A portrait of the relations between neighbours in a Lisbon courtyard. A story made of small episodes of humour, friendship, rivalry, love.

While rehearsing the annual play, a clerk tries to regain the attention of his beloved, in a comedy of equivoques.

When Mr. Elias discovers that his aunt, who lives in Brazil, comes to visit him, he decides to temporarily occupy the house of a wealthy neighbor who's away so that she doesn't discover that he's not as rich as he told her.

The great fadista, Amelia Rodrigues, made her screen debut in Capas Negras, which took its name from the black capes worn by the students in the university city of Coimbra, where the film is set. The action begins in a tavern where a group of former students are reminiscing about their time at the university. One of the students, Jose Duarte then breaks into song, performing an impromptu fado in the local Coimbra style. The tavern owner's niece, the aptly named Maria Lisboa promptly retaliates with a fado of the Lisbon variety. The melodramatic plot then centers on the frustrated romance between these two characters, and the soundtrack is essentially a musical duel between these two different styles of Portugal's national song.

In Madragoa, Zé Luís, a man of the people devoted to his work, is in love with Clara, the daughter of Santana das Carnes, his godfather and protector, who intends to marry her to D. Eusébio with the intention of financing his business. When Santana discovers the romance, he fires Zé Luís and forces him to break it off, convincing him that he owes his marriage to Margarida, a young woman of the same upbringing. Zé Luís finds employment at the docks, Margarida dies of illness, Santana goes bankrupt... Zé Luís supports him with initiative and money from his father, who has meanwhile returned from Africa, and ends up marrying Clara.

The confrontation of two different temperaments: Figueiredo, a hard-working shopkeeper; his brother-in-law, José, disorderly and wasteful, heir to a family with noble titles but poor. Figueiredo tries to rescue José from this path of perversion that had led him to invest in an attempted theft, followed by a frustrated murder and seduction ...

In XVII century Portugal two friends change identities so one of them can escape an unwanted marriage to Beatriz.