabotaging their father's marriage plans. Mitch's money-hungry, and much-younger, fiancée, Vicky Robinson , receives rude, mischievous treatment from the girls and some veiled cattiness from Maggie. One evening, the girls recreate their parents' first date at an Italian restaurant with a gypsy violinist. The former spouses are gradually drawn together, though they quickly begin bickering over minor things and Vicky. To delay Maggie's return to Boston with Sharon, the twins dress and talk alike so their parents are unable to tell them apart. They will reveal who is who only after everyone goes on the annual family camping trip. Mitch and Maggie reluctantly agree, but when Vicky objects to the plan, Maggie tricks her into taking her place. The girls effect the coup de grace: Vicky spends her time swatting mosquitoes and being awakened in terror by two bear cubs licking the honey the twins put on her feet. Exasperated, Vicky angrily slaps one of the girls, and Mitch ends the relationship. Mitch and Maggie rekindle their love, and the two remarry in the final scene with the twins in the wedding party. | 0.653436 | positive | 0.991299 | positive | 0.996406 |
29,162,254 | The First Men in the Moon | The First Men in the Moon | The narrator is a London businessman who withdraws to the countryside to write a play, by which he hopes to alleviate his financial problems. Bedford rents a small countryside house in Lympne, in Kent, where he wants to work in peace. He is bothered every afternoon, however, at precisely the same time, by a passer-by making odd noises. After two weeks Bedford accosts the man, who proves to be a reclusive physicist named Mr. Cavor. Bedford befriends Cavor when he learns he is developing a new material, cavorite, that can negate the force of gravity. When a sheet of cavorite is prematurely produced, it makes the air above it weightless and shoots off into space. Bedford sees in the commercial production of cavorite a possible source of "wealth enough to work any sort of social revolution we fancied; we might own and order the whole world." Cavor hits upon the idea of a spherical spaceship made of "steel, lined with glass," and with sliding "windows or blinds" made of cavorite by which it can be steered, and persuades a reluctant Bedford to undertake a voyage to the moon; Cavor is certain there is no life there. On the way to the moon, they experience weightlessness, which Bedford finds "exceedingly restful." On the surface of the moon the two men discover a desolate landscape, but as the sun rises, the thin, frozen atmosphere vaporizes and strange plants begin to grow with extraordinary rapidity. Bedford and Cavor leave the capsule, but in romping about get lost in the rapidly growing jungle. They hear for the first time a mysterious booming coming from beneath their feet. They encounter "great beasts," "monsters of mere fatness," that they dub "mooncalves," and five-foot-high "Selenites" tending them. At first they hide and crawl about, but growing hungry partake of some "monstrous coralline growths" of fungus that inebriate them. They wander drunkenly until they encounter a party of six extraterrestrials, who capture them. The insectoid lunar natives (referred to as "Selenites", after Selene, the moon goddess) are part of a complex and technologically sophisticated society that lives underground, but this is revealed only in radio communications received from Cavor after Bedford's return to earth. Bedford and Cavor break out of captivity beneath the surface of the moon and flee, killing several Selenites. In their flight they discover that gold is common on the moon. In their attempt to find their way back to the surface and to their sphere, they come upon some Selenites carving up mooncalves but fight their way past. Back on the surface, they split up to search for their spaceship. Bedford finds it but returns to Earth without Cavor, who injured himself in a fall and was recaptured by the Selenites, as Bedford learns from a hastily scribbled note he left behind. Chapter 19, "Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space," plays no role in the plot but is a remarkable set piece in which the narrator describes experiencing a quasi-mystical "pervading doubt of my own identity. . . the doubts within me could still argue: 'It is not you that is reading, it is Bedford — but you are not Bedford, you know. That's just where the mistake comes in.' 'Counfound it!' I cried, 'and if I am not Bedford, what am I? But in that direction no light was forthcoming, though the strangest fancies came drifting into my brain, queer remote suspicions like shadow seem from far away... Do you know I had an idea that really I was something quite outside not only the world, but all worlds, and out of space and time, and that this poor Bedford was just a peephole through which I looked at life..." By good fortune, the narrator lands in the sea off the coast of Britain, near the seaside town of Littlestone, not far from his point of departure. His fortune is made by some gold he brings back, but he loses the sphere when a curious boy named Tommy Simmons climbs into the unattended sphere and shoots off into space. Bedford writes and publishes his story in The Strand Magazine, then learns that "Mr. Julius Wendigee, a Dutch electrician, who has been experimenting with certain apparatus akin to the apparatus used by Mr. Tesla in America," has picked up fragments of radio communications from Cavor sent from inside the moon. During a period of relative freedom Cavor has taught two Selenites English and learned much about lunar society. Cavor's account explains that Selenites exist in thousands of forms and find fulfillment in carrying out the specific social function for which they have been brought up: specialization is the essence of Selenite society. "With knowledge the Selenites grew and changed; mankind stored their knowledge about them and remained brutes — equipped," remarks the Grand Lunar, when he finally meets Cavor and hears about life on Earth. Unfortunately, Cavor reveals humanity's propensity for war; the lunar leader and those listening to the interview are "stricken with amazement." Bedford infers that is for this reason that Cavor is prevented from further broadcasting to Earth. Cavor's transmissions are cut off as he is trying to describe how to make cavorite. His final fate is unknown, but Bedford is sure that "we shall never . . . receive another message from the moon." | The film's setting begins in July 1969 as 90-year-old Julius Bedford tells young Jim the story of how two men made the first journey to the Moon back in 1909. He relates that when he was a young man, he met Professor Cavor at Apuldram and learned that Cavor had invented 'Cavorite', a substance that blocked the force of gravity. He tells how he encouraged Cavor to think toward the profits his invention might bring, and how the two worked together to build a cast iron sphere that would fly them to the moon.{{cite news}} The crew mention spacesuits being on board, but these spacesuits are never seen or described or used—unlike in the 1964 film. As the Moon has a breathable atmosphere no spacesuits are used. Upon being captured by the Moon's inhabitants who throw nets over them and knock them out with sticks, both Cavor and Bedford find themselves in a perilous state after Bedford kills some Selenites with his greater strength when they try to force him over a narrow bridge. In an attempt to escape back to Earth, Cavor decides to remain behind to give Bedford time to reach the spacecraft. Bedford almost crashes the spacecraft into the Sun, but escapes and lands close to home at West Wittering. However, his hopes of returning to the Moon to rescue Cavor are dashed when the passer-by Chessocks accidentally takes off in the craft—Bedford does not know how to produce Cavorite and so cannot produce another craft. Cavor remains in captivity and teaches the Selenites the English language as well as some of mankind's history and the recipe for Cavorite. The Selenites determine that mankind is a threat to the Moon and decide to use Cavorite to make a pre-emptive strike. Communicating his intentions beforehand to Bedford by wireless, in an act of desperation Cavor releases the Cavorite the Selenites are producing and thus evacuates all air from the Moon's surface. This renders it a truly barren world ready to be rediscovered by the Apollo program, though the final shot reveals a Selenite observing the Apollo 11 landing. The film ends with a tribute to Lionel Jeffries, who played Cavor in the 1964 film and who died in 2010. | 0.734991 | positive | 0.996022 | positive | 0.992752 |
1,285,796 | The King's Damosel | Quest for Camelot | The novel begins with the day of Lynette and her sister Lyonesse's dual wedding to the brothers Gaheris and Gareth, respectively. After the festivities are over, the two sisters are dragged to their bedrooms and prepared by giggling bridesmaids for the first night of their honeymoons. Lynette is miserable, as she is in fact in love with Gareth, her sister's groom, and thinks with envy of them in the next room. She is also terrified of what is about to happen, as it is revealed in a flashback that she was raped by a friend of her father's who was like a mentor to her. She is convinced that Gaheris will know that she is not a virgin, and she will be publicly shamed. However, when Gaheris finally enters the honeymoon suite, he merely comments that he does not want this, either. He sleeps next to her, without touching, and leaves before she wakes. In another flashback, Chapman summarizes the events leading up to the wedding, essentially retelling the corresponding Arthurian legend. In short, the Red Knight, a knight who claims to owe no loyalty to Arthur, attacks Lynette's home in the absence of any male figureheads, essentially holding the household hostage until her older sister, Lyonesse, consents to marry him and make him Lord. Lynette disguises herself as a servant boy and escapes, going all the way to Camelot and pleading with Arthur himself to help her rescue her sister. With the help of Merlin (who had appeared to her once before, after she was raped), she receives the king's blessing, but he only sends one man with her - Gareth, who she presumes to be a kitchen boy. She is quite rude to him, feeling very resentful towards Arthur for his choice. However, Gareth soon proves himself and in the course of rescuing Lyonesse, Lynette realises that she has fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, upon the group's return to Camelot, it is arranged that Gareth shall marry Lyonesse as his reward, and Lynette shall wed Gareth's older brother, Gaheris. After Gaheris' departure, Lynette is worried about what will happen to her - abandoned by her husband, and forced to watch the man she loves in the company of her own sister. Again Merlin intervenes, and Lynette manages to convince Arthur to make her his messenger. She is to go alone ahead of the knights to persuade unruly Lords to swear their allegiance to Arthur; it is dangerous, but she has no fear. Lynette acts so bravely and gracefully in the course of this work that she earns the respect of all those who travel with her (including Guinevere's unlucky admirer, Lancelot). Over the course of the novel, she meets up again with the man who raped her as a teenager and beheads him; she is later haunted by his ghost, but eventually manages to forgive him, thus finally freeing herself from the terrifying black creatures which were released each time she laid a curse upon him. She is also separated from her party in strange lands and kidnapped; she eventually finds her way out through a network of caves with the help of a very peculiar young man named Lucius. Lucius has lived in the dark so long that he is completely blind and very pale, with light blue hair. He was imprisoned along with his mother, who subsequently died, but he met a sort of witch just outside the caves who befriended him, and he is happy with his simple life. Lynette spends a considerable amount of time with the pair, and eventually falls in love with Lucius. She feels simultaneously pleased that he can not see how plain she is, and guilty because she is convinced that he would not want her if he could only see her. Eventually, the witch sadly informs Lynette that Lucius is dying. Lynette is completely horrified, and decides that she will seek out the Holy Grail, so that Lucius can use it to save himself. She sets out with her traveling companions from before, and after a very long and decidedly strange journey, she actually manages to retrieve the Grail. She hurries back with it to Lucius, resolving that she will let him do with it as he pleases. Upon receiving the Grail, Lucius wishes for sight rather than life, so that he can finally see Lynette. Upon opening his eyes, he cries out with delight, telling the startled (and heartbroken) Lynette that she's beautiful over and over. The pair have a little more time together, which Lynette tries very hard to make the best of. Lucius dies, and she and the witch bury him before she sets out once again, to resume her post as the King's Damosel. | A young girl named Kayley desires to become a knight of the Round Table like her father Sir Lionel in the kingdom of Camelot and wishes to accompany him when the knights are called to a special meeting with King Arthur, but he kindly objects that she is too young and promises to take her someday. When the knights arrive at Camelot , Sir Ruber attacks Arthur. Mortally wounding Lionel with his mace, he is ultimately driven off by the other knights after Arthur strikes him down with Excalibur. After Lionel dies, Kayley must learn to live without him. Inspired by her father's bravery , she spends ten years tending to her family farm. Now a young woman, Kayley is still much of a dreamer and still wishes to be a knight, much against her mother Julianna's wishes. Her dream seems to pay off though, when the knights again gather with King Arthur and Merlin to discuss the era of peace among the kingdom when a gryphon flies in, attacks and wounds Arthur and takes the sword Excalibur. Merlin summons a falcon with silver wings called Ayden to face the gryphon. After a furious fight, the gryphon drops the sword into the Forbidden Forest and loses it. He reports this to Ruber. The call goes out across the land that Excalibur had been stolen, but Kayley's mother forbids her to go out after it. Shortly thereafter, Ruber comes to pay Julianna a visit, planning to use her to gain access to Camelot and introducing a magic potion that he had gotten that combines his men with an assorted array of weapons . During the festivities, Kayley manages to free herself and escapes capture by fleeing to the Forbidden Forest , whose enchanted plant and animal life prevent Ruber's army from following her. The chicken, now named Bladebeak, is ordered to follow Kayley and report her whereabouts to Ruber. While lost in the forest, Kayley comes across Garrett, a handsome yet blind hermit who wants to be left alone . He grudgingly helps Kayley find Excalibur. Guided by Ayden, they manage to find the scabbard of the sword in the footprints of a giant. As they make their way into dragon infested mountains, they come across a conjoined two-headed dragon - the sophisticated and intelligent Devon and the boorish but loyal Cornwall. Thanks to the bullying from the rest of the dragons due to their differences and their inability to fly, they want nothing more than to be apart from one another . Developing a friendship toward Kayley, they join the party. Due to Kayley's insistence, Garrett misses a key warning from Ayden and is injured in an attack. During the escape, Kayley uses the forest's plants to heal Garrett's wounds, and they develop a mutual attraction and feelings towards one another . Soon they come across the giant who is using the sword as a toothpick and manage to outwit Ruber again, trapping him and his minions with the giant as they slide uncontrollably down the mountainside. Garrett returns to the forest, having grown distant from the world of men and preferring to stay in the forest. Kayley starts toward Camelot, sword in hand, but is captured by Ruber's men. Devon and Cornwall discover their power of flight, which only works when they cooperate or agree on something mutually. They rejoin Garrett, who mounts a rescue mission, but Ruber manages to gain entry to Camelot via disguise and traps himself with King Arthur with Excalibur; now grafted to his arm with his magic potion. Kayley is held prisoner in the back of the cart, but is freed by Bladebeak. Kayley and Garrett manage to fight their way with their friends' help to join with Arthur and in a fight, they manage to trick Ruber into inserting the sword back into the stone it had been pulled from. The magical forces conflict and completely disintegrate Ruber, leaving the kingdom free again. The magic that spills on the kingdom separates all of Ruber's men from their weapons and separates Devon and Cornwall, but the pair decide to reunite before the magic dissipates. Soon after Kayley and Garrett are knighted as members of the round table, and they share a kiss. As the pair ride off into the sunset, their horse has a flag mounted to its back reading "Just Knighted". | 0.539653 | positive | 0.991252 | positive | 0.924766 |
17,367,576 | Ripley Under Ground | Ripley Under Ground | Six years after the events of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Tom Ripley is now in his early 30s, living a comfortable life in France with his heiress wife, Héloïse Plisson. The lifestyle at his estate, Belle Ombre, is supported by Dickie Greenleaf's fortune, occasional fence work with an American named Reeves Minot, and Derwatt Ltd. — an art forgery scheme that he helped set up years before. Derwatt Ltd., in which Ripley is a silent partner, involves himself, two Londoners — photographer Jeff Constant and freelance journalist Ed Banbury — and Bernard Tufts, a painter whom Ripley convinced to forge Derwatt paintings. Years prior, the painter Philip Derwatt disappeared and committed suicide in Greece. After Derwatt's death, his friends Constant and Banbury began to publicize his work and managed to sell a number of authentic paintings. Thanks to their PR efforts Derwatt becomes more and more famous and his paintings ever more valuable. When the original Derwatts begin to run out, Ripley suggests pretending that Derwatt went into seclusion in Mexico. Bernard Tufts' forgeries are sold as Derwatts and a gallery called the Buckmaster, is opened to handle the work. The money is rolling in, but Bernard, who had idolized Derwatt, is plagued by guilt for forging his paintings. As the novel opens, the Derwatt enterprise is threatened by a disgruntled American collector, Thomas Murchison, who (correctly) surmises that one of his paintings is a forgery. Worried that the lid is about to be blown on the whole scheme, Ripley decides to go to London and impersonate Derwatt, meet with Murchison and convince him that the paintings are genuine. Ripley is unable to convince Murchison, however, particularly as Bernard meets with the latter and tells him not to buy any more Derwatts. Ripley, as himself, invites Murchison to Belle Ombre to inspect his own Derwatt painting (also a fake) to try to persuade him from taking the case to a Tate Gallery curator and the police. At Belle Ombre, Murchison inspects Ripley's painting and believes it is also a fake. Realizing that the argument is futile, Ripley reveals the entire scam to Murchison, asking for mercy for Bernard's sake. Murchison refuses, however, so Ripley kills him. He takes Murchison's suitcase and painting to Orly Airport and abandons them on the curb near the Departures entrance. He then buries the body just inside the woods near his house. Chris Greenleaf, Dickie's cousin, comes to stay while on a European tour. He notices the fresh grave outside the house but doesn't think much of it. Bernard also comes to visit Ripley, rattled by the recent events and saying he wants to confess everything to the police. Ripley confesses to Bernard his murder of Murchison and, realizing his own terrible choice of a gravesite, asks Bernard to help move the body. Together, they dump it in a river. The French police and Inspector Webster from the London police both investigate the case on behalf of Murchison's wife, making trips to Belle Ombre and inspecting the house and grounds. Things are further complicated for Ripley as Héloïse returns from a Greek holiday and discovers a man hanging in the cellar. It turns out to just be stuffed clothing, a prop left by Bernard a suicide in effigy. Bernard leaves a note suggesting that he is going to confess his forgeries. When Bernard returns to Belle Ombre, Héloïse leaves in disgust. Driven over the edge by guilt, Bernard unsuccessfully tries to strangle Ripley, whom he blames for starting the forgery scheme; Ripley feels sorry for the disturbed man and does not retaliate. Later, however, Bernard again tries to kill Ripley, this time knocking him out with a shovel and burying him alive in Murchison's empty grave. Ripley manages to escape and returns to London to impersonate Derwatt for a second appearance, this time for Mrs. Murchison and Inspector Webster. Mrs. Murchison decides to pay a visit to Belle Ombre, the last place her husband was seen. Back at Belle Ombre, Ripley entertains Mrs. Murchison. After she leaves, Ripley realizes that Bernard is contemplating suicide. Feeling responsible, Ripley goes to look for him in Greece, Paris, and finally Salzburg, Austria. There he finds Bernard, but the painter believes Ripley is a ghost - he thinks he killed him in France. Bernard runs from Ripley and leaps off a cliff to his death. Ripley uses the corpse to tie up loose ends; he partially cremates and buries the body, making sure to smash or hide any teeth. He then goes to the police with the information that Derwatt killed himself there. Seeing suicidal journal entries, the police presume that Bernard also killed himself in Salzburg by jumping off a bridge. With Bernard and Derwatt both gone, the art forgery allegations have no active leads and Derwatt Ltd's existence is no longer in jeopardy. The novel ends with Ripley's being content in bed with Héloïse, who prefers to remain ignorant of what he has done and, further, how exactly he makes his money. He receives an optimistic-sounding call from the gallery, but still fears that the next one will be from the persistently inquisitive police, who have noticed that many people die after approaching Ripley. | After his friend, a successful young artist, is killed in a car accident, Tom Ripley and his friends hide his body and concoct a scheme in which they forge his paintings, eventually making a great deal of money. When an art collector complains that a painting he bought from the gallery is a fake, Ripley must use his inimitable talents to defuse the problem by whatever means necessary. | 0.717294 | positive | 0.993622 | negative | -0.002506 |
13,138,495 | A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | A Knight in Camelot | The novel is a satirical comedy that looks at 6th-Century England and its medieval culture through the eyes of Hank Morgan, a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur. The fictional Mr. Morgan, who had an image of that time that had been colored over the years by romantic myths, takes on the task of analyzing the problems and sharing his knowledge from 1300 years in the future to modernize, Americanize, and improve the lives of the people. The story begins as a first person narrative in Warwick Castle, where a man details his recollection of a tale told to by an "interested stranger" who is personified as a knight through his simple language and familiarity with ancient armor. After a brief tale of Sir Launcelot of Camelot and his role in slaying two giants from the third-person narrative, the man named Hank Morgan enters and, after being given whiskey by the narrator, he is persuaded to reveal more of his story. Described through first-person narrative as a man familiar with the firearms and machinery trade, Hank is a man who had reached the level of superintendent due to his proficiency in firearms manufacturing, with two thousand subordinates. He describes the beginning of his tale by illustrating details of a disagreement with his subordinates, during which he sustained a head injury from a "crusher" to the head caused by a man named "Hercules" using a crowbar. After passing out from the blow, Hank describes waking up underneath an oak tree in a rural area of Camelot where a knight questions him for trespassing upon his land, and after establishing rapport, leads him towards Camelot castle. Upon recognizing that he has time-traveled to the sixth century, Hank realizes that he is the de facto smartest person on Earth, and with his knowledge he should soon be running things. Hank is ridiculed at King Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress and is sentenced by King Arthur's court (particularly the magician Merlin) to burn at the stake on 22 June. By a stroke of luck, the date of the burning coincides with a historical solar eclipse in the year 528, of which Hank had learned in his earlier life. While in prison, he sends the boy Clarence to inform the King that he will blot out the sun if he is executed. Hank believes the current date to be 20 June; however, it is actually the 21st when he makes his threat, the day that the eclipse will occur at 12:03 p.m. When the King decides to burn him, the eclipse catches Hank by surprise. But he quickly uses it to his advantage and convinces the people that he caused the eclipse. He makes a bargain with the King, is released, and becomes the second most powerful person in the kingdom. Hank is given the position of principal minister to the King and is treated by all with the utmost fear and awe. His celebrity brings him to be known by a new title, elected by the people — "The Boss". However, he proclaims that his only income will be taken as a percentage of any increase in the kingdom's gross national product that he succeeds in creating for the state as Arthur's chief minister, which King Arthur sees as fair. Notwithstanding, the people fear him and he has his new title, Hank is still seen as somewhat of an equal. The people might grovel to him if he were a knight or some form of nobility, but without that, Hank faces problems from time to time, as he refuses to seek to join such ranks. After being made "the Boss", Hank learns about medieval practices and superstitions. Having superior knowledge, he is able to outdo the alleged sorcerers and miracle-working church officials. At one point, soon after the eclipse, people began gathering, hoping to see Hank perform another miracle. Merlin, jealous of Hank having replaced him both as the king's principal adviser and as the most powerful sorcerer of the realm, begins spreading rumors that Hank is a fake and cannot supply another miracle. Hank secretly manufactures gunpowder and a lightning rod, plants explosive charges in Merlin's tower, then places the lightning rod at the top and runs a wire to the explosive charges. He then announces (during a period when storms are frequent) that he will soon call down fire from heaven and destroy Merlin's tower, then challenges Merlin to use his sorcery to prevent it. Of course, Merlin's "incantations" fail utterly to prevent lightning striking the rod, triggering the explosive charges and leveling the tower, further diminishing Merlin's reputation. Hank Morgan, in his position as King's Minister, uses his authority and his modern knowledge to industrialize the country behind the back of the rest of the ruling class. His assistant is Clarence, a young boy he meets at court, whom he educates and gradually lets in on most of his secrets, and eventually comes to rely on heavily. Hank sets up secret schools, which teach modern ideas and modern English, thereby removing the new generation from medieval concepts, and secretly constructs hidden factories, which produce modern tools and weapons. He carefully selects the individuals he allows to enter his factories and schools, seeking to select only the most promising and least indoctrinated in medieval ideas, favoring selection of the young and malleable whenever possible. As Hank gradually adjusts to his new situation, he begins to attend medieval tournaments. A misunderstanding causes Sir Sagramore to challenge Hank to a duel to the death; the combat will take place when Sagramore returns from his quest for the Holy Grail. Hank accepts, and spends the next few years building up 19th-century infrastructure behind the nobility's back. At this point, he undertakes an adventure with a wandering girl named the Demoiselle Alisande a la Carteloise - nicknamed "Sandy" by Hank in short order - to save her royal "mistresses" being held captive by ogres. On the way, Hank struggles with the inconveniences of medieval plate armor, and also encounters Morgan le Fay. The "princesses", "ogres" and "castles" are all revealed to be actually pigs owned by peasant swineherds, although to Sandy they still appear as royalty. Hank buys the pigs from the peasants and the two leave. On the way back to Camelot, they find a travelling group of pilgrims headed for the Valley of Holiness. Another group of pilgrims, however, comes from that direction bearing the news that the valley's famous fountain has run dry. According to legend, long ago the fountain had gone dry before as soon as the monks of the valley's monastery built a bath with it; the bath was destroyed and the water instantly returned, but this time it has stopped with no clear cause. Hank is begged to restore the fountain, although Merlin is already trying. When Merlin fails, he claims that the fountain has been corrupted by a demon, and that it will never flow again. Hank, in order to look good, agrees that a demon has corrupted the fountain but also claims to be able to banish it; in reality, the "fountain" is simply leaking. He procures assistants from Camelot trained by himself, who bring along a pump and fireworks for special effects. They repair the fountain and Hank begins the "banishment" of the demon. At the end of several long German language phrases, he says "BGWJJILLIGKKK", which is simply a load of gibberish, but Merlin agrees with Hank that this is the name of the demon. The fountain restored, Hank goes on to debunk another magician who claims to be able to tell what any person in the world is doing, including King Arthur. However, Hank knows that the King is riding out to see the restored fountain, and not "resting from the chase" as the "false prophet" had foretold to the people. Hank correctly states that the King will arrive in the valley. Hank has an idea to travel amongst the poor disguised as a peasant to find out how they truly live. King Arthur joins him, but has extreme difficulty in acting like a peasant convincingly. Although Arthur is somewhat disillusioned about the national standard of life after hearing the story of a mother infected with smallpox, he still ends up getting Hank and himself hunted down by the members of a village after making several extremely erroneous remarks about agriculture. Although they are saved by a nobleman's entourage, the same nobleman later arrests them and sells them into slavery. Hank steals a piece of metal in London and uses it to create a makeshift lockpick. His plan is to free himself, the king, beat up their slave driver, and return to Camelot. However, before he can free the king, a man enters their quarters in the dark. Mistaking him for the slave driver, Hank rushes after him alone and starts a fight with him. They are both arrested. Although Hank lies his way out, in his absence the real slave driver has discovered Hank's escape. Since Hank was the most valuable slave — he was due to be sold the next day — the man becomes enraged and begins beating his other slaves, who fight back and kill him. All the slaves, including the king, will be hanged as soon as the missing one — Hank — is found. Hank is captured, but he and Arthur are rescued by a party of knights led by Lancelot, riding bicycles. Following this, the king becomes extremely bitter against slavery and vows to abolish it when they get free, much to Hank's delight. Sagramore returns from his quest, and fights Hank. Hank defeats him and seven others, including Galahad and Lancelot, using a lasso. When Merlin steals Hank's lasso, Sagramore returns to challenge him again. This time, Hank kills him with a revolver. He proceeds to challenge the knights of England to attack him en masse, which they do. After he kills nine more knights with his revolvers, the rest break and flee. The next day, Hank reveals his 19th century infrastructure to the country. With this fact he was called a wizard as he told Clarence to do so as well. Three years later, Hank has married Sandy and they have a baby. While asleep and dreaming, Hank says, "Hello-Central" — a reference to calling a 19th century telephone operator — and Sandy believes that the mystic phrase is a good name for the baby, and names it accordingly. However, the baby falls critically ill and Hank's doctors advise him to take his family overseas while the baby recovers. In reality, it is a ploy by the Catholic Church to get Hank out of the country, leaving the country without effective leadership. During the weeks that Hank is absent, Arthur discovers Guinevere's infidelity with Lancelot. This causes a war between Lancelot and Arthur, who is eventually killed by Sir Mordred. The church then publishes "The Interdict" which causes all people to break away from Hank and revolt. Hank meets with his good friend Clarence who informs him of the war thus far. As time goes on, Clarence gathers 52 young cadets, from ages 14 to 17, who are to fight against all of England. Hank's band fortifies itself in Merlin's Cave with a minefield, electric wire and Gatling guns. The Catholic Church sends an army of 30,000 knights to attack them, but the knights are slaughtered. However, Hank's men are now trapped in the cave by a wall of dead bodies. Hank attempts to go offer aid to any wounded, but is stabbed by the first man that they encounter. He is not seriously injured, but is bedridden. Disease begins to set in amongst them. One night, Clarence finds Merlin weaving a spell over Hank, proclaiming that he shall sleep for 1,300 years. Merlin begins laughing deliriously, but ends up electrocuting himself on one of the electric wires. Clarence and the others all apparently die from disease in the cave. More than a millennium later, the narrator finishes the manuscript and finds Hank on his deathbed having a dream about Sandy. He attempts to make one last "effect", but dies before he can finish it. | Scientist Vivien Morgan is zapped back to the medieval age and time of King Arthur and Camelot, when her scientific machine malfunctions. She is sent back along with many objects from her desk, including her laptop and boom box. As she is sentenced to be burned at the stake, she discoveres among the laptop-data, that there will be a solar eclipse in short time. With her "magical powers" she makes the sun re-appear and is being knighted by King Arthur as Sir Boss and becomes a member of the Knights of the Round Table. She soon begins constructing devices that will not be present for many centuries, she saves the king, defeats Sir Sagramore and saves the day countless times before being zapped back to the present. | 0.508284 | positive | 0.986546 | positive | 0.546883 |
1,501,259 | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | The Muppets' Wizard of Oz | Dorothy is a young orphaned girl raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog Toto, who is her sole source of happiness on the dry, gray prairies. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy and Toto inside, is caught up in a cyclone and deposited in a field in Munchkin Country, the eastern quadrant of the Land of Oz. The falling house kills the evil ruler of the Munchkins, the Wicked Witch of the East. The Good Witch of the North comes with the Munchkins to greet Dorothy and gives Dorothy the silver shoes (believed to have magical properties) that the Wicked Witch had been wearing when she was killed. In order to return to Kansas, the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she will have to go to the "Emerald City" or "City of Emeralds" and ask the Wizard of Oz to help her. Before she leaves, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from trouble. On her way down the road of yellow bricks, Dorothy frees the Scarecrow from the pole he is hanging on, restores the movements of the rusted Tin Woodman with an oil can, and encourages them and the Cowardly Lion to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow wants to get a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, courage. All four of the travelers believe that the Wizard can solve their troubles. The party finds many adventures on their journey together, including overcoming obstacles such as narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, vicious Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies. When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to wear green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates as long as they remain in the city. The four are the first to ever successfully meet with the Wizard. When each traveler meets with the Wizard, he appears each time as someone or something different. To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. The Wizard agrees to help each of them—but only if one of them kills the Wicked Witch of the West who rules over the western Winkie Country. The Guardian of the Gates warns them that no one has ever managed to harm the very cunning and cruel Wicked Witch. As the friends travel across the Winkie Country, the Wicked Witch sees them coming and attempts various ways of killing them: * First, she sends her 40 great wolves to kill them. The Tin Woodman manages to kill them all. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West sends her 40 crows to peck their eyes out. The Scarecrow manages to kill them by grabbing them and breaking their necks. * Then the Wicked Witch summons a swarm of bees to sting them to death. Using the Scarecrow's extra straw, the others hide underneath them while the bees try to sting the Tin Woodman. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West uses her Winkie soldiers to attack them. They are scared off by the Cowardly Lion. * Using the power of the Golden Cap, the Wicked Witch of the West summons the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. When the Wicked Witch gains one of Dorothy's silver shoes by trickery, Dorothy in anger grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the Wicked Witch. To her shock, this causes the Witch to melt away, allowing Dorothy to recover the shoe. The Winkies rejoice at being freed of the witch's tyranny, and they help to reassemble the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The Winkies love the Tin Woodman, and they ask him to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy, after finding and learning how to use the Golden Cap, summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions back to the Emerald City. and the King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and the other monkeys were bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, he tries to put them off. Toto accidentally tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of "courage", respectively. Because of their faith in the Wizard's power, these otherwise useless items provide a focus for their desires. In order to help Dorothy and Toto get home, the Wizard realizes that he will have to take them home with him in a new balloon, which he and Dorothy fashion from green silk. Revealing himself to the people of the Emerald City one last time, the Wizard appoints the Scarecrow, by virtue of his brains, to rule in his stead. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon, the ropes break, leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone. Dorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz, subsequently wasting her second wish. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers advises that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, tread carefully through the China Country where they meet Mr. Joker, and dodge the armless Hammer-Heads on their hill. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas. Dorothy uses her third wish to fly over the Hammer-Heads' mountain, almost losing Toto in the process. At Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She tearfully embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective kingdoms: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. Then she will give the Golden Cap to the King of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. Having bid her friends farewell one final time, Dorothy knocks her heels together three times, and wishes to return home. When she opens her eyes, Dorothy and Toto have returned to Kansas to a joyful family reunion. | Dorothy Gale ([[Ashanti is a young woman living in a trailer park in Kansas. She desperately wishes to leave home and become a famous singer, but her dreams of becoming one appear impossible. One day, after completing her shift at the diner run by her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry , she overhears that the Muppets are looking for a female singer for a cross-country "Star Hunt." Aunt Em disapproves, but with Uncle Henry's best wishes, she goes to the audition, arriving late and only managing to give the Muppets a demo CD that she created beforehand. In returning home, the tornado sirens sound, and one hits her family's area. When Aunt Em and Uncle Henry run into the county storm shelter for safety, Dorothy hurries back to her family's mobile home to get Toto, her pet prawn. She does not make it out in time, and the two are swept by the tornado across the vast fields of Kansas. When Dorothy climbs out of the wreckage, she finds that Toto can talk and that she is no longer in Kansas. Dorothy and Toto discover that they are in Munchkinland, a small town part of the vast Land of Oz. After discussing her situation with the town's people the Munchkins , she learns that the land's ruler the Wizard, has the power to grant her wish of becoming a famous singer. She meets the Good Witch of the North , and receives a pair of magic silver slippers from the Wicked Witch of the East , the Witch of the North's sister who was killed when Dorothy's trailer fell on her. Soon after, she embarks on a journey with Toto on the yellow brick road to meet the Wizard of Oz, who lives in the Emerald City, the capital of Oz. On her journey, she meets three creatures: a Scarecrow , a Tin Thing , and a Cowardly Lion . They are also seeking the Wizard of Oz to give them a brain, heart, and courage, respectively. The group meets various obstacles involving a deep gorge where the Kalidah Critics are heckling them and a Poppy Field Club run by Clifford which nearly puts them to sleep. After arriving at the Emerald City and meeting the Wizard, Dorothy and her friends are sent to retrieve the Wicked Witch of the West's magic eye, a tool she uses to see anything she desires in the Land of Oz. The group assumes that completing this task will result in the granting of their wishes. The Wicked Witch of the West sees them coming and consults with her pet Foo-Foo and her henchman Johnny Fiama. When the Wicked Witch of the West plans to have either her pack of 40 great wolves, a flock of 40 crows, and a swarm of black bees to do away with them, Johnny Fiama tells her that the animals that work for her are unavailable. This resorts to the Wicked Witch of the West using her Magic Biker Cap to call Sal Minella and the other Flying Monkeys to deal with them. Miss Piggy and the Winged Monkeys capture Dorothy and Cowardly Lion while the Scarecrow and the Tin Thing are dismantled by the Winged Monkeys. After being threatened to be killed by her, Toto calls the Munchkins, who set Dorothy free and repair Scarecrow and Tin Thing. During the final battle, it cuts away to a scene where Quentin Tarantino is discussing with Kermit on ideas for Dorothy to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West. When Quentin's ideas are too violent, they agree for Dorothy to do a powerful kick on the Wicked Witch of the West. Cutting back to the action, Dorothy kicks the Wicked Witch of the West into her own "bottled water bath" which contains tap water which she is severely allergic to. This action causes her to melt as Johnny Fiama averts Foo-Foo's eyes. With the Wicked Witch of the West dead, Dorothy finds the magic eye unharmed and floating in the tub and grabs it. After gaining control of the Flying Monkeys upon giving Sal Minella back the group's Magic Biker Cap, Dorothy travels back to the Emerald City to have her and her friends' wishes granted. When they all storm into the Wizard's room, they discover that the Wizard is just an ordinary man pretending to be someone he isn't. He asked for the witch's eye so that she could not see him for who he really was. Even so, he still proceeds to grant their wishes. Dorothy finally becomes a singer in the Land of Oz, but realizes that all she ever really wanted was to go back home and be with her family. After traveling back to Munchkinland, she meets Glind the Good Witch of the South , who tells her that if she clicks her heels together three times, she will be able to go anywhere she desires. She does so, saying "take me home to Aunt Em". She is then spun by the slippers' charm into Kansas, and, much to her surprise, she finds out that Kermit was looking for her, saying that she had the best voice they heard on the whole search, and that she has been chosen to go on the Star Hunt. Dorothy, having been reunited with her aunt and uncle, and feeling that she is not ready to leave Kansas to become a real star, rejects, but Aunt Em says that she wants her to go with the Muppets on their Star Hunt, much to her even bigger surprise. She then sings "It's a Good Life" on television with them as the film ends. | 0.854107 | positive | 0.990286 | positive | 0.994896 |
955,409 | The Taking of Pelham One Two Three | The Taking of Pelham One Two Three | It starts as a normal day on a subway, but the normality is interrupted by the hijacking of a subway train, on the number 6 train. Four men armed with submachine guns detach the lead car of the train and take it and 17 hostages into a tunnel. The hijackers are lead by Ryder, a former mercenary; Longman, a disgruntled former motorman; Welcome, a violent former Mafia thug; and Steever, a powerful, laconic brute. They threaten to execute the hostages unless the city pays one million dollars in ransom. While the city rushes to comply, transit police try to puzzle out the hijackers' plan. They don't realize that Longman has figured out how to bypass the "dead-man's switch", allowing the car to speed along the track by itself (with the police chasing it while driving on surface streets) while the hijackers escape through an emergency exit. As they prepare to leave, however, Ryder and Welcome begin to argue, ending with Ryder fatally shooting Welcome. The delay allows one of the passengers, an undercover police officer who jumped off the train as it started to speed away, to shoot Steever. Longman escapes while Ryder shoots the passenger. As Ryder is about to administer a fatal head shot, he is himself shot dead by DCI Daniels of Special Operations Division. The novel ends with Longman's arrest. | In New York City, four heavily armed men with code names , wearing similar trenchcoat and mustache disguises, board at different station stops (Green at 59th Street, Grey at 51st Street, Brown at Grand Central, and finally Blue at [[28th Street on the Pelham 123 subway train run of the 6 Lexington Avenue Local service. The men take the train, securing a group of seventeen passengers whom they hold hostage, isolating them in one of the train's cars and then separating the car from the rest of the train. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Zachary Garber , a cynical and curmudgeonly yet light-hearted New York City Transit Authority police lieutenant, begins his day by leading four visiting Tokyo Metro directors on a tour of New York's subway command-center. This is interrupted by Blue's radio announcement to the command center that "your train has been taken." Blue ([[Robert Shaw , the English-accented leader of the hijackers, tells Garber they are demanding a ransom of one million dollars, to be delivered to them within one hour; otherwise they will kill one passenger per minute, starting when the hour has passed. Garber, the sarcastic Lieutenant Rico Patrone , and other transit workers cooperate while trying to guess how the criminals intend to escape the subway tunnel and get away. Various clues soon surface for Garber to figure out, first with his hearing of Blue's very distinctive English accent over the radio. It later turns out that Blue was a ruthless British mercenary, and Green is a former transit worker who from time to time sneezes over the radio and is heard by Garber, who responds by saying "Gesundheit." Garber also learns that one of the hostages is an undercover police officer. The mayor finally agrees to pay the ransom at the urging of his deputy mayor and his wife The police dispatch a squad car carrying the ransom money. When the car is wrecked in a collision, Garber daringly bluffs to buy some time, telling the hijackers that the money already has been delivered to the 28th Street Station and only the walk down the tunnel is delaying it. A reluctant Blue agrees to the delay. A police motorcycle completes the trip from the scene of the collision to the subway station and two unarmed officers are sent down the track on foot to deliver the money to the hijackers. With the money finally in hand, the hijackers demand that electric power be restored to the subway line, and that all signals in the path of the train be turned green from 28th Street to South Ferry, both of these being necessary for the car to move. Having overridden the subway car's dead-man's switch, which would otherwise ensure its stopping unless someone remained at the throttle, the hijackers get off the train and set it in motion. As the train starts to move, the undercover officer also jumps off the train and hides between the rails. The car begins to travel faster and faster, since no one is controlling its speed. Outside the tunnel, Garber and Inspector Daniels are convinced that the runaway train is a diversion and that the hijackers must have left the train. The hijackers divide the ransom money, discard their disguises, and start their escape into the tunnel's emergency exit; however, Grey refuses to leave his gun behind as agreed and is shot dead by Blue. The undercover officer, still hiding in the tracks, manages to kill Brown with one shot. Green escapes onto the street, while Blue shoots at the undercover officer until he wounds him. Garber arrives after Green has gotten away and, drawing on Blue, orders him to surrender just as Blue is about to shoot the undercover officer dead. Blue asks Garber if the death penalty is available in the state of New York anymore. Told that it is not, Blue responds, "Pity", then promptly electrocutes himself by stepping onto the third rail while a horrified Garber watches. Entering the South Ferry Loop, the runaway car finally encounters a red signal. The car's emergency brakes are tripped and it grinds to a halt; the remaining hostages are all safe. With three of the hijackers dead, information is brought up on their identities. None of the three are found to have any experience piloting trains. Green, the only hijacker to escape, has left as a clue only Garber's surmise that one of the hijackers must be an ex-motorman of the New York Transit Authority . With the dead three all identified, Garber realizes that the hijacker still at large must be the former transit employee. Garber and Patrone, working their way through a list of former motormen "discharged for cause" , pay a visit to Harold Longman. Longman—known to the audience as Mr. Green—is shown rolling in the packs of ransom money on the bed in his seedy efficiency apartment when Garber and Patrone knock on his door. He hides the money quickly, then opens to the officers and bluffs his way through their questioning. The officers find Longman's alibi weak, but start out the door, until Longman sneezes and Garber says "Gesundheit." Garber then re-opens the door, the expression on his face indicating that he knows he has just found the final hijacker. | 0.794849 | positive | 0.560417 | positive | 0.993355 |
4,194,975 | The Lost World | The Lost World | Edward Malone, a reporter for the Daily Gazette, goes to his news editor, McArdle, to procure a dangerous and adventurous mission in order to impress the woman he loves, Gladys Hungerton. He is sent to interview Professor George Edward Challenger, who has assaulted four or five other journalists, to determine if his claims about his trip to South America are true. After assaulting Malone, Challenger reveals his discovery of dinosaurs in South America. Having been ridiculed for years, he invites Malone on a trip to prove his story, along with Professor Summerlee, another scientist qualified to examine any evidence, and Lord John Roxton, an adventurer who knows the Amazon and several years prior to the events of the book helped end slavery by robber barons in South America. They reach the plateau with the aid of Indian guides, who are superstitiously scared of the area. One of these Indians, Gomez, is the brother of a man that Roxton killed the last time he was in South America. When the expedition manages to get onto the plateau, Gomez destroys their bridge, trapping them. Their "devoted negro" Zambo remains at the base, but is unable to prevent the rest of the Indians from leaving. Deciding to investigate the lost world, they are attacked by pterodactyls in a swamp, and Roxton finds some blue clay in which he takes a great interest. After exploring the plateau and having some adventures in which the expedition narrowly escapes being killed by dinosaurs, Challenger, Summerlee, and Roxton are captured by a race of ape-men. While in the ape-men's village, they find out that there is also a tribe of humans (calling themselves Accala) inhabiting the other side of the plateau, with whom the ape-men (called Doda by the Accala) are at war. Roxton manages to escape and team up with Malone to mount a rescue. They arrive just in time to prevent the execution of one of the professors and several other humans, who take them to the human tribe. With their help, they defeat the ape-men, taking control of the whole plateau. After witnessing the power of their guns, the human tribe does not want the expedition to leave, and tries to keep them on the plateau. However the team finally discovers a tunnel that leads to the outside, where they meet up with Zambo and a large rescue party. Upon returning to England, they present their report which include pictures and a newspaper report by Edward, which many dismiss as they had Challenger's original story. Having planned ahead, Challenger shows them a live pterodactyl as proof, which then escapes and flies out into the Atlantic ocean. When the four of them have dinner, Roxton shows them why he was so interested in the blue clay. It contains diamonds, about £200,000 worth, to be split between them. Challenger plans to open a private museum, Summerlee plans to retire and categorize fossils, and Roxton plans to go back to the lost world. Malone returns to his love, Gladys, only to find that she had married a clerk while he was away. With nothing keeping him in London, he volunteers to be part of Roxton's second trip. | While on a journey through the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest, a long extinct animal shot by Professor George Challenger's team turns out to be a prehistoric pterosaur. During a lecture at the Natural History Museum of London, he argues that it is genuine and that he shot it several months ago. The lecturer, Professor Leo Summerlee dismisses it as nothing more than a clever hoax, as do several others. Eventually ambitious Lord John Roxton , a noted hunter and womanizer, and Daily Gazette columnist Edward Malone announce they will volunteer for the expedition and even Summerlee joins them. On the boat, Challenger shows a sarcastic Summerlee and his expedition members a map, drawn up by a Portuguese man called Padre Mendoz who ended up in the remote, uncharted area of Brazil which Challenger claims prehistoric creatures thrive. Most notably, there is a plateau, which would supposedly isolate the inhabitants from the evolutionary mainstream for millions of years. Upon arrival, Roxton begins flirting with Agnes , the niece of reverend Theo Kerr , a priest who disregards the idea of evolution. Agnes joins them for the expedition, the reverend is initially reluctant however he later joins them. After a long and eventful journey through the jungle, they eventually find the plateau. They go inside a cave which was the only route out the plateau only to discover that it has been sealed off by debris as it had been exploded years ago. Instead they cross over a log bridge, which the reverend suddenly pushes into a deep crevice in an abrupt mood swing, thus leaving them stranded. In the strange prehistoric redwood forest, Edward makes friends with a Hypsilophodon, and the stunned group spot an Iguanodon, and then a group of Pteranodons who attack and injure Summerlee. After retreating to the forest, in the middle of the night, while they are gathered around the campfire they are attacked by a large dinosaur, which is later identified by Summerlee as an allosaur which is probably an Epanterias but not an Allosaurus because this animal is much bigger than the usual. The next day Edward is scared out a tree by an ape man called Pithecanthropus which in his words "looked almost human". They then search for and find a large lake in the centre of the plateau which Malone had discovered while up the tree, and he names it after his fiancee, Gladys, while Roxton and the professors rest by the beach. Edward and Agnes walk off along the beach until the allosaur from last night emerges from the forest and drinks from the lake, but soon notices them as they run into the forest. In the cliffhanger ending of the first episode, the allosaur pursues them through the borders of the forest until they all fall into a pit, where the allosaur is killed after being impaled on two wooden spikes. After making their escape, they find out that Challenger and Summerlee have been kidnapped by the ape men. The apes take them to an enclosed sacrificial chamber, where they are placed on a thick sheet of rock which is covered with blood. The sun shines through a crack and the beasts place Summerlee's head in a groove on the plate of rock, about to smash his head with a large stone and eat him when Roxton and the group start shooting all the ape men. Challenger tries to save the creatures, calling them "the missing link between animal and human" upon leaving the animals territory, the group also rescue an Indian chief's son, Achille. The tribe recognizes Challenger as Padre Mendoz, the Portuguese man that returned from the plateau and drew up a map of the area. They are taken to the other end of the cave they found earlier and told of how a man, who they thought was the Devil, came to visit them and then left, sealing off the cave and trapping the Indians inside the plateau. The two groups cooperate very well together, with Challenger sitting by the chief's side, and Roxton marrying Maree, the patriarch's daughter. However, the presence of the ape men disturb the tribes people but, with Professor Challenger's protection, they remain safe from harm and are kept in a wooden cage on the border of the village. However, two allosaurs attack the village after weeks of harmony . After causing much death and destruction, the first male allosaur is killed by Roxton and his elephant gun but the larger female allosaur mortally wounds the chief. In an act of kindness, Agnes and Malone set the ape men loose and they flee back into the jungle. One psychotic ape gets its hands on a knife and keeps an eye on Roxton. Edward Malone eventually kills the larger dinosaur, but is too late to save the chief and several of the Indians. He is critically injured, and dies in the arms of Achille, who blames the white intruders. During the attack, Summerlee reopens the cave by blowing up the debris blocking their only escape route. After Achille assumes command, the outsiders flee while Roxton stays behind to stall them. The ape with the knife stabs Roxton in the torso, apparently killing him while Achille shoots the mad ape while it stands atop a rocky mound, growling. Outside, the reverend comes to block the remaining group's way and is actually the Devil body who visited the Indians and sealed off the cave. He intends to kill all of them and seal off the cave again to prevent the plateau and its inhabitants from being found and revealed. While struggling with Summerlee, the reverend accidentally shoots himself in the chest and dies. The explorers go back to London and upon returning, Edward discovers that Gladys is engaged to another man. Later that evening, the juvenile pterosaur that Challenger brings back escapes. Afterwards, Malone and Summerlee urge Challenger to end the whole affair so that the plateau and its inhabitants can exist in peace, realising it would be exploited if its location were to be revealed. The pterosaur is dismissed as an Amazonian vulture, while the articles Edward sent back are passed off as extracts of a novel he is writing. Edward confesses he loves Agnes, who tells him the same, and they kiss in the great hall of the museum where the crew have been exposed as frauds. In the final scene, Roxton is revealed to be alive and well, having survived his injury and is still happily married to Maree. | 0.788915 | positive | 0.59323 | positive | 0.995458 |
4,194,975 | The Lost World | The Lost World | Six years after the disaster at Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm — who is revealed to have actually survived the events of the previous novel — teams up with wealthy paleontologist Richard Levine after learning about Site B, the secret "production facility" where the park's dinosaurs were hatched and grown; the site is located on Isla Sorna, an island adjacent to Isla Nublar. When Levine disappears, Malcolm fears that he might have discovered Site B's exact location and went there without his knowledge. Doc Thorne and Eddie Carr, who provided Levine with equipment, and R.B. "Arby" Benton and Kelly Curtis, two schoolchildren who assisted Levine, deduce the island's location. The adults organize a rescue operation and utilize an advanced fleet of field vehicles. Stowed away with them as they leave are Arby and Kelly, who plan to rescue Levine as well. At the same time, geneticist Lewis Dodgson and his underlings, Howard King and George Baselton, head to Isla Sorna in the hopes of stealing dinosaur eggs for Biosyn, the rival company of the now bankrupt InGen. Sarah Harding, a wildlife observer who had a previous relationship with Malcolm, accompanies them. However, Dodgson throws her off their boat and leaves her for dead. Once the team comes across the nest of a Tyranosaurus Rex, Dodgson forces King and Baselton to proceed with the mission. When trying to steal some eggs, King steps on a baby T-Rex's leg and breaks it. Baselton is too scared to enter the nest, causing Dodgson to grab one himself. In the process, the black box he has brought along is separated from its power supply and stops emitting the sound designed to keep the parent T-Rexes at bay. The T-Rexes eat Baselton and destroy Dodgson's SUV. Dodgson survives while King is eventually killed by Velociraptors. Coming across the baby T-Rex, Eddie brings it back to the base camp, where Malcolm and Sarah fix its broken leg. The absence of the infant is noted by its parents, who track their offspring to the camp by smell. Malcolm and Sarah are rescued by Thorne, but Malcolm's leg is injured, and he ends up spending most of the remainder of the story immobile and high on morphine. Meanwhile, the other team members are attacked by Velociraptors. Eddie is killed, but Arby manages to lock himself in a nearby cage. He is quickly abducted by the raptors, who bring him to their lair. Thorne and Levine rescue Arby, and the survivors take shelter in an abandoned InGen gas station. There, they encounter two Carnotaurus, but manage to scare them away with flashlights. Once daylight comes, Sarah attempts to retrieve the team's Ford Explorer. After evading a group of aggressive Pachycephalosaurus, she encounters and dispatches Dodgson. Dodgson is then taken by one of Tyrannosaurs to their nesting site, where his leg is broken and he is left for the babies to eat. After Sarah fails to reach the helicopter in time, Kelly locates an abandoned building with a functional boat inside. After making a quick getaway from a group of Velociraptors, the survivors are able to reach the boat and escape the island. While on the boat, Malcolm and Harding tell Levine, who was bitten by one of the animals, that some of the carnivores, including the Velociraptors and the Procompsognathus, are infected with prions due to InGen's decision to feed them contaminated sheep, and any animal bitten by them will be infected also. This means that all the dinosaurs on the island are fated to die due to the uncontrolled spread of the prions. Levine panics about the possibility of being infected with prions, but Malcolm states it shouldn't be harmful to humans. With that said, Thorne finally declares that is time for all of them to go home. As with the first book, the main conflicts the characters must face is fending off attacks from Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor and Procompsognathus. Throughout this second novel, Malcolm and Levine talk about various evolutionary and extinction theories, as well as the nature of modern science and the homogenizing and destructive nature of humanity. A particularly strong theme is the ethological and sociobiological concept of learned social behavior in animals (for example, Crichton's velociraptors, deprived of being reared among natural raptors with developed social pack behavior, instead show a tendency towards violent, antisocial behavior even amongst themselves). The book also discusses the role of prions in brain diseases, which has been at the root of concerns over Mad Cow Disease. | While on a journey through the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest, a long extinct animal shot by Professor George Challenger's team turns out to be a prehistoric pterosaur. During a lecture at the Natural History Museum of London, he argues that it is genuine and that he shot it several months ago. The lecturer, Professor Leo Summerlee dismisses it as nothing more than a clever hoax, as do several others. Eventually ambitious Lord John Roxton , a noted hunter and womanizer, and Daily Gazette columnist Edward Malone announce they will volunteer for the expedition and even Summerlee joins them. On the boat, Challenger shows a sarcastic Summerlee and his expedition members a map, drawn up by a Portuguese man called Padre Mendoz who ended up in the remote, uncharted area of Brazil which Challenger claims prehistoric creatures thrive. Most notably, there is a plateau, which would supposedly isolate the inhabitants from the evolutionary mainstream for millions of years. Upon arrival, Roxton begins flirting with Agnes , the niece of reverend Theo Kerr , a priest who disregards the idea of evolution. Agnes joins them for the expedition, the reverend is initially reluctant however he later joins them. After a long and eventful journey through the jungle, they eventually find the plateau. They go inside a cave which was the only route out the plateau only to discover that it has been sealed off by debris as it had been exploded years ago. Instead they cross over a log bridge, which the reverend suddenly pushes into a deep crevice in an abrupt mood swing, thus leaving them stranded. In the strange prehistoric redwood forest, Edward makes friends with a Hypsilophodon, and the stunned group spot an Iguanodon, and then a group of Pteranodons who attack and injure Summerlee. After retreating to the forest, in the middle of the night, while they are gathered around the campfire they are attacked by a large dinosaur, which is later identified by Summerlee as an allosaur which is probably an Epanterias but not an Allosaurus because this animal is much bigger than the usual. The next day Edward is scared out a tree by an ape man called Pithecanthropus which in his words "looked almost human". They then search for and find a large lake in the centre of the plateau which Malone had discovered while up the tree, and he names it after his fiancee, Gladys, while Roxton and the professors rest by the beach. Edward and Agnes walk off along the beach until the allosaur from last night emerges from the forest and drinks from the lake, but soon notices them as they run into the forest. In the cliffhanger ending of the first episode, the allosaur pursues them through the borders of the forest until they all fall into a pit, where the allosaur is killed after being impaled on two wooden spikes. After making their escape, they find out that Challenger and Summerlee have been kidnapped by the ape men. The apes take them to an enclosed sacrificial chamber, where they are placed on a thick sheet of rock which is covered with blood. The sun shines through a crack and the beasts place Summerlee's head in a groove on the plate of rock, about to smash his head with a large stone and eat him when Roxton and the group start shooting all the ape men. Challenger tries to save the creatures, calling them "the missing link between animal and human" upon leaving the animals territory, the group also rescue an Indian chief's son, Achille. The tribe recognizes Challenger as Padre Mendoz, the Portuguese man that returned from the plateau and drew up a map of the area. They are taken to the other end of the cave they found earlier and told of how a man, who they thought was the Devil, came to visit them and then left, sealing off the cave and trapping the Indians inside the plateau. The two groups cooperate very well together, with Challenger sitting by the chief's side, and Roxton marrying Maree, the patriarch's daughter. However, the presence of the ape men disturb the tribes people but, with Professor Challenger's protection, they remain safe from harm and are kept in a wooden cage on the border of the village. However, two allosaurs attack the village after weeks of harmony . After causing much death and destruction, the first male allosaur is killed by Roxton and his elephant gun but the larger female allosaur mortally wounds the chief. In an act of kindness, Agnes and Malone set the ape men loose and they flee back into the jungle. One psychotic ape gets its hands on a knife and keeps an eye on Roxton. Edward Malone eventually kills the larger dinosaur, but is too late to save the chief and several of the Indians. He is critically injured, and dies in the arms of Achille, who blames the white intruders. During the attack, Summerlee reopens the cave by blowing up the debris blocking their only escape route. After Achille assumes command, the outsiders flee while Roxton stays behind to stall them. The ape with the knife stabs Roxton in the torso, apparently killing him while Achille shoots the mad ape while it stands atop a rocky mound, growling. Outside, the reverend comes to block the remaining group's way and is actually the Devil body who visited the Indians and sealed off the cave. He intends to kill all of them and seal off the cave again to prevent the plateau and its inhabitants from being found and revealed. While struggling with Summerlee, the reverend accidentally shoots himself in the chest and dies. The explorers go back to London and upon returning, Edward discovers that Gladys is engaged to another man. Later that evening, the juvenile pterosaur that Challenger brings back escapes. Afterwards, Malone and Summerlee urge Challenger to end the whole affair so that the plateau and its inhabitants can exist in peace, realising it would be exploited if its location were to be revealed. The pterosaur is dismissed as an Amazonian vulture, while the articles Edward sent back are passed off as extracts of a novel he is writing. Edward confesses he loves Agnes, who tells him the same, and they kiss in the great hall of the museum where the crew have been exposed as frauds. In the final scene, Roxton is revealed to be alive and well, having survived his injury and is still happily married to Maree. | 0.651993 | positive | 0.59323 | positive | 0.333729 |
6,727,572 | Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London - in reality this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother’s death in childbirth and his father’s unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more." A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer five pounds to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. A brutal chimney sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with "that dreadful man", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children’s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife takes an immediate dislike to Oliver — primarily because her husband seems to like him — and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish but bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver’s promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah. One day, in an attempt to bait Oliver, Noah insults Oliver's biological mother, calling her "a regular right-down bad ‘un". Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah’s side, helps him to subdue, punching, and beating Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, into beating Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he does something that he hadn't done since babyhood — he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, "He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route," until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London. During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the "Artful Dodger", although Oliver's innocent nature prevents him from recognising this hint that the boy may be dishonest. Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will "give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows Dodger to the "old gentleman"'s residence. In this way, Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the so-called gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. Later, Oliver naïvely goes out to "make handkerchiefs" because of no income coming in, with two of Fagin’s underlings: The Artful Dodger and a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates. Oliver realises too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy—he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him. Oliver stays with Mr. Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss, however, is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might "peach" on his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, a brutal robber named Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, sends Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong, however, and Oliver is shot and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Monks has found Fagin and is plotting with him to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some manner, although it's not mentioned until later. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr. Bumble married Ms. Corney, the wealthy matron of the workhouse, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr. Bumble walks over to a pub, where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs. Bumble has told Monks all she knows, the three arrange to take a locket and ring which had once belonged to Oliver's mother and toss them into a nearby river. Monks relates this to Fagin as part of the plot to destroy Oliver, unaware that Nancy has eavesdropped on their conversation and gone ahead to inform Oliver's benefactors. Nancy, by this time ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping, and fearful for the boy's safety, goes to Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow to warn them. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again and holds some secret meetings on the subject with Oliver's benefactors. One night Nancy tries to leave for one of the meetings, but Sikes refuses permission when she doesn't state exactly where she's going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something and resolves to find out what her secret is. Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry, stolen money from him and fled to London. Charlotte has accompanied him — they are now in a relationship. Using the name "Morris Bolter", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of "the kinchen lay" (robbing children) while it is implied that Charlotte becomes a prostitute. During Noah's stay with Fagin, the Artful Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box, convicted (in a very humorous courtroom scene) and transported to Australia. Later, Noah is sent by Fagin to "dodge" (spy on) Nancy, and discovers her secret: she has been meeting secretly with Rose and Mr. Brownlow to discuss how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks. Fagin angrily passes the information on to Sikes, twisting the story just enough to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage and later flees to the countryside to escape from the police. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy's ghost and increasingly alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He flees back to London to find a hiding place, only to be killed when he accidentally hangs himself while attempting to flee across a rooftop from an angry mob. Monks is forced by Mr. Brownlow to divulge his secrets: his real name is Edward Leeford, and he is Oliver's paternal half-brother and, although he is legitimate, he was born of a loveless marriage. Oliver's mother, Agnes, was their father's true love. Mr. Brownlow has a picture of her, and began making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her face and the face of Oliver. Monks has spent many years searching for his father's child—not to befriend him, but to destroy him (see Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for similar circumstances). Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance (which proves to be meagre) to Monks because he wants to give him a second chance; and Oliver, being prone to giving second chances, is more than happy to comply. Monks then moves to America, where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of his hanging, in an emotional scene, Oliver, accompanied by Mr. Brownlow, goes to visit the old reprobate in Newgate Gaol, where Fagin's terror at being hanged has caused him to come down with fever. As Mr. Brownlow and Oliver leave the prison, Fagin screams in terror and despair as a crowd gathers to see his hanging. On a happier note, Rose Maylie turns out to be the long-lost sister of Agnes; she is therefore Oliver's aunt. She marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr. Brownlow. Noah becomes a paid, semi-professional informer to the police. The Bumbles lose their jobs and are reduced to great poverty, eventually ending up in the same workhouse where they originally had lorded it over Oliver and the other boys; and Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes's murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and works his way up to prosperity. | Oliver's mother, a penniless outcast, died giving birth to him. As a young boy Oliver is brought up in a workhouse, later apprenticed to an uncaring undertaker, and eventually is taken in by a gang of thieves who befriend him for their own purposes. All the while, there are secrets from Oliver's family history waiting to come to light. | 0.694825 | positive | 0.992689 | positive | 0.738215 |
27,595,410 | Avalon High | Avalon High | Elaine "Ellie" Harrison has just moved. Avalon High, seems like a typical high school with the stereotypical students: Lance the jock, Jennifer the cheerleader, Marco, the bad boy/desperado, and Will, the senior class president, quarterback, the student every girl wants and all around good guy. But not everyone at Avalon High is who they appear to be, not even Ellie herself. | Allie Pennington is a transfer student at Avalon High. On her way to class, she sees an innocent kid, Miles getting bullied by Marco , the "evil" stepbrother of William "Will" Wagner , the star quarterback and practically the most popular guy at Avalon. Fortunately, Will comes to the rescue, demanding Marco to leave Miles alone or else. European History teacher Mr. Moore breaks the class up into pairs and has them draw research paper topics out of an Arthurian helmet. Miles is paired with Allie, who draws the Order of the Bear. After school, Allie tries out for the school track team and impresses the coaches. Later that evening, Miles comes to Allie's house to study. Following Mr. Moore's advice, the two ask Allie's parents—professors of medieval literature at the local university—about the Order of Bear. Allie's mother tells them that the Order of the Bear is a group of people who believe that King Arthur will one day be reincarnated. Skeptically, Allie asks when this is supposed to take place; her mother replies that Arthur will return when he is needed to lead the world out of darkness. While he shares Allie's skepticism, her father goes on to explain that the forces of evil—led by Arthur's evil step brother Mordred—will also be returning to spoil the revival of Camelot and ensure that darkness triumphs. The next day, after class with Mr. Moore, he asks her if she found any information on the Order of the Bear. Allie tells him that she finds it doubtful that there will be a reincarnation of King Arthur. However, like Allie's mom, Mr. Moore too believes that King Arthur will be reincarnated. Allie suggests that she could bring the prophecy tomorrow for him, though he declines. On their way to the cafeteria, Allie spots Lance and Jen flirting with each other. But they immediately back away from each other when they notice that Allie caught them flirting with each other. After school, Allie goes running around the school when her cap falls off. Coincidentally, it ends up in Will's hands. Will admits that he feels too much pressure from everyone counting on him to win the game and, but Allie comforts him and invites Will to her house for dinner. The next day, Will has a party to celebrate them winning the game where she sees Jen and Lance together holding hands in a room all by themselves. Allie takes a second look but Jen and Lance see her and Allie runs away, Jen goes after Allie wanting to explain what was going on. Somehow, Jen knows about their reincarnation when she talks to Ally about her betrayal with her first love back in time and her love affair with Lance. Despite understanding Jen missing home, her pain, and torn heart, Ally can not accept the fact that she's hurting Will. She tries to make Allie promise not to tell Will but Allie runs away before she promises Jen anything. Jen feels hurt and confused and doesn't know what to do. The next day, Allie brings the book for Mr. Moore to read. Throughout the day, she tries to avoid talking Will due to the pleading looks of Jen and Lance they keep giving her. Marco also warns Allie about telling Will about Jen and Lance. However, the Will meets up with her while running and become closer. At the game, Lance is temporarily distracted by Jen's cheerleading, allowing Will to get hit by the opposing team. This cost them the game, and possibly the state championship. Afterwards, Allie sits with him by the field, intending to tell him of Jen's betrayal, but Marco interrupts her. That night, Miles comes to her house and hesitantly reveals that he can see in to the future. He came to tell her that there is a hidden page in the book on the Order of the Bear. They learn that the coming of Arthur is on a night of an eclipse and a meteor shower, the day of the big game. The book also warns of the coming of Mordred, who intends to destroy his half-brother Arthur. After getting more insight from her parents, they begin to suspect Marco may be Mordred. Allie also begins to think that Miles may be Merlin, but he begs to differ. The next day, they have a big exam. Marco plants a cheat sheet on the bottom of Will's shoe. Mr. Moore almost gives him detention but decides to give him benefit of the doubt. However his team resents him for the incident. They no longer respect his authority as team captain. Later that day, Allie reveals to Mr. Moore that she believes that Will is King Arthur and asks for his help in protecting him. In the chemistry lab, Miles and Allie's experiment goes wrong due to tampering, and Marco warns them about meddling. On the night of the game, Will sees Jen kiss Lance. Will gets in his car and drives away. Allie runs after him to the same spot where the first talked. Someone pushes her down. She tells Will that fate is involved in what happened. That he is King Arthur. He gets mistaken and thinks that its a metaphor. After her speech he gets courage to win the game despite what happened. Will speeds off without giving Allie a chance to explain. At the game, just when he's about to play, its lights out because the eclipse and meteor shower have begun. Lights come back up and game continues, but his line men don't defend him properly. At halftime, Will speaks with Lance, and the two mend their friendship. Will also gives a pep talk to his team and forgives Jen, but he forgets his helmet in the locker room. Before he goes back to get it, he tells Allie to meet him after the game, but he doesn't come back to play. Allie and Miles go looking for him in the locker room but can't find him there. Miles sees Will in a vision in the theater room. They find Marco on the ground and Will injured, but Will says it wasn't Marco that hurt him. Mr Moore comes out of the audience seating and tells them he himself is actually Mordred. As Mr. Moore tries to kill them, Marco pushes Mr. Moore off the stage. Allie does not understand how Mr. Moore is Mordred. While Marco explains, Mr. Moore regains his power through his cane/staff and fully transforms into Mordred. With his power through his cane attacks the four. To defend Will, Allie picks a toy sword by a box and holding it she turns that into a real sword by the legend that "any sword, in King Arthur's hands becomes Excalibur. They find out that Allie is really the reincarnation of King Arthur. After being transported back into their original time period, Allie goes head to head with Mr. Moore . He taunts her saying that a girl can't be Arthur. He thought Allie was the Lady of the Lake. The two forces clash, Allie and her knights against Mordred and his men. Miles reclaims his staff. Enraged, Mordred pulls out his own sword and begins to messily. Allie knocks his sword away, and wins the battle. The group transports back to the stage where a police man comes to kick them out. Mr Moore tries to frame Allie, but she tosses the sword to Miles where it turns back into a toy sword. Despite Mr. Moore's attempts, the police man doesn't believe that Allie is King Arthur. Will rushes off to the football field. Mr. Moore is last seen being taken away by the police, and Miles accepts that he's Merlin. Before they go back to the game, Marco bows to Allie, "Her Highness." Back at the game, twelve seconds are left when Will returns. Allie and Miles return to the stands where her parents -having missed all the action- wonder if Arthur's return was just a story. After Will's flawless touchdown, Avalon High wins the football game 36 to 35. The team celebrates putting Will on their shoulders, but Will runs to Allie. The two share a kiss. Lance and Jen get together, and Miles gets his girl as well. In the end the fierce group officially return to their time period where Allie, Will, Jen, Marco, Lance and Miles meet again at the Round Table as the people they were originally to be. | 0.541152 | positive | 0.664242 | positive | 0.995293 |
1,605,227 | Cycle of the Werewolf | Silver Bullet | The story is set in the fictional town of Tarker's Mills, Maine. A werewolf is viciously killing people and animals and strange incidents take place at each full moon. The otherwise normal town is living in fear. The protagonist of the story is Marty Coslaw, an eleven-year-old boy in a wheelchair. The story goes back and forth from the terrifying incidents to Marty's youthful day-to-day life and how the horror affects him. The first victim is Arnie Westrum, who is murdered in a tool-shack during a blizzard when the full moon comes in January, shortly after midnight on New Year's Day. Although the police admit that they are looking for a serial killer later on in the novel, and the killer is dubbed "The Full Moon Killer", Arnie Westrum immediately identifies the killer in his mind as being "the biggest wolf he has ever seen." The next victim is Stella Randolph, a depressed, unmarried, and impoverished seamstress, who is killed on St. Valentine's Day in February, after she has sent several Valentine's Day cards to herself from 1980s hearthrobs such as John Travolta and Ace Frehley. Believing she is dreaming, Stella sees the wolf watching her, delusively convinces herself that it is a man, and lets it into her house through the window. Stella is the only victim who seems to accept her fate, failing to so much as ward off the beast. The next victim is an unknown homeless drifter killed in March. During an intense blizzard, virtually the entire town loses its power. While several members of the town are unable to sleep during the power outage, they hear a wolf howling. Several prominent members of the story hear the howling, including Marty and Town Constable Lander Neary. Although no one can say exactly where the howling originated from, it is at this point that the rumors of a werewolf begin to spread through the town. The drifter is found by an employee of the electric and gas company sent to repair the power lines. Wolf prints are found frozen in the snow around the body. This is the first discovered evidence of a non-human killer. As April arrives, so does Spring, and while children celebrate the warmer weather as normal, the presence of a killer has engulfed the town in terror. On April Fool's Day, 11-year-old Brady Kincaid is flying a new kite given to him as a birthday present. Having realized that he has stayed out too late, he starts to prepare to leave. Upon doing this, Brady tells himself he has to hurry home in order to avoid a beating from his father, but in reality he is afraid of seeing the werewolf. Before he can leave, his fears are realized. He is found the next day in the park by a volunteer search party, only feet away from where other children had reported him playing, decapitated and disemboweled. The May full moon comes on Tarker's Mills' Homecoming weekend. The chapter begins with Baptist Reverend Lester Lowe awaking from a dream and half-expecting to see a werewolf outside of his church. Lowe had dreamed that he was giving his sermon in front of a packed congregation, not unusual on Homecoming Sunday according to Lowe, and he was preaching the sermon of his life, in contrast to his usually drab homilies. As Lowe continued to preach, speaking about the presence of the Beast, the congregation began to transform, although Lowe did not cease preaching. Eventually, Lowe began to transform himself. At this point, he realizes that he has been dreaming. The next day, Sunday, Lowe finds Clyde Corliss, a janitor at the church, gutted on the pulpit, and realizes, to his horror, that he really is the werewolf. In June, Alfie Knopfler, owner of the Chat n' Chew, a diner, is considering closing early, as it is near high school graduation, and he has no customers, when a customer enters and orders coffee. The customer is left unidentified, except to say that he is a regular, only out late. As Alfie surmises that he looks sick and probably will not stay long, the customer transforms before his eyes. Alfie compares it to the transformation scenes in The Incredible Hulk television series, and can hear change rattling in clothes pockets when the werewolf moves around, as his clothes have not been completely removed. Alfie, a Navy veteran, puts up somewhat of a struggle, but is killed relatively easily. Dying while looking at the moonlight through the window. In July, the town's Independence Day fireworks have been canceled. This is very upsetting to Marty, who has been looking forward to them all year. Because he feels bad for him, Marty's Uncle Al brings him fireworks, warning Marty to set them off really late so that his mother will not find out. While Marty is outside enjoying his own private Independence Day celebration, the werewolf attacks the boy, who manages to put out the monster's left eye with a package of black cat firecrackers. The werewolf escapes and Marty's parents call the police. In August, Constable Neary is getting his hair cut at the barber shop and is discussing the killer with the other patrons of the barber shop. It is revealed here that Marty has described the killer as a werewolf, not a person, and that he had been sent to live with relatives in Stowe, Vermont for the remainder of the summer, as the Maine State Police are fearful that the killer may return to kill Marty, and that Marty will recover better from the shock if he is away from Tarker's Mills. It is because of this "shock" that both Neary and the State Police have surmised that Marty, who had seen the killer, is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and having heard the stories of a werewolf at school, had juxtaposed the image of a wolf and the human killer together. The police also ignore the fact that Marty claims the killer is now missing his left eye. While one of the patrons of the barber shop suggests that the killer wears a costume, Neary dismisses it, saying the killer is purely human, and may be completely insane, possibly not even aware that he has committed the murders. Later that night, Neary is attacked in his truck by the werewolf. Remembering the discussion about a werewolf costume, Neary attempts to pull a mask off of the killer, realizing too late that no mask exists. The werewolf then kills him in a rather playful manner (pulling off the skin of his face, as though it were a mask) and feeds upon his remains. In September, Elmer Zinneman hears his entire pen of pigs being attacked. While initially planning to shoot at a natural predator, Elmer abandons these plans when he hears a wolf howl. Later on Elmer goes outside to see something huge and black running into the woods. Elmer's brother Pete comes over later that day and the men discuss how much of the loss will be covered by insurance. Pete mentions the wolf track evident in the mud, and notes that even he knows that those tracks belong to a werewolf, and he lives two counties away. Later on, both Elmer and Pete discuss going hunting for the werewolf, but not until November, saying that until then, people will have to be careful during the light of the full moon. October comes and so does Halloween. To celebrate, Marty goes trick-or-treating, but although he is ostensibly just trick-or-treating, he is also looking for a man or a woman missing his or her left eye. While out, he sees the Reverend Lowe wearing an eyepatch (Lowe and Marty had not seen each other since their encounter on the Fourth of July, as Marty and his family are devout Catholics, and do not attend the Baptist church where Reverend Lowe presides). In November, Elmer and Pete Zinneman, along with dozens of others, begin going into the woods everyday, waiting to shoot the werewolf. Although the hunters do not carry silver bullets, and hunt on days when the moon is not full, it is suggested that they are not looking for a mythological creature, but rather some sort of cryptid. Also, it is acknowledged that most of the hunters are hunting for fun, in order to be away from their wives, urinate outdoors, and tell jokes which include racial and ethnic slurs. Reverend Lowe, realizing he may kill another innocent victim, or be discovered himself, has been receiving anonymous letters from Marty, and plans to listen to gossip, for the first time in his life, so that he may kill the person attacked in July (Marty). However, in order to avoid the hunters, Lowe decides to travel to Portland, Maine and check into a hotel. At this point, Lowe, who had at first been reluctant about his curse, which he has no idea how he contracted, has more or less gone insane, and though not actually embracing his curse, acknowledged that all things serve the will of God. Ironically, after traveling to Portland, Lowe kills Milt Sturmfuller, a resident of Tarker's Mills, who is known as a notorious wife-batterer. Sturmfuller has been systematically traveling to Portland to cheat on his wife. After one night in Portland, he contracts genital herpes, when he returns home, maritally rapes his wife, and passes the disease onto her. While walking from his hotel room, which is the room adjacent to the one that Lowe has purchased, Sturmfuller is decapitated by the werewolf. By December, the town of Tarker's Mills is beginning to return to normal, as there has not been a known murder by the Full Moon Killer since Neary in August. However, some residents, such as Elmer Zinneman, point out that his pigs, and the four deer found slaughtered in the woods in October, could have been killed by the werewolf (Sturmfuller's death goes virtually unnoticed as he is far from a model citizen, and he is not linked to the Tarker's Mills murders as he is murdered in Portland). Marty continues to send Lowe anonymous letters asking why he does not kill himself and end the terror. In December, he sends the last letter - signed with his name. Unbeknownst to Reverend Lowe, Marty has convinced his somewhat reluctant uncle to have two silver bullets made and to come spend New Year's Eve (which falls on the full moon) with him. Right before midnight, the werewolf breaks into the house to kill Marty, who shoots him twice with the silver bullets, managing to completely blind and finally kill him. The Cycle of the Werewolf ends almost exactly a year after it began. | Jane Coslaw , the narrator of the film, is the oldest sister in a dysfunctional family of four. Her narration centers on her strained relationship with her younger, paraplegic brother Marty and their parents Nan and Bob. Their rocky relationship changes after a series of murders in their small rural town of Tarker's Mills, Maine. First, a railroad worker, Arnie Westrum , is killed by a werewolf. The county coroner believes that Arnie passed out on the railroad tracks and was run over by a train. Soon after, a local woman, Stella Randolph , prepares to commit suicide because she is unmarried and pregnant. Before she can act, she is murdered. This murder goes unsolved and the townsfolk become worried. The next victim, Milt Sturmfuller , whose daughter is Marty's girlfriend, hears a racket in his shed. Believing teenagers are making mischief, Sturmfuller plans to scare them off with a shotgun. Instead, he encounters the werewolf and is killed. His family leaves town. Next to die is teenager Brady Kincaid , Marty's best friend, who stayed out too late one night while flying a kite. After Brady's death, citizens led by local gun shop owner Andy Fairton form a vigilante justice group. Although local Sheriff Joe Haller and his lone deputy attempt to stop the citizens, the officers relent after being berated by Brady's father . In the middle of the melee, Baptist Reverend Lester Lowe attempts to prevent the townsfolk from causing further bloodshed. After the vigilantes go out hunting for the killer, several are attacked and killed, including Owen Knopfler . The survivors later deny seeing anything unusual. After the vigilantes are attacked, Reverend Lowe dreams that he is presiding over a mass funeral when his congregation -- including the dead bodies in the caskets -- begins to transform into werewolves before his eyes. He awakes and asks God to "let it end." As a result of the mounting unsolved murders, curfews are put in place and the annual fair and fireworks show is canceled. The Coslaws decide to have their own backyard party and invite Nan's alcoholic black sheep brother, Uncle Red . Red builds a wheelchair/motorcycle for his nephew, which he nicknames the "Silver Bullet". He also gives Marty a pile of fireworks so that he can have his own celebration. Marty uses the Silver Bullet to go out in the middle of the night to a small bridge where he lights the fireworks. Marty is confronted by the werewolf and barely escapes with his life by launching a rocket into the left eye of the creature. Marty enlists Jane's help to look for someone with a newly injured or missing left eye. The search is conducted under the cover of the church's bottle drive, so as not to arouse suspicion. When Jane turns her bottles in, she discovers that Reverend Lowe is missing his left eye. Realizing that no adult would believe his fantastic story, Marty begins sending anonymous notes to Reverend Lowe telling him that he knows who he is, what he is, and that he should commit suicide in order to stop the killings. A cat-and-mouse chase ensues between the Reverend and the siblings. At one point Lowe tries to run Marty, who is driving the Silver Bullet, off the road with his car. When Marty is trapped under a closed covered bridge, Lowe, who has more or less gone insane, uses Judeo-Christian logic to rationalize the murders he has committed: he cites Randolph's murder during her suicide attempt as his effort to save her soul ; Westrum was a severe alcoholic; he implies that Sturmfuller was abusing his wife and possibly his daughter ; and the vigilantes intended to murder someone in cold blood . Lowe then apologizes and tells Marty that he is going to drown him in the river when Marty is unwittingly saved by local farmer Elmer Zinneman. The siblings tell Red about their letter-writing campaign to Reverend Lowe. After calming down the furious Red, they manage to convince him that Lowe is connected to the murders and attempted to kill Marty: The Silver Bullet has dents and a scrape of blue paint that matches Lowe's car. Unable to deny the evidence in front of him, Red heads straight to Sheriff Haller. Although Red admits that he has his doubts, and Haller does not believe Lowe to be a killer, Red nonetheless persuades the sheriff to investigate. That night, Haller, still skeptical but desperate to find the killer, is shocked to discover evidence that at least some of Marty's story may be true. Haller finds Lowe, who has locked himself in his garage, but before Haller can arrest him, Lowe transforms and kills Haller. Marty and Jane realize that with Haller out of the way, the werewolf now has an easy path to come after them. They convince Red to take Jane's silver cross and Marty's silver medallion and melt it down into a silver bullet. Under the guise of Marty having just "discovered the Lone Ranger", Red has a local gunsmith make the bullet, after which, while admiring his handiwork, the gunsmith tells Red that the bullet should have no problem killing a werewolf. On Halloween, Red shows up at the Coslaws with some fortuitous news: He has won a romantic getaway to New York, but since he got separated from his wife, he gives the tickets to Nan and Bob. Questioned by Marty and Jane, Red reveals that he bought the tickets as a ruse to get their parents to safety. With the now full moon in the sky, they head inside to wait for the werewolf. Despite their best efforts, the trio fall asleep and are startled when Red burns himself and drops the gun, nearly setting it off. Jane screams in horror as she sees the werewolf looking at her from the living room window, although when Red looks he finds nothing. Red begins to doubt that the werewolf is real, much less going to show up, and orders Marty and Jane to bed. The werewolf meanwhile cuts the power to the house, leaving the trio in darkness. The werewolf then smashes into the house, attacking Red, Marty and Jane. Despite Red's best efforts he is overpowered by the werewolf and tossed around like a rag doll. Marty manages to find the bullet and shoots the werewolf in the right eye with the silver bullet, killing him. The corpse turns back into Reverend Lowe, and Marty and Jane realize that the ordeal has strengthened their love for each other. | 0.789435 | positive | 0.597076 | positive | 0.708832 |
594,257 | Walkabout | Walkabout | The book opens with two siblings, Peter and Mary, in a gully with diminishing food supplies. They are lost as a result of a plane crash and after swimming, and eating the last of their food, they decide to walk to Adelaide which, unknown to them, is across the continent. They leave and start walking across the desert. They climb some hills and Peter sees what he thinks is the ocean. Mary looks and realizes it is nothing more than salt in the desert. To keep this knowledge from Peter, she tells him they will rest below the hill. In the night, Mary dreams about what happened. They were in a cargo plane when the engine caught on fire and the plane crashed. Everyone survived including the pilots, but they were killed when the plane exploded while Mary and Peter were at a safe distance. The incident stranded them in Sturt Plain in the Northern Territory. The next day they keep walking and searching for food. Their efforts are in vain and they don't find food. They keep walking even more and Peter thinks he notices someone. Suddenly out of nowhere an Aborigine seems to appear and startles Mary and Peter mostly due to his nudity. Hoping to make him leave out of shame, Mary glares at him. Eventually Peter sneezes and the Aborigine laughs. Hoping to find out about the strangers, he inspects both of them and finds nothing, so he leaves. Peter and Mary, shocked that their only hope for survival had just left, soon follow. Peter attempts to communicate with him through gestures of eating and drinking and the Aborigine comprehends their situation. He indicates that they should follow him and the children do. He arrives at a waterhole where the children drink to their fill. Then, the Aborigine finds a plant which he prepares as food. After this, he begins to lead the children to the next waterhole. On the way, Mary has an idea. She removes her pants from under her dress and gives them to the Aborigine in hopes of clothing him. Peter assists in the attempt and the Aborigine puts on the pants. Just then, Peter notices that they are girl's pants and starts jumping around mocking the Aborigine. The Aborigine suddenly thinks that the pants are decorations for a dance that Peter had just started and starts dancing himself. His movements depict two men fighting as a victory dance. At the end of the dance the pants snap and fall off. Mary is shocked and the Aborigine looks at her face. He is terrified for he thinks that Mary's shock is because she had seen the Spirit of Death in him. They arrive at the next waterhole where the symptoms of the 'flu start to show in the Aborigine due to the fact Peter had the disease and had passed it on to him. He begins to worry and decides to tell the children he needs a burial platform to keep bad spirits from his body after he dies. Peter is gathering firewood so to avoid interrupting a man at work, the Aborigine seeks Mary who is bathing. The Aborigine doesn't see a bath as something that private in his culture so there is nothing to stop him. He arrives at the pool and Mary is terrifed and begins to threaten the Aborigine with snarls and a rock. He is confused why this is happening and becomes depressed that he will not get his burial platform. Mary goes to Peter and tells him to leave with her. Peter wonders about the Aborigine though, and a hesitant Mary is forced to stay. Peter goes back to Mary and tells her that the Aborigine is very sick. Peter begins to realize that the Aborigine will die while Mary refuses to believe that can happen from the flu. Soon, Mary goes to investigate. Finally, she acknowledges that he is actually dying and forgives him. She lays his head in her lap and he touches her hair, during this moment Mary realizes that they are not so different, despite his appearance and language. He dies later in the night. They bury him and leave for the food and water-filled valley Peter was told about by the Aborigine before he died. They stop at a pool where they eat some yabbies and observe platypus and leave. After crossing many hills they come across the valley. They discover some wet clay which they use to draw pictures with. Peter draws nature while Mary draws stylish women and her dream house. Eventually the children see smoke and see Aboriginal swimmers. They arrive at the Aboriginal settlement where one of the swimmers, a man, sees the drawings. He sees Mary's dream house and realises who Mary and Peter are. In a wide variety of gestures and drawings, he tells the children that there is a house like that across the hills and demonstrates how to get there. The overjoyed children begin their trek back to their civilization. The book has 125 pages | A teenage schoolgirl and her much younger brother become stranded in the wilderness after their father goes berserk. After driving them far into the Australian outback for a picnic, the father suddenly begins shooting at his children. When they run behind rocks for cover, he sets the car on fire and shoots himself in the head. The girl conceals what has happened from her brother. After salvaging what she can, the pair head out into the desert. By the middle of the next day, they are weak, and the boy can barely walk. Discovering a small pool with a fruiting tree, they spend the day playing, bathing, and resting. Next morning, the pool has dried up. An Aboriginal youth appears. Though the girl cannot communicate with him, her brother mimes their need for water, and the newcomer cheerfully shows them how to draw it from the drying bed of the oasis. Then the three travel together for several days, with the Aborigine sharing food he has caught hunting. The boys learn to communicate, using words and mime. While the Aborigine goes hunting, she swims naked in a deep pool. A change of scene shows a research team working in the desert, all the men attracted to the only woman. One of them carelessly loses a weather balloon, which is later found by the three young wanderers. In some versions of the film, one scene depicts a Caucasian woman walking past the Aboriginal boy, speaking to him, and spotting the other children. They do not see her, however. When the boy does not reply, the woman continues walking over a ridge to a plantation. There, a white man is seen roughly directing a group of Aboriginal children, who are making plaster statuettes and other things. He calls a break and enters the house, where the woman awaits him on a bed. The older boy guides the siblings to a deserted farm. He discovers a paved road while collecting sticks in the forest, and excitedly shows the brother. Soon afterward, he hunts down a water buffalo and is wrestling it to the ground when two white hunters nearly run him over in a truck. He watches them shoot several buffalo with a rifle. He returns to the house, catching the girl dressing. He courts her with an intense, silent dance. Although he dances outside all day and into the night until he becomes exhausted, she cannot understand the nature of his dance. In the morning, the brother wakes his sister and tells her their companion is gone. After they wash and dress in their school uniforms, the brother takes her to the Aborigine's body, hanging in a tree. Not fully comprehending death, the boy offers the body his pen-knife. Before leaving, the girl wipes ants from the dead boy's chest. Hiking up the road, the siblings find a nearly deserted mining town, where they are met by a surly white man who tells them of a place they can stay. Years later, a businessman arrives at the home of the now grown-up girl; while he relates office gossip, she daydreams, imagining a scene in which she, her brother, and the Aborigine are playing and swimming naked in the deep pool in the outback. | 0.698039 | positive | 0.99443 | positive | 0.526406 |
101,910 | The Glass Inferno | The Towering Inferno | The story concerns the events during the grand opening celebration of a brand new high-rise building (66-stories-tall) in an unnamed American city. The building was called the National Curtainwall Building, nicknamed the Glass House, the headquarters of the fictitious National Curtainwall corporation. A combination of a skyscraper built to the absolute minimum compliance with safety rules, combined with cutting corners to save money on construction, leads to a disaster waiting to happen. Craig Barton, the building’s architect, is to meet for dinner with the building’s owner, Wyndom Leroux in the building’s Promenade room. During drinks and dinner Barton questions Leroux regarding the specifications of the building and whether or not they have been altered from his original plans, why they have been altered and what the consequences of this may be. After dinner they are alerted by the hostess that there is a fire in one of the building’s storage rooms on the 17th floor. Barton is sent down by Leroux to assist with the firefighting operations while his wife, Jenny, remains at dinner with Leroux and his wife Thelma. A small home furnishings store owner, despondent over his near bankruptcy, decides to burn his business down for the insurance. He tries to do so, but realizes what it will do to his business partner and lover, Larry. He puts out the fire but realizes that he's now really ruined because of what he has done. He then discovers that he is smelling smoke which is not from the fire he tried to set, but is from a real fire, unrelated to his, that has occurred in the building. A part of the story deals with a TV reporter named Quantrell, who, using a disgruntled former employee of the contractor, was given copies of documents relating to the building's construction. In one scene, Quantrell uses them on his television show to point out how the building was designed in violation of local building codes at the time the drawings were made, and that the local building codes were changed afterward to allow the design to be in compliance, implying that the owners of the building paid bribes to have the building codes rewritten. The reporter gets threats from all sides to back down on his aggressive reporting of the building's failures. After the initial alarm of fire division chief Mario Infantino, a chief who specializes in high-rise fires, is called to the scene and given the overall command by fire chief Karl Fuchs, whose son, Mark, is also a fireman at the scene. Barton and Infantino, who have been friends before the fire, work to understand what is happening to the building as flames race through its poorly constructed heart. The story continues as it shows the efforts of other residents of the building attempting to escape the flames, some successful, some not. One character is the brave Lisolette (also featured in the Irwin Allen film adaptation). Eventually a number of people end up in the penthouse restaurant of the building, where they are trapped and unable to get down. They are eventually rescued successfully by helicopter. The fire is eventually put out by blowing up water tanks below the roof of the building, which causes the water to drown the fire. es:The Glass Inferno | {{Plot}} Architect Doug Roberts returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for owner James Duncan. At 138 stories , it is the world's tallest building. An electrical short in the upper floors starts a small fire in a storage room on the 81st floor, which goes undetected. Roberts confronts the building's electrical engineer, Duncan's son-in-law Roger Simmons, accusing him of cutting corners and taking a kickback. Simmons insists the building is up to standards, but Roberts knows the standards are not enough and demands to see the electrical specifications and wiring diagrams. During the dedication ceremony, with several dignitaries in attendance, public relations chief Dan Bigelow turns on the tower's exterior lights to impress them and the other 294 guests arriving for a party in the Promenade Room on the 135th floor. The lighting overloads the system and Roberts orders it shut off. The building's security guards see smoke from the fire on the 81st floor and summon the San Francisco Fire Department. Roberts and engineer Will Giddings head to the 81st floor. Giddings pushes a security guard to prevent him from opening the door to the burning room shortly before it explodes, severely burning himself. Roberts tells Duncan of the fire, who insists that the party continue, believing a fire on the 81st floor will not affect the party. Firemen begin fighting the fast-growing blaze unbeknownst to the party guests, using Roberts' office on the 79th floor as a command post and the lobby as a mass casualty and staging area. SFFD 5th Battalion Chief Michael O'Hallorhan takes charge and forces Duncan to evacuate the party guests. Everyone is directed to the express elevators. Party guest and building resident Lisolette Mueller, who was romanced at the party by con man Harlee Claiborne, is one of the first to leave. She heads to the 87th floor to check on a family with two children she babysits and their deaf mother. Simmons admits to Duncan that he changed Roberts' electrical specifications, but at Duncan's insistence to stay under budget. Simmons asks Duncan how he saved the rest of the money in the building budget. Duncan is aided by Senator Parker and Mayor Ramsey in the evacuation. The fire then breaks through to the main elevator bay, rendering the express elevators unsafe. Duncan attempts to divert guests to the scenic elevators as an alternate escape route. However a panicked group of guests manage to get into one anyway. On the way down, it stops and opens directly into the fire the 81st floor, killing the occupants. The elevator then returns to the Promenade Room where the doors open and one man runs out engulfed in flames in view of the horrified guests reminding them that there is indeed a fire in the elevator shaft. Claiborne smothers the fatally-burned man with his tuxedo jacket, but it is too late. Bigelow and his secretary/mistress Lorrie are trapped in his office by a second fire on the 65th floor and killed . Security Chief Harry Jernigan and Roberts are then informed from the building's security station that Lisolette has been seen on a security monitor trying to get into the apartment on 87; the two men head up to assist. Jernigan takes the mother down to safety. Roberts and Mueller save the two children, but are halted after part of the stairwell explodes due to a ruptured gas line. They head up to the Promenade Room via a service elevator, but upon their arrival the stairwell door is sealed by spilled cement. Roberts escapes through a pipe shaft to alert security. Two firemen rescue Lisolette and the children by blowing open the door with C-4. Suppression by the fire department becomes nearly impossible as the building loses all electrical power, halting an elevator that O'Hallorhan and his men are on, forcing them to rappel down the shaft. A rooftop helicopter rescue attempt results in further disaster when two women rush the aircraft, causing it to crash and explode due to the heavy winds, setting the roof ablaze. Naval Rescue teams attach a breeches buoy to the adjacent 102-story Peerless Building and rescue a number of guests, including Duncan's daughter and Simmons' wife Patty. Roberts activates a gravity brake on the scenic elevator, enabling it to coast down to the lobby. Twelve people, including Roberts' girlfriend Susan, Mueller and the children, together with a supervising fireman and others enter the elevator. As it descends, an explosion rips the elevator off its track at the 110th floor, leaving it hanging by a cable. Mueller falls to her death before the others are saved by a helicopter rescue by O'Hallorhan. After all the women are evacuated in the breeches buoy, Simmons attempts to be the first man out. Duncan punches him in the gut, saying that everyone drew numbers and will all go when it's their turn, but that he will be the last man to leave, along with Simmons. However, as the fire reaches the Promenade Room, the remaining guests panic. Simmons forces his way onto the breeches buoy. Senator Parker tries to stop Simmons from getting on the buoy as it's not his turn. During the struggle, the buoy is taken out the window because of the combined weight of Senator Parker, Simmons, and two other men. Parker and another guest are pushed off of the buoy by Simmons to their deaths, but a few seconds later, an explosion destroys the rope holding the buoy, sending Simmons and the one other remaining guest still holding onto the buoy plummeting to their deaths. A desperate plan is hatched by the top SFFD Fire Chiefs to explode the million-gallon water tanks at the top of the building above the remaining people in the Promenade Room to try and extinguish the fire raging below. A reluctant O'Hallorhan meets with Roberts and they set plastic C-4 to the six water tanks and the floors on the 138th floor, then return down to the Promenade Room. The remaining guests are ordered to tie themselves to heavy objects. O'Hallorhan, Roberts, Duncan, Claiborne and most of the party-goers survive as the tanks are blown, sending thousands of gallons of water through the ceiling and throughout the building, extinguishing the flames. The torrent sweeps away those not securely tied down, including Mayor Ramsey. On the ground, Claiborne finds out through Jernigan that Mueller did not survive and is heartbroken, but is given her pet cat. Duncan consoles Patty over Simmons' death. Roberts says to Susan that he does not know what will become of the building, but perhaps it should be left alone as "a kind of shrine to all the bullshit in the world". O'Hallorhan says to Roberts that they were lucky tonight and that it could be much worse when fire safety is not taken into account. Roberts agrees to consult with O'Hallorhan in the near future. The fire chief drives away, exhausted. | 0.744761 | negative | -0.538112 | positive | 0.985354 |
16,435,078 | Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London - in reality this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother’s death in childbirth and his father’s unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more." A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer five pounds to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. A brutal chimney sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with "that dreadful man", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children’s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife takes an immediate dislike to Oliver — primarily because her husband seems to like him — and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish but bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver’s promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah. One day, in an attempt to bait Oliver, Noah insults Oliver's biological mother, calling her "a regular right-down bad ‘un". Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah’s side, helps him to subdue, punching, and beating Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, into beating Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he does something that he hadn't done since babyhood — he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, "He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route," until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London. During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the "Artful Dodger", although Oliver's innocent nature prevents him from recognising this hint that the boy may be dishonest. Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will "give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows Dodger to the "old gentleman"'s residence. In this way, Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the so-called gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. Later, Oliver naïvely goes out to "make handkerchiefs" because of no income coming in, with two of Fagin’s underlings: The Artful Dodger and a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates. Oliver realises too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy—he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him. Oliver stays with Mr. Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss, however, is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might "peach" on his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, a brutal robber named Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, sends Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong, however, and Oliver is shot and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Monks has found Fagin and is plotting with him to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some manner, although it's not mentioned until later. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr. Bumble married Ms. Corney, the wealthy matron of the workhouse, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr. Bumble walks over to a pub, where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs. Bumble has told Monks all she knows, the three arrange to take a locket and ring which had once belonged to Oliver's mother and toss them into a nearby river. Monks relates this to Fagin as part of the plot to destroy Oliver, unaware that Nancy has eavesdropped on their conversation and gone ahead to inform Oliver's benefactors. Nancy, by this time ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping, and fearful for the boy's safety, goes to Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow to warn them. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again and holds some secret meetings on the subject with Oliver's benefactors. One night Nancy tries to leave for one of the meetings, but Sikes refuses permission when she doesn't state exactly where she's going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something and resolves to find out what her secret is. Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry, stolen money from him and fled to London. Charlotte has accompanied him — they are now in a relationship. Using the name "Morris Bolter", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of "the kinchen lay" (robbing children) while it is implied that Charlotte becomes a prostitute. During Noah's stay with Fagin, the Artful Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box, convicted (in a very humorous courtroom scene) and transported to Australia. Later, Noah is sent by Fagin to "dodge" (spy on) Nancy, and discovers her secret: she has been meeting secretly with Rose and Mr. Brownlow to discuss how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks. Fagin angrily passes the information on to Sikes, twisting the story just enough to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage and later flees to the countryside to escape from the police. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy's ghost and increasingly alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He flees back to London to find a hiding place, only to be killed when he accidentally hangs himself while attempting to flee across a rooftop from an angry mob. Monks is forced by Mr. Brownlow to divulge his secrets: his real name is Edward Leeford, and he is Oliver's paternal half-brother and, although he is legitimate, he was born of a loveless marriage. Oliver's mother, Agnes, was their father's true love. Mr. Brownlow has a picture of her, and began making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her face and the face of Oliver. Monks has spent many years searching for his father's child—not to befriend him, but to destroy him (see Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for similar circumstances). Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance (which proves to be meagre) to Monks because he wants to give him a second chance; and Oliver, being prone to giving second chances, is more than happy to comply. Monks then moves to America, where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of his hanging, in an emotional scene, Oliver, accompanied by Mr. Brownlow, goes to visit the old reprobate in Newgate Gaol, where Fagin's terror at being hanged has caused him to come down with fever. As Mr. Brownlow and Oliver leave the prison, Fagin screams in terror and despair as a crowd gathers to see his hanging. On a happier note, Rose Maylie turns out to be the long-lost sister of Agnes; she is therefore Oliver's aunt. She marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr. Brownlow. Noah becomes a paid, semi-professional informer to the police. The Bumbles lose their jobs and are reduced to great poverty, eventually ending up in the same workhouse where they originally had lorded it over Oliver and the other boys; and Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes's murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and works his way up to prosperity. | Oliver Twist is born at the workhouse of Mr. Bumble, where he is left an orphan as his mother dies shortly after giving birth to him. Mr. Bumble, just as he does with all his other orphans, puts Oliver to daily work, giving him in exchange little more than a daily bowl of porridge. One day, outraged that Oliver would dare supplicate for more food, Mr. Bumble sells the boy to Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker, who makes him an apprentice at his funeral home. There, Oliver is humiliated and insulted by Noah, Mr. Sowerberry's other apprentice. Tired of this life, Oliver runs away from the funeral home and heads for the city of London where he meets the Artful Dodger. The Artful Dodger takes Oliver to the home of Fagin, a seemingly kind old man who turns homeless boys into shameless pickpockets. There, Oliver is trained to wander the streets stealing from ladies and gentlemen. When Oliver witnesses the Artful Dodger and another boy named Charlie stealing the handkerchief of Mr. Brownlow as he browses the books at a street bookshop, Oliver flees. The suspicious act on Oliver's part arouses the attention of Mr. Brownlow and accuses him of theft. When caught, Oliver is taken before a magistrate treated as a cold-blooded criminal and sentenced. Mr. Brownlow confronts the magistrate, telling him that his sentence is too harsh and that he never did see Oliver actually steal the piece of cloth. Mr. Brownlow takes a liking towards Oliver and invites him to live in his home. Mr. Monks, a sinister man, seeks information about Oliver from Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, when they present him with a locket that the old nurse Sally had taken from Oliver's mother. Mr. Monks wishes Oliver to be involved in a crime and imprisoned, so he may claim the inheritance that is rightfully Oliver's. | 0.907699 | positive | 0.962966 | positive | 0.738215 |
12,978,934 | The Deep End of the Ocean | The Deep End of the Ocean | Wisconsin photographer and housewife Beth Cappadora leaves her youngest son, Ben, alone with his older brother for a brief moment in a crowded Chicago hotel lobby, while attending her high school reunion. The older son lets go of Ben's hand and Ben vanishes without a trace. Beth goes into an extended mental breakdown and it is left to her husband and owner of a restaurant, Pat, to force his wife to robotically care for their remaining two children, 7-year-old Vincent and infant daughter Kerry. Nine years later a young boy named Sam asks Beth if she needs the lawn mowed. Beth suspects that this boy who lives with his "father" two blocks away is in fact her lost son, and while Sam mows the lawn, she takes photographs of him to show to her husband and teenage son, who then says that he suspected the boy's true identity all along. The parents contact Detective Candy Bliss who pops in to offer wise, albeit often cryptic and conflicting, advice to Beth. It is learned that at the reunion in Chicago, the celebrity alumna Cecil Lockhart kidnapped Ben, renamed him Sam, and raised him as her own child until she was committed to a mental hospital, leaving Sam to be raised in a house only two blocks from the Cappadoras, by his adoptive father, the sensitive and intellectual George Karras. Ben was raised by a Greek-American father for nine years, while his biological parents are Italian-American. Ben is a polite, intelligent American boy who takes great pride in participating in Greek cultural rituals, much to the frustration of Pat who wants to pretend that Ben was never really abducted. Ben is faced with the cultural identity that he grew up with, and the cultural identity he would have known had he not been kidnapped. Ben's adoptive father agrees to surrender Ben to his birth family, while still living two blocks away. Torn between two worlds and having lost both of the parents that he knew, Ben expresses suicidal feelings to Beth. Ben's only memory of his biological family is one of brother Vincent and thus over a one-on-one basketball game he absolves his brother of any responsibility for his abduction, and agrees to return to live with the Cappadoras. At the end of the novel, many conflicts remain unresolved. Pat still has problems loving his sons: Ben because he can not relate to his personality and Vincent because he does not connect his teenaged rebellion and cynicism to nine years of bad parenting. Beth has regained her position in the family as an equal parent, but Ben and Vincent's emotional scars may require years of intense therapy. | Beth Cappadora and her husband Pat experience a parent's worst fear when their son Ben vanishes in a crowded hotel lobby during Beth's high school reunion. The ensuing frantic search is unsuccessful, and Beth goes through a sustained nervous breakdown. Unable to cope with her devastation, Beth unintentionally neglects her other children, Vincent ([[Jonathan Jackson and Kerry . After nine years, the family has seemingly accepted that Ben has gone forever, when a familiar-looking boy turns up at their house, introduces himself as Sam and offers to mow their lawn. Beth is convinced that Sam is actually her son, and begins an investigation that culminates in the discovery that Ben was kidnapped at the ill-fated high school reunion years ago, by a mentally unstable woman who was a high school classmate of Beth's. This woman brought up Ben as her own child, until she committed suicide. The attempted re-integration of Ben back into the Cappadora family produces painful results for all involved. Eventually the family decides that what's best for Ben is to return him to his adoptive father, but one night Vincent finds him playing basketball outside. Ben reveals that he remembered something from before his abduction, playing with Vincent and Vincent finding him, causing him to feel safe. Vincent, who has carried guilt for letting go of Ben at the reunion is forgiven by Ben who decides to return to living with his real family, but first plays a game of basketball with his brother with their parents secretly watching from their bedroom window. | 0.89805 | positive | 0.991479 | positive | 0.994509 |
239,532 | Topaz | Topaz | The Cold War-era story concerns an alleged plot between the Soviet Union and Cuba, and a spy ring with connections to both. It also speaks about the Russian infiltrations into the French intelligence. The main characters of the book are fast friends Michael Nordstorm and Andre Devereaux of the American and French intelligence. Devereaux goes out of way to get evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. He has information of Soviet links in French intelligence but is himself targeted when he reveals this to the French president. But he continues with his fight and exposes the mole ultimately seeking asylum in America with Nordstorm's help. | The story is set in 1962 and opens with images of a Soviet military parade on the Red Square. In Copenhagen, a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer defects to the West with his wife and daughter. CIA agent Nordstrom debriefs him and learns that Russian missiles are to be posted in Cuba. Nordstrom enlists the aid of his friend and French agent André Devereaux , encouraging him to accompany his daughter Michèle on her honeymoon with journalist François Picard as a premise to get him to New York. André accepts, but his wife Nicole is worried for him. In New York, André entrusts a familiar contact, Philippe Dubois to get hold of some seriously damaging papers concerning Soviet plans in Cuba from the visiting Cuban official Rico Parra . Parra is in New York to appear at the United Nations and stays at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem to show solidarity with "the masses". Dubois, taking the identity of a black journalist from Ebony, sneaks into the embassy , manages to take photos of some of the documents and then runs away, chased by Cuban revolutionaries. While cunningly dodging away, Dubois shams bumping into and overthrowing André, who was watching events from the other side of the street, and slips the camera into his hand. A Cuban guard helps André to get up, stares at him, and lets him go. The photos confirm that the Soviets are secretly transporting and placing missiles in Cuba. Devereaux, unheeding of his wife's fear and jealousy, jets off to Cuba to find out more details. He catches up with his mistress Juanita de Cordoba , widow to a former first-hour wealthy "hero of the Revolution", and herself now leader of the local underground resistance network: she acts undercover and collects information as Parra's lover. André, on arriving, finds Parra leaving Juanita's mansion. During a scene of intimacy in the mansion, Devereaux asks her to somehow take photos of the missiles as they are unloaded from Russian boats at the harbour. But Juanita's people are arrested and tortured, while Parra's man, during a big mass rally and lengthy speech by the "líder máximo", recognizes André's face from the incident in front of the hotel. Parra, who has heard from the maimed and tortured female underground member that Juanita is their leader, confronts Juanita and, hugging her in his arms, shoots her to save her from being tortured to death. In one of the film's most memorable shots, Juanita is seen from overhead, her dress spreading out on the floor like a bloodstain on the big black-and-white pavement tiles, as she collapses. André is searched thoroughly at the airport on departure, but the Cuban authorities are unable to find the carefully hidden microfilms, which provide crucial information for the CIA about Soviet activities in Cuba. When André arrives back in Washington, he finds his home empty: his wife deserted him due to his Cuban love interest and returned to Paris. He is also recalled to Paris, but before he leaves, he is informed by Nordstrom about the existence of a Soviet spy organization called 'Topaz' within the French intelligence service. He is given the name of one certain member, NATO official Henri Jarré , who leaked documents to the KGB. On arrival, he attempts to get to the bottom of the leak, while his daughter Michèle wants to reconcile her parents. He invites some of his old friends and colleagues, including Jarré, to a lunch at a fine restaurant, "Chez Pierre". While Jarré eats, André tells the others about Topaz in order to provoke some reaction. Jarré answers that all this is a piece of misinformation, since he knows that the Russian official in fact died a year ago. But he begins to panic, and visits the man who is the leader of the spy ring, Jacques Granville . But Granville, in his night gown, is "waiting for somebody". As Jarré is leaving Granville's house, a woman arrives. It is Nicole, André's wife, and as they kiss we see a photo on a stand: Devereaux, Nicole and Granville were old friends from their days together in the French Resistance. Devereaux sends his son-in-law François to interview and extract information out of Jarré. François calls Devereaux from Jarré's home, but the call is cut short. Devereaux and Michèle rush together to Jarré's flat, and find him dead. François has disappeared. André and Michèle return to Nicole's, and a short time later François arrives: he was clubbed, but came to and managed to escape from his captors' car. He has overheard a phone number and shows a sketch of Jarré. Nicole, who was staring at the window then turns around and tells her family, with tearful eyes, that the phone number is Granville's, so he must be the leader of the "Topaz" organization. Granville is exposed and then either apparently commits suicide or flees to the Soviet Union. | 0.623336 | positive | 0.991715 | positive | 0.997954 |
5,429,235 | The Postman Always Rings Twice | The Postman Always Rings Twice | The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called "the Greek". There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora, and they begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities (when they first embrace, Cora commands Frank to bite her lip, and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood). Cora, a femme fatale figure, is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but, due to a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman, the scheme fails. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank and Cora are injured. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery, a few valuable hours are gained. The lawyer uses the time to manipulate those financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony, which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution's arsenal. The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement, under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time. Frank and Cora patch things up and plan a happy-family future. Then Cora is killed in a car accident while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution. | Frank Chambers is a drifter who stops at a rural diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora Smith , and her much older husband, Nick . Frank and Cora start to have an affair soon after they meet. Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own. She and Frank scheme to murder Nick in order to start a new life together without her losing the diner. Their first attempt at the murder is a failure, but they eventually succeed. The local prosecutor, Kyle Sackett ([[Leon Ames , suspects what has occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he tries only Cora for the crime. Although they do turn against each other, a clever ploy from Cora's lawyer prevents Cora's full confession from coming into the hands of the prosecutor. With the tactic having failed to generate any new evidence for the prosecution, Cora benefits from a plea bargain in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter and receives probation. Frank and Cora eventually patch together their tumultuous relationship, and now plan for a future together. But as they seem to be prepared finally to live "happily ever after", Cora dies in a car accident, while Frank is driving. Although it was truly an accident, the circumstances seem suspicious enough that Frank is accused of having staged the crash. He is convicted of murdering Cora and is sentenced to death. When informed that his last chance at a reprieve from his death sentence has been denied, and thus his execution is now at hand, Frank is at first incredulous that he will be put to death for a crime of which he is innocent. But when informed that authorities have recently discovered irrefutable evidence of his guilt in the murder of Nick, Frank decides that his impending death is actually his overdue punishment for that crime, despite his official conviction being for the murder of Cora. Frank contemplates that when a person is expecting to receive a letter, it is of no concern if at first he does not hear the postman ring the doorbell, because the postman will always ring a second time, and that second ring will invariably be heard. After they escaped legal punishment for Nick's murder, but nonetheless with Cora now dead and Frank on his way to the death chamber, he notes that the postman has indeed rung a second time for each of them. | 0.797983 | positive | 0.989473 | positive | 0.996274 |
6,223,567 | The Man with the Golden Gun | The Man with the Golden Gun | A year after James Bond's final confrontation with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, while on a mission in Japan, a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet the head of the Secret Service, M. Bond's identity is confirmed, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The Service learns that after destroying Blofeld's castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond travelled into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M upon returning to England. Now de-programmed, Bond is given a chance to re-prove his worth as a member of the 00 section following the assassination attempt. M sends Bond to Jamaica and gives him the seemingly impossible mission of killing Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin who is believed to have killed several British secret agents. Scaramanga is known as "The Man with the Golden Gun" because his weapon of choice is a gold-plated Colt .45, which fires silver jacketed solid gold bullets. Bond locates Scaramanga in a Jamaican bordello and manages to become his temporary personal assistant under the name "Mark Hazard". He learns that Scaramanga is involved in a hotel development on the island with a group of investors that consists of a syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilise Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop, running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people. Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort, Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA and is working ostensibly as an electrical engineer while setting up bugs in Scaramanga's meeting room. However, they learn that Scaramanga plans to eliminate Bond when the weekend is over. Bond's true identity is confirmed by a KGB agent and Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB agent by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train to a marina. However, Bond manages to turn the tables on Scaramanga and, with the help of Leiter, kill most of the conspirators. Wounded, Scaramanga escapes into the swamps, where Bond pursues him. Scaramanga lulls Bond off-guard and shoots him with a golden derringer he had hidden behind his neck. Bond is hit but returns fire and shoots Scaramanga several times, killing him at last. | In London, a golden bullet with James Bond's code "007" etched into its surface is received by MI6. It is believed that it was sent by famed assassin Francisco Scaramanga, who uses a golden gun, to intimidate the agent. Because of the perceived threat to the agent's life, M relieves Bond of a mission revolving around the work of a scientist named Gibson, thought to be in possession of information crucial to solving the energy crisis with solar power. Bond sets out unofficially to find Scaramanga. After retrieving a spent golden bullet from a belly dancer in Beirut and tracking its manufacturer to Macau, Bond sees Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress, collecting golden bullets at a casino. Bond follows her to Hong Kong and in her Peninsula Hotel room pressures her to tell him about Scaramanga, his appearance and his plans; she directs him to the Bottoms Up Club. The club proves to be the location of Scaramanga's next 'hit', Gibson, from which Scaramanga's dwarf henchman Nick Nack steals the "Solex agitator", a key component of a solar power station. Before Bond can assert his innocence, however, Lieutenant Hip escorts him away from the scene, taking him to meet M and Q in a hidden headquarters in the wreck of the {{RMS}} in the harbour. M assigns 007 to retrieve the Solex agitator and assassinate Scaramanga. Bond then travels to Bangkok to meet Hai Fat, a wealthy Thai entrepreneur suspected of arranging Gibson's murder. Bond poses as Scaramanga, but his plan backfires because Scaramanga himself is being hosted at Hai Fat's estate. Bond is captured and placed in Fat's dojo, where the fighters are instructed to kill him. After escaping with the aid of Lt. Hip and his nieces, Bond speeds away on a khlong along the river and reunites with his British assistant Mary Goodnight. Hai Fat is subsequently killed by Scaramanga, who replaces Fat as the "new Chairman of the board" and takes the Solex. Anders visits Bond, revealing that she had sent the bullet to London and wants Bond to kill Scaramanga. In payment, she promises to hand the Solex over to him at a boxing venue the next day. At the match, Bond discovers Anders dead and meets Scaramanga. Bond spots the Solex on the floor and is able to smuggle it away to Hip, who passes it to Goodnight. Attempting to place a homing device on Scaramanga's car, she is locked into the vehicle's boot. Bond sees Scaramanga driving away and steals a showroom car to give chase, coincidentally with Sheriff J.W. Pepper seated within it. Bond and Pepper follow Scaramanga in a car chase across Bangkok, which concludes when Scaramanga's car transforms into a plane, which flies him, Nick Nack and Goodnight to his private island. Picking up Goodnight's tracking device, Bond flies a seaplane into Red Chinese waters, under the Chinese radar, and lands at Scaramanga's island. On arriving, Bond is welcomed by Scaramanga, who shows him the high-tech solar power plant he has taken over, the technology for which he intends to sell to the highest bidder. Whilst demonstrating the equipment, Scaramanga uses a powerful solar beam to destroy Bond's plane. Scaramanga then proposes a pistol duel with Bond on the beach; the two men later stand back to back and are ordered by Nick Nack to take twenty paces, but when Bond turns and fires, Scaramanga has vanished. Nick Nack leads Bond into Scaramanga's Funhouse where Bond poses as a mannequin of himself while Scaramanga walks by, taking him by surprise and killing him. Goodnight, in waylaying a Scaramanga henchman into a pool of liquid helium, upsets the balance of the solar plant, which begins to go out of control. Bond retrieves the Solex unit just before the island explodes, and they escape unharmed in Scaramanga's Chinese junk, later subduing Nick Nack who challenges them having smuggled himself aboard. | 0.854046 | positive | 0.991761 | positive | 0.990114 |
2,692,160 | Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood | Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood | When Vivi, Teensy, Necie, and Caro were younger, they created the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The Ya-Ya’s caused shenanigans and chaos everywhere, but also had a sisterly bond that could fix anything. Now, at 70 years old, the Ya-Ya’s are determined to fix the struggling relationship between mother and daughter. Siddalee “Sidda” Walker, a play director, has never had a smooth relationship with her mother, Vivi, but when a New York Times reporter twists Siddalee’s words around in an article about her recent play, Siddalee and Vivi’s mother-daughter relationship goes spiraling down. Not only is Sidda having trouble with her mother, but she is also having trouble with her fiancé, Conner. Sidda postpones the wedding between her and Conner. Between that and Sidda’s now fear to love, she runs off to her friend’s family cabin at Lake Quinault. When Vivi and the other “Ya-Ya’s” find out about this, they decide to send Sidda the “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” scrapbook to help Sidda understand their lives, and more importantly, her mother’s life, better. | The film opens in 1937 Louisiana with four little girls out in the woods at night, each wearing a home-made headdress. The leader, Viviane Abbott, initiates them into a secret order she dubs the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," which they seal by cutting their palms and taking a blood oath of undying loyalty. The film then moves to New York City in 2002, where Viviane's daughter, playwright Siddalee Walker , while overseeing production of her newest release, gives an interview with a reporter from Time, mentioning her unhappy childhood as a major source of inspiration for her work. The reporter sensationalizes Sidda's complaint, implying abuse and deep, dark family secrets. Vivi reads the article and becomes extremely upset. She calls Sidda, but instead of speaking can only bang the phone on the table while crying that she is dead to her. Sidda, equally frustrated by her mother's behavior, also bangs her phone against the counter after Vivi has hung up on her. Much to the frustration of her fiancé, Connor McGill , Sidda takes her mother's behavior as a declaration of all-out war. Vivi takes down all the pictures of Sidda in her house, cuts her face out of family pictures, and mails the defaced pictures to Sidda, along with a copy of her will with Sidda's name marked out. Sidda in turn sends Vivi a newly-printed wedding invitation with the time and place cut out, plus torn-up tickets to her play. When the Ya-Ya Sisters learn of Vivi's war, they decide to take matters into their own hands to resolve it. Led by Caroline Eliza "Caro" Benett , Aimee Malissa "Teensy" Whitman , and Denise Rose "Necie" Kelleher visit Sidda in New York, then drug her, kidnap her, and take her back to Louisiana. There they show her a scrapbook album her mother has kept, titled Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which they believe they must reveal to Sidda. They explain to Sidda her mother's experiences, depicted in flashbacks of their childhood, then as young women and mothers, including Sidda's own childhood. Vivi's troubles include: encountering family racism as a child; a bitter, jealous mother who falsely accuses her of incest with her father, and the loss of her true love, Teensy's brother Jack who is killed in World War II. She settles for an unhappy marriage with Shepherd James "Shep" Walker , a good and faithful man who loves her, despite the abuse she heaps on him because he isn't Jack. This is all well and good to Sidda, but doesn't change her opinion of her mother as a self-centered person unable to deal with her troubles, which she has unfairly inflicted on Sidda to the point of needing psychotherapy. Meanwhile, she tells Connor not to send out the wedding invitations, which troubles him enough to come down to Louisiana to find her. The Sisters then realize that Sidda must be told Vivi's deepest, darkest secret in order to understand. They try to persuade Vivi that she must do this herself, but she doesn't have the courage to tell her daughter, so they do it for her with Sidda's father present. In the meantime, Vivi tells Connor herself. The secret is that Vivi eventually had a nervous breakdown, requiring a period of hospitalization. Sidda finally understands the depth of her mother's suffering, and that she didn't have to waste money on therapy trying to find out why it was her fault. She also recalls a happy memory of her mother: when Sidda missed out on an airplane ride because she was too scared but then changed her mind, Vivi borrowed money to get the pilot to give one more ride, which she took with Sidda. Sidda forgives her mother, and tells her she wants to have the wedding at her house. Vivi makes her daughter a Ya-Ya headdress, and the Sisters induct her into the order. | 0.765643 | positive | 0.992724 | negative | -0.96239 |
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