Three Irwin Shaw short stories are dramatized. In "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" a young married couple stop for a drink on a Sunday morning in Manhattan, and the conversation turns to the husband's fidelity. "The Monument" centers on the conflict between a popular bartender with a following in an upscale Irish bar in 1938 Manhattan and its owner, who is determined to introduce a more economical whiskey in the establishment over the barkeep's objections. In "The Man Who Married a French Wife" the influential American husband of a French woman is asked by her former lover, a former resistance fighter, to help him escape the country.
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.
Barbara and Oliver Rose live happily as a married couple. When Barbara starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver and likes what she sees, the two begin a campaign to force each other to leave their house, with their divorce lawyer D'Amato caught in the middle.
When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.
After losing her husband to death following a troubled marriage, a woman unexpectedly travels back to the moment before their first meeting, allowing them to reconnect and rekindle their romance.
Simon Simpson runs an entertainment agency in Liverpool. At one of his regular auditions in The Bootle Railway Club he sees an aggressive young man fresh from the dole queue who dreams of becoming a professional comedian.
