During a railway journey, Baron van Geldern meets Evelyne, an attractive young woman travelling in the same carriage. After the train is derailed, they spend a night together at a hotel, and the womanizer falls in love with her. Complications ensue when he discovers that she is engaged to his American friend.

In 1936, Ophüls left France for the Netherlands, where he was ironically (or perhaps fittingly) granted an extravagant budget for this parable about the vagaries of capitalism in which a bank courier bounces between economic calamity and monetary bonanza. Not a penny was wasted, though, on the virtuoso camera movement and subjective compositions of renowned cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan.