Working class anti-hero Midge moves from Chicago to LA, shits on just about everybody, including his new girlfriend and those that he meets in the corrupt and brutal world of professional boxing in which he makes his way. A public hero he may be, but the cost of success is his soul.

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...