Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair. In denial about the loss of his wife and children in the holocaust, American Captain Towers meets careworn but gorgeous Moira Davidson, who begins to fall for him. The sub returns after reconnaissance a month (or less) before the end; will Towers and Moira find comfort with each other?

A long-distance trucker, dressed like a sea captain, aimlessly sails the American highways in his 18 wheeler mumbling manic, southern accented non sequiturs; carnivalizing roadside stops and happenstance towns while out-weirding cops and weigh stations with his new cryptic, over-coated hitchhiker buddy.

An artist falls in love with the woman he is hired to paint, and her upper class fiancée uses black magic against him as revenge.