Follows the exploits of three teenage friends sharing the good times back at Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York during the summer of 1955.

A series of murders involving a stripper are investigated by a hard-drinking reporter.

A Confederate captain's younger brother is flogged to death in a Union stockade. The captain vows revenge. Two years later he finds the men responsible running a rustling operation in a small western town.

Prohibition-era nightclub crooner Joe E. Lewis has his career and nearly his life cut short when his throat is slashed as payback for leaving the employ of Chicago mob boss Georgie Parker. A broken alcoholic, Joe is brought back from the abyss by his faithful piano player, Austin Mack, who helps turn the former singer into a successful stand-up comedian. But Joe's demons plague his romantic life even as he reaches new heights of success.