Peter Finch is the eponymous doctor who, along with his estranged wife "Lee" (Mary Ure), is trying to make a go of his practice - and of their failing marriage - at a remote rubber plantation. He is a decent man who wants to improve the lot of the locals and that puts him at odds with the local employer "Patterson" (Michael Hordern) who rules the roost with little sympathy for his workforce. At the end of their tether, they organise a strike which gets out of control with tragic results. With "Patterson" gone seeking help from the authorities, it falls to "Windom" to try and avoid a full scale battle between the locals and the soon-to-arrive police. Finch manages to inject a little intensity to his performance, but the writing and the rest of the cast rather let it all down as does the lacklustre pace of the first half hour of the film. The narrative touches on the growing post-war insurgencies, across what was then the British Empire, amongst populations determined to make their own way - their desire to grow their own rice being emblematic of that stance here - and I suppose that would have resonated better in 1957, but looking at it now it is a rather light-weight melodramatic adventure film that I can't think I will ever watch again.
William Parrish, media tycoon and loving father, is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. One morning, he is contacted by the inevitable, by hallucination, as he thinks. Later, Death enters his home and his life, personified in human form as Joe Black. His intention was to take William with him, but accidentally, Joe and William's beautiful daughter Susan have already met. Joe begins to develop certain interest in life on Earth, as well as in Susan, who has no clue with whom she's flirting.
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings - and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
A molecular biologist's study of the human eye has far-reaching implications about humanity's scientific and spiritual beliefs.
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Newly divorced lawyer Nathan Del Amico is shaken up after he meets a doctor who claims that he can sense when select people are about to die. Though he doesn't believe the doctor, events in Nathan's life slowly make him think he's not long for this world.
A young taxi driver who is a happy man encounters lots of different stories through his daily life. One day, he is driving a young American woman and he enters an unusual and protracted adventure which he should follow to the end. The American woman has lost the address she is going to refer and it is almost impossible to reach her relatives. The young driver believes that he should help the woman until she finds her relatives and this issue causes many problems between him and his fiancee. He also has other problems regarding the American woman and his unusual friend.
Anika tries to win her husband Arman's love, but he still can't let go of his late wife, Leila. Can she compete with someone who's no longer alive?
In 1944, Capt. Josiah J. Newman is the doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward, at an Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona. The hospital is under-resourced and Newman scrounges what he needs with the help of his inventive staff, especially Cpl. Jake Leibowitz. The military in general is only just coming to accept psychiatric disorders as legitimate and Newman generally has 6 weeks to cure them or send them on to another facility. There are many patients in the ward and his latest include Colonel Norville Bliss who has dissociated from his past; Capt. Paul Winston who is nearly catatonic after spending 13 months hiding in a cellar behind enemy lines; and 20 year-old Cpl. Jim Tompkins who is severely traumatized after his aircraft was shot down. Others come and go, including Italian prisoners of war, but Newman and team all realize that their success means the men will return to their units.
A student nurse falls in love with a young intern in 1910 Baltimore, but tragedy ensues when he contracts a fatal disease.