A poor neighborhood of Athens, Asyrmatos, is the center of the world for the people who live there and try in every way to escape from poverty and destitution. A handsome released youth, Ricos (Alekos Alexandrakis), is trying to make money, at the same time that his lover, Stefi (Aliki Georgoulis), is seeing other men and her father, Nekrophoras (Manos Katrakis), is trying to contribute in family finances. Rico will set up a job, but will spend the money raised before he can put it into action. As a result, one of his "partners" (Alekos Petsos) will commit suicide, leaving his pregnant wife, Eleni (Aleka Paizis), to her fate. Rikos, his beloved and her father, defeated and disappointed because of the expectations that were never fulfilled, will be forced to come to terms with the harsh reality.

An only child of poor farmers goes to Athens to study medicine. He meets and falls in love with an orphan girl who aspires to become a singer. The young man's father and the girl's aunt, with whom she lives, oppose their relationship. Eventually, the two go to live in a boarding house with their newborn child. They live in poverty and hardship because the young man is an unknown doctor. They quarrel, but they make up and go to live in the doctor's village, now happy.

As Pelopidas is going around hungry, trying to find something to eat, a misunderstanding makes him seem like a thief. In order to escape his persecutors, he runs trying to hide. He hitchhikes and gets a ride by a truck, whose driver happens to be his fellow villager who knows the runaway’s past. Pelopidas has been working hard since his childhood, but due to his naivety nobody is serious with him. His return to the village where was born gets him mixed up in more trouble.

An elderly man, Kosmas, gets involved in a fight and, trying to escape from the police, runs into Maritsa, who is standing in the museum garden waiting for the man of her dreams. He falls in love with her and they decide to get married, but all he knows about her is that she is looking for a husband through the marriage bureau of Pipi and Fifi.

Two lazy friends (Mimis Fotopoulos and Ntinos Iliopoulos) find a job as ice-cream vendors to pay their back rent. When they start giving ice-cream to poor children for free, their boss, incensed, chases them off, and they take refuge in a nightclub, where they disguise themselves as female dancers. One misunderstanding follows another, until the impresario seeks them out, offering them a job as a comedy routine.

After losing his son in WW2, a poor cobbler has become a drunkard and laughing stock of the whole neighborhood, besetting his daughter. When his daughter falls in love with a rich young man, he tries in vain to hide his passion from the young man's family...

Agatocles, a grumpy and gruesome caffector, finds out a baby's out of his cafe and, to the surprise of everyone, decides to adopt it.

4 years after the Nazi occupation in Greece, the Greeks are involved in a Civil War and they are killing each other. Theodoros, a quiet and modest man, disgusted and disappointed, falls asleep and has a nightmare. Hitler is alive and the Nazis strike back with new, more powerful weapons.

Four stories, humorous, romantic or dramatic, are linked by a counterfeit gold sovereign. It is made by the honest engraver in the first story, seduced by the charms of a young widow, and it subsequently passes into the hands of a beggar and a prostitute, a wealthy miser and a newly married couple where the husband is a poor artist.

A poor taxi driver works hard in order to pay off his car and to marry his fiancee.