John Steinbeck introduces a quintet of five of O. Henry's most celebrated stories from his New York Period (1902-1910) in this anthology film.

"O. Henry's Full House" is a film divided into five segments telling five tales at the beginning of the 20th century. 1) "The Cop and the Anthem": Winter is coming and homeless drifter Soapy wants to go to jail for three months to get shelter and food. His partner Horace suggests that they look for shelter with the Salvation Army, but Soapy refuses. He forces many situations to be arrested, but he is always forgiven. When he goes to the church, there is a miracle and Soapy decides to seek a job position. Will he succeed? 2) "The Clarion Call": When a thief kills a man, the police investigators do not have any lead to follow. Police Sergeant Barney Woods sees a pen that was found in the crime scene and he seeks out a man called Johnny Kernan. He finds Johnny, who invites Barney to drink with him, and they go to his hotel room. Johnny recalls their youth, when they were friends, but Barney tells him that he must arrest him since he recognized the pen that belonged to Johnny. However, the criminal recalls that Barney owes him $1,000 that Barney lost in a card game. Barney unsuccessfully tries to raise the money to quit the debt. He decides to tell the chief of police, but out of the blue he sees the spotlight on "The Clarion Call" and runs to the newspaper. What did he see? 3) "The Last Leaf": When 21-year-old Joanna Goodwin's lover breaks up with her, she wanders out into the snow and gets pneumonia. Her older sister Susan discovers that Joanna does not want to live anymore and is following the leaves that keep falling from a tree. Their upstairs neighbor, a painter named Behrman, tries to help the girls. Will he be able to save Joanna? 4) "The Ransom of Red Chief": The con men Sam 'Slick' Brown and Bill Peoria flee to the countryside in their car and plot to kidnap little J.B. Dorset to ask for ransom from his parents, but they soon find that the boy is a little devil. 5) "The Gift of the Magi": On Christmas Eve, Della and her beloved husband Jim are penniless and in love with each other. Jim dreams of giving a tiara to Della since she has wonderful hair, and Della wants to give Jim a chain for his pocket watch. On Christmas night, they each find a way to buy the gifts.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In his admiration for the author of the source material, fellow author John Steinbeck introduces five short films derived from the short stories of and describes the man that was William Sidney Porter, better know by his pen name, O. Henry. In "The Cop and the Anthem", winter is approaching in New York City, and vagrant and petty crook Soapy, with his friend Horace are wandering the streets as Soapy, against Horace's urging that it now a different place, tries to figure out a way to get back into prison for a few months if only for a nice warm bed and three square meals a day. Whatever Soapy tries to do to achieve his goal seems to have a different outcome, no matter how hard he tries. In "The Clarion", New York police detective Barney Woods notices among the evidence collected at a murder scene on a case in which he is not involved an item left by the murderer that could have only belonged to a childhood friend, Johnny Kernan. Even if Barney is able to find Johnny, he, under the code, doesn't know if he could arrest Johnny if only because he owes Johnny "one", that one in the form of a $1,000 debt, money which Barney does not have. If he can't come up with the money legitimately, Barney may resort to some subterfuge in still having some counterfeit money collected from a recent case. In "The Last Leaf", it's winter in turn-of-the-century working-class Greenwich Village. Despondent over a break-up, Jo Goodwin, ill-dressed for the weather in wandering the streets, contracts pneumonia. As her sister Susan Goodwin stands vigil over Jo in doing whatever she can, she is annoyed at the continual ruckus their upstairs neighbor, Mr. Behrman, a modern artist who is barely able to eke out a living as such, makes in creating his art. Twenty-one year old Jo has it in her mind that she will die when the last leaf falls off the ivy adorning the wall outside her window, as when she first noticed it from her bed, it had 21 leaves on it, which are now falling off in the winter weather. With a blizzard raging, Susan is certain Jo's fate will occur by morning, unaware of the role Mr. Behrman has taken in hoping Jo's fate is not as she predetermined. In "The Ransom of Red Chief", northern city slickers and con men Samuel Brown and William Smith - better known as Slick Sam and Weeping Willie - wanted by the police for embezzlement, are currently in rural Alabama as they map out their next con. For that con, they need some money, and they decide the most prudent way to get that money is to kidnap a child for ransom. After speaking to some locals, they believe the best kidnap victim would be 9-year0old J.B. Dorset, the son of local land baron, Eb Dorset--or so they believe. Slick and Will may have met their match with the Dorsets, especially resourceful J.B. And in "The Gift of the Magi", it's Christmas Eve, and Jim and Della Young, married for one year, are trying to decide what to buy the other for Christmas, neither having any money to do so as Jim's paltry wages as a bookkeeper are barely enough for them on which to survive. In they fondly recalling integral items associated with the first time they met, both Jim and Della show their ultimate love and sacrifice in what they choose as Christmas gifts for each other and how they intend to pay for them.—Huggo

Five separate O. Henry stories. The primary one from the standpoint of critical acclaim is "The Cop and the Anthem". Soapy tells fellow bum Horace that he is going to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a nice jail cell. He fails. He can't even accost a woman; she turns out to be a streetwalker. The other stories are "The Clarion Call", "The Last Leaf", "The Ransom of Red Chief", and "The Gift of the Magi".—Ed Stephan <[email protected]>

John Steinbeck introduces five of O. Henry's most popular short stories in this anthology film. In "The Cop and the Anthem" a homeless alcoholic is increasingly frustrated in numerous attempts to get arrested and jailed for 90 days in a warm cell rather than face the rigors of a New York winter. In "The Clarion Call" a NYPD detective has a crisis of conscience when he is torn between his duty to arrest a childhood friend for a murder only he knows he committed and the debt of honor he still owes to him. In "The Last Leaf" a naive young girl is stricken with pneumonia after being seduced and jilted by a venal actor. When she loses her will to live, her devoted sister and an eccentric Greenwich Village artist try to help her to survive. In "The Ransom of Red Chief" two bumbling con men kidnap the son of a rural sheriff for ransom but find they've taken on more than they can handle. Finally, in "The Gift of the Magi" an impoverished but devoted young couple struggle to pay for Christmas gifts worthy of their mutual love.—Gabe Taverney ([email protected])