Description
The film, set in 1972, was inspired by an actual incident which occurred on 17 January 1966: a B-52G Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Palomares, Spain, and four B-28 FI 1.45-megaton-range hydrogen bombs aboard the B-52 were briefly lost. In a title sequence shot by Maurice Binder, a chorus of Spanish Flamenco dancers explains why the film's location is Greece rather than Spain.
Life on the remote Greek resort island of Karos is forever changed when atomic bombs are dropped there by a NATO plane rapidly losing power. Life on the island is so bleak that the inhabitants stage a mass exodus on news that Denmark has opened Greenland to Greek emigration. The pilots drop their payload – which includes two atomic weapons and a mysterious box called simply "Container Q" – over land, because they are under orders not to drop at sea. The hapless pilots parachute out and land safely on the island, but with no equipment or means to contact their headquarters, and they are left wearing only their underwear. Lacking resources – money to buy clothes, food, or even to pay for a long-distance call to base – the pilot and navigator of the lost bomber scour the island like vagabonds. Unknown to the pilots, the Americans have already deployed their own operation: a team of agents disguised as resort developers. The pilots are unaware of the fact that American agents are also on the island searching for their cargo.
The island suddenly fills with clamoring, hedonistic tourists who believe the developer is going to build the best resort in the area first. Meanwhile, a poor goatherd and his wife find Container Q and, presuming it holds some treasure, they try to open it. Unsuccessful at first – because Container Q is virtually impregnable – the goatherd eventually steals a device that sprays acid that will eat through anything. Expecting gold, he and his wife instead find strange-looking rocks. The Americans are eventually led back to the panicked pair, but not before they throw Container Q into the sea, and the rocks into a cistern which provides the island's water. The contents of Container Q – presumably highly toxic – thus begins to contaminate all the water being consumed on the island.
By nightfall, as tourists revel, the waters surrounding Karos become dotted with the bodies of dead and dying fish. The Americans sent to recover the lost payload of the stricken jet realize that they are too late. The pilot and the navigator, having begged enough small change from the tourists to call home, are shocked to be booted from the long-distance phone in the post office by the American developers. Too late, the pilots realize that the developers are American operatives. The revelers continue dancing wildly as a voice from a PA system pleads in vain for their attention, presumably to warn them of their imminent demise.
