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...

Journalists at the London Daily Express investigate reports of strange phenomena occurring all over the world; flooding in the Sahara, unseasonable blizzards in New York, violent tornadoes in the Soviet Union. The investigation leads to the discovery of a cover-up and the revelation that nuclear explosions have altered the Earth's orbit, its destination THE SUN! As the temperature rockets, water becomes scarce and mass hysteria breaks out. The only solution is a radical one, the detonation of fu find out more...