Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.

Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

Ex-con turned private investigator Bradford Galt suspects someone is following him and maybe even trying to kill him. With the assistance of his spunky secretary, Kathleen Stewart, he dives deep into a mystery in search of answers.

Nick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he mislead the bad guys and still woo the attractive singer/petty crook, Julie Benson?

Neale and Pedro fly cargo between Chungking and Calcutta. When their buddy Bill is murdered they investigate. Neale meets Bill's fiancée Virginia and becomes suspicious of a deeper plot while also falling for her charms.

Convict Van Duff engineers a large-scale prison break; the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison, then set out on a long, dangerous journey by foot, car, train and truck to retrieve Duff's bank loot. En route, as they touch the lives of "regular folks," each has his own rendezvous with destiny.

During World War II, a small group of survivors is stranded in a lifeboat together after the ship they were traveling on is destroyed by a German U-boat.

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.

A brash young lawyer takes a short-term, high-paying job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.