An unidentified tropical republic is beset by revolution fomented by a radical identified only as Roger, his existence believed to be symbolic by the authorities, although the military's leading general and a judge of the supreme court have been assassinated in his name, and the police chief (COLUMBO's Peter Falk) is rumored to have shot the archbishop for treason. The only institution untouched by the revolution is the brothel of Madame Irma (Shelly Winters, GRAN BOLITO) where the common man pays to take part in elaborate fantasies orchestrated by her girls. Her lover is the police chief, and he is eager to restore order, but Irma points out that he may be hiarchically in charge but not in the eyes of the public as none of her clients ever ask to play the chief of police. Although she refuses to take part in his plan to play the nation's queen for a public appearnce (the real one having returned from abroad but afraid to leave the airport for fear of assassination), Irma hits upon the idea for three of her clients to live out their fantasies of playing the general, the archbishop, and the judge - a meter man (Kent Smith, CAT PEOPLE), a milkman (Jeff Corey, HOME OF THE BRAVE), and a gas man (Peter Brocco, OUR MAN FLINT), respectively - to fool the public into believing that they are alive and order has been restored. The ploy seemingly works until the three men, having had a chance to be somebodies before the public, revolt against the chief of police and question how far his own authority extends beyond his costume. When Roger (Leonard Nimoy, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) himself shows up requesting a fantasy in which he plays the chief of police. Peter enlists Carmen (Lee Grant, THE MAFU CAGE) - a prostitute promoted to bookkeeper by Irma who has grown disillusioned learning that her "palace of dreams" is actually just a sub-divided box that functions as a "money-making machine" - to take part as a setup for a final confrontation; but can their identities hold up when authority and rebel switch places. An adaptation of the Jean Genet play directed by Joseph Strick - whose directorial career also included adaptations of notable sources like James Joyce's ULYSSES, PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, and an X-rated Henry Miller's TROPIC OF CANCER - from an script by Ben Maddow (THE ASPHALT JUNGLE), THE BALCONY softens some of the source's more salacious and violent aspects, including an ending which almost culminates in an act of horror mentioned earlier in the film but then takes a more comic turn (although Winters' address to the audience before the final fade-out makes this seem like less of a compromise). While the showy roles go to Winters, Grant, Nemoy, and Falk, it also gives center stage for at least part of the running time to character actors Smith, Bosco, and Corey along with Ruby Dee (the other CAT PEOPLE) and Joyce Jameson (THE APARTMENT) as featured prostitutes. There is also some stimulating discussion of the nature of illusion in prostitution and in the political arena, the place of the whorehouse in the institutional framework of authority, and the allure of fantasy on both sides of the exchange. The use of stock footage may have been for budgetary reasons, but the artiface works as much in the film's favor (including some blatant back projection work) as the use of offscreen crowd noises and explosions heard by characters within the brothel.