A simple, religious Hungarian woodcutter lives with his wife and boy child with a small community of squatters among the peaceful mountains of Transylvania until a lumber company claims their land and forces them all to become company workers or else leave the land. This 1942 Hungarian film takes a detailed and unflinching look at the hardships of mountain living, and the realistic approach proved influential to the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema. Hungarian master director Istvan Szots won the Biennale Cup at the Venice Film Festival for his auspicious debut, but the film was banned by the Nazis as "too Catholic" and not publicly exhibited until after World War II.

Count Gedeon Boroghy would like to see his last two relatives, Peter and Eva, married, so that the family fortune can pass to their rightful heirs without dissipation. The Count would like to bring them together, so he announces his own death and stipulates in his will that the heirs must stay at the castle for a month, eat together and kiss each other goodbye. The young people, who have already fallen out during their journey, hatch a variety of plans to force the other to break the will and thus lose the inheritance. When it turns out that Uncle Gideon is alive and the will no longer stands between them, they reconcile and agree to comply with the old count's wishes even without an inheritance.

The hero of the story, Gyuszi Ádám, the Jómadár, a lawyer's clerk in Pest, returns home to his parents in Kőhegy, and disrupts the stale, uneventful life of the small town with his mere appearance. He decides to revive his father's dying law firm and marry his 23-year-old sister, who is rapidly approaching the age of the "fair maiden". He successfully carries out his plans, tidies up the office and marries Sárika to their neighbour, with whom she has been hopelessly in love since she was a little girl. But in the meantime, she too falls into the trap of love...

Miklós Kátay, a spoiled, peppery gentleman, changes to his advantage when he joins the military. He is helped by his old acquaintance, Sergeant Menyhért, who is courting his cook, and a new recruit, Balázs, who becomes his friend. In the barracks, he chats and chats at first, but at the front, where he is now an ensign, he is a hero. He is welcomed back by his friend Éva, the Colonel's ugly niece, and by another Éva, the beautiful daughter of a retired Colonel.

Student Gábor and cigarette-smoking student Mujkó sneak into the Buda rose garden of baba Gül and fall in love with Leila, the daughter of baba Gül, who is bathing there and is destined to be the 33rd wife of Ali Basa. The guard captures the student and death awaits him and his companions.

dr. Benedek Gábor, a famous solicitor in Eger, is the defense counsel of a murderer, who killed his wife out of jealousy. Gábor lives in a happy marriage with Anna. One day, however, Szentgyörgyi Péter, a famous pianist, comes to Eger. He once was loved by Anna, who in those days was training to become an artist herself. Gábor has no knowledge of these events of the past. He, therefore, associates the now renewed relationship with the story of the murderer he is the legal representative of.

You can get anywhere in a tailcoat. Viktor Norton, a young man imprisoned by mistake, also knows this. In Viktor’s tailcoat, he can easily get to the Excelsior Hotel, where he will meet the newly wealthy Dupont couple and their daughter Marie.