Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to find out about her, and learns that she is a famous stage actress from the early twentieth century. Becoming more and more obsessed with her, by self-hypnosis he manages to travel back in time—where he meets her.

Two down and out friends living in Venice, California, struggle in social and economic deprivation. They reach the point where they can't go on. Escalating pressures force them to hatch a wild get-rich-quick scheme in a last ditch attempt to solve "all of their problems". The far-fetched scheme involves one of them being bitten by a rat in a major supermarket with the fantastical hopes of winning an outrageously huge settlement. What transpires is a perfect example of "the best laid plans of mice and men" where reality trumps delusion and, in one comic turn after another, depravity gives way to humanity.