Franz Schubert retired from Vienna in country for musical writing. He draws his inspiration from a romance with the watermiller's daughter. An operetta in the fifties Vienna style. This is the only movie from Marcel Pagnol in color and the only movie in rouxcolor, a French experimental process derivated from the agfacolor German process.

In the French Basque Country, Ramon, the son of a farmer and fruit and vegetable merchant with a beautiful voice, has the good life. He is engaged to his charming cousin Maria. But his daily life is called into question when, during a fight, he believes he has killed a bad boy. He flees to Algeria where, with a friend, he joins the Saharan Pioneers.

In Marseilles, the fisherman Tonin closely monitors the actions of the wreckage workers led by a certain Mr. Léon. Could these bizarre individuals have something to do with the double murder at the Grand Hotel?

Returning from South America, a singer is hired by an old pal who runs a detective agency to use a perch as a night club performer to be an investigator.The amateur sleuth then falls for a girl whose brother is a jewel thief.

A Corsican fisherman is the victim of a vendetta, when he was wrong to date the niece of a businessman proposing to create a seaside resort, much to the anger of the islanders.

The guardian is engaged to a girl from a good family, but the intervention of a gypsy will make his heart lean. This one comes in fact to take revenge and will try to kill him.

Julien Mortal, a singer from Portugal suffering from amnesia, made a career in France under the name of Paolo. One day, he discovers the truth about his past: a man tried to assassinate him.