Plot summary

The film opens with a title card reading: This story and its contents are entirely fictitious.It's 1954 and we're on a New York City street, where a film crew is preparing to shoot a movie scene. It's a rather famous scene where The Actress-and that's practically the only way she's identified-is in a white dress, and is standing on a grate while the rush of wind caused by a huge fan to imitate the subway going by below blows her skirt up around her waist. The Actress is played by Theresa Russell. The Actress's husband, The Ballplayer (Gary Busey), is watching with obvious discomfort while everyone gawks at her.The film cuts between this and shots of The Professor (Michael Emil) working on some equations in a hotel room. He's distracted by some disturbing images flashing before him. We learn later on that they're related to the bombing of Hiroshima. We're also seeing The Senator (Tony Curtis), sitting in a bar while a baseball game plays in the background. He's ruminating on how any water we drink, statistically, was once excreted by various historical figures.After the shoot the Actress disappears into a waiting car, leaving her husband behind. She stops at a store and picks up a variety of toys, flashlights, and balloons.The Senator leaves the bar and visits the Professor. He's come to alternately coax and threaten him into appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Professor tries ignoring him but that's not working. Finally he engages in the debate and we realize just how hard the Senator is twisting information to get it to look the way he wants. The Senator leaves, saying he'll be back to get him at 8 a.m. the following morning. The Professor checks his pocket watch; it shows 8:15.The Actress flashes back on a memory when she was in an orphanage and she got hold of a wristwatch. The other girls take it from her and taunt her. In the present, she impulsively asks the driver if he has a watch. He tells her it's almost 2:30 but she's not interested in the time, she just wants to borrow the watch. Suddenly she tells him to stop the car.The Actress appears at the door of the Professor's hotel room, and he invites her in, although he admits he doesn't know who she is. They talk about the downside of being famous, and she says that if he'd been in 53rd Street during the shoot, she'd have been embarrassed, because she knows he'd look at her differently. Then she does a demonstration of the theory of relativity using the toys and flashlights and balloons, which he finds absolutely delightful but also he notes that her understanding some of it isn't the same as understanding all of it. She tells The Professor he is at the top of her list of people she'd like to sleep with. They decide to go to bed-more accurately, she goes to bed but he's going to sleep in the bathtub.Meanwhile The Senator is in another room in the same hotel, where he has a prostitute sent to his room. We don't see her very clearly but there's clearly a resemblance to The Actress, which we later learn is because she's wearing a matching wig with her outfit. Unfortunately, however, The Senator turns out to be impotent.Back in The Professor's room, The Actress actually talks the Professor into joining her in the bed, but they are interrupted by the arrival of The Ballplayer, who has tracked her to the hotel. The ensuing discussion has us believing that The Ballplayer isn't especially smart; in fact she literally calls him an idiot at one point. He asks if she wants a divorce and she says no. She goes into the bathroom and begins flashing back on other bathrooms she'd been in. Meanwhile The Ballplayer is talking about his career with The Professor, who isn't really comprehending him. Eventually The Actress faints and they go in to get her. The Professor leaves them alone and goes to find another room, meeting a Cherokee elevator man (Will Sampson) with whom he speaks. The Actress and The Ballplayer talk about their marriage; The Actress tells her husband she believes she is pregnant, but he has fallen asleep.The following morning The Senator arrives at The Professor's room with a warrant allowing him to confiscate all of The Professor's notes, but of course The Professor is gone. Instead he finds The Actress naked and alone in The Professor's bed. He mistakes her for a call girl and, while collecting the paperwork, threatens to use her to expose and embarrass The Professor. Meanwhile The Senator begins having flashbacks of his own, to when he was a child and being molested by a priest. The Actress offers him a sexual favor in exchange for leaving the notes alone, but The Senator, still not thinking that The Actress is, in fact, The Actress, instead punches her hard in the abdomen, causing her to collapse in pain. The Professor returns while The Senator is collecting the pages of The Professor's work to take away with him. The Professor grabs the papers and throws them out of the windows, while The Actress writhes on the bed, bleeding and in agony. The Senator leaves, defeated, while The Actress goes into the bathroom. As The Senator leaves, The Ballplayer returns and begins threatening him as well, but The Professor convinces him to let The Senator go. Through the bathroom door, The Ballplayer suggests to her a plan he'd come up with for reconciling with her. The Actress, who's probably suffering a miscarriage, announces to him that their marriage is over, and he leaves.The Actress pulls herself back together and returns into the hotel room, where The Professor confesses that he threw his work out the window. The Professor reveals that he destroys his work every time he finishes it and then starts over. becomes impatient with The Professor, sensing that he is hiding something. He is sitting on the bed with his watch, which still displaying 8:15, in one hand, and the alarm clock in the other as the hour approaches 8:15. We now learn that 8:15 was the time that the atomic bomb was was dropped on Hiroshima. He confesses to having terrible feelings of guilt about the event, and she tries to reassure him that the bomb will never be used again. Right at 8:15 a.m. as she is about to leave the hotel, he has a vision of the destruction of the room, of Hiroshima, and perhaps the world. The Actress's skirt swirls in flames as she burns in his vision. Then the film reverses and everything in the room is restored to order as she says goodbye. The movie freeze frames on her hand waving to him as she leaves.