Craig Blake is a young
Southerner born of a wealthy family, but left lonely and idle after his parents died in a plane crash. He is content to spend his time fishing, hunting, and puttering around his large family mansion in
Birmingham, Alabama, inhabited only by himself and a butler. Blake is employed at a shady investment firm run by slick con artist Jabo where Blake does very little actual work. He is asked to handle the purchase of a small
gym that the firm is buying to clear space for an office high-rise. Blake represents himself as a businessman looking to buy the gym and meets its owner Thor Erikson and employees Franklin and Newton. He is strangely fascinated with the world he discovers there. Blake's usual social life is centered around his upscale country club and its crowd, including his friends Lester and Halsey, and spends his time there playing tennis, shooting
poker dice and flirting with women, one of whom asks Blake to find a musical guest for an upcoming party. As Blake moves forward with the business deal, he is smitten with the receptionist, Mary Tate Farnsworth, and befriends bodybuilder Joe Santo, who aspires to win the
Mr. Universe title. He finds he ultimately cannot sell out his newfound friends at the gym for the sake of his job, so he constantly evades questions about the progress of the gym deal from friend and coworker Hal Foss. Mary Tate and Craig begin a passionate relationship, but trouble erupts when he tries to integrate her into his country-club scene. At a party at the club, which features Santo performing with a country group, Craig's friends mock Santo as a "freak" and an outcast. A fight nearly breaks out between Halsey and Blake but is broken up. Halsey and his friend Packman formulate a plan to embarrass Santo. When he takes the stage, they drunkenly heckle him and the band. Santo tries to ignore it but soon stops playing his violin and leaves the party. Craig tries to convince Mary Tate to see him for who he really is, and not for his snobbish friends and surroundings. When Jabo realizes that Blake will not purchase the building, he plies Thor and his assistant Newton with drugs, booze, and hookers. The Mr. Universe competition arrives, where Santo is hoping to beat his rival Dougie Stewart. While Thor is drunk and distracted with the prostitutes, Newton secretly stashes the prize money inside his bag and flees. Blake visits the gym and engages in a fight with the drunken and drugged Thor. He finds Mary Tate, who earlier had been assaulted by Thor in an
amyl nitrite-fueled rage. When the Mr. Universe contestants discover that the prize money has been stolen, they run after Santo, who is running to meet Mary Tate. The chase of bodybuilders pours out into the streets of Birmingham and attracts an amazed crowd of onlookers. The bodybuilders engage in an impromptu posing routine for the crowd. Craig sarcastically derides his former bosses at the real-estate firm, going into the gym business with Santo. Craig mocks Jabo with an exaggerated bodybuilding pose and moves out of his family's mansion, leaving his old family memorabilia to his butler. ==Cast==