The film, which opens with students arriving at a police academy, is a crazy comedy that is more a series of zany episodes and jokes than a coherent story. They are linked by a simple plot in which the commander of the police academy, Major Maisner, searches among his recruits for an alleged FBI spy and, after a not-so-subtle practical joke, gets into a dispute with his subordinate, a dispute that ends in a genuine bank robbery.

The original contemporary TV movie is an intimate story of a relationship between a middle-aged man and woman whose perspective is diminished by a different set of moral values. It is also a confrontation of two principles at work in today's world - the ruthlessly pragmatic, the ruthlessly "impractical" in its focus on the dying values of interpersonal relationships, the quiet harmony of life, and aesthetic beauty.

It all begins at Prague Airport, where American agents have brought Major Maisner, who has been expelled from the United States, in handcuffs. He returns to his place of work, the Central Police Academy, despite having been demoted to lieutenant for his "performance" and his position as academy commander having been taken over by the newly promoted Captain Hrubec. Maisner meets his former students, who now teach at the school. They all welcome him enthusiastically and receive gifts from him. While psychologist Kudláková, who is attracted to commanding types, has lost interest in the demoted Maisner and is now passionately in love with Hrubec, Boženka Vinklářová, who has broken up with the gypsy Štefan and now teaches dactyloscopy at the school, focuses her attention on him. Maisner recounts how he jumped off a skyscraper in America to defend himself against Simona Ptáčková's advances.