During the American Civil War, a Southerner is about to be hanged from a bridge for sabotage when something unexpected happens.

Jean-Joachim Goriot, a merchant who got rich during the Revolution, is obsessed with the love of his two daughters, whose social promotion he wants. He endows them richly, ruins himself to pay their debts, but Delphine and Anastasie do not return his affection and abandon him at the time of his death to run to a big ball.

This Civil War anthology adapts three Ambrose Bierce stories "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga" and "The Mockingbird."

Hector Valentin returns to France from Canada when he inherits a small sawmill. He has difficulties restarting the run-down operation which has inefficient workers and is hampered by the dirty tactics of its bigger...

Carlo Ercole, a maestro of Italian cinema, asks his assistants to depart immediately for the Central African rainforest to find some Pygmies, "the incarnation of life", for the film he plans to shoot in Paris. Hardly cut out for such an adventure, Marc and Olivier are thrown into the maelstrom of a major African city. With the help of their beautiful guide, Désirée, they eventually make it into the equatorial rainforest, headed for a Pygmy Utopia.

The erratic life of Patrice who, after having murdered the pimp of his mother to avenge the death of her, goes from town to town.

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

During the prohibition era, Cornelius, a bootlegger, is on the run from the American coastguards. He comes across a silent film actress, Linda, on the set of a movie and falls in love with her.

After the Great War, a wounded Frenchman lives atop a mountain with his wild brother who violates the property of villagers below.A second kind of war ensues.