A ring passes between a lot of different people, giving the bearer or someone close a new meaning to life. Actors, embezzlers, old ladies and cheated husbands all seem to gain temporary hope from misery and disillusionment.
A high school in a small city. Torben and Ninni are deeply infatuated with each other but their parents dislike the pair seeing each other. After graduation Torben joins the army and when Ninni discovers that she is pregnant her parents send her to a farm in Denmark to bear her child.
Rakel, Marta, Karin and Annette are married to four brothers. While waiting in a summer cottage for their husbands to come home, they tell each other stories about their marriages. Rakel tells about the time she had an affair and confronted her husband with it. Marta's story is about how she at...
The rich young man Teddy Anker invests his money in the theater at the beginning of the 1920s. Whatever he does becomes a success. He falls in love with a dancer, Karin. He decides to put up a show with Karin as the leading lady, but for the first time one of his shows becomes an economic disaster.
The Troubadour sits at a rock beside his summerhouse Sjösala in the Stockholm archipelago. He is composing a new ballad, when his son Sven Bertil interrupts him, telling him that an angry man is knocking at their door. It is the creditor Andersson, coming with a new unpaid bill to be put on the...
Alan Kennebeck is unable to accept a brief, realistic romance for what it is. Eventually it leads to his complete moral downfall. Triggered by the factory official Eric Walderman, being a sadistically suave conniver and villain, who babbles a Nietzschean creed of ruthlessness and brings the picture...
Hasse has received a scholarship from the insurance company where he works together with his friend Lennart. They both travel to Vienna so that Hasse can take a few days off, while Lennart attends lectures about insurance. While away, Lennart has rented his room to a girl, Alva. When he returns...
A seemingly ordinary day in October. A woman has since she separated from her husband lived in a single room with a separate entrance. But for her this is not an ordinary day. She only has six hours left to live.
Young Felix is a trainee at a fire station, but he is afraid of heights and can not stand the sight of blood. His future as a fireman is doubtful and when he is suspended he steals an ambulance to prove his mettle.
Britt Malm gets hit by a car on a Stockholm street and is taken to hospital. She is badly injured and must undergo surgery. While the anesthetic takes effect she sees hallucinatory images. This turns into a flashback of what happened Britt before the accident.
"Wild birds" - A Swedish film noir with the character of a French noir ('Quai des brumes', 'Le jour se lève'). Two worlds meet for a brief experience of happiness ended by a violent tragedy. In one world the unhappy prostitute (Ulla) finds a drunken young man (Nisse) who had previously failed in...
Dora moves in with the artist Erik to become his model. Three men from a Masonic Order pretends to be interested in his art, but Dora is their real focus.
Bernt comes to a small town to rob the bank. But behind the counter stands his old friends Hjalmar, and he has to pretend it was all a joke. Hjalmar asks him to spend the night at his home. He meets Ellen, now Hjalmar's wife. Bernt is still attracted to her and it was only a coincidence that it was...