Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

Miss Dove is a prim New England school teacher who is treasured by her students in the small town of Liberty Hill. When she falls ill, a kindly doctor, who is a former student of Miss Dove's, comes to her aid. As many of her pupils, present and past, come to see her in the hospital, they reveal how Miss Dove has greatly impacted their lives over the years. These visitors include a police officer, a playwright, a banker, a convict, and an unmarried mother.

A classical musician from a working class background is sidetracked by his love for a wealthy, neurotic socialite.

Phil and Ellen Gayley have been divorced for a year, and their 7-year old daughter, Flip, is very unhappy that her parents are not together. Flip starts a correspondence with a Marine, sending a picture of her beautiful mother as the author of Flip's flirtatious letters. When the Marine shows up to meet his pen pal, Ellen takes the opportunity to make her ex-husband jealous.

When a woman’s twin sister is drowned, she assumes her identity in order to be close to the man she feels her sister took from her years before.

Brooke's brief marital life with Eric takes a downturn when she starts suspecting that he is starving his son from a prior marriage to death in order to claim his inheritance.

Christine Hunter kills an intruder and tells her husband and lawyer that it was an act of self-defense. It's later revealed that he was actually her lover and she had posed for an incriminating statue he created.

Love-starved gun molls (Carole Mathews, Beverly Michaels) escape from a prison farm where matrons make their lives miserable.

An alcoholic escaped convict asks his Arizona lawyer brother to help him cross the Mexican border.

A crooked crime boss tries to put a crony into office.