Fairy tale about a taylor with three sons: the fat one, the tall one and the idiot one. The three decide to go on a journey to try their luck.

A charismatic lieutenant newly assigned to a remote fort is captured by a group of mountain bandits, thus setting in motion a madcap farce that is Lubitsch at his most unrestrained. A wonderfully anarchic and playfully subversive satire of military life from one of the great comedy filmmakers.