The Skipper Surprises His Wife
is about a Navy Commander who runs his household like a military unit after his wife breaks her leg. The officer goes door-to-door asking housewives how they do things, then applies their advice to his home. Things don’t go quite right, and the wife feels relief when she returns to her job and her husband returns to sea.
is a humorous look at women battling for bargains in a department store. Sally and Dorothy are neighbors. Dorothy is excited about a big sale at a downtown clothing store, but Sally isn’t interested. Dorothy suffers mishaps taking the bus downtown, but arrives to see Sally already there. The doors open, the crowd pushes in and the two neighbors are at odds again and again.
follows two marketing people who resurrect some old westerns and create public demand for the lead actor, Smoky Callaway, unseen for 10 years. The marketers track down Callaway and discover he’s a drunken womanizer in Mexico, a tough sell to an adoring public. When a lookalike sends in a photo, the marketing team hires him to impersonate Callaway. Things get complicated when the real Callaway shows up and wants a piece of the action.
is about a pre-inaugural assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln. When a New York detective learns of the assassination plot, he informs superiors who refuse to believe it. The detective tosses his badge and resigns. Then he boards the New York to Washington train, which Lincoln rides incognito with protection from Allan Pinkerton and his agents. The detective doesn’t know whom to trust and the climax is a nail-biter.
is a cinematic collage comprised of eight unrelated episodes by some of MGM’s best directors, screenwriters and actors. A university professor’s lecture frames the stories. In one anecdote, a Boston woman angrily recounts how a census taker forgets to record her presence; another sketch pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas.
is about the WWII, all-Japanese-American fighting unit that became the most decorated for its size in US Army history. Assigned to train and lead the unit, a bigoted lieutenant from Texas harshly micromanages his men, who cover for his misdeeds. The unit eventually saves the “Lost Battalion,” Texas soldiers surrounded and outnumbered by the Germany army.
