Somerset Maugham introduces four of his tales in this anthology film: "The Facts of Life," "The Alien Corn," "The Kite," and "The Colonel's Lady."

A young woman marries a gentleman farmer who may have murdered his first wife.

When a clerk tries to dodge paying a bus fare, it sparks a series of unforseen consequences

Lord Loam has modern ideas about his household, he believes in treating his servants as his equals - at least sometimes. His butler, Crichton, still believes that members of the serving class should know their place and be happy there. But when the Loam family are shipwrecked on a desert island with the self-reliant Crichton and lady's maid Tweeny, the class system is put to the test.

During the autumn of 1944, RAF Hudson, carrying a VIP passenger in possession of highly secret information, is shot down and ditches in the North Sea. Fighting the elements and trying to keep up morale, the occupants of the aircraft's dinghy talk about their lives awaiting the rescue they hope will come. The film's title reflects the motto of the RAF's Air Sea Rescue Service, one of whose high speed launches battles against its own mechanical problems, enemy action, time and the weather to locate and rescue the downed crew and the vital secret papers they carry.

A gripping tale of WWII naval warfare in the Baltics, starring John Mills as Lt. Freddie Taylor, a British submarine Captain. The crew of the Sea Tiger are summoned from leave on shore with their families, and sent on a secret mission to intercept the Nazi battleship Brandenburg. In the ensuing battle the British submarine is damaged by a German destroyer. The submarine is leaking fuel so badly that the crew won't be able to make it back to Britain before running out somewhere along the Danish coast. When it seems that their only option may be to blow up the submarine and try to escape to Denmark, seaman James Hobson hatches a plan...