A film about a young sanitation worker who tries to prevent the pollution of a river, but pays the price...

The film is a metaphor for the Cold War. It depicts two neighbouring nations: peace loving Fortuna and the not so peaceful land of the Steel City.

The castle is preparing for the arrival of the princess who inherited the estate, the miller is in love with Hanička, as is the water sprite from the millrace, the teacher wants to complain to the authorities about his poverty, and the musician Klásek is running away from his wife. Seemingly everything is like something out of Jirásek. But that would be impossible if Josef Dvořák were playing the steward, the bailiff, the water sprite Michal, and Klásek. Hanička couldn't be missing parts of her underwear, the butler Franz couldn't have a suspicious fondness for his baroque outfit, and the princess (who got the estate back through restitution) shouldn't fall into unintentional (and unacted) fits of laughter.

Even great love does not necessarily overcome a difference of morals - although the young hero is very much in love, he still rejects the comfortable and easy existence he could lead thanks to the family of his future father-in-law. A tediously moralistic comedy, it picks up with all seriousness the morality of a socialist man who has broken forever with petty bourgeois ideas. It is therefore too contrived, nor does it succeed in elevating the tawdry story in any way. A comedy about life's little and big compromises.

The main characters of the film, inspired by director Soukup's own experiences at the Škodovka factory in Pilsen, are two inseparable friends who, after graduating from the industrial school, join a large engineering plant. Here they spend their first year of post-graduate life, where their vague ideas and ideals clash with their completely different life experience. In addition to their conflicting work experiences, Ondřej and Cyril have to deal with their own personal problems. They have big plans for the future, but their dreams are unexpectedly interrupted by a tragic event.

The fate of father and son Horáček, but this time they switched roles. Jirka has married, settled down and grown up, while his father is in trouble because he has "second lymphoma" and, feeling that he is missing the last train, he starts a relationship with a stripper, Ala, dyes his hair, but mostly he likes a pretty and kind nurse, Lucie. Although he behaves in such a way that it seems to others as if he has lost his mind, everything turns out well, of course.

Energetic Jana comes from Děčín to the metropolis for the Spartakiada, but her shy sister Anna is secretly going with her, looking for an opportunity to apologize to her boy Ondrej.

The town is waking up. The bus driver Josef Král is saying goodbye to his wife Vera who is in a state of advanced pregnancy. At the rolling mill, the master craftsman Mares is preparing for retirement, which is now only two days away. Elderly Simon who grows and sells vegetables at the market has problems with his wife. Their little home has to give way to a new development but the wife Simonka refuses to move out. The chairman of the workers' council has troubles with the miner Adam, who has started drinking. He doesn't know that Adam is getting divorced and fears he may lose his young son to his wife.