A quick overview of Swedish film history, featuring a breathtaking cavalry of scenes from about 170 films.

It's time for conscription training outside the small town Lillköping. The bank clerk becomes an officer - the bank manager ordinary conscript. Everybody seems to be trying to get a date with Elsa, who cooks their food. Nobody takes the training seriously.

A travelling theater-company performs Offenbach's "The Beautiful Helene" when an officer in the audience notices the similarity in appearance between the leading actor Leonard Pettersson and the king Charles XV. With Pettersson dressed as the king and the other actors as the royal suite, they all go to Herrsunda castle where the officer is trying to make an impression on his fiance.

The sculptress Tora Diidiken is married to the sculptor Gunnar Grahn and they both compete in a contest to design a statue for the public square in Hicksville.

From Barcelona, the widower Svante Holmenius travel with his daughter Sylvia to visit her close friends in Stockholm.

In an occupied country, the people rise to throw off the occupants. This includes Jens the farmer and his three sons who successfully perform sneak attacks on the invading army.

The tragic love story between a line dancer and an army officer.

An engineer with a factory is on the brink of ruin. A greedy director offers to buy his mill. Instead, the engineer opens a hotel. With little success. A rumor has that Greta Garbo is expected at the hotel.

Helga Breder is a young, spoiled girl. To her beloved Jörgen she says that she, as a modern young woman, is multi-talented and can do whatever she likes. Jörgen bets that she can't work as a house-maid but, if she manages it, he will buy her a diamond ring. Helga becomes a house-maid at Vinger Mansion and falls in love with an inventor, Bertil Frigård, who lives there.

Shipmate Henrik gets in contact with two women in Gothenburg — the sociable Lisbeth and the shy Astrid.