In 1977, an idealistic porn producer and his promising protege try to catch up with the end of an era before their never-ending party collides with cold, hard reality.
The young Bavarian princess Elisabeth, who all call Sissi, goes with her mother and older sister Néné to Austria where Néné will be wed to an emperor named Franz Joseph, Yet unexpectedly Franz runs into Sissi while out fishing and they fall in love.
When a stubborn old man and a fretful teenaged girl are forced to share a hospital room, an unexpected friendship forms over their hatred of fake cheerfulness and bad hospital food.
Sissi is now the empress of Austria and attempts to learn etiquette. While she is busy being empress she also has to deal with her difficult new mother-in-law, while the arch-duchess Sophie is trying to tell the emperor how to rule and also Sissi how to be a mother.
Paul, a former womanizer, marries the head of the medical department's "unattractive" daughter Christine because he thinks attractive women can't be trusted and make poor wives.
A group of ruthless Chicago mob enforcers are sent to Kansas City to settle things with the owner of a slaughterhouse who has taken money that is not his to keep.
"A family of Polish immigrants has a difficult time adjusting to life in the United States. The story centers on the son, named Janek, who has trouble fitting in at school and with his family.
Delia Peletier has been paid to have a child for a wealthy man who wants an heir. She has the baby and turns it over to her "employer," but subsequently decides she wants the child back.