Three old friends meet again. They compare their marriages and tell each other stories which illustrate why they complain about their wives.

During her holiday in Brest, a young Parisian falls in love with a sailor. But autumn comes and the two lovers have to part. They write to each other. Will their love resist at a distance, each living his life, him in Brest with his friends, she in Paris who keeps waiting for him? An impossible love story and the cross-portrait of two cities, Paris and Brest, between the realism of the color images and the poetry infused by the sepia black and white images, lives to the rhythm of the nostalgia of the two lovers...

Jeanne looks back on her love for Jean. The melancholic young man wouldn't accept the world as it was, always wishing to depart. She doesn't know that he's dead.

Eugène, who works for Radio-Europe, is a bit dim-witted. He lives in a block of flats whose caretaker is Madame Motte, and the lady is in love with the young man. Just for laughs, Eugène's friends circulate on the air the rumor that Eugène has inherited millions of francs. It does not take long before a swarm of 'friends' start mixing with him. After a while, considering that the joke has lasted long enough, the jokers reveal the truth. Eugène immediately loses all his 'friends' but not he girl he loves. Even better, Eugène actually inherits a big sum of money. He who laughs last laughs best!

To conceal his nighttime infidelity from his wife Gisele, Pierre calls in a particularly shady private detective to concoct an alibi. He is introduced to a certain Robert Crémieux, who will pass himself off to Gisèle as a childhood friend with whom he spent the night until the early hours of the morning. The so-called childhood friend turns out to be a delinquent accused of burglary and rape on the very night he was supposed to be with Pierre. Pierre is immediately suspected of being his accomplice and, trapped by his own turpitude, arrested. Entangled in his lies and denials, he has to admit his infidelity to get out of the impasse.

Smalltown confectioner Lespinasse, hopeful of being reelected as chief councillor, is opposed by Darcepoil, the local druggist. Darcepoil arranges for the incumbent's defeat by having Pantaflon, a nightclub singer, lure him to the nudist camp on the Isle of Levant, where Lespinasse is photographed surrounded by half-naked women. At home, he is berated by his wife and thrown out of office; but he returns to Levant with the penitent Pantaflon and is welcomed by the nudists and voted camp president. His forgiving wife follows him and herself becomes a nudist.

The practice of Dr. Julien, a GP of Marseilles, consists mainly of drug-addicts. One day, one of his patient dies at his surgery and Julien yields to the temptation : he steals the dead man's money and hides the corpse in a trunk. But the whole thing is discovered and ... misinterpreted. The doctor is condemned for killing the junkie and sent to the Cayenne convict prison, from which he escapes. The Indians give him shelter and he is soon given the opportunity to return their good deed when a yellow fever epidemic strikes their tribe. A young woman helps to fight the disease and, thanks to her, Julien starts considering that a new life is possible for him.