Jacques Natanson
Lola Montes, previously a great adventurer, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.
In a little town with a renowned college a female student is found after she was hogtied and strangled to death. Inspector Marco is assigned to catch the murderer.
Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
An Austrian prince's doomed love affair with a Czech countess sparks turmoil across Europe.
During the First World War, a woman doctor falls in love with one of her patients who turns out to be a German spy. She herself ends up working for German intelligence.
Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money ont eh roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.
The eponymous garçonne or flapper is Monique Lerbier, an emancipated French woman who leaves home to escape a marriage of convenience to a man she does not love which her parents have forced on her. She then falls into all sorts of carnal temptations and artificial pleasures previously unknown to her. These include her being seduced into a lesbian love affair by a chanteuse.
Pierre Buxeuil is better known as the popular clown Bux. One day, he falls in love with Nicole, a romantic but whimsical young lady. He soon elopes her and the beautiful Nicole follows him, persuaded that she will love circus life. Unfortunately for Bux she does not and she leaves him as a result. After a few other disappointments due to false accusations, Bux finally marries a kind-hearted circus acrobat and pursues a successful career under the big top.
In 1913, in Russia, a widower hides from his daughter that he is butler in a restaurant of rendezvous. She meets a banker who seeks to seduce her and takes her to this restaurant. The father, knowing the decadent life of this client, immediately sends his daughter back home. The pure love that her piano teacher gives her will allow the girl to console herself for her disillusions.
German silent film directed by Mario Bonnard and starring Marcella Albani, Ralph Arthur Roberts and Curt Bois.
