On the eve of one of 'Boss' Tom Pendergast's violent elections, the city is wide-open, rever­berating to non-stop jazz Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer lason Leigh), a young telegraph operator, concocts a desperate plan to kidnap socialite Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson). Her goal is to exchange Mrs Stilton for her petty thief of a husband, who has been caught by the legendary gangster and club owner, Seldom Seen (Harry Belafonte). Surrounded by moral turbulence, the two women forge a relationship that changes from abductor and captive to near-trusting friends as they head towards an inevitable transformational conclusion.

"The whole structure of this film relates to jazz," says Altman. No revelation given that one scene quite pointedly places a young Altman makin' the scene at a jazz dive with an equally youthful (way pre-Bird) Charlie Parker "If you look at the actual story, the trade off of one abduction for another, it becomes less about Plot than about these two women travelling around together against a swirl of corruption. The story then becomes what they talk about, where they go, who they run into These are weir solos Belafonte's monologues about race and violence function in a similar way They're all jazz riffs to me"