John Beck

Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist and a Native American gentleman. The abolitionist's daughter is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher when her fiance, a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister. The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South.

Steven Kenet, suffering from a recurring brain injury, appears to have strangled his wife. Having confessed, he's committed to an understaffed county asylum full of pathetic inmates. There, Dr. Ann Lorrison is initially skeptical about Kenet's story and reluctance to undergo treatment. But against her better judgement, she begins to doubt his guilt.

London, 1761. St. Mary's of Bethlehem, a sinister madhouse, is visited by wealthy people who enjoy watching the patients confined there as if they were caged animals. Nell Bowen, one of the visitors, is horrified by the deplorable living conditions of the unfortunate inhabitants of this godforsaken place, better known as Bedlam.

The heirs of Anton Benson are searching Bensonhurst for hidden gold; they are joined by a reporter, a gangster...and a masked fiend known as The Iron Claw.

Railroad agents frame a landowner who wont sell out to them.

The Younger brothers return to Missouri after the Civil War with intent to avenge the misdeeds of William Merrick, a crooked banker who has been buying up warrants on back-taxes and dispossessing the farmers.

Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.

Unexpected love blossoms when an assistant district attorney agrees to take a recidivist shoplifter home so she doesn't have to spend Christmas alone in jail.

A murdered businessman's daughter is shipwrecked on a jungle island with the son of the man who killed her father. Both are threatened by a smuggling ring that uses the island as its headquarters.

Child star Jane Withers along with fellow kiddie favorites like Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer and Jackie Searl (who gives Jane her first on screen kiss!) team up with character greats like Walter Brennan and Lon Chaney Jr. to help their hometown celebrate its golden anniversary. Not unexpectedly, things go astray when a bank robber hopes to cash in on the excitement, but fortunately his plans are thwarted by the towns newly elected sheriff (Brennan)...who's a reformed crook himself!