A sergeant saves the day when Axis agents plant a bomb on a bus bound for California oil fields.

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, three strangers, Crystal Shackleford, married to a wealthy philanderer; Jerome Artbutny, an outwardly respectable judge; and Johnny West, a seedy sneak thief, make a pact before a small statue of the Chinese goddess of Destiny. The threesome agree to purchase a sweepstakes ticket and share whatever winnings might accrue.

At a carnival called the Garden of Evil, a man is murdered, apparently by a gorilla...or someone in a gorilla suit.

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.

An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Double-crossed and left without water in the desert, Cable Hogue is saved when he finds a spring. It is in just the right spot for a much needed rest stop on the local stagecoach line, and Hogue uses this to his advantage. He builds a house and makes money off the stagecoach passengers. Hildy, a prostitute from the nearest town, moves in with him. Hogue has everything going his way until the advent of the automobile ends the era of the stagecoach.

After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.