The film is based on a true story. Jakus, managing director of a scooter-factory suddenly resigns, since he disagrees with his superiors in the ministry on several points. Disregarding the attacks of his family and friends, he returns to his original job and becomes a welder, which is not very easy because of his records.

A heavily indebted schoolteacher raising two marriageable daughters is buoyed by rumors that his long-lost uncle in America is a millionaire, until the uncle’s unexpected arrival in poverty sparks a rush of creditors, patrons and fortune-seekers. Ambitious lawyer Jenő Szekeres orchestrates the deception so that the family, the town and himself profit from the false fortune, and even when the truth comes out, everyone, including Szekeres, now eyeing a political career, chooses to uphold the lie.

March 15, 1848; the revolution breaks out in the town of Pest. Yet at café Pilvax, in among he revolutionary youth, there is the informer of the imperial court as well. Hearing the news of the attack led by Jellasics, the inhabitants of the villages pour into the national army, and Hajdú Gyurka also escapes from his landlord. Petőfi is there at the camp of the revolutionaries, raising them to enthusiasm with his poetry.

Based on Tolstoy's short novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich was made with Lajos Básti in the great title role of the St Petersburg forensic judge. This timeless work is also about acceptance, moral values, empathy and the often difficult-to-decipher intricacies of human relationships.