Ukraine, 16th century. While the Poles dominate the Cossack steppes, Andrei, son of Taras Bulba, a Cossack leader, must choose between his love for his family and his folk and his passion for a Polish woman.
When he finds out his boss is retiring to Arizona, a sailor, Ross Carpenter, has to find a way to buy the Westwind, a boat that he and his father built. He is also caught between two women: insensitive club singer Robin and sweet Laurel.
Mewsette is a starry-eyed cat who grows weary of life on a French farm and heads for the excitement of 1890s Paris. Her tomcat suitor, Jaune-Tom, and his furry cohort, Robespierre, chase after Mewsette, but she's already fallen under the spell of a feline modeling-school racket run by Madame Rubens-Chatte and her slimy assistant, Meowrice.
Young and restless Nick Adams, the only son of a domineering mother and a weak but noble doctor father, leaves his rural Michigan home to embark on an eventful cross-country journey. He is touched and affected by his encounters with a punch-drunk ex-boxer, a sympathetic telegrapher, and an alcoholic advanceman for a burlesque show. After failing to get a job as reporter in New York, he enlists in the Italian army during World War I as an ambulance driver. His camaraderie with fellow soldiers and a romance with a nurse he meets after being wounded propel him to manhood.
Fred, George, Doug and Howie are quickly reaching middle-age. Three of them are married, only Fred is still a bachelor. They want something different than their ordinary marriages, children and TV-dinners. In secret, they get themselves an apartment with a beautiful young woman, Kathy, for romantic rendezvous. But Kathy does not tell them that she is a sociology student researching the sexual life of the white middle-class male.
Cathy Timberlake is en route to a job interview when a car transporting businessman Philip Shayne covers her in mud. He sends his assistant, Roger, to apologize, but upon meeting Cathy, Roger knows that she would be a suitable match for his boss. Despite their mutual attraction, Cathy and Philip want different things. Philip wants a fling, while Cathy wants a marriage. As they travel to exotic locales, their differing motivations are put to the test.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
A court fortune-teller loses his mind after a conspiracy leads to the death of his lover. Hope appears to be on the horizon after he becomes romantically involved with his dead lover's twin sister, but more complications arise thanks to a chance encounter with a clan of shape-shifters.
Prudence resigns from her teaching position after being criticized for giving a student her copy of a romance novel. She sails for Italy, takes a job at a small bookstore in Rome, and meets Don, who has just broken up with his girlfriend. Prudence and Don tour Italy together, and romance naturally follows.
Gigolo and drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown as the companion of a faded movie star, Alexandra Del Lago, whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies. Chance runs into trouble when he finds his ex-girlfriend, the daughter of the local politician Tom "Boss" Finley, who more or less forced him to leave his daughter and the town many years ago.
Famed movie director Paul Robaix breaks with tradition by not casting his actress-comedienne wife, Lucy Dell, in his latest film production, a version of Madame Butterfly. Undaunted, the resourceful Lucy wings her way to Tokyo and, masquerading as a Japanese geisha, lands the coveted role from her unsuspecting husband! But in front of the cameras (and behind the pancake makeup), Lucy faces greater challenges: her lecherous leading man - and a husband who is beginning to realize that his talented new "discovery" seems vaguely familiar...
A young American woman traveling in Italy with her mother is slender, blonde, beautiful and there is something charmingly naive about her. Fabrizio Naccarelli seems to always know where the mother and daughter will sightsee next. Signor Naccarelli is just as concerned about where this will lead as Mrs. Johnson is. Then she starts thinking that perhaps her daughter can be a wife of a wealthy young man in a society where all she has to do is look beautiful. What happens if Signor Naccarelli finds out who his prospective daughter-in-law really is?
Against the counsel of his friends, psychiatrist Dick Diver marries Nicole Warren, a beautiful but unstable young woman from a moneyed family. Thoroughly enraptured, he forsakes his career in medicine for life as a playboy, until one day Dick is charmed by Rosemary Hoyt, an American traveling abroad. The thought of Dick possibly being attracted to someone else sends Nicole on an emotional downward spiral that threatens to consume them both.
Critics and the public say Karen Stone is too old -- as she approaches 50 -- for her role in a play she is about to take to Broadway. Her businessman husband, 20 years her senior, has been the angel for the play and gives her a way out: They are off to a holiday in Rome for his health. He suffers a fatal heart attack on the plane. Mrs. Stone stays in Rome. She leases a magnificent apartment with a view of the seven hills from the terrace. Then the contessa comes calling to introduce a young man named Paolo to her. The contessa knows many presentable young men and lonely American widows.