Damon Runyon

A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.

In New York, a gambler is challenged to take a Salvation Army missionary to Havana, and unexpectedly they fall for each other. And the bet has a hidden motive ... classic song and dance ensues!

On New Year's Eve 1928, in the New York underworld, a gambler sells his body to science, a gangster needs a transfusion, and a gambler is on the run

Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer and family man named Dan O'Mara. Daisy meets a single man, a war veteran named Peter Lapham, and after a brief and hesitant courtship decides to marry him, although she is still in love with Dan.

Sorrowful Jones is a cheap bookie in the 1930s. When a gambler leaves his daughter as a marker for a bet, he gets stuck with her. His life changes a great deal with her arrival and he finds sudden love for a woman also involved in gambling operations.

Herman owes a lot of gambling debts. To pay them off, he promises the mob he'll fix a horse, so that it does not run. He intends to trick his animal-loving cousin Virgil, an apprentice veterinarian, into helping him. Of course, he doesn't tell Virgil what he is really up to. Mistaken identities are assumed, while along the way, Virgil meets a female vet and Herman falls for the owner of the horse.

Abbot and Costello must find a replacement for a woman's horse they accidentally killed after feeding it some candy. They head for the racetrack, find a look-a-like and take it. They do not realize that the nag is "Tea Biscuit," a champion racehorse.

Apple Annie is an aging New York City fruit seller whose daughter Louise has been raised in a Spanish convent since she was an infant. As she grows up, Louise is led to believe that her mother is a society matron called Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. Annie worries that her lie is in danger of being uncovered when she learns that Louise is sailing to New York with her new fiancé and his nobleman father.

Big Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his little girl, Marthy Jane, as security, or in bookie's terms a "marker". "Marky", as she comes to be known, winds up under the care of Sorrowful Jones and his lady friend, singer Bangles Carson.

When the Lemon Drop Kid accidentally cheats gangster Moose Moran out of his track winnings, the Kid promises to repay Moose the money by Christmas. Creating a fake charity for "Apple Annie" Nellie Thursday, the Kid tricks his gang into donning Santa suits and "collecting dough for old dolls" like Nellie who have nowhere to live.

Former bootlegger Remy Marco has a slight problem with foreclosing bankers, a prospective son-in-law, and four hard-to-explain corpses.

Meek busboy Little Pinks is in love with an extremely selfish nightclub singer who despises and uses him.

Aloysius 'Butch' Grogan leads a life of criminal activities motivated to provide for a widow and her child. He's on lookout for a gang of safe crackers when he has to also look after the baby of one of the criminals.

Joe and Ethel Turp are up in arms when their faithful old mailman is fired. Unable to get satisfaction on a municipal level, Joe and Ethel plead their mailman's case to the President himself.

Climbing to fame, Irish-American composer Ernest R. Ball romances a showgirl, who catches the eye of an underworld character.

A musical comedy based on several Damon Runyon short stories. When a bookie on the run, Robert 'Numbers' Foster, falls for a pretty country songbird, Emily Ann Stackerlee , he'll do anything to help her make it big -- including a stint in jail to pay for his crimes. But will the tough guy's sacrifice of the heart pay off when it comes to his girlfriend's singing career?

Johnny One-Eye was adapted from one of Damon Runyon's lesser-known stories. Martin Martin and Dane Cory were former partners in crime who have long since split up. When a new district attorney puts the heat on, Cory, anxious to save his own hide, accuses Martin of an unsolved murder. Holed up in abandoned house, Martin is befriended by a little girl and her dog. It so happens that the girl is the daughter of the crusading DA, and thereby hangs the rest of this tale.

When King's beloved horse dies, Princess tries to purchase a new nag, and that's how she inadvertently gets her hands on a "stolen" race horse. Our heroine nearly ends up with a lengthy prison term before the story is resolved during the climactic Big Race.

On Christmas Eve, three hired killers give chase after unwittingly aiding the pregnant girlfriend of one of their targets.

A crook with big feet buys shoes that are too tight from a salesman, then decides to use the store as a front for illegal gambling.

A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn't return, he learns that taking care of a child interferes with his free-wheeling lifestyle. Sorrowful must also evade crooked gangsters and indulge in a bit of horse-thieving.

A pretty young socialite falls for a charming but shady hustler, who abandons her when he finds that she has been disowned by her wealthy father. Three of the hustler's partners, who have also been left high and dry by heir former associate, come up with a plan to get her to the annual Yale-Harvard football game to reunite with her former sweetheart, an honest but nerdy bookworm.

To stop his mother from marrying a man he doesn't like, a young millionaire hires an ex-con in helping him fake his own kidnaping.

With the end of Prohibition a former bootlegger and his wife attempt to go straight. Remake of the 1938 film "A Slight Case of Murder".

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.