Four stories, humorous, romantic or dramatic, are linked by a counterfeit gold sovereign. It is made by the honest engraver in the first story, seduced by the charms of a young widow, and it subsequently passes into the hands of a beggar and a prostitute, a wealthy miser and a newly married couple where the husband is a poor artist.
Category: Comedy
João de Deus is the manager of an ice-cream shop owned by an ex-prostitute, Paraíso dos Gelados (Ice-Cream Paradise). Through a unmoved desire of perfection, he seeks, through cleansing and purity to attain heaven. The surrounding world, however, does not comply with his decaying vision of lust and decay as a way of achieving his purpose.
Goody-goody girl journalist Kelly Olsson poses as a “swinger” to impress the horny stud editor of “Girl-lure” men’s magazine to get him to publish her steaming sex story instead of her posing as his next nude centerfold. She spends the rest of the movie convincing the Girl-lure staff she is the girl in the story she has written about.
In this romantic comedy, a blue-blooded girl falls in love with a wealthy rake who wants to settle down and marry her. Unfortunately, the young woman’s guardian and personal stockbroker refuses to sanction the match. This enrages the girl who decides to prove that she doesn’t need a guardian by getting a job on Wall Street. Time passes and mayhem ensues until the lass realizes that she has fallen in love with her guardian.
Jerry Marvin, a talented musician and composer, wallows in drunken self-pity after he is divorced by his wife Babe. Along comes new love Susan, who rescues Jerry and provides him with fresh inspiration to complete his trumpet concerto. He performs it, it’s a hit, and the jubilant Jerry and Susan plan to marry. There’s just one hitch: now Babe wants him back… and the unscrupulous ex-wife will stop at nothing to recapture her man.
Oharu is the daughter of Kyôsai Shimura, a samurai who now makes his living making umbrellas. She is in love with another samurai, Reisaburô Asai, who lives next door, but he is being pursued by two of the town beauties, Otomi and Fujio. To make things even more difficult for Oharu, her father is obsessed with antiques, buying them even though he has little money and even when most of them eventually turn out to be fakes. A mistake, however, puts him deeply in debt to the local lord, Tanbanokami Minezawa, and he is confronted with having to sell Oharu in order to pay it off.
A second-generation Korean-Japanese taxi driver suffers chronic discrimination and pursues a romance with a pretty Filipina who works as a B-girl at his mother’s nightclub.
Amiel per la Pelle (Friends for Life) is largely told from a child’s-eye point of view. The heroes of the piece are Mario and Franco, young classmates and inseparable buddies. After several “Our Gang”-style adventures, the boys’ friendship is threatened when Mario reveals a secret that Franco confided in him.