Franz Xaver Silvester Pomeisl travels thru the decades looking for the good old times.

Vienna, 1922. Due to a sudden financial tragedy, a young woman begins accepting checks from an older, rich gentleman for companionship in order for her to keep attending college. Their relationship is purely platonic, but eventually she begins a romance with the tutor of the older man's sons who has a completely wrong impression as to the nature of her arrangement with his employer.

A musician is offered a job in Vienna as stage director, but his disagreements with the aristocratic opera manager end in abrupt firing in spite of a mutual attraction. He's quickly engaged by another theatre and becomes famous for his lavish stage productions and fine acting, which begins their golden age with Suppé and Strauss.

A young Viennese actor is having much success on the stage; but intrigue and confusion in his love life are making his life a living Hell.

Herr von Lips is a wealthy landowner, surrounded by money and luxury. But what he lacks is a wife, who really loves him. So he comes up with the plan to mingle among the people in simple clothing to find the missing bride. Three fine friends --- "fine", that is, as long as the money doesn't run out --- wish to set him up with the egoistic hat maker Mathilde. Her employer, Kathi, who has no idea that von Lips is a rich man, falls in love with him for whom he is.

In this romance, a banker's daughter suddenly breaks off her engagement on her wedding day. She then meets a man who believes in easy money. He sees her as his meal ticket and the two take off together.