Chance brings together a talkative village shop-girl, whose heart is set on matrimony, and a rather brusque writer who is determined to steer clear of the altar.
Elyot and Amanda used to be married to each other, and it was impossible. Now each is remarried, and they find themselves honeymooning with their new spouses in adjoining hotel rooms. Old attractions resurface.
The inmates of a lodging house over the course of a night in their dormitory. They talk, fight, argue and reflect directly and indirectly on their lives and the society of the time.
A group of workers earn their livings in a Brooklyn automobile parts warehouse during the Great Depression. Most are filled with hopelessness; some are alcoholics. Kenneth, however, is a young man yearning for a college education.
An eccentric professor and his dotty assistants claim to have launched a satellite into space, but Bellweather Eight was a complete farce and stayed firmly on the ground.
Feeling that he's in a rut, a man can't bear to spend another summer in his cottage by the lake. Although his wife and kids are disappointed, he wants to sell the house and use the money for a long trip.
Devout servant Brigid is torn by her affections for liberal local schoolmaster O'Flingsley, and The Canon, in whose Parochial House she is employed. but the two men have a bitter ongoing feud which culminates in a tragic outcome.