Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

To try solving the strange disappearances of 11 young Parisian women, the police obtain the services of Adrienne Charpentier, friend of the latest missing person.

Volpone, an elderly Venetian, connives with his money-crazed servant to convince his greedy friends that he is dying, knowing that each will try to curry favor with him in order to be named his heir. He is inundated with valuable gifts, and soon finds himself entangled deeper and deeper in a web of lies.

Catherine Vidal is a featherbrained wife who imagines that her husband cheats on her. To wash away the alleged stigma, Catherine hires a young man who will pose as her lover. The (double) trouble is that not only is Catherine's husband innocent but that Catherine and her "employee" fall in love for good as well.

An operetta baron has teamed up with a mechanic to carry out insurance scams. During one of their shots, they come up against Boulot, a drunken but clever driver, who ends up having them arrested after revealing their ride.

Blanchette, unable to find a job, prostitutes herself in Paris. She then finds the man she loves when her morale is at its lowest.

Paris, 1937. Winckler kills his enemy Gordon, a Chicago mobster, from the stage of a Parisian music hall, where he performs telepathy. He pays another artist, Helene, so that she tells the police they've spent the night together, which doesn't fool Callas, the police officer who investigates the murder. He hires one of his fellow officers in order to seduce Helene.

A reveler who has experienced setbacks tries to become unemployed without ever having worked.

The first schemer, short of money, offers himself at a high price to facilitate the fantasies of the other, by playing the role of substitute. The second is an unscrupulous banker who sows ruin and grief but who is soon ruined and fooled in turn.

Ramuntcho is a young man who has fallen in with a gang of smugglers, led by Itchoua, who carry their contraband across the border into Spain. He is in love with Gracieuse whose mother, Dolorès, bitterly dislikes Ramuntcho because he was born an illegitimate child. His smuggling activities force him to join the army and he is sent to Saigon and, because of her mother's desire to marry her off to someone else, Gracieuse joins a convent.