During World War II, a special fighting unit is formed that combines a crack Canadian Army unit and a conglomeration of U.S. Army misfits who had previously served time in military jails. After an initial period of conflict between the two groups, their enmity turns to respect and friendship, and the unit is sent Italy to attempt a dangerous mission that has heretofore been considered impossible to carry out.

After the Civil War, ex-Union Colonel John Henry Thomas and ex-Confederate Colonel James Langdon are leading two disparate groups of people through strife-torn Mexico. John Henry and company are bringing horses to the unpopular Mexican government for $35 a head while Langdon is leading a contingent of displaced southerners, who are looking for a new life in Mexico after losing their property to carpetbaggers. The two men are eventually forced to mend their differences in order to fight off both bandits and revolutionaries, as they try to lead their friends and kin to safety.

Henry Dussard, a young American, inherits a picturesque but badly neglected olive farm in southern France and is determined to make it operational again despite cautionary advice from the local priest and a pretty villager. Desperate for laborers, the inventive Dussard turns to the zaniest crew of olive pickers ever recruited - four mischievous monkeys! As former members of an Air Force space team, these intelligent chimps quickly pick up on their new responsibilities - but prove to have a turbulent effect on the local townspeople.

When her husband dies en route to America, Martha Price and her daughter Hilary are left to carry out his dream: the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West. They enlist Sam "Bulldog" Burnett in their efforts to transport their lone bull, a Hereford named Vindicator, to a breeder in Texas, but the trail is fraught with danger and even Burnett doubts the survival potential of this "rare breed" of cattle.