(Co-stars Winger and Lithgow competed against MacLaine and Nicholson.)The other nominations included Best Actress (Debra Winger), Best Supporting Actor (John Lithgow), Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score.Plot SynopsisThe film""s action is prefaced by a zoom-in view of a Caribbean map.The locale is the German/Vichy-controlled Caribbean island of "Martinique in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France" during WW II.An unsuspecting, wealthy American man - Rudy Linnekar (Jeffrey Green) (the boss of the town) and his giggling, blonde floozy, mistress/girlfriend Zita (Joi Lansing) [later, we learn she is a striptease dancer] emerge out of the background darkness and get into the car, driving off through the streets toward the US-Mexican border about four blocks away.e., the Hotsy-Totsy, Dizzy, and Blackbottom).This last of the gangster films in the 30s, with James Cagney in a thinly-disguised (and humanized) lead role, was based upon the real-life rise and fall of New York mobster/racketeer Larry Fay who had a business relationship with his brassy, frowsy saloon singer-promoter and hostess Texas Guinan (Gladys George""s role as Panama Smith).