Acting
Kaarina, an orphan girl raised by Taneli, the innkeeper, notices that her friendship with her childhood friend Antti is turning into romance. Henrik, the patron, also has his eye on Kaarina.
Pekka Puupää and Pätkä, who return to Helsinki from an unsuccessful variety show tour, are forced into refresher training, where they are trained as frogmen. During the diving exercises, the friends encounter the mermaid Helmi, whom they help into the bathtub at home, to Justiina's shock. The friends, who have become civilians, eventually end up on a plane bound for Suez, being cornered by UN soldiers.
Traveler Severi travels to Helsinki to enjoy some culture, where he meets Sinikka and Simo, who run a buying and selling business. At a customs auction, he buys a painting that businessman Kehveli and his assistants also have their eyes on.
Lieutenant Takala meets his fellow partisans of 20th division many year after the war. With flashbacks we see the events of summer 1944.
Justina urges Pete and Runt to get a job. As a result they meet an orphan boy named Otto while working as a park nannies. They offer to shelter the boy, but at the same time the father Antti, who has returned from the sea, is looking for his son together with Miss Raikas.
Unemployed girl shoplifts in department store. Son of a wealthy family notice the shoplifting but won't turn her in. After awhile they are seen together and press thinks they are engaged.
Trade counselor Lillukka leaves his entire fortune to Pekka Puupää, who, thanks to cartoons and films, has become closer to him than his immediate family, who are pursuing their own interests. Pekka starts running a toy factory and hires a freckle-faced bowling boy as the company's errand boy. Widowed trade counselor Gunilla Lillukka tries to get married to Pätkä, who has been promoted to assistant director.
After a weekend of dancing and camping on a recreation island near the city, a young factory worker decides to stay and cut work for a day. Walking around the now deserted island, he meets a beautiful woman camping alone and sunbathing in the nude on the beach. A hot romance flares up between the worker and the more upper-class married lady, lasting through the light-filled nights of the whole summer week until the woman's much older husband returns to the island the next weekend.
The engagement announcement of Irmeli, an orphan girl who grew up in the barracks, and Olavi, a musician serving in the military, upsets the girl's guardians and the director of the military home, who begin plotting to prevent what they consider an unsuitable union.
Kalle, a shy and absent-minded civil servant at the comparison agency, unwittingly becomes Minister of War. He receives help in his new role from Maria, the daughter of Finance Minister Karpio. Problems in the performance of his duties lead Kalle to a court martial, and he resigns from his ministerial post to start a new life with his neighbor Leena.
Amanda and her cousin Eliisa run a food stall for the loggers, despite the crooked landowner Remander. Verneri, a street vendor from Karelia, and Olavi, who pretends to be a vagrant, turn the women's heads. When university student Oswald arrives in town, long-buried secrets begin to surface.
The everyday life of the small village is mixed when a fire breaks out the night after the party. The cooperative manager and fire manager alerts the young judge Heiki to the extinguishing work, but due to the confusion, extinguishing the fire turns out to be more complicated than expected.
Opri is an evacuee from Karelia and is forced to move into a nursing home when his cottage is demolished. He immediately begins to take care of other elderly residents and nursing home staff, as well as their romantic concerns, as soon as he steps into his new home.
Juha lives together with younger woman Marja. Juha loves her, but Marja seems to belong to somewhere else. Things get complicated when casanova Shemeikka arrives from strange lands and takes Marja away with him.
After returning home from being a prisoner of war Viktor gets a job from his friend Rolf with whom he had served. The men trust each other until Viktor meets Rolf’s wife Astrid.
Ilona, an orphan from the cruel Paksula family, ends up in Helsinki at a children's home for immigrants and from there becomes a foster daughter in the Orpana family, where she begins to sort out the relationship between her war-disabled stepbrother Pentti and his girlfriend Irene.
Poor orphan coffee delivery girl loves a poor painter who can't sell his artworks. Painter likes delivery girl, but has stuck in a friend zone. Delivery girl tries to help the painter to get forward in his career, but meanwhile a rich woman becomes too interested towards the painter.
A farm boy leaves his sweetheart Eliina and moves to the city for a relationship with Laila, a summer guest at the farm.
Pete and Runt misinterpret the messages of a career choice machine and try to create a career as African dancers.
Due to the post-war housing shortage, Pirkko, who has nowhere to sleep, is given accommodation at the full-service guesthouse run by landlady Töttermanska. There she meets the other residents: student Eskoo, foreman Heikki, antique dealer Theodor, and businessman Roope, whose acquaintance with the beautiful Dolly draws the whole group into criminal activities.
