A forged 500-franc note is passed from person to person and shop to shop, until it falls into the hands of a genuine innocent who doesn't see it for what it is—which will have devastating consequences on his life.

In this sardonic comedy, after an executive is killed in a mysterious automobile accident, the French offices of his multinational company is inundated with mysteriously threatening be-ribboned anti-capitalist tracts, delivered overnight to everyone's desks. Later, the executive's body is brought to company offices for an official wake -- only no one at the company has ordered that such a thing be done. A mysterious prankster, who is able to imitate the voice of the company's president, has arranged these things. When Americans from the head office get wind of these developments, they institute a search for the perpetrator which leads to mysterious subterranean passages under the company's skyscraper.

Study of the suffocating materialism of modern society as an expression of prima ry retreat to infantilism.