Jean-Gaspard Deburau is a very successful mime, the most famous in his category. One day, he falls head over heels in love with Marie Duplessis, a courtesan better known as "La Dame aux Camélias". But he soon realizes that he is but a number in her long list of lovers. He will find comfort in devoting his time teaching his art to his son Charles.

A tough customs man, out to get a youth smuggling tobacco into France across the Belgium border, falls for the jaded ex bar hostess the smuggler lives with.Meanwhile the young man is intrigued by another, more innocent girl.

One year after Abbé Pierre's famous call for help on 1-2-1954 exposing the appalling conditions in which millions of French people barely survived, nothing had changed much. In 1955, the housing crisis was rife and entire families were forced to live cramped in dilapidated buildings or in slums. Jean Dewever, outraged like Abbé Pierre by such an infamous situation, took his camera and made this militant short in the hope of alerting not only the average viewer but also the competent authorities.