A young peasant named Pierre makes friends with John and his sister Sonia, young bourgeoisie, who invite him to their home. Pierre soon falls in love with Emily, John's mistress. After the death of the father of his hosts, he has the idea of transforming their peaceful house into a brothel.
In this riot of frantic disguises and mistaken identities, Victor Pivert, a blustering, bigoted French factory owner, finds himself taken hostage by Slimane, an Arab rebel leader. The two dress up as rabbis as they try to elude not only assasins from Slimane's country, but also the police, who think Pivert is a murderer. Pivert ends up posing as Rabbi Jacob, a beloved figure who's returned to France for his first visit after 30 years in the United States. Adding to the confusion are Pivert's dentist-wife, who thinks her husband is leaving her for another woman, their daughter, who's about to get married, and a Parisian neighborhood filled with people eager to celebrate the return of Rabbi Jacob.
1940: During the chaotic running fights of the French army the 7th company disappears - nobody knows they've been taken captive. Only their scouting patrol, three witty but lazy guys, can escape and now wanders around behind the German lines. They'd like to just stay out the fights, but a Lieutenant urges them to use a captured truck to break through to their troops.
In a village in the Ardennes, during the German occupation, finding rations is becoming almost impossible. Clovis, an ordinary labourer, decides to cross the occupied zone to bring back enough potatoes to feed his family. His plan is a success but Clovis rapidly becomes obsessed with storing the precious tubers.
Tulipe, is an old man who lives alone in an old railway carriage in the Argentueil region of Paris. His main passions are gardening and oil painting, but he also has a secret source of income. His godson discovers that Tulipe is actually a master forger, producing perfect copies of 10 franc notes. His godson’s girlfriend sees this as an opportunity to get very rich – but she must persuade Tulipe to forge 500 franc notes. Assuming Tulipe’s agreement, his godson and his girlfriend buy an expensive new car and luxury villa in provincial France – but there is a cruel turn of fate in store for them when Tulipe strikes up a friendship with a millionaire playboy.
Philippe Lambert, an attractive young attaché to the Prime Minister's office, is a man of many female conquests. One of them, Madame Grandbourg, wife of a very influential man, sent him a passionate letter, which he lost at the theater. Marion, the usherette who found it, contacts him to ask him for a "favor" in exchange for its return: to avoid eviction from the family apartment, because of the father, who gardens in every room and constantly floods the downstairs neighbors. At first, Lambert refuses to give in to the "blackmail" and calls in the police to unmask the indelicate woman, but love soon gets in the way...
Cyrano, poet and cadet from Gascony, is afflicted with an excessively long nose which makes the beauties smile. He is no less in love with his cousin Roxane.