Plot summary

A Kafkaesque story set in a dark, nameless city in a time that might be the 1920s or '30s. A killer () walks the alleys and underground passages. He corners a man and strangles him with piano wire.Max Kleinman (Woody Allen) is roused from a sound sleep in the middle of the night by a group of his fellow citizens who want Kleinman to help them catch the killer. Despite his protests of uselessness, the vigilantes tell Kleinman to get dressed and meet them outside. Kleinman's landlady (Camille Saviola) comes in to help him, suppressing his objections as she bustles about. He worries that he might run into his boss, who is considering him for a promotion, and make a bad impression. She suggests that he marry her, which would make him half owner of the rooming house so he would no longer need his job. Before he goes she gives him some pepper and tells him to blow it in the killer's eyes if he needs to get away. When Kleinman comes outside, the vigilantes have gone. He wanders around looking for them.Irmy (Mia Farrow), a sword-swallower with the circus, and Paul (John Malkovich) the clown, her lover, are talking in their caravan after the show. Irmy reminds Paul of their plans to quit the circus, get married and have children. He replies that he's an artist and needs to concentrate on his work until he can make a name for himself. She says that if she doesn't have a baby soon, she might not be able to, and starts to cry. The clown tries to comfort her. Then he says he'll talk to the head of the circus and goes out to find him. On the way he's distracted by Marie (Madonna), the tightrope walker, and goes into her caravan, where her husband the strongman is asleep. But Irmy sees him go in and comes raging to the door, catching the couple in flagrante. She's furious; she pushes Paul around and tells him she doesn't want his baby.Kleinman stops to see the doctor (Donald Pleasence) in hopes of learning where to find the vigilantes. The doctor has performed autopsies on the killer's victims -- apparently there have been several, and some of them are still lying on the doctor's examining tables. He believes that if he can dissect the killer's brain he will be able to identify the physical manifestation of evil. All this makes Kleinman even more nervous than usual, and the doctor gives him a glass of sherry to calm him down. He is surprised and disapproving when he learns that Kleinman doesn't know his part in the plan to catch the killer, and urges him to find out quickly what's expected of him. Kleinman goes back out into the foggy night. Shortly afterward the killer comes in. The doctor gets out of the house, but the killer pursues him and the doctor is caught in a blind alley and strangled.Irmy, carrying a suitcase -- running away from the circus! -- crosses a bridge and comes across a prostitute (Lily Tomlin). They chat and Irmy confesses she has nowhere to sleep. The prostitute offers her a bed at the whorehouse, where the other prostitutes (Kathy Bates, Anne Lange, and Jodie Foster) feed Irmy and make her feel welcome by talking about themselves and their work as they eat. One (Lily Tomlin) explains how she came to be a whore: her husband needed an operation and they were broke, so she sold her body to pay the doctor. When her husband found out how she raised the money, he kicked her out. When the customers arrive, the prostitutes leave the kitchen to greet them. A student called Jack (John Cusack), a regular, catches sight of Irmy and suddenly no one else will do. He offers more and more money, despite being told that she isn't an employee, eventually reaching the huge sum of $700 -- his gambling winnings for the night. Irmy accepts and they repair to a back room.Kleinman goes to the police station to protest the arrest of the Mintz family, who are considered undesirable, on no particular charge (though one of the cops feels that the arrest will be justified post facto if the killings stop while the family is locked up). Kleinman gets nowhere with his protest, but learns that the doctor has been murdered and that the police know the killer entered the doctor's laboratory. They have a glass they believe bears the killer's fingerprints. Kleinman realizes that the prints on the glass are his.Irmy and Jack, having concluded their business, exchange compliments as they dress -- they both enjoyed the experience.Irmy is hauled into the police station; the police have raided the whorehouse and arrested her because she doesn't have a prostitute's license. Irmy loudly protests that she isn't a prostitute, she works at the circus. They don't believe her; if she's not a prostitute, where did she get $700? She pays a $50 fine and is released just after Kleinman, having swiped the incriminating sherry glass, slips out. He offers to escort her. They encounter a vigilante who (after castigating Kleinman for not knowing his role in the plan) insists that Kleinman help him capture a man who is lurking in an alley. Kleinman is unable to wriggle out of it and shamelessly hides behind Irmy when she offers to help. The man in the alley, when captured, turns out to be Kleinman's boss, Mr. Paulsen (Philip Bosco); he was peering through a window at a woman who was undressing, and he's not pleased to be caught. He tells Kleinman he won't be getting the promotion he was hoping for; it sounds likely that Kleinman will lose his job.In search of Irmy, Paul wanders into a bar, where he gets to talking with Jack. He's flabbergasted when Jack confides that he just paid $700 to have sex with a sword swallower -- who is clearly Irmy -- and it was marvelous for both of them. ("I think she's got a lover who doesn't service her too well -- some poor clown... I gave her the best time she's had in years.")As Irmy and Kleinman approach a church, Irmy explains that she wants to donate her remaining prostitution earnings to charity. She asks Max to take the $650 into the church for her. Inside, he finds a priest (Josef Sommer) and a police official (Ira Wheeler) engaged in making a list; they tell him to go away and become irritated when he diffidently calls their attention to his errand. When the priest grasps the size of the donation (and the cash), though, he makes the policeman remove Kleinman's name from the list.Back in the street, Kleinman and Irmy meet a woman (Eszter Balint) who asks them for help. She has a baby (Rebecca Gibson) but no money, no food, and no family or friends to help her. At Irmy's request, Max goes back to the church and takes back half of her donation so they can give it to the destitute woman. The priest and the cop put Kleinman's name back on their list, but he brings out $300 and gives it to the grateful mother.Looking for a place for Irmy to spend the rest of the night, Kleinman takes her to the house of his fiancée Eve (Kate Nelligan) and asks Eve if Irmy can sleep on her couch. Eve, annoyed at being woken up and entirely unsympathetic to Irmy, refuses. She adds ominously that she'll speak to Max about this later. As they walk away, Max admits that Eve is a cold fish. He and Irmy walk to what seems to be a river embankment and stop to look at the stars. An acquaintance of Kleinman's discovers them and reveals that there are at least three vigilante factions, and the leader of the group that rousted Kleinman out of bed has been killed by one of the other factions. The man tries to force Max (at knifepoint) to join his own vigilante group. During the discussion Kleinman's original group shows up, and everyone is suspicious of Kleinman. Irmy is supportive, but can't help much. A crowd approaches, bringing with it a psychic called Spiro (Charles Cragin) who claims to discern secrets by literally sniffing them out. He applies his nose to Max and indicates that Max has something hidden in his suit coat. A cop comes up and extracts the doctor's sherry glass, which the crowd takes as evidence that Kleinman is the killer. Kleinman escapes by throwing his landlady's pepper in his captors' eyes and running off.With the mob in hot pursuit, Kleinman runs to the dressmaking shop of his former fiancée Alma (Julie Kavner), who lets him in reluctantly and throws him out again after a brief review of the circumstances of their break-up (he failed to show up at the wedding and was found having sex with her sister in a broomcloset).Irmy, left on her own, is jumped by Paul, who is furious about her infidelity. As they argue, they hear a woman scream. In an alley, they find the body of the woman with the baby to whom Irmy gave money earlier in the evening. Paul finds the baby nearby. Irmy immediately decides that they must keep her, as she knows the baby has no one to care for her. Paul tries to talk her out of it, objecting (among other points) that they can't afford a baby. Irmy finds her $300 on the corpse. When she tells Paul she's going to raise the baby whether he helps or not, he comes around.Kleinman is welcomed at the whorehouse, where Jack is chatting in a philosophical vein with the prostitutes. He draws Kleinman into the discussion, but one of the women (Jodie Foster) draws him out again to take him upstairs. Kleinman can't get it up and leaves in a hurry when another whore (Lily Tomlin) tells him that some men are looking for him. Dodging the torch-wielding mob still searching the streets for him, he runs into his workplace rival, Simon Carr (Wallace Shawn). Carr tells Kleinman that Mr. Paulsen has given Carr the promotion, and repeats some highly unflattering remarks Paulsen made about Kleinman. Kleinman asks if Carr has seen a woman matching Irmy's description, and Carr says he saw her heading toward the circus with a man and a child.In their caravan, Irmy and Paul are feeding and fussing over the baby. Paul has become very protective of her and is full of plans: he wants her to go to school; he doesn't want her to grow up as a circus gypsy; he wants to have another baby so she won't grow up alone. Irmy is delighted, particularly by the last plan.She goes outside to get some water and is stalked by the killer. Max defends her, giving her time to escape. Then, having drawn the (slow-moving) killer's attention, he runs away, fetching up in the big top. The tent is deserted except for Armstead the magician (Kenneth Mars), who is getting drunk to celebrate the circus's closing performance. Kleinman gushes that he is an amateur magician and Armstead is his idol. When the killer enters the tent, Armstead, saying something about a mirror illusion, calls Kleinman over to a large mirror in the center of the ring. He steps into it and urges Max to follow, but has to pull him through when the killer gets too close. The flummoxed killer can see Kleinman and Armstead in the mirror but can't get at them; Max taunts him. He flips the mirror, turning Max and the magician upside down, then smashes it with a pole. This causes the inmates to appear in another mirror at ringside. Armstead waves his hands and a large cage descends on the killer, trapping him. Max and Armstead throw a cloth over the cage, Armstead waves his hands again, and when Max removes the cloth the killer is gone -- but reappears across the ring, securely shackled to a chair. The arrival of a mob of circus performers led by Irmy leaves Max little time to marvel over this performance. After some shouting, Max and the magician lead the mob to the killer -- who has once again disappeared, leaving his chains empty.As they file out of the tent with the performers, Irmy tells the others that Max saved her, and tells him how brave he was. He replies that he can be brave as long as he doesn't think about it. She says that the circus will be pulling out in a few hours and asks what he'll do. Armstead mentions that he needs an apprentice. Kleinman becomes excited at this prospect and tries several times to demonstrate a trick with a coin, but fails. Armstead is unconcerned by Kleinman's clumsiness and offers him the job. Kleinman objects that he can't just run away and join the circus (though it sounds like the solution to all his troubles); he says he'll go back to real life and marry his landlady. Armstead speaks darkly of "the grey hat of compromise." Max walks Irmy to her trailer, where they shake hands and say goodbye. Max stands thinking for a minute.Max follows Armstead back to the big top, where he accepts the apprenticeship and dismisses Armstead's warning that the pay is very low. One of the performers says that everybody loves Armstead's illusions, and Armstead replies, "Loves them? They need them -- like they need the air." Then he waves his hands and he and Max disappear.