A young naive woman (Olivia de Havilland) falls for a handsome young man (Montgomery Clift) who her emotionally abusive father (Ralph Richardson) suspects is a fortune hunter.
The wife (Bette Davis) of a rubber plantation administrator (Herbert Marshall) shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defence, but a letter in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Dolly Payne (Ginger Rodgers) is adored by two leaders of the fledgling American government, James Madison (Burgess Meredith) and Aaron Burr (David Niven).