In 1954 the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency conducted an investigation into how the comic book industry was supposedly contributing to the moral decay of a nation's youth. The investigations were spurred on by a number of articles that blamed comics for the rise in juvenile delinquency in post-war America. Chief among the critics was Doctor Frederic Wertham, whose book, "Seduction of The Innocent" has been blamed for nearly single-handedly crippling the entire comics industry. "Confidential File" was aired in 1955, after the senate hearings and the formation of the Comics Code, but it serves as a perfect example of how the media reacted to the comic book industry, and sought a scape goat by blaming the comic book publications for society's own lack of responsibility in raising its children.
Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so.
Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion.
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.
With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile.
When a couple of college kids decide to go on a hunting trip for their Christmas break, they get more than they bargained for when their past comes back to haunt them.
Bounty hunter Bucum Jackson teams with the small-time con artist, Reggie Wright, that he is pursuing, in an attempt to locate a missing stash of diamonds and a lottery ticket worth millions of dollars.
A woman impressed by news reports about flying saucers, gets hit on the head by a vase, passes out and dreams that she is the 'Queen of Mars', from where she sends an expedition to Earth in order to bring back Rio's Carnaval to the planet.
A member of the Bunco squad introduces the Case of the Gullible Woodpecker. It seems that Woody wins a pot full of dough that con man Buzz Buzzard notices and sets his sights on stealing.
