Two unemployed actors accept what they believe to be an acting job from a wealthy man without realizing that he needs two real private detectives.

Jean-Joachim Goriot, a merchant who got rich during the Revolution, is obsessed with the love of his two daughters, whose social promotion he wants. He endows them richly, ruins himself to pay their debts, but Delphine and Anastasie do not return his affection and abandon him at the time of his death to run to a big ball.

Pilot Harry Black is hired to fly a man named Carlyle to Istanbul, where he's murdered. Now, mysterious Diane Reed and a local gangster, Rashi, are after Harry believing that he has the priceless plates Carlyle used to counterfeit money.

Based on the play by Victor Hugo, portraying the rise, fall and execution of Fabiano Fabiani, a fictional favourite of Mary I of England.