Robert Benton

Coleman Silk is a respected professor at a New England college who suddenly finds his life unraveling after a comment he makes about some African-American students is misinterpreted as a racial slur. As the scandal heats up, Nathan Zuckerman, a writer researching a biography of Silk, begins to dig deeply into Silk's life. Eventually, matters are made worse when Coleman's affair with a young married janitor named Faunia Farley is exposed. But amid...

Four red plaid travelling cases-- one of each belonging to a befuddled Iowa musicologist, a strange but bright young woman, a rich matron and a suspicious fellow-- are mixed up at a San Francisco hotel, with hilarious results.