Tongue-in-cheek account of a private eye hired to find a young porn actress.

Centers on the events leading up to the cataclysmic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington, with the story beginning on the day volcanic activity started on March 20, 1980, and ending on the day of the eruption, May 18, 1980.

A sensitive writer from a small town faces spiritual crisis as he tries to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter. Charlie Pontus (Joseph Culp) wanders around Los Angeles torn between his efforts to sell a screenplay and find his next meal. His natural optimism keeps him afloat as he walks the tight-rope between his love for the beautiful, exotic Ylayali (Kathleen Luong) and his desperate connection to The Chief (Robert Culp), the Hollywood producer who has the power to give life or take it away. Stubbornly refusing to relinquish his principles, he sinks deeper and deeper into spiritual crisis, finally confronting God in a Jobian showdown.