A successful carnival barker deals with the arrival of his eager son, who he'd hoped would stay far from the carnival world, his son's entanglement with a showgirl, and his own jealous mistress.
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Australian good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. But when they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance despite their eccentric friends?
A bible salesman finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership as a money-making con team in Depression-era Kansas.
Roustabout Stanton Carlisle joins a traveling carny and unsuccessfully schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena and her alcoholic husband, Pete.
200 years of Cologne Carnival! The most colourful and loudest festival in Cologne celebrates a big birthday. In February 1823, a few men from Cologne's upper class founded the so-called 'Festordnende Komitee' - the forerunner of today's 'Festkomitee Kölner Karneval'. This 'big bang' was a reaction to the old festival getting out of hand in orgies and violence. Carnival was in danger. A ban by the Prussian rulers was imminent. The new committee wanted to control the wild goings-on, establish rules and organise the celebrations.
Bart Tare is an ex-Army man who has a lifelong fixation with guns, he meets a kindred spirit in sharpshooter Annie Starr and goes to work at a carnival. After upsetting the carnival owner who lusts after Starr, they both get fired. Soon, on Starr's behest, they embark on a crime spree for cash.
Ferdinand Weitel, a forklift driver, is desperate: Insurance agent Arno von Mehling, a true sales talent, has had contracts signed in record amounts. Now Weitel is wandering through the corridors of the insurance company trying to save what can still be saved - on Shrove Tuesday of all days. The department for customer service and complaints is in a colorful mood and has no ear for Weitel's worries. Finally, secretary Annerose Waguscheit takes heart and tells him about the evening carnival ball "Traum-Police", where he can safely find Mr. Mehling.
The true story of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl locked in the basement of her Indiana home during the 1960s.
Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s 'The Lost Generation', Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman and her fiancée, a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.
SPLINTERHEADS introduces Thomas Middleditch as Justin Frost, a twenty-something slacker whose “thing” is that he has no “thing” at all. When a small-time carnival rolls into town, he meets Galaxy (Rachael Taylor), a gorgeous con artist, or “splinterhead,” who has more “things” going for her than anyone he has ever met.
A trio of former sideshow performers double as the "Unholy Three" in a scam to nab some shiny rocks.
Billy Bigelow has been dead for 15 years. Now outside the pearly gates, he long ago waived his right to go back to Earth for a day. He has heard that there is a problem with his family: namely with his wife Julie Bigelow, née Jordan, and his child he hasn't met. He would now like to head back to Earth to assist in rectifying the problem; but before he may go, he has to get permission from the gatekeeper by telling him his story. Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit Broadway musical.
A magician in a carnival--who actually can read minds and levitate people and objects--works with a superintelligent chimp named Alex, who can also talk. The magician and the chimp soon become the stars of the carnival, drawing in big crowds. However, the wild-animal trainer, who has been displaced by the team as the carnival's top act, decides to kidnap Alex and sell him to a medical laboratory for experimentation, thereby getting rid of his competition.
A carnival sideshow dancer falls in love with a handsome young man.
After a chance encounter with a wanted man, a woman is harassed by the police and press until she takes violent action.
A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.
She dances- The Dance of Death. She Sings- The song of Life. Scintillating, Fascinating, Desirable, Swifty She Weaves the Web of Destruction and then Regeneration. A Drama of Lights and Shadows.
A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.