In Paris, unhappy movie actress Catherine Crachat becomes infatuated with the mathematician Pierre Indemini, but then breaks up with him. After a film shoot in Vienna, Catherine stays with a rich admirer, Fanny Hohenstein. Fanny has a history of many lovers of both sexes, two of whom killed themselves over her.

Marie, who was orphaned as a young girl, has a case of arrested development that makes her act younger than her age. One day she stops to look in a store window displaying various ornate dolls. Claude, the affluent, eccentric store owner, sees her and becomes infatuated which leads to her and him meeting and deciding to go and take a look at Claude personal doll collection at his house. Marie, unaware of Claude's bizarre obsession with dolls, decides to marry him.