The Fruitless Endeavour

Henry Manning has come up with a new way to break out of prison: fake a stroke and get transferred to a nursing home. It's a perfect plan, except for one thing: the woman assigned to take care of him at the nursing home, Carol Ann McKay, has a plan of her own.

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.

High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.

Not even the joys of parenthood can stop married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles from investigating a murder on a Long Island estate.

A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's script.

A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.

Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it.

An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.

Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?