Isaak Douvan-Tortsov

When bored American billionaire Charles Vanel is amused by the happiness of poor railroad man Nicolas Koline, he offers him a wager: if Koline and his family can spend 20,000 francs a day (about $11,000 in current American money) for a year, then he'll give him a nice pension. The rest of the movie is about the poor man and his family's efforts to win the bet.

A look at various lives, one of which is Jewish girl Hanne Liebe, as she grows up and experiences the pains of living as a Jew in Russia, leading to a revolution.

Bulba's younger son Andry has fallen in love with Panochka since meeting her at the seminary in Kyiv. She is the daughter of the Polish provincial governor. Andry dreams of her and flees from school through a window to his beloved, climbs up a tree in front of her house and slips down the chimney into the house.

Mathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible mother-in-law. She controls her daughter, and soon his home life becomes a nightmare. His only moments of lights are his mother and baby, but both die on the same day. Shocked, he leaves his hometown and goes to Monte Carlo, where he wins a fortune at the casino. Returning home, he reads his own obituary in a paper. They have found a corpse in a creek and connected it with his disappearance. Mathias, noticing that he is now free from all ties to his old life, decides to start a new one.