Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star.
Employed in a beauty salon, Amédée must undergo a pentothal injection. The dose is too strong; suddenly Amédée reveals the truth to everyone; to clients of the institute; to his cheating wife; to his boss that he robs; to the tax collector; etc. When the effects of the truth serum wear off, everyone returns contentedly to their little swamp.
A young man, Robert Dupont, with suicidal tendencies and a bit stupid to boot, is saved by a stranger who pretends to be a well-known banker. This stranger then entrusts him with a suitcase full of mysterious documents, which he asks him to take with him to Indochina. But in reality, the suitcase is stuffed with banknotes from a scam.
Sylvie, a young woman who believes to be cursed, lives in the town of Carcassonne with her guardian, Mr. Toulzac. He is a retired teacher who wishes to discover the secret of the Cathars, a Christian sect of the Middle Ages that glorified death over life. Sylvie meets Roland, a composer who instills new hope into her troubled mind. Mr. Toulzac then asks her then to renounce the world and go down a secret tomb he has just found.
On his fiftieth birthday, Serge Charan, a large industrialist overloaded with activities, decides to leave everything to go on an adventure. In a train heading for the Côte d'Azur, he meets six young girls returning to their boarding school. Arrived at their destination, Serge Charan rents, under an assumed name, a villa with a view of the garden of the boarding school. His presence arouses questions and the interest of young girls who are sensitive to his charm. But one of them, Simone, falls completely in love and runs away from boarding school.
One of the subjects of the Prince of Slopoldavia, followed him to Paris, not out of love but to take revenge for the monarch's betrayal of one of his friends. Involuntary architect of a plot, she forces the prince to return to the throne and agrees to share the burdens of power with him.
Vérotchka, a vivacious theater actress touring in a provincial town, is turned out of her hotel by orders of Monsieur Tricointe, the stern president of the local law court. In a rage, the actress knocks at Tricointe's door with a view to protesting against the treatment she is given. She goes about it so well that she ends up being accommodated by the president himself. This is the moment Jean-Pierre Gaudet, the Minister of Justice, chooses to pay an unannounced visit to his friend Tricointe. There he mistakes Vérotchka for Madame Tricointe and the president does not dare to contradict Gaudet. A lot of absurd situations ensue.
Thomas Hoffmann arrives totally penniless from the megalopolis of Chicago and settles in the small village of Groditzkirchen. He soon forged a solid reputation there and established himself in the world of business and finance thanks to his charm and his bluff, interpreting with brio and relaxation the role of the nice millionaire.