(band) = musical scene of Alan Price's pop-rock band
PART A: (band) The film opens with an old black-and-white film of a coffee picker who is caught stealing coffee beans, found guilty, and for punishment has both his hands chopped off with a machete. This illustrates justice in the past, in preparation to show justice in the future. Then the story switches to the near future. From a noisy machine room, workers for the Imperial Coffee company are called into a salesperson meeting, whereupon speaker Mrs. Rowe tells them the value of smiling. One of the company's salesmen, named Oswald, has mysteriously disappeared, and Michael is chosen to be his replacement. (band) While traveling alone on his first sales trip in his new position, Michael comes across a car accident where the police act suspiciously and threaten Michael with charging him for causing the accident if he doesn't leave and keep quiet. Michael arrives at the Sutherland House Private Hotel, goes through Oswald's old belongings, and meets an elderly gentleman resident named Monty. Michael goes on a sales trip the next day, and is immediately invited to a businessman's party where the mixed audience watches a stag film and a live sex act (done in underclothes) on stage. That night upon arriving back at his hotel room, Michael is interrupted from a sexual encounter by a phone call from his company saying he is now also responsible for business in Scotland, and has to drive 200 miles to make a 10 a.m. meeting the next morning. Michael gets lost en route, uses a pair of binoculars to see the government property where the road ends, government vehicles immediately appear, abduct him, and electrically torture him into signing a confession of presumably being a spy. During the interrogation, an alarm goes off, the facility suffers what seems to be a nuclear accident, everyone flees, Michael runs up a forested hill as explosions go off behind him, and the entire area is burned of vegetation. It starts to rain, and Michael finds his way to a church while a service is going on. He wakes up from among the pews, hungry, tries to take food from the altar, but is stopped by a church woman, who instead nurses him from her breast. Children show him the way, he finds a busy motorway and attempts to get a ride, the first motorist who stops tells Michael he can make some easy money by volunteering for medical experiments at the Millar Research Clinic. He volunteers, is sedated, but fails to fall asleep, overhears a conversation about sterilizing him, attempts to leave, comes across a patient in another room who has been turned into a half-sheep, he flees, is pursued by guards with dogs, but eludes them on bicycle. However, his bicycle is nearly hit by a van with traveling musicians, but he isn't hurt, and he gets a ride with them. Patricia, a lady with the band, falls in love him en route to London.
PART B: (band) The next morning Michael finds out that Patricia's father is the wealthy tycoon Mr. Burgess, and Michael is eager to make contact in order to further his own career. Michael disregards Patricia's warning, he quickly launches a fraudulent scheme to meet Mr. Burgess that day, while he's waiting at Mr. Burgess' office, Mr. Burgess fires an employee with 15 years at the company, the employee commits suicide by jumping from the office window, and takes another employee with him. Michael becomes Mr. Burgess' aide, they attend a meeting about investing in the country of Zingara, but Mr. Burgess is worried about the country's stability due to rebel activity. He and Colonel Steiger make an agreement that the British government's chemical weapon called PL-45, or "honey" for short, will be sent to Zingara to spread gruesome death to the rebels hiding in the miles of jungle territory. The next day there is another meeting of the investors and Zingara leaders, but the meeting is interrupted the British government's "Fraud Squad." Mr. Burgess tells Michael to trust him, and tells Michael to hide the papers in his pocket while holding a briefcase full of gold bars. One of the military men from Michael's earlier encounters joins the Fraud Squad, recognizes Michael, Michael is arrested, beaten by police en route to the jail, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to five years in prison. The judge, after sentencing Michael, walks into a private room, strips down to his underwear and is whipped S&M style by a woman of the court. (band) Upon being released from prison, Michael comes across a Christian street gathering, he generously donates money to them, is immediately pick-pocketed, then people start mysteriously hurrying by with a ladder. It turns out a woman named Mrs. Richards in a nearby apartment building is about to kill herself. Michael climbs outside her window, attempting to dissuade her by reading poems and philosophy from a book he obtained from a prison warden. However, he falls from the wall as a pipe gives way, and wakes up at night with a policeman shining a light in his face. (band) The policeman tells Michael he is trespassing, and to "piss off." It's still nighttime when Michael volunteers to serve free soup to the homeless street people of the city. There he meets Patricia as one of the street people. When Michael attempts to preach to the crowd, they become angry, stone him, and roll a barrel down a hill at him. Michael survives, and during the daytime comes across a man handing out fliers to audition to be a movie star. Michael auditions, is selected and photographed, but the director has great difficulty in getting Michael to smile, in a reminder of the earlier scene of the company's motivational speech about smiling. (band) Michael manages to smile with great difficulty, and the film ends with all the characters from the film dancing together to Alan Price's band as balloons fall.
PART A: (band) The film opens with an old black-and-white film of a coffee picker who is caught stealing coffee beans, found guilty, and for punishment has both his hands chopped off with a machete. This illustrates justice in the past, in preparation to show justice in the future. Then the story switches to the near future. From a noisy machine room, workers for the Imperial Coffee company are called into a salesperson meeting, whereupon speaker Mrs. Rowe tells them the value of smiling. One of the company's salesmen, named Oswald, has mysteriously disappeared, and Michael is chosen to be his replacement. (band) While traveling alone on his first sales trip in his new position, Michael comes across a car accident where the police act suspiciously and threaten Michael with charging him for causing the accident if he doesn't leave and keep quiet. Michael arrives at the Sutherland House Private Hotel, goes through Oswald's old belongings, and meets an elderly gentleman resident named Monty. Michael goes on a sales trip the next day, and is immediately invited to a businessman's party where the mixed audience watches a stag film and a live sex act (done in underclothes) on stage. That night upon arriving back at his hotel room, Michael is interrupted from a sexual encounter by a phone call from his company saying he is now also responsible for business in Scotland, and has to drive 200 miles to make a 10 a.m. meeting the next morning. Michael gets lost en route, uses a pair of binoculars to see the government property where the road ends, government vehicles immediately appear, abduct him, and electrically torture him into signing a confession of presumably being a spy. During the interrogation, an alarm goes off, the facility suffers what seems to be a nuclear accident, everyone flees, Michael runs up a forested hill as explosions go off behind him, and the entire area is burned of vegetation. It starts to rain, and Michael finds his way to a church while a service is going on. He wakes up from among the pews, hungry, tries to take food from the altar, but is stopped by a church woman, who instead nurses him from her breast. Children show him the way, he finds a busy motorway and attempts to get a ride, the first motorist who stops tells Michael he can make some easy money by volunteering for medical experiments at the Millar Research Clinic. He volunteers, is sedated, but fails to fall asleep, overhears a conversation about sterilizing him, attempts to leave, comes across a patient in another room who has been turned into a half-sheep, he flees, is pursued by guards with dogs, but eludes them on bicycle. However, his bicycle is nearly hit by a van with traveling musicians, but he isn't hurt, and he gets a ride with them. Patricia, a lady with the band, falls in love him en route to London.
PART B: (band) The next morning Michael finds out that Patricia's father is the wealthy tycoon Mr. Burgess, and Michael is eager to make contact in order to further his own career. Michael disregards Patricia's warning, he quickly launches a fraudulent scheme to meet Mr. Burgess that day, while he's waiting at Mr. Burgess' office, Mr. Burgess fires an employee with 15 years at the company, the employee commits suicide by jumping from the office window, and takes another employee with him. Michael becomes Mr. Burgess' aide, they attend a meeting about investing in the country of Zingara, but Mr. Burgess is worried about the country's stability due to rebel activity. He and Colonel Steiger make an agreement that the British government's chemical weapon called PL-45, or "honey" for short, will be sent to Zingara to spread gruesome death to the rebels hiding in the miles of jungle territory. The next day there is another meeting of the investors and Zingara leaders, but the meeting is interrupted the British government's "Fraud Squad." Mr. Burgess tells Michael to trust him, and tells Michael to hide the papers in his pocket while holding a briefcase full of gold bars. One of the military men from Michael's earlier encounters joins the Fraud Squad, recognizes Michael, Michael is arrested, beaten by police en route to the jail, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to five years in prison. The judge, after sentencing Michael, walks into a private room, strips down to his underwear and is whipped S&M style by a woman of the court. (band) Upon being released from prison, Michael comes across a Christian street gathering, he generously donates money to them, is immediately pick-pocketed, then people start mysteriously hurrying by with a ladder. It turns out a woman named Mrs. Richards in a nearby apartment building is about to kill herself. Michael climbs outside her window, attempting to dissuade her by reading poems and philosophy from a book he obtained from a prison warden. However, he falls from the wall as a pipe gives way, and wakes up at night with a policeman shining a light in his face. (band) The policeman tells Michael he is trespassing, and to "piss off." It's still nighttime when Michael volunteers to serve free soup to the homeless street people of the city. There he meets Patricia as one of the street people. When Michael attempts to preach to the crowd, they become angry, stone him, and roll a barrel down a hill at him. Michael survives, and during the daytime comes across a man handing out fliers to audition to be a movie star. Michael auditions, is selected and photographed, but the director has great difficulty in getting Michael to smile, in a reminder of the earlier scene of the company's motivational speech about smiling. (band) Michael manages to smile with great difficulty, and the film ends with all the characters from the film dancing together to Alan Price's band as balloons fall.