A short black and white film where circus performers entertain children.

A period comedy set in 1622-1637. The male protagonist, the man from Sysmä, is the fool who always fails to recognize the female protagonist in her many disguises, dressing as a man, and then as a man dressing as woman.

“Burckhardt’s travelogue of Port-au-Prince is a unique city symphony whose pace and rhythm favor tropical island life. He does not focus on voodoo but on Haiti’s daily life, neighbors, jokes, gossip, small dramas, Saturday night dances, and ghost stories,” evoking a place where time seems to stand still.” - Bruce Posner

Aarne marries Martta because his mother tells him it is his duty as the eldest son to marry a wealthy girl. However, the attractive school teacher Ilona arrives in the village and causes complications when Aarne falls in love with her.

The battle of the sexes as drawing room social satire. Philippe, a middle-aged newspaper editor, has lived for six years with Paulette, a successful stage actress. He tells her friend Claudine, a realistic and enterprising reporter, that he's thinking of proposing. Into the mix steps Carl Erickson, a charming Hollywood matinée idol in Paris briefly. He meets Paulette, sees her act (his box seat compliments of Philippe), and sets out to seduce her. The next two days bring talk, tears, separation, despair, surprises, and, perhaps, reconciliation as characters speak "exactly half the truth." It's a quadrille of changing partners.

Director Joseph Cornell evokes the nostalgia of childhood by filming a children's party.