Mathias Pascal, saddled with a stupid wife and a nagging mother-in-law, leaves home and is extremely lucky at several gambling resorts. He returns home and discovers that a drowned man, fished out of the river, bears an uncanny likeness to him and is being buried by his family as him. This, to him, is a pleasant turn of events and he goes to Rome, where he falls in love with Louise Paleari. Count Papiano, a jealous suitor of Louise's, threatens him with arrest unless he produces credentials to prove his identity.

The story begins at a concert during which Beethoven's Concerto in D major for violin and orchestra is performed. Romaine, a mysterious woman, is in the concert hall. Pierre, her husband, is first violin of the Orchester Colonne. That evening, she discovers Marcel, a brilliant concerto soloist, and falls in love with him. Pierre and Marcel are friends, which complicates the situation. Pierre invites his friend to the house, without suspecting what will happen. The young woman, trying to find a clever pretext for a one-on-one meeting, quickly reveals her feelings to Marcel.

For 15 years after Waterloo, a baron refuses to accept the defeat. He reluctantly marries one of 2 Bourbon sisters but lands up dueling with the wife's former lover. Finally he gets a chance to prove himself again in battle.

A slippery femme fatale, a spy for Germany during the Great War, is sent to Thessaloniki in Greece and becomes involved with a man on the other side, a French military officer.

Vicky de Berlin, a female gangster, haunted by wartime memories , runs a floating night-club in Brussel. Marcel, her partner and lover, is in charge of the banknotes forgery manufacture concealed in the bottom of the boat. He decides to rob the Bank of Belgium and exchange a huge sum of counterfeit money for its equivalent in genuine one. But things get complicated when Yoko, the she leader of another gang and her lover The Bug interfere...

Antinea, the Queen of Atlantis, rules her secret kingdom hidden beneath the Sahara Desert. One day two lost explorers stumble into her kingdom, and soon realize that they haven't really been saved-- Antinea has a habit of taking men as lovers, then when she's done with them, she kills them and keeps them mummified.

A barge captain saves Marinette from drowning and soon marries her. On the wedding day, Sylvestre, the captain’s best friend, falls in love with Marinette.

A nobleman decides to join a traveling group of actors to be with a girl he admires, but ultimately must rescue her from bandits

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.