Oscar-winning Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones are featured as a US Army major, Hank Marshall, and his unstable wife, Carly.
Hank is a nuclear engineer with a great big conscience, who is opposed to atmospheric testing.
He is bundled off from a strategic testing site in Hawaii to a remote base in Alabama because the bomb-happy top brass think he could cause trouble. They use Carly's erratic behavior to carry off this transfer. The bleached blonde Carly is an uninhibited sort who can't quite decide if she's Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn Monroe this week. Sexually high-charged, she's always coming on to someone or scandalously sunbathing topless. Maybe there's less bare-breasted sunbathing in Alabama, but sex is still a popular pastime.