Acting
At the beginning of World War I in a village in the country of La Marne, two families are against the marriage of their children. The war changes the positions.
Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail. But Hercules gradually realizes the role that we make him play.
Father Vincent is trying to build a church in the California neighborhood. Greeted by stones, he must face a sinister band of deviants excited by a shady cabaret performer. The abbot resists, gradually builds his church and regenerates all the wretches with whom he lives and especially the hardest, Bibi.
Pursued by the police, Saget usurps the identity of a man who was returning to his town after having made his fortune in the United States. Under this new name, he deceives his compatriots with the exception of a doctor and the savage Isabelle. During an explanation Saget understands that Isabelle secretly admires him. She denounces him and Saget surrenders without a fight. Thus he ruins all his prestige with the young Amazon.
In a college, three friends form a secret society. Their objective - going to America. One night, after one of their secret meetings, one of them sees a man coming out from a wall. The next day, after he talks about it, he disappears. Then, the second one vanishes. Are they gone to their dreams? That's when the art teacher is murdered. Suspicions now are too high so the third one decides to investigate.
Micheline is a pretty girl but rich, spoiled and whimsical as well. Jacques, the brother of her friend Danielle, is so exasperated by her behavior that he decides to give her a chance to learn about good manners. To that effect, he kidnaps her and detains her in a hut on the edge of a wood. He starts "taming the shrew" but the situation soon gets out of control when criminals - real ones this time - abduct Micheline in earnest... and for ransom!
Femme fatale Madeleine Robinson is married to Raymond Aimos, a coal miner with a face like a pickled walnut and a libido to match. She wants some action, and what she can’t get from her impotent husband, she looks for elsewhere, first with his best friend Pierre Brasseur, then with his boss Lucien Gallas, who is also dating Brasseur’s kid sister Odette Joyeux.
Arlette, a young orphan girl, is taken in by four spinster cousins, the eldest of whom, Telcide, is very authoritarian. Arlette befriends Marie, and arranges her sentimental affairs, which were at an impasse.
