As the driver of a garbage truck in Arles, Marc-Antoine leads a quiet life with his wife, Mélanie, and their two children. When Amédée's "Fanny" is stolen from the bouliste club, Marc-Antoine offers to repaint another one. As soon as the work is finished, he becomes a local celebrity and, intoxicated by his new-found fame, leaves his family to go with Hélène, the young waitress, to his friend Septime's house in the Camargue to take up painting. Eventually, Marc-Antoine realizes that he is dissatisfied and that his success seems dishonest. He realizes that happiness awaits him with his wife, children and friends, and resumes his simple life without remorse.
Hercule, a young peasant, inherits a Parisian newspaper with a large circulation. The editor-in-chief, Vasco, takes advantage of his ignorance to make corruption prevail.
Auguste, a somewhat simple-minded Provençal fisherman, loves and admires Mireille. This concerns only Maurice, son of an important wholesaler, whom scruples do not stifle.
The reservist Lafleur, having a wife, a mistress and still running after the first petticoat that comes along, his namesake, an active soldier, finds himself embroiled in the vengeance or intrigues that all these women are plotting.
Pursued by a rival gang after a violent robbery, Toni escapes with nearly thirty million francs. On the train to Paris, to avoid arousing suspicion, he has no choice but to threaten an honorable philosophy professor, Justin Mignonnet, with his gun, so that he will carry the loot for him.
A man is too shy to ask a girl out and decides to kill himself. While lying in the road he is rescued by a Doctor who tries to cure him by implanting the heart of a rooster into him, something which suddenly makes him irresistible to women.
The young generation is not very at peace with the morality of their parents. In a story set in a Moravian village, the otherwise contented cooperators indulge in stealing from the common property without seeing anything wrong with such actions.
March, 1945: The insecure and hesitant reserve lieutenant Felix Bleck receives orders to lead a transport of 40 prisoners to the Western Front, where the men are to be burned up in a punishment battalion.
Filmed at the Alhambra in Spain in just one day, according to Marie Menken. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger concentrates on visual details found in Moorish architecture and in ancient Spanish tile.
