This is a very light comedy involving multiple love triangles (or really more complicated geometries) of confused, mismatched, or ambivalent lovers. The script includes witty dialogue and humorous situations; most of all on display is the ridiculousness of the human compulsion to pair up.

Set in a somber, shadowy Venice, the film opens with the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Carlo Pavani, a well‑respected executive at Assicurazioni Generali. His absence causes much concern in his upper‑class household. Several days later, his body is found washed up onto the steps of a palazzo on the lagoon.

During the Second World War, the Germans hunt an Italian partisan who is trying to blow up a chemical weapons laboratory.

Caesar, a senior French colonist returned home after many years of absence, knows a girl, Marcella, who is in full depression because she was abandoned by her lover. Caesar welcomes her into his home and surrounds her with paternal attention so that he can quickly forget the past. Slowly his feeling turns into a love that Marcella seems to reciprocate. However, when Cesare realizes that the girl feels only gratitude for him and is in love with a younger man, he loses control. Blinded by jealousy, he plans to kill Marcella's lover but, in the face of the girl's vulgarity and indifference, he realizes that he has been teased and turns his anger towards her.

Angry at his wife and defeated in battle, the king of Judea is taken prisoner. After being spared by the Romans, King Herod comes to believe he's been a victim of court plotting.

Set in 18th-century Eastern Europe, the film concerns the star-crossed romance between a Polish military officer and a gorgeous Slavic princess. The princess' vengeful lover cuts a path of death and destruction throughout the land.