A small-time con man is run down by a drunken young millionaire . The former blackmails the other into being taken in the family mansion.

For three days at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, amorous cross-fertilizations are intertwined with petty tricks against the backdrop of the famous carnival festivities. Three (sympathetic) accomplices are beaten to a punch in the hotel vault; three charming stewardesses are looking for entertainment, but their three Carioca host, musicians Tom Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, and João Gilberto, are married; a man, separated from his wife, wants to catch her in the act of adultery.

Paulo is a middle-class playboy who reluctantly gets involved in a terrorist conspiracy and ends up exiled with the engaged Letícia in an embassy, after a guerrilla camp is discovered by the police and two of them, Sócrates and Mário, fall into shrapnells. Luís and Márcia, a rich couple, spend their time looking for different emotions. They get smet with a couple of lesbians, Márcia flirts with one of them, provoking the jealousy of the other, Susana.