Merry Fellows was the first Soviet musical comedy. Set in Odessa and Moscow in the 1930s. Shepherd Kostya Potekhin is mistaken for an international concert star. He falls in love with Anyuta and plays the "star" for her. In a cascade of comic musical numbers he becomes the leader of a Jazz-Band and gives a hilarious show at the Odessa Music Hall. Now he is destined to perform at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

In a remote Russian village during World War I, colourful and nuanced characters experience divided loyalties: family loyalty vs. personal desire, nationalism vs. transcendent humanism.